The 5th Wave

80

THE SIREN’S BLARE is so loud, I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck vibrating.

I am scooting backward toward the main duct, away from the armory, when I stop.

Cassie, it’s the armory.

Back to the grate, through which I stare for a full three minutes, scanning the room below for any sign of movement while the siren pounds against my ears, making it very difficult to concentrate, thank you, Colonel Vosch.

“Okay, you damn bear,” I mumble with my swollen tongue. “We’re going in.”

I slam the heel of my bare foot into the grate. Eich! It pops open with one kick. When I quit karate, Mom asked why, and I said it just didn’t challenge me anymore. That was my way of saying I was bored, which you were not allowed to say in front of my mother. If she heard you complain that you were bored, you found yourself with a dust rag in your hand.

I drop into the room. Well, more a medium-size warehouse than a room. Everything an alien invader might need to run a human extermination camp. Against that wall you have your Eyes, several hundred of them, stacked neatly in their own specially designed cubby. On the opposite wall, rows and rows of rifles and grenade launchers and other weaponry that I would have no clue what to do with. Smaller weapons over there, semiautomatics and grenades and ten-inch-long combat knives. There’s a wardrobe section, too, representing every branch of the service and every possible rank, with all the gear to go with it, belts and boots and the military version of the fanny pack.

And me like a kid in a candy shop.

First, off comes the white jumpsuit. I pull the smallest set of fatigues I can find and put them on. Slip on the boots.

Time to gear up. A Luger with a full clip. A couple of grenades. M16? Why not? If you’re going to play the part, look the part. I drop a couple extra clips into my fanny pack. Oh, look, my belt even has a holster for one of those ten-inch, wicked-looking knives! Hi there, ten-inch, wicked-looking knife.

There’s a wooden box beside the gun cabinet. I peek inside and see a stack of gray metal tubes. What are these, some kind of stick-grenade? I pick one up. It’s hollow and threaded at one end. Now I know what it is.

A silencer.

And it fits perfectly on the barrel of my new M16. Screws right in.

I stuff my hair under a cap that is too large for me and wish I had a mirror. I’m hoping to pass for one of Vosch’s tween recruits, but I probably look more like GI Joe’s little sister playing dress-up.

Now what to do with Bear. I find a leather satchel-looking thing and stuff him inside, throw the strap crossways over my shoulder. I’ve stopped noticing the blaring siren by this point. I’m all jacked up. Not only have I evened the odds a little, I know Evan is here, and Evan will not give up until I am safe or he is dead.

Back to the ductwork, and I’m debating whether to attempt it, weighed down as I am with twenty or so extra pounds, or take my chances in the corridors. What good is a disguise if you’re going all stealthy with it? I turn around and head toward the door, and that’s when the siren cuts off and silence slams down.

I don’t take that as a good sign.

It also occurs to me that being in an armory full of green bombs—one of which can level a square mile—while a dozen or so of their closest friends are being set off upstairs might not be such a good idea.

I haul ass for the door, but I don’t make it before the first Eye goes. The entire room jiggles. Only a few feet left, and the next Eye blinks its last blink, and this one must be closer, because dust rains down from the ceiling, and the duct at the other end snaps free of its supports and comes crashing down.

Um, Voschy, that was kind of close, don’t you think?

I push through the door. No time to scout the territory. The more distance I can put between me and the remaining Eyes, the better. I sprint under the swirling red lights, turning down hallways at random, trying not to think anything through, just going on instinct and luck.

Another explosion. The walls tremble. The dust falls. From above the sound of the buildings being ripped and shredded down to their last nails. And here below, the screaming of terrified children.

I follow the screams.

Sometimes I make a wrong turn and the cries grow fainter. I backtrack, then try the next corridor. This place is like a maze, and me the lab rat.

The booming from above has stopped, at least for the moment, and I slow to a trot, gripping the rifle hard with both hands, trying one passage, backtracking when the crying fades, moving on again.

I hear Major Bob’s voice on a bullhorn bouncing along the walls, coming from everywhere and nowhere.

“Okay, I want you all to stay seated with your group leader! Everybody quiet down and listen to me! Stay with your group leaders!”

I turn a corner and see a squad of soldiers running right at me. Teenagers, mostly. I throw myself against the wall, and they rush past me without even glancing in my direction. Why would they notice me? I’m just another recruit on her way to battle the alien horde.

They turn a corner, and I’m moving again. I can hear the kids jabbering and whimpering, despite Major Bob’s scolding, around the next bend.

