“You got a better theory?” Hutchfield didn’t like his decisions being questioned.
“They may have nothing to do with us,” Dad pointed out. “These things might be atmospheric probes or devices used to measure something they can’t calibrate from space. Or they’re looking for something that can’t be detected until we’re mostly neutralized.”
Then Dad sighed. I knew that sigh. It meant he believed something was true that he didn’t want to be true.
“It comes down to a simple question, Hutchfield: Why are they here? Not to rape the planet for our resources—there’s plenty of those spread evenly throughout the universe, so you don’t have to travel hundreds of light-years to get them. Not to kill us, though killing us—or most of us—is necessary. They’re like a landlord who kicks out a deadbeat renter so he can get the house cleaned up for the new tenant; I think this has always been about getting the place ready.”
“Ready? Ready for what?”
Dad smiled humorlessly.
“Moving day.”
AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN. Our last day at Camp Ashpit. A Sunday.
Sammy beside me. Little kid snuggly warm, hand on his bear, other hand on my chest, curled-up pudgy baby-fist.
The best part of the day.
Those few seconds when you’re awake but empty. You forget where you are. What you are now, what you were before. It’s all breath and heartbeat and blood moving. Like being in your mother’s womb again. The peace of the void.
That’s what I thought the sound was at first. My own heartbeat.
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. Faint, then louder, then really loud, loud enough to feel the beat on your skin. A glow sprang up in the room, grew brighter. People were stumbling around, yanking on clothes, fumbling for guns. The bright glow faded, came back. Shadows jumped across the floor, raced up the ceiling. Hutchfield was yelling at everyone to stay calm. It wasn’t working. Everyone recognized the sound. And everyone knew what that sound meant.
Rescue!
Hutchfield tried to block off the doorway with his body.
“Stay inside!” he hollered. “We don’t want to—”
He was shoved out of the way. Oh yes, we do. We poured out the doorway and stood in the yard and waved at the helicopter, a Black Hawk, as it made another sweep of the compound, black against the lightening dark of the predawn sky. The spotlight stabbed down, blinding us, but most of us were already blinded by tears. We jumped, we shouted, we hugged one another. A couple of people were waving little American flags, and I remember wondering where the hell they got those.
Hutchfield was furiously screaming at us to get back inside. Nobody listened. He wasn’t the boss of us anymore. The People in Charge had arrived.
And then, just as unexpectedly as it had come, the helicopter made one last turn and thundered out of sight. The sound of its rotors faded. A heavy silence flooded in after it. We were confused, stunned, frightened. They must have seen us. Why didn’t they land?
We waited for the helicopter to come back. All morning we waited. People packed up their things. Speculated about where they would take us, what it would be like, how many others would be there. A Black Hawk helicopter! What else had survived the 1st Wave? We dreamed of electric lights and hot showers.
No one doubted we’d be rescued now that the People in Charge knew about us. Help was on its way.
Dad, being Dad, of course, wasn’t so sure.
“They may not come back,” he said.
“They wouldn’t just leave us here, Dad,” I said. Sometimes you had to talk to him like he was Sammy’s age. “How does that make sense?”
“It may not have been a search and rescue. They might have been looking for something else.”
“The drone?”
The one that had crashed a week earlier. He nodded.
“Still, they know we’re here now,” I said. “They’ll do something.”
He nodded again. Absently, like he was thinking about something else.
“They will,” he said. He looked hard at me. Do you still have the gun?”
I patted my back pocket. He threw his arm around me and led me to the storehouse. He pulled aside an old tarp lying in a corner. Underneath it was an M16 semiautomatic assault rifle. The same rifle that would become my bestie after everyone else was gone.
He picked it up and turned it in his hands, inspecting the rifle with that same absentminded professor look in his eyes.
“What do you think?” he whispered.
“About that? It’s totally badass.”
He didn’t jump on me for the language. Instead, he gave a little laugh.
He showed me how it worked. How to hold it. How to aim. How to switch out a clip.
“Here, you try.”
He held it toward me.
I think he was pleasantly surprised by what a quick study I was. And my coordination was pretty good, thanks to the karate lessons. Dance classes have nothing on karate when it comes to developing grace.
“Keep it,” he said when I tried to hand it back. “I hid it in here for you.”
“Why?” I asked. Not that I minded having it, but he was freaking me out a little. While everyone else was celebrating, my father was giving me training in firearms.
“Do you know how to tell who the enemy is in wartime, Cassie?” His eyes darted around the shack. Why couldn’t he look at me? “The guy who’s shooting at you—that’s how you tell. Don’t forget that.” He nodded toward the gun. “Don’t walk around with it. Keep it close, but keep it hidden. Not in here and not in the barracks. Okay?”
Shoulder pat. Shoulder pat not quite enough. Big hug.
“From now on, never let Sam out of your sight. Understand, Cassie? Never. Now go find him. I’ve got to see Hutchfield. And Cassie? If someone tries to take that rifle from you, you tell them to bring it up with me. And if they still try to take it, shoot them.”
He smiled. Not with his eyes, though. His eyes were as hard and blank and cold as a shark’s.
He was lucky, my dad. All of us were. Luck had carried us through the first three waves. But even the best gambler will tell you that luck only lasts so long. I think my dad had a feeling that day. Not that our luck had run out. No one could know that. But I think he knew in the end it wouldn’t be the lucky ones left standing.
It would be the hardcore. The ones who tell Lady Luck to go screw herself. The ones with hearts of stone. The ones who could let a hundred die so one might live. The ones who see the wisdom in torching a village in order to save it.
The world was FUBAR now.
And if you’re not okay with that, you’re just a corpse waiting to happen.
I took the M16 and hid it behind a tree bordering the path to the ash pit.
THE LAST REMNANT of the world I knew ripped apart on a sunny, warm Sunday afternoon.
Heralded by the growl of diesel engines, the rumble and squeak of axles, the whine of air brakes. Our sentries spotted the convoy long before it reached the compound. Saw the bright sunlight glinting off windows and the plumes of dust trailing the huge tires like contrails. We didn’t rush out to greet them with flowers and kisses. We stayed back while Hutchfield, Dad, and our four best shooters went out to meet them. Everyone was feeling a little spooked. And a lot less enthusiastic than we’d been just a few hours before.
Everything we’d expected to happen since the Arrival didn’t. Everything we hadn’t did. It took two whole weeks into the 3rd Wave for us to realize that the deadly flu was part of their plan. Still, you tend to believe what you always believed, think what you always thought, expect what you always expected, so it was never “Will we be rescued?” It was “When will we be rescued?”