I finish the bar and crumple the wrapper in my fist. It just doesn’t feel right to throw it down on the floor.
I lean back against the bulkhead and close my eyes. This would be an excellent time to pray, if I could think of a prayer, but my mind, so stuffed that my thoughts have to line up like crowds at Disney, can’t think of anything to say to God.
Not sure I want to talk to him anyway, the enigmatic bastard. Like he’s crossed his arms and turned his back, and I wonder if this is how Noah felt on the boat. Okay, really appreciative about me, Lord, but what about them? And God says, Oh, don’t ask so many questions, Noah. Look! I made you a rainbow!
The only thing that bobs up is Sammy’s bedtime prayer, so, a little desperate, I go with it.
Now I lay me down to sleep . . .
Well, not really.
When in the morning light I wake . . .
Well, probably won’t happen, either.
Teach me the path of love to take.
Yes! Okay, that’s good! Please, God. This one thing and don’t fall down on the job.
Teach me.
72
ZOMBIE
KEEPING WATCH at the caves’ entrance, admiring the night sky—except that one small green spot hovering above the horizon—when one of the stars breaks off from the field and descends toward us. Fast. Very fast. Nugget touches my sleeve and says, “Look, Zombie! A falling star!”
I push off the old, rickety handrail I’ve been leaning against. “That’s no star, kid.”
“Is it a bomb?” His eyes are wide with fear.
For one gut-rolling second, I think it could be. They’ve stepped up the schedule for some reason, and the obliteration of the cities has begun.
“Come on, back downstairs, double time.”
I don’t have to tell him twice. He’s already yards ahead of me when I hit the first chamber. I scoop Megan from the floor. She drops the teddy bear. Nugget picks it up. I carry her deeper into the caves, balancing her on the hip of my good leg, but each step sends a jolt of pain that makes the top of my head feel as if it’s going to come off. There’s a ledge down here, a three-foot-high, five-foot-deep gash in the rock cut out by an ancient river. I lift Megan into it and she crawls toward the back until the shadows engulf her. Shit. Nearly forgot. I motion for her to come back.
I pull one of the dead recruit’s trackers from my pocket. Ringer’s idea and a damn good one.
“Put this in your mouth,” I tell Megan.
She is thunderstruck. The look in her eyes, like I asked her to chop off her head. I’ve broached a touchy subject.
“Look, Nugget’ll do it.” I press the tracker into his empty hand. “Right here, Private,” I say, pulling back my lip and pointing to a spot between my cheek and gums. Then I turn back to Megan. “See?” But Megan has faded back into the shadows. Damn it. I give Nugget another tracker. “Make sure she does it, okay? She listens to you.”
“Oh, no, Zombie,” Nugget says very seriously. “Megan doesn’t listen to anybody.”
He shoves Bear into the space and calls softly to her, “Megan! Take Bear. He’ll keep you safe, like gravity.” After that piece of logic only a child could understand, he hitches up his pants, balls his fists, thrusts out his little chin, and says, “They’re coming, aren’t they?”
We both hear it then, like the answer to his question: the sound of a chopper’s engines, doubling in volume with each of our rapid breaths. Toward the entrance the brilliant white of its searchlight slices through the dark.
“Go, Nugget. Get up there with Megan.”
“But I’m fighting with you, Zombie.”
He sure is. And at the worst possible time. Over his shoulder, I can see lamplight flickering in the weapons chamber. Double damn it.
“Here’s what you can do—kill that light down there. Then meet me back here. If we’re lucky, they won’t even land.”
“Lucky?” I get the feeling he wants them to land.
“Don’t forget, Nugget, we’re all on the same side.”
He frowns. “How can we be on the same side if they want to kill us, Zombie?”
“Because they don’t know we’re on the same side. Go. Shut off that damn light—go!”
He scampers up the path. The chopper’s light fades, but not so much its engines. Must be executing a sweep. We should be far enough underground to foil the IR, but there’s no guarantees.
The lamp goes out and the caves plunge into darkness. I can’t see an inch in front of my nose. After a few seconds, someone small bumps into me. I’m fairly confident it’s him. Only fairly, though, because I whisper, “Nugget?”
“It’s okay, Zombie,” he informs me, all business. “I grabbed a gun.”
73
THERE’S SOMETHING I’m forgetting. What is it?
“Here, Zombie, you forgot these.” He pushes a gas mask into my chest. God bless Nugget. And God bless Silencers like Grace and Father Death, who knew how to stockpile for the end of the world.
Nugget’s practiced; he’s already got his strapped on. “You’ve got Megan’s?” Dumb. Of course he’d grab one for her. “Okay, pal, up you go.”
“Zombie, listen . . .”
“That’s a direct order, Private.”
“No, Zombie! Listen.”
I listen. Nothing except my own breath hissing and huffing in the mask.
“They left,” Nugget says.
“Shhh.”
Tink-tink-tink. The sound of metal striking stone.
Damn you, Ringer, being right all the time is incredibly annoying.