The Last Star

by Rick Yancey

  “You now have fifteen seconds,” the lady holding him said. “Don’t make me count them down; it’s so melodramatic.”

  Then the gun was in his hand and he did not hesitate. He knew what to do. He was a soldier.

  The gun kicked in his hand when he fired; he almost dropped it. The bullet ripped through the lady’s abdomen and exited her lower back, the slug burying itself in the dusty sofa cushions. The noise was very loud in the small space, and Cassie cried out: For an awful second, she must have thought it was the lady’s gun that went off.

  The shot failed to drop the Constance lady or break her hold on his neck. Her grip loosened, though, at the shock of impact, and Sam heard the tiniest of gasps, a startled huh, and before he could blink, Ringer was flying over the coffee table, arm drawn back, hand curled into a fist. Her knuckles grazed his cheek before landing against the side of Constance’s head, and then a hand he didn’t see flung off the arm around his neck and he stumbled free. His sister reached for him, but he spun away, holding the gun with both hands, and Ringer yanked Constance completely off her feet and swung her body high into the air like an axman cutting firewood, smashing her down onto the coffee table. The table exploded, wood and glass and pieces of jigsaw puzzle spewing in every direction.

  Constance sat up; Ringer rammed the heel of her hand into Constance’s nose. Pop! You could hear it break. Blood burst from her open mouth.

  Fingers clawing at his shirt: Cassie’s. He pulled away. Cassie wasn’t part of a squad. She didn’t know what it meant to be a soldier. He did. He knew exactly what it meant.

  No mercy ever.

  He stepped over the broken pieces of the table and pointed the gun at the middle of the lady’s face. Her bloody mouth pulled into a soulless snarl of a smile, bloody lips and bloody teeth, and then he was back in his mother’s room, and she was dying of the plague, the Red Death, Cassie called it, and he was standing by her bed and she was smiling at him with bloody teeth, face stained with bloody tears; he saw it so clearly, the face he’d forgotten in the face he saw now.

  In the instant before he pulled the trigger, Sammy Sullivan remembered his mother’s face, the face they had given her, and the bullet that tore down the barrel held his rage, bore his grief, contained the sum of all he had lost. It connected them as if by a silver cord. When her face blew apart, they became one, victim and perpetrator, predator and prey.

  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  39

  RINGER

  THE BLOOD SPRAY blinds me for a second, but the hub retains the data of Nugget’s location and the precise position of the gun. By the time that second expires, his hand is empty and mine isn’t.

  At the end of the next second, the gun is trained at the face of Evan Walker.

  Walker is the linchpin, the fulcrum upon which our survival rests. Alive, he’s an unacceptable risk. Pulling the trigger might cost my own life; I know that. Cassie—even Zombie—might kill me for killing him, but I don’t have a choice. We’re out of time.

  None of them can hear it yet, but I can—the sound of the chopper bearing down from the north, loaded with Hellfire missiles and a squad of Vosch’s best sharpshooters. The loss of Constance’s signal can only mean one thing.

  “Ringer,” Zombie cries hoarsely. “What the fuck?”

  A tiny figure rushes from my right. Nugget. I pull the punch so I don’t break his sternum, but the blow sends him flying off his feet and into Sullivan’s chest. They plop to the floor in a sprawl of arms and legs.

  I stay focused on the target.

  “Ben, don’t,” Walker says calmly, though Zombie hasn’t moved. “Let’s hear what she wants.”

  “You know what I want.” Finger tightening on the trigger.

  There’s no question that Walker has to die. It’s so obvious, even Nugget would agree if he knew the facts. His sister, too. Well, maybe not. Love blinds more than it reveals. Razor taught me that.

  “Ben!” Walker shouts. “No.”

  Zombie doesn’t dive for a weapon. He doesn’t leap toward me. He takes two very slow, very deliberate steps to put his body between me and Evan Walker.

  “Sorry, Ringer,” Zombie says. Incredibly, he’s decided to whip out the slayer smile. “Not going to happen.” He raises his arms as if to offer a better target.

