Rick Yancey - The Infinite Sea

Ben whipped around to Dumbo, who flinched. I think he preferred Ben’s wrath be directed at anybody but him. “Will he live?”

Dumbo shook his head, the tips of his ears growing bright pink. “It’s bad.”

“That’s my question. How bad? How soon before he can travel?”

“Not for a while.”

“Damn it, Dumbo, when?”

“A couple weeks? A month? His ankle’s broke, but that’s not the worst. The infection, then you’ve got the risk of gangrene…”

“A month? A month!” Ben laughed humorlessly. “He storms this place, takes you out, beats the crap out of me, and a couple hours later he can’t move for a month!”

“Then go!” I shouted across the room at him. “All of you. Leave him with me, and we’ll follow you as soon as we can.”

Ben’s mouth, which had been hanging open, snapped closed. Sam was hovering near Ben’s leg, one tiny finger hooked into his big buddy’s belt loop. Something in my heart gave a little at the sight. Ben told me they called my little brother “Zombie’s dog” in camp, meaning ever faithfully by his side.

Dumbo was nodding. “Makes sense to me, Sarge.”

“We had a plan,” Ben said. His lips barely moved. “And we’re sticking to the plan. If Ringer isn’t back by this time tomorrow, we’re bugging out.” He glared at me. “All of us.” He jabbed his thumb at Poundcake and Dumbo. “They can carry your boyfriend, if he needs to be carried.”

Ben turned, bumped into the wall, pinballed off it, lurched through the door and into the hall.

Dumbo trailed after him. “Sarge, where’re you…?”

“Bed, Dumbo, bed! I gotta lie down or I’m gonna fall down. Take the first watch. Nugget—Sam—whatever your name is—what are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Stay with your sister. Wait. You’re right. She’s got her hands full—literally. Poundcake! Sullivan has the duty. Get some shut-eye, you big mute mother…”

His voice faded away. Dumbo came back to the foot of Evan’s bed.

“Sarge is strung out,” he explained, like I needed him to explain. “He’s usually pretty chill.”

“Me too,” I said. “I’m the laid-back type. No worries.”

He wouldn’t go away. He was looking at me and his cheeks were as bright red as his ears. “Is he really your boyfriend?”

“Who? No, Dumbo. He’s just a guy I met one day while he was trying to kill me.”

“Oh. Good.” He seemed relieved. “He’s like Vosch, you know.”

“He’s nothing like Vosch.”

“I mean he’s one of them.” Lowering his voice like he was sharing a dark secret. “Zombie says they’re not like these tiny bugs in our brains, but somehow they downloaded themselves into us like a computer virus or something.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“That’s weird.”

“Well, I guess they could have downloaded themselves into house cats, but going that route would’ve made our extermination more time-consuming.”

“Only by a month or two,” Dumbo said, and I laughed. Like Sammy’s, mine surprised me. If you wanted to separate humans from their humanity, I thought, killing laughter would be a good place to start. I was never very good at history, but I was pretty sure douchebags like Hitler didn’t laugh very much.

“I still don’t get it,” he went on. “Why one of them would be on our side.”

“I’m not sure he completely understands the answer to that question.”

Dumbo nodded, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath. He was dead on his feet. We all were. I called softly to him before he stepped outside.

“Dumbo.” Ben’s question, unanswered. “Is he going to make it?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. “If I were an alien and I could pick any body I wanted,” he said slowly, “I’d pick a really strong one. And then, just to make sure I’d live through the war, I’d like, I don’t know, make myself immune to every virus and bacteria on Earth. Or at least resistant. You know, like getting your dog vaccinated for rabies.”

I smiled. “You’re pretty smart, you know that, Dumbo?”

He blushed. “That’s a nickname based on my ears.”

He left. I had the eerie feeling of being watched. Because I was being watched: Poundcake stared at me from his post by the window.

“And you,” I said. “What’s your story? Why don’t you talk?”

He turned away, and his breath fogged the window.

“CASSIE! CASSIE, wake up!”

I bolted upright. I’d been curled up next to Evan, my head pressed against his, my hand in his, and how the hell did that happen? Sam was standing beside the bed, pulling on my arm.

“Get up, Sullivan!”

“Don’t call me that, Sams,” I mumbled. The light was bleeding from the room; it was late afternoon. I’d slept through the day. “What…?”

He put one finger to his lips and pointed at the ceiling with another. Listen.

I heard it: the unmistakable sound of a chopper’s rotors—faint but growing louder. I jumped from the bed, grabbed my rifle, and followed Sam into the hall, where Poundcake and Dumbo huddled around Ben, the former quarterback squatting on his haunches, calling the play.

“Might be just a patrol,” he was whispering. “Not even after us. There were two squads out there when the camp blew. Might be a rescue mission.”

“They’ll pick up our signatures,” Dumbo said, panicking. “We’re done, Sarge.”

“Maybe not,” Ben said hopefully. He’d gotten back some of his mojo. “Hear it? Fading already…”

Not his imagination: The sound was fainter. You had to hold your breath to hear it. We hung there in the hall for another ten minutes until the sound disappeared. Waited another ten and it didn’t come back. Ben blew out his cheeks.

“Think we’re good…”

“For how long?” Dumbo wanted to know. “We shouldn’t stay here tonight, Sarge. I say we head for the caverns now.”

“And chance missing Ringer on her way back?” Ben shook his head. “Or risk that chopper coming back while we’re exposed? No, Dumbo. We stick to the plan.”

He pushed himself to his feet. His eyes fell on my face. “What’s up with Buzz Lightyear? No change?”

“His name is Evan and no. No change.”

Ben smiled. I don’t know, maybe imminent peril made him feel more alive somehow, for the same reason zombies are carnivores with only one item on the menu. You never heard of undead vegetarians. Where’s the challenge in attacking a plate of asparagus?

Sams giggled. “Zombie called your boyfriend a space ranger.”

“He isn’t a space ranger—and why is everyone calling him my boyfriend?”

Ben’s smile broadened. “He’s not your boyfriend? But he kissed you…”

“Full on?” Dumbo asked.

“Oh, yeah. Twice. That’s what I saw.”

“With tongue?”

“Ewww.” Sammy mouth’s formed a sour lemon pout.

“I have a gun,” I announced, only half joking.

“I didn’t see any tongue,” Ben said.

“Want to?” I stuck my tongue out at him. Dumbo laughed. Even Poundcake smiled.

That’s when the girl appeared, stepping into the hallway from the stairwell, and then everything got very strange, very fast.

A MUD-(or it could have been blood-)stained, tattered pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. A pair of shorts that once had been tan, maybe, faded to a dirty white. Grungy white flip-flops with a couple stubborn rhinestones clinging to the straps. A narrow, pixieish face dominated by huge eyes, topped by a mass of tangled dark hair. And young, around Sammy’s age, though she was so thin, her face looked like a little old lady’s.