One hundred and eighty-four days after rolling into camp, Snicks is next. She and Swizz drop to the ground when Gummy falls, that’s the training, that’s the memory their muscles hold, and their adversary knows it. She anticipated it.
Lying on his belly, Swizz looks to his right. Snicks is making a strangled gurgling sound, her rifle abandoned on the road next to her, both hands clutching the handle of the twenty-five-inch screwdriver embedded in her neck. Her jugular has been severed. She will be dead in less than a minute.
Four thousand, four hundred and sixteen hours after he saw the lights of the bus’s headlamps stabbing through the woods in which he hid, Swizz scrambles on his hands and knees to the roadside—and sees the green light through his eyepiece for a split second before it vanishes behind the old garage: the pale fire of an infested. Got you now, you sonofabitch. Swizz doesn’t know what happened to Milk and Pix, and he doesn’t turn around to find out. He’s running on instinct and adrenaline and a rage that cannot be measured or exhausted. He heaves himself to his feet and takes off for the garage. She’s already on the roof by the time he reaches the southeast corner of the building, waiting for him, ready to leap.
At least it’ll be quick.
Milk and Pix hear his rifle’s report from their hiding place behind the overturned Tahoe that straddles the shoulder of the road. Three short, staccato bursts: tat-tat-tat!
Then silence.
With a soft, disgusted cry, Pix rips off the eyepiece, screw this, fucker won’t stay up, and Milk calmly orders him to put it back on while he scans their surroundings. Pix ignores him. Broad daylight, he can see fine, and who cares whether they’re human or infested anymore?
Wind and fire and their own breath. Don’t get pinned. Don’t go down any dead ends. Don’t split up. Lying on his side, his shoulder pressing against the comforting steel of the SUV, Pix looks up into Milk’s face. Milk’s the sarge. Milk won’t let him down. VQP. Hell yes. VQP.
The girl’s bullet travels across the road, shatters the driver’s window, passes through the interior and exits on the other side, ripping through Pix’s jacket and burrowing into his back until it reaches his spine. There the bullet stops.
Two hundred sixty-four thousand, nine hundred and sixty-three minutes from his rescue to this moment, and Milk scoots toward the front bumper, dragging Pix’s body with him. The upper half jerks in his hands; the lower half is paralyzed, dead already, and what the fuck were they thinking, carving those stupid letters into their arms? Pix’s small fingers clawing at Milk’s face as the light drains from his eyes. Protect me, cover me, keep the bastards off me, Sarge.
That’s right, that’s right, Pix. VQP. V Q fucking P.
He’s still whispering to him when she steps around the hood of the car. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t even hear her.
Fifteen million, eight hundred ninety-seven thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two ticks of the clock, and Milk follows the rest of Squad 19 down.
45
RINGER
I WON’T LEAVE these boys to rot where they fell.
I won’t leave them for the rats and the crows and the blowflies, the buzzards and packs of feral dogs.
I will not abandon their bones to be picked over and scattered by vultures and vermin.
I will not burn them, either.
With my bare hands, I will dig a grave for them in the cold earth.
The sun slips toward the horizon. The wind picks up, whipping my hair across my face, and the ground breaks between my fingers, my hands the plow that breaks the stubborn soil for the planting.
I know Zombie’s watching me. I can see him at the edge of the black, blasted-out ruins of the house. He’s leaning on a piece of charred two-by-four, holding his rifle and watching me. Twilight settles around us and still he watches as I carry the bodies one by one to the hole I’ve dug.
He hobbles over. He’s going to shoot me. He’s going to kick my body into the hole and bury me with my victims. He won’t wait for me to explain. There will be no questions, because everything out of my mouth will be a lie.
He stops. I’m kneeling beside the grave and their faces are looking sightlessly up at me. The oldest—the squad leader, I’m guessing—could not be older than twenty.
The sound of the bolt on Zombie’s rifle drawing back is enhanced and the hub orders a defensive response. I ignore it.
“I shot Teacup,” I say into the face of the dead recruit. “I thought she was the enemy and I shot her. She had one chance and I had no choice. I let them take us, Zombie. It was the only way to save her.”
His voice is as dry as dead leaves rattling on winter boughs. “Then where is she?”
“Gone.”
The word hangs. Even the wind can’t move it.
“What did they do to you, Ringer?”