  “Zombie, you don’t know . . .”

  “Well, that’s a given. I don’t know shit.”

  If it were anyone else.

  Sullivan, even Nugget.

  What is the cost, Marika? What is the price? “Zombie, there’s no time.”

  “No time for what?”

  He heard it then; they all heard it; it had come within range of normal human hearing. The chopper.

  “Holy shit,” Sullivan gasped. “What have you done? What the hell have you done?”

  I ignore her. Only Zombie matters. “They don’t want us,” I tell him. “They want him. We can’t let them have him, Zombie.”

  If Zombie would just dip his head a half inch. That’s all I need, half an inch. The 12th System will do the rest.

  I’m sorry, Zombie. There’s no time.

  The hub locks in. I let loose the round. The bullet smashes into Zombie’s thigh.

  He’s supposed to go down to clear the way for the next round—the kill shot to Evan Walker’s head. He doesn’t.

  Instead, he falls back into Walker’s chest and Walker wraps his arms around him, holding him up or using him as a human shield. Beneath the faint sound of the rotors outside, an even fainter sound, the thu-wapp of a parachute deploying. Then another. Then another. Thu-wapp, thu-wapp, thu-wapp, thu-wapp, thu-wapp. Five in all.

  It hits me I’ve been appealing to the wrong person.

  “Drop him,” I say to Evan Walker. “If you care at all about what happens to Cassie, drop him.”

  But he doesn’t and now I’m out of time. Drawn out any further, this stalemate will cost all our lives.

  The 5th Wave is coming.

  40

  EVAN WALKER

  THERE CAN BE only one explanation.

  Her leap across the room. The speed of her hands, the acuity of her vision and hearing. Only one possibility.

  She had been enhanced. A human had received the gift.

  Why?

  She propelled herself toward the front window, covering the length of the room in three strides, rolling her body in midair to strike the glass with her shoulder, then disappearing into a halo of pulverized glass and wood.

  Cassie immediately started toward him—or toward Ben, whom he still held upright. “Megan,” Evan said. “Get her down to the basement.”

  Cassie nodded. She understood. She grabbed her little brother’s wrist and yanked him toward the hallway.

  “No! I’m staying with Zombie!”

  “Jesus Christ, Sam, come on . . .”

  They fled down the hall. The chopper was getting closer; the sound of its engines flowed through the broken window like waves crashing on the beach. First things first, though. He heaved Ben over his shoulder and carried him toward the sofa, stepping over the body that lay amid the shattered remnants of the coffee table. He laid Ben on the sofa and glanced about for something to tie off the leg. The dead woman’s hoodie. Evan knelt beside her and ripped the hoodie open. He tore off a strip, from collar to hem, and swung back around. Ben was eyeing him from a colorless face, breath high in his chest, going into shock.

  The bullet had entered Ben’s leg just above the kneecap. Any lower and he’d never walk again. Ben wasn’t lucky. Ringer had placed the shot carefully.

  Ben opened his mouth and said, “My bad. I shouldn’t have brought them here.”

  “You couldn’t know,” Evan assured him.

  Ben shook his head violently. “No excuse.” He slammed his open palm against the cushions and dust exploded into the air. He co
ughed.

  Evan lifted his eyes toward the ceiling and listened. How much time did they have? Hard to tell. Two minutes? Less? He looked back down at Ben, who said, “Basement.”

  Evan nodded. “Basement.”

  He pulled Ben from the sofa and slung him over his shoulder. Where was Cassie? He trotted down the stairs, Ben’s cheek bouncing against his back. He carried him to the far corner of the room and eased him onto the concrete floor.

  “Don’t wait, Walker.” Ben jerked his head toward the weapons cache. “If you don’t take out that bird fast, it won’t matter if they’re down here.”

  Evan lifted the missile launcher from the hook on the wall. The chopper must be in range by now. He raced back up the stairs, taking them two at a time, the launcher heavy as a steel girder in his hands. His bad ankle sang with pain. He pushed through it.

