sometimes toss an unconscious person into the fire by mistake, and you didn’t just hear their screams as they were burned alive, you felt them like a punch to your heart.
Some things you can never leave behind. They don’t belong to the past. They belong to you.
The world is screaming. The world is being burned alive.
Through the chopper windows, you can see the fires dotting the dark landscape, amber blotches against the inky backdrop, multiplying as you near the outskirts of the city. These aren’t funeral pyres. Lightning from summer storms started them, and the autumn winds carried the smoldering embers to new feeding grounds, because there was so much to eat, the pantry was stuffed. The world will burn for years. It will burn until I’m my father’s age—if I live that long.
We’re skimming ten feet above treetop level, the rotors muffled by some kind of stealth technology, approaching downtown Dayton from the north. A light snow is falling; it shimmers around the fires below like golden halos, shedding light, illuminating nothing.
I turn from the window and see Ringer across the aisle, staring at me. She holds up two fingers. I nod. Two minutes to the drop. I pull the headband down to position the lens of the eyepiece over my left eye and adjust the strap.
Ringer is pointing at Teacup, who’s in the chair next to me. Her eyepiece keeps slipping. I tighten the strap; she gives me a thumbs-up, and something sour rises in my throat. Seven years old. Dear Jesus. I lean over and shout in her ear, “You stay right next to me, understand?”
Teacup smiles, shakes her head, points at Ringer.
Over the river now, the Black Hawk skimming only a few feet above the water. Ringer is checking her weapon for the thousandth time. Beside her, Flintstone is tapping his foot nervously, staring forward, looking at nothing.
There’s Dumbo inventorying his med kit, and Oompa bending his head in an attempt to keep us from seeing him stuff one last candy bar into his mouth.
Finally, Poundcake with his head down, hands folded in his lap. Reznik named him Poundcake because he said he was soft and sweet. He doesn’t strike me as either, especially on the firing range. Ringer’s a better marksman overall, but I’ve seen Poundcake take out six targets in six seconds.
Unbelievable. We’re the vanguard. Seven kids who just six months ago were, well, just kids; we’re the counterpunch to attacks that left seven billion dead.
There’s Ringer, staring at me again. As the chopper begins to descend, she unbuckles her harness and steps across the aisle. Places her hands on my shoulders and shouts in my face, “Remember the circle! We’re not going to die!”
We dive into the drop zone fast and steep. The chopper doesn’t land; it hovers a few inches above the frozen turf while the squad hops out. From the open hatchway, I look over and see Teacup struggling with her harness. Then she’s loose and jumps out ahead of me. I’m the last to go. In the cockpit, the pilot looks over his shoulder, gives me a thumbs-up. I return the signal.
The Black Hawk rockets into the night sky, turning hard north, its black hull blending quickly into the dark clouds until they swallow it, and it’s gone.
The air in the little park by the river has been blasted clear of snow by the rotors. After the chopper leaves, the snow returns, spinning angrily around us. The sudden quiet that follows the screaming wind is deafening. Straight ahead a huge human shadow looms: the statue of a Korean War veteran. To the statue’s left is the bridge. Across the bridge and ten blocks southwest is the old courthouse where several infesteds have amassed a small arsenal of automatic weapons and grenade launchers, as well as FIM-92 Stinger missiles, according to the Wonderland profile of one infested captured in Operation Li’l Bo Peep. It’s the Stingers that brought us here. Our air capability has been devastated by the attacks; it’s imperative we protect the few resources we have left.
Our mission is twofold: Destroy or capture all enemy ordnance and terminate all infested personnel.
Terminate with extreme prejudice.
Ringer’s on the point; she has the best eyes. We follow her past the stern-faced statue onto the bridge; Flint, Dumbo, Oompa, Poundcake, and Teacup, with me covering our rear. Weaving through the stalled cars that seem to pop through a white curtain, covered in three seasons’ worth of debris. Some have had their windows smashed, decorated with graffiti, looted for any valuables, but what’s valuable anymore? Teacup scurrying along in front of me on baby feet—she’s valuable. There’s my big takeaway from the Arrival. By killing us, they showed us the idiocy of stuff. The guy who owned this BMW? He’s in the same place as the woman who owned that Kia.
We pull up just shy of Patterson Boulevard, at the southern end of the bridge. Hunker down beside the smashed front bumper of an SUV and survey the road ahead. The snow cuts down our visibility to about half a block. This might take a while. I look at my watch. Four hours till pickup back at the park.
A tanker truck has stalled out in the middle of the intersection twenty yards away, blocking our view of the left-hand side of the street. I can’t see it, but I know from the mission briefing there’s a four-story building on that side, a prime sentry point if they wanted to keep an eye on the bridge. I motion for Ringer to keep to the right as we leave the bridge, putting the truck between us and the building.
She pulls up sharply at the truck’s front bumper and drops to the ground. The squad follows her lead, and I belly-scoot forward to join her.
“What do you see?” I whisper.
“Three of them, two o’clock.”
I squint through my eyepiece toward the building on the other side of the street. Through the cottony fuzz of the snow, I see three green blobs of light bobbing along the sidewalk, growing larger as they approach the intersection. My first thought is,
“Patrol?” I ask Ringer.
She shrugs. “Probably marked the chopper and they’re coming to check it out.” She’s lying on her belly, holding them in her sights, waiting for the order to fire. The green blobs grow larger; they’ve reached the opposite corner. I can barely make out their bodies beneath the green beacons on top of their shoulders. It’s a weird, jarring effect, as if their heads are engulfed in a spinning, iridescent green fire.
Beside me, Ringer takes a deep breath, holds it, waits for my order patiently, like she could wait for a thousand years. Snow settles on her shoulders, clings to her dark hair. The tip of her nose is bright red. The moment drags out. What if there’s more than three? If we announce our presence, it could bring a hundred of them down on us from a dozen different hiding places. Engage or wait? I chew on my bottom lip, working through the options.
“I’ve got them,” she says, misreading my hesitation.
Across the street, the green blobs of light are stationary, clustered together as if locked in conversation. I can’t tell if they’re even facing this way, but I’m sure they don’t know we’re here. If they did, they’d rush us, open fire, take cover, do something. We have the element of surprise. And we have Ringer. Even if she misses with the first shot, the follow-ups won’t. It’s an easy call, really.
So what’s stopping me from making it?
Ringer must be wondering the same thing, because she glances over at me and whispers, “Zombie? What’s the call?”
There’s my orders:
A heartbeat before our ears register the high-powered rifle’s report, the pavement two feet in front of us disintegrates in a spray of dirty snow and pulverized concrete. That resolves my dilemma fast. The words fly out as if snatched from my lungs by the icy wind: “Take them.”
Ringer’s bullet smashes into one of the bobbing green lights, and the light winks out. One light takes off to our right. Ringer swings the barrel toward my face. I duck as she fires again, and the second light winks out. The third seems to shrink as he tears up the street, heading back the way he came.