Almost there, Sam. Now you be there.

“Halt!”

Shouted from behind me. Not a kid’s voice. I stop. Square my shoulders. Stay still.

“Where’s your duty station, soldier? Soldier, I’m talking to you!”

“Ordered to guard the children, sir!” I say in the deepest voice I can muster.

“Turn around! Look at me when you address me, soldier.”

I sigh. Turn. He’s in his midtwenties, not bad looking, an all-American-boy type. I don’t know military insignia, but I think he might be an officer.

To be absolutely safe, anyone over eighteen is suspect. There may be some human adults in positions of authority, but knowing Vosch, I doubt it. So if it’s an adult, and especially if it’s an officer, I think you can assume they are not human.

“What’s your number?” he barks.

My number? I blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “Tee-sixty-two, sir!”

He gives me a puzzled look. “Tee-sixty-two? Are you sure?”

“Yes sir, sir!” Sir, sir? Oh God, Cassie.

“Why aren’t you with your unit?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and good thing, because nothing is really coming to mind. He steps forward and looks me up and down, and clearly I’m not in regulation. Officer Alien does not like what he sees.

“Where’s your name tag, soldier? And what are you doing with a suppressor on your weapon? And what is this?”

He pulls on the bulging leather satchel holding Bear.

I pull back. The satchel pops open and I’m busted. “It’s a teddy bear, sir.”

“A what?”

He stares down at my upturned face and something crosses over his as the lightbulb comes on and he realizes who he’s looking at. His right hand flies toward his sidearm, but that’s a really dumb move when all he had to do was lay his fist upside my teddy-bear-toting head. I swing the silencer in a slicing arc, stopping it an inch from his boyish good looks, and pull the trigger.

Now you’ve done it, Cassie. Blown the one chance you had, and you were so close.

I can’t just leave Officer Alien where he fell. They might miss all the blood in the hurly-burly of battle, and it’s nearly invisible anyway in the spinning red light, but not the body. What am I going to do with the body?

I’m close, so close, and I’m not going to let some dead guy keep me from Sammy. I grab him by the ankles and drag him back down the corridor, into another passageway, around another corner, and then drop him. He’s heavier than he looks. I take a moment to stretch out the kink in my lower back before hurrying away. Now if someone stops me before I can reach the safe room, my plan is to say whatever is necessary to avoid killing again. Unless I’m given no choice. And then I will kill again.

Evan was right: It does get a little easier each time.

The room is packed with kids. Hundreds of kids. Dressed in identical white jumpsuits. Sitting in big groups spread over an area about the size of a high school gymnasium. They’ve quieted down some. Maybe I should just shout out Sam’s name or borrow Major Bob’s bullhorn. I pick my way through the room, lifting my boots high to avoid stepping on any little fingers or toes.

So many faces. They begin to blur together. The room expands, explodes past the walls, extending to infinity, filled with billions of little upturned faces, and oh those bastards, those bastards, what have they done? In my tent I cried for myself and the silly, stupid life that had been taken from me. Now I beg forgiveness from the infinite sea of upturned faces.

I’m still stumbling around like a zombie when I hear a little voice calling my name. Coming from a group I had just passed, and it’s funny he recognized me and not the other way around. I go still. I do not turn. I close my eyes, but can’t bring myself to turn around.

“Cassie?”

I lower my head. There is a lump the size of Texas caught in my throat. And then I turn and he’s staring at me with something like fear, like this might be the last straw, seeing a dead ringer for his sister tiptoeing around dressed up like a soldier. Like he’s reached the outer limits of the Others’ cruelty.

I kneel in front of my brother. He doesn’t rush into my arms. He stares at my tear-streaked face and brings his fingers to my wet cheek. Across my nose, forehead, chin, over my fluttering eyelids.

“Cassie?”

Is it okay now? Can he believe? If the world breaks a million and one promises, can you trust the million and second?

“Hey, Sams.”

He cocks his head slightly. I must sound funny to him with the bloated tongue. I fumble with the clasp of the leather satchel.

“I, um, I thought you might want this back.”

I pull out the battered old teddy bear and hold it toward him. He frowns and shakes his head and doesn’t reach for it, and I feel like he’s punched me in the gut.

Then my baby brother slaps that damned bear out of my hand and crushes his face against my chest, and beneath the odors of sweat and strong soap I can smell it, his smell, Sammy’s, my brother’s.