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Zombie makes it first, surprisingly. I pull him up, point towards the ball of light that's only a hundred or so feet from us. Then I shake my head. Nothing left, Zombie. I already checked. He has to check for himself. When he does, he stays there, far from us. Too distraught or too weak? Doesn't matter. He'll make sure we don't see whatever he's feeling when we get up there. That's Zombie in the face of death.
There's Cassie, now, hanging at the edge of the cliff, heaving for breath. Little Nugget handing off her back. I grab the boy and pull him up, first, giving Cassie time to catch her breath without the extra weight. And then I pull up her, too.
"Straight ahead," I tell her, nodding forward. We're basically nose to nose, Nugget in front of us and Zombie ninety feet ahead of him. "Maybe a hundred feet. There's nothing, Cassie. The entire camp is gone."
She nods, like she knows. There's a faraway look in her eyes for a second, but she blinks and she's back. I pretend I didn't notice.
"Have to rest," she pants. Hot breath fanning my face. Minty. Where the hell did she get toothpaste? "Sams, you okay?"
"Yes," he replies.
"Are you?" Zombie from the front of the tunnel.
"Define 'okay'," she replies.
"That's a definition that keeps changing," he says back. "They've lit the place up out here."
"The plane?" Cassie asks.
"It's here. Big, one of those huge cargo planes."
"There's a lot of kids."
The three of us, crawling to Zombie and the light that should lead us from this narrow prison. Nugget is whimpering, hands rubbed raw, and Cassie manages to get herself stuck. Zombie has to come, backwards, to help me get her out, and even then it takes almost ten minutes.
"I'm thirsty," Nugget whines.
"Almost there," Cassie assures him. "See the light?"
At the opening, only one of us can fit up there with Zombie. Zombie is already positioned in front of me, and my back is on fire, so Cassie goes.
"Have they loaded the—" Cassie starts. Zombie cuts her off with a hiss.
"They've started the engines."
"Which way is north?"
"About two o'clock."
"Can you run?" She asks. He must look terrible. Worringly terrible.
"I have to. So, yes."
She turns to Sam. "Once we get out in the open, climb back on, okay?"
"I can run, Cassie," Nugget protests. "I'm fast."
"I'll carry him," Zombie offers.
"Don't be ridiculous," she says.
"I'm not as weak as I look." Why on Earth would he think he looks weak? I missed something.
"Of course not," she says back. "But if you go down with him, we're all dead."
"Same with you."
"He's my brother. I'm carrying him. Besides, you're hurt and—"
That's the end of the argument. The rest is cut off by the engine of the cargo plane coming towards us, getting faster. Time to go.
Us, crouching at the opening on the balls of our feet. Ringer and the squad, somewhere within a crowd of survivors or, possibly, dead. Evan, hidden somewhere planting a bomb. And the plane, racing towards us, filled to the brim with children, soldiers, aliens.
And, finally, like the odds against us weren't enough, the bomb that Evan has planted somewhere, detonates.
The ground shakes and we're off, feet hitting the ground so quickly I barely register that it's happening at all. I started at the back of the group and within seconds I'm in the front. I'm the fastest, the most agile. For me, this is easy.
Until the tremor slides up my back, tingles my spine, makes my head spin and vision darken. Suddenly, Cassie is on her stomach on the ground and Nugget is thrown over Zombie's shoulder. He runs past me while I whip around, earth cracking beneath my legs. Cassie is falling behind but turning back would do nothing for either of us so I simply pick up speed and hope she can do the same.
A pain in my knee from a memory a million years away, of falling on the cross country track and busting it, and a tremor through my back and my thigh, where one of the last decided he was worthy of killing one of the remaining. My injuries are slowing me down, and Cassie ends up passing me. The pavement behind us is disappearing, sinking down into the rest of the world and planning to take us with it. The thought has my heart lurching.
Drones are falling out of the sky, ripping apart our flesh and making this ten times harder for us. We have to zigzag across the yard as the world is consumed behind us.
And then a dot, the size of a grain of rice, the size of the tracking device previously inside of my neck, coming straight at us. The dot becomes larger, the size of a car, a Humvee. I think What's so important about four puny humans on a battlefield being blown up, and then I'm thinking, Hey, the driver looks a little young, doesn't he?
Gunshots flying past our heads, the Humvee spinning into a wide turn and stopping right in front of Zombie and Nugget, and then Ringer, reaching for Zombie from inside the now open door. Zombie tosses Nugget and Ringer hauls him inside, banging hard on the metal of the door like she's telling us to Hurry the fuck up already. By the time I'm reaching the vehicle and Ringer is pulling me inside, it's too late for me to realize Cassie fell several yards back. And Zombie is already whipping around and going back for her.
He's running and I'm thinking Come on, Ben, just leave this one last person behind and you'll never do it again, promise! but it doesn't matter. He's already gone.
Dumbo's wraps his arms around my chest, pulling me back, keeping me from leaping out of the vehicle and hauling Zombie's undead ass into this van myself.
He's lying on his stomach, staring death in the face in the version of a black hole. He throws himself backwards, hauls Cassie straight from inside with both hands on one wrist, and he spins, launching the strawberry blonde toward the Humvee like she weighs nothing.
Ringer grabs her arm and pulls her inside. Cassie ends up straddling Ringer, who stares at me like Who the fuck is this chick on my lap?
Zombie leaps for the back of the Humvee behind them, landing three feet inside before falling back. Dumbo grabs his arm and yanks, throwing him into the vehicle. I rush for the doors, shutting them to keep them both inside. Poundcake floors the gas.
Heaving for breath, face to face with a zombie, and bleeding into my eye again. I tug the fabric Evan gave me from my pocket and wipe away the blood. Then fall into Zombie, who catches me and pulls me close, hot breath against my neck again. He shields my head when the windshield is blown apart.
"You're alive," I whisper into his neck. He grins and pats my hair down.
"I'm a zombie," he says.
He's a zombie and I'm a ghost, and together, we're survivors.
