Zombie, you can’t stay here. That calm, Ringerish voice again. Cut him loose.
Sure. Cut him loose. That’s my thing. That’s how I roll. I cut my sister loose, I cut Poundcake loose. They go down and I keep going.
Fuck that.
I crawl around to the front of the counter, grab Dumbo’s bag, and go back to him. He’s curled into a ball, knees pressed against his chest, and his eyelids flutter like someone having a bad dream. I tear through his med kit, looking for the gauze. I have to pack the wound. I remember that much from my one and only course in battlefield injuries at Camp Haven. If I don’t pack it and pack it fast, he could bleed out in less than three minutes.
The other thing I remember from that course: It hurts like hell. Hurts so goddamned bad, the first thing you’re supposed to do is take away the patient’s weapons.
So I pull his sidearm from the holster and tuck it behind my back.
There should be a thin metal rod in the kit—you use it to push the gauze into the wound—but I can’t find it.
Bug out, Zombie. You’re outta time.
I push the gauze into the hole in his back with my finger. Dumbo bows up. He screams. Then he instinctively tries to escape, clawing at the base of the counter for a handhold, and I wrap the fingers of my free hand around his neck to keep him still.
“It’s good, Bo. It’s all good . . .” Whispering in his ear as my finger sinks inside him, pushing the wad of gauze ahead of it. More gauze. Gotta pack it tight. If that bullet sliced an artery . . .
I pull my finger out. He lets loose another banshee howl, and I cup his chin, forcing his mouth closed. I don’t move slow. I don’t go gentle. I ram another wad into the wound. Dumbo is jerking against me, sobbing helplessly. I lie on my side behind him and throw my leg over his waist to keep him still. “One more time, Bo,” I whisper. “Almost there . . .”
Then it’s done. The gauze pokes out of the wound; I can’t push any more inside. I tear open a bandage with my teeth and slap it over my handiwork. I roll onto my back, pulling hard for air. Probably too little, too late. Beside me, Dumbo continues to cry, the sobs dwindling to whimpers. His body shudders against mine; he’s going into shock.
Back to the bag to find something for the pain. He’s on his way out, he’s dying, I’m pretty sure of that, but at least I can help him go easy. I tear open a morphine syrette and jab the needle into his exposed hip. The effect is almost immediate. His muscles relax, his mouth goes slack, his breathing slows.
“See? Not so bad,” I tell him, like I’m settling an argument.
“I’m coming back for you, Bo. I’m finding the bastard and then I’m coming back.”
Oh boy, Zombie, you’ve done it now. The promise feels like a death sentence, a cell door slamming shut, a stone around my neck that’s destined to carry me down.
16
BACK AROUND THE COUNTER to fetch my rifle. Rifle, sidearm, knife, a couple of flash grenades. And one more thing, the most essential weapon in my arsenal: a heart full of rage. I’m blowing the bastard who shot him back to Dumbo’s favorite town.
Scooting on my hands and knees down the hallway to the emergency exit door (WARNING! ALARM WILL SOUND!). Onto the side street, beneath the cold starlight. I’m alone for the first time since my family’s murder—not running away this time, though. No more of that.
I head east. At the next block, I turn north again, paralleling Main Street. I’ll cut back after a couple more blocks, cross Main to the next street, then come at the shooter from the rear. Assuming he hasn’t already crossed the street to finish the job.
Might not be the Silencer. Could be a civilian who’s learned the first lesson of the last war.
Not that it makes any difference.
Back at the safe house, Cassie told me about finding a soldier inside a convenience store while she was foraging for supplies. She killed him. Thought he was pulling a weapon that turned out to be a crucifix. It tore her up. She couldn’t get it out of her head. He must have thought he was the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth. Separated from his unit, badly wounded, unable to do anything but wait for a rescue that would probably never come, and then out of nowhere this random girl shows up; he was saved. Then the random girl opened up with her rifle and turned his body into a pincushion.
“Not your fault, Sullivan,” I told her. “You didn’t have a choice.”
“Bullshit,” she snapped at me. She tended to snap at me a lot. Well, not just me. The girl’s a snapper. “That’s the lie they want us to believe, Parish.”
Back on Main. Easing up to the corner, I peek around the edge of the building toward the coffee shop. Directly across from it is a three-story, windows boarded up on the bottom floor, fractured on the top two. Nothing glows in the windows or on the roof; no green balls of light through the eyepiece. I hold for a few seconds, watching the front. I know the drill. That building has to be cleared. We practiced it a thousand times in camp, only we had seven guys to do it. Flint, Oompa, Ringer, Teacup, Poundcake, Dumbo—down to just one now. Down to me.
Hunched over, I trot across Main Street, every inch of my body tingling, expecting the punch of the sniper’s bullet. Whose bright idea was it to cut straight through Urbana? Who put that guy in charge?
Keep moving, stay focused, check those windows up there, those doors over there. The street is choked with trash and broken glass, slick with the residue from ruptured sewer lines and water mains, puddles of oily water glimmering in the starlight. One block over, then cutting back south. The building is straight ahead at the end of the block, and I force myself to slow down. You’re taught to stay in the moment, but the moment I’m in is the one that happens after I’ve neutralized the shooter. Do I abort the mission to find Ringer and Teacup? Get Dumbo back to the safe house? Or leave him here and pick him up later on my way back from the caverns?