in case you’re wondering.”
“Would you leave me?”
“You bet your ass I would.” I pat him on the shoulder. He watches silently as I dig the eyepiece out of my rucksack and slip it on. His head lights up through the lens, a bright ball of green fire. I survey our surroundings for any other telltale green blobs while he puts on his own eyepiece.
“One last thing, Bo,” I whisper. “There are no friendlies.”
“Sarge?”
I swallow. My mouth is dry. I wish there were another way. It makes me sick, but I didn’t invent this game. I’m just trying to stay alive long enough to play.
“
Unclean glows green.
Anything that lights up, we take out. No hesitation. No exceptions. Understand?”
“That won’t work, Zombie. What if it’s Ringer or Teacup?”
Damn. Hadn’t thought of that. I also hadn’t thought through Ringer’s options, which were identical to mine. Shoot first and ask questions later? Or fire only if fired upon? I think I know which she’d choose. She’s Ringer.
A little voice in my head whispers:
Two of you double the risk. Send Dumbo back.
The cool, quiet voice of reason, which has sounded a lot like Ringer’s ever since I met her. Points you just can’t argue with, like somebody telling you that granite is hard and water is wet.
Dumbo is shaking his head. We’ve been through the shit together; he knows me. “Two sets of eyes are better than one, Sarge.We go like you said, quick and quiet, and hopefully we see them before they see us.”
He gives me what I guess is supposed to be a reassuring smile. I return what I hope passes for a confident nod. Then we go.
Double-timing straight up Main into the burned-out, debris-strewn, rat-infested, boarded-up, graffiti-decorated, sewage-stained guts of Urbana. Overturned cars and downed power lines and trash piled against foundations by wind and water, trash blanketing yards and parking lots, trash hanging from the winter-bare tree limbs. Plastic bags and newspapers, clothing, shoes, toys, broken chairs and mattresses, TVs. It’s like a cosmic giant grabbed the planet with both hands and shook it as hard as he could. Maybe if I were some evil alien overlord, I’d blow up all the cities, too, just to get rid of the mess.
We probably should have swung around this hellscape, used the back roads and open country—I’m certain Ringer would have—but if she and Cup are gonna be anywhere, it’s the caverns, and this is the shortest route.
Quick and quiet,
I’m thinking as we trot down the sidewalk, our eyes cutting left to right and back again,
quick and quiet.
Four blocks in, we come to a six-foot-high barricade blocking off the street, a jumble of cars and tree branches and smashed furniture festooned in faded American flags, I’m guessing thrown together as the 2nd Wave bled into the 3rd, when it dawned on people that our fellow humans were a bigger threat than the alien spaceship that soared two hundred miles overhead. It blows your mind, how quickly we slid into anarchy after they pulled the plug. How easy it was to sow confusion and fear and distrust. And how goddamned
fast
we fell. You’d think a common enemy would have forced us to set aside our differences and band together againstthe escalating threat. Instead, we built barricades. We hoarded food and supplies and weapons. We turned away the stranger, the outsider, the unrecognized face. Two weeks into the invasion and civilization had already cracked at its foundation. Two months, and it collapsed like an imploded building, falling down as the bodies piled up.
We’ve seen a few of those, too, on our way into Urbana. From piles of blackened bones to corpses wrapped head to toe in tattered sheets and old blankets, just lying there in the open like they’d dropped from the sky, alone or in groups of ten or more. So many bodies that they faded into the background, just another part of the mess, another piece of the urban vomit.
Dumbo’s eyes swing back and forth restlessly,
“Would you leave me?”
“You bet your ass I would.” I pat him on the shoulder. He watches silently as I dig the eyepiece out of my rucksack and slip it on. His head lights up through the lens, a bright ball of green fire. I survey our surroundings for any other telltale green blobs while he puts on his own eyepiece.
“One last thing, Bo,” I whisper. “There are no friendlies.”
“Sarge?”
I swallow. My mouth is dry. I wish there were another way. It makes me sick, but I didn’t invent this game. I’m just trying to stay alive long enough to play.
“
Unclean glows green.
Anything that lights up, we take out. No hesitation. No exceptions. Understand?”
“That won’t work, Zombie. What if it’s Ringer or Teacup?”
Damn. Hadn’t thought of that. I also hadn’t thought through Ringer’s options, which were identical to mine. Shoot first and ask questions later? Or fire only if fired upon? I think I know which she’d choose. She’s Ringer.
A little voice in my head whispers:
Two of you double the risk. Send Dumbo back.
The cool, quiet voice of reason, which has sounded a lot like Ringer’s ever since I met her. Points you just can’t argue with, like somebody telling you that granite is hard and water is wet.
Dumbo is shaking his head. We’ve been through the shit together; he knows me. “Two sets of eyes are better than one, Sarge.We go like you said, quick and quiet, and hopefully we see them before they see us.”
He gives me what I guess is supposed to be a reassuring smile. I return what I hope passes for a confident nod. Then we go.
Double-timing straight up Main into the burned-out, debris-strewn, rat-infested, boarded-up, graffiti-decorated, sewage-stained guts of Urbana. Overturned cars and downed power lines and trash piled against foundations by wind and water, trash blanketing yards and parking lots, trash hanging from the winter-bare tree limbs. Plastic bags and newspapers, clothing, shoes, toys, broken chairs and mattresses, TVs. It’s like a cosmic giant grabbed the planet with both hands and shook it as hard as he could. Maybe if I were some evil alien overlord, I’d blow up all the cities, too, just to get rid of the mess.
We probably should have swung around this hellscape, used the back roads and open country—I’m certain Ringer would have—but if she and Cup are gonna be anywhere, it’s the caverns, and this is the shortest route.
Quick and quiet,
I’m thinking as we trot down the sidewalk, our eyes cutting left to right and back again,
quick and quiet.
Four blocks in, we come to a six-foot-high barricade blocking off the street, a jumble of cars and tree branches and smashed furniture festooned in faded American flags, I’m guessing thrown together as the 2nd Wave bled into the 3rd, when it dawned on people that our fellow humans were a bigger threat than the alien spaceship that soared two hundred miles overhead. It blows your mind, how quickly we slid into anarchy after they pulled the plug. How easy it was to sow confusion and fear and distrust. And how goddamned
fast
we fell. You’d think a common enemy would have forced us to set aside our differences and band together againstthe escalating threat. Instead, we built barricades. We hoarded food and supplies and weapons. We turned away the stranger, the outsider, the unrecognized face. Two weeks into the invasion and civilization had already cracked at its foundation. Two months, and it collapsed like an imploded building, falling down as the bodies piled up.
We’ve seen a few of those, too, on our way into Urbana. From piles of blackened bones to corpses wrapped head to toe in tattered sheets and old blankets, just lying there in the open like they’d dropped from the sky, alone or in groups of ten or more. So many bodies that they faded into the background, just another part of the mess, another piece of the urban vomit.
Dumbo’s eyes swing back and forth restlessly,
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