  The hallway was empty. The air thrummed against his skin. The Black Hawk was circling directly above the house. Leave them up here and risk the shot? Or get them downstairs and risk the missile?

  He dropped the launcher onto the floor.

  41

  CASSIE WAS POUNDING on the closet door and screaming Megan’s name. She whirled around when Evan burst into the room.

  “She’s barricaded herself inside, the little bitch!”

  He shoved Cassie out of the way and slammed his shoulder into the door. It jerked on its hinges but did not give way.

  “Cassie, Sam, basement, now,” he shouted.

  They fled from the room. He brought up his good foot and slammed it into the middle of the door. The wood cracked. Again. Crack. Again. Crack! Three steps back and he lowered his shoulder into the crack. The door ripped down the middle and he stumbled through the opening into darkness. A pair of eyes wide with terror regarded him from the corner. He held out his hand.

  “We’re about to be blown up, Megan.”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t leaving. No way. He reached for her and her hands balled into fists and pummeled his face. She scratched at his eyes. She screamed as if she were being beaten to death.

  He grabbed her wrist and yanked. She flew into his chest, then kicked his groin hard while reaching toward the back of the closet with her free hand. A teddy bear lay among the wads of clothes.

  “Captain!”

  He grabbed the bear. “Here, I’ve got him.”

  The first Hellfire missile struck the house precisely two minutes and twenty-two seconds later.

  42

  CARRYING MEGAN, Evan was halfway down the basement stairs when the concussion from the blast hurled them into the air. He whipped his body around as he fell: He would take the force of the impact, not the little girl.

  Slamming into the concrete floor knocked the wind out of him. Megan rolled off his chest and lay still.

  Then the second missile struck.

  Flames roared down from above. He saw them coming, a bright orange and red battering ram. He threw himself over the girl; the fire passed over them; he smelled his hair singe, felt the furnace-hot breath through his shirt.

  He lifted his head. Across the basement he could see Cassie and Sam crouching beside Ben. He crawled over to them, dragging Megan behind him. Cassie’s eyes met his: Is she . . . ?

  He shook his head: No.

  “Where’s the launcher?” Ben asked.

  Evan pointed at the ceiling. Upstairs. Or it used to be, when there was an upstairs.

  Dislodged cobwebs and dust swirled around them. The ceiling was holding for now. He doubted it could withstand another hit. Ben Parish must have been thinking the same thing.

  “Oh, that’s great.” Ben turned to Cassie. “Let’s everybody form a prayer circle, quick, because we have just been royally fucked.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Evan assured him. He touched Cassie’s cheek. “It’s not the end. Not yet.” He stood up. “They came here for one thing,” he said quietly, his voice barely audible above the inferno over them. “They opened fire because they assumed they’d failed. They think I’m dead. I’m going to show them that they’re wrong.”

  Mystified, Ben shook his head. He didn’t understand. Cassie did, though, and her face darkened with anger.

  “Evan Walker, don’t you dare do this again.”

  “Last time, Mayfly. I promise.”

  43

  HE PAUSED AT the base of the stairs that led up into the smoke and flame. Behind him, Cassie was screaming, calling his name, cursing him.

  He climbed anyway.

  Ringer called it: They don’t want us. They want him.

  Halfway up, he wondered if he should have killed Ben Parish. He would be a liability to Cassie. Slow her down. Be a burden she may not be able to bear.

  He pushed the thought from his mind. Too late now. Too late to turn back. Too late to run, too late to hide. Like Cassie beneath the car that day, like Ben beneath the imploding death camp, he had reached the moment of facing that which he thought he could not face. He had risked everything to save her before, but those times the risk was measured, calculated, and a small chance always remained that he would endure.

  Not this time. This time he was marching straight into the belly of the beast.

  He turned once, at the top of the stairs, but he could not see her and he could not hear her. She was lost in a haze of dust and smoke and the slowly spinning gossamer strands of cobweb.

  A cyclone whipped through the wreckage, the chopper making a pass, and the wind from its blades slung aside the smoke and tamped down the fire, flattening it out like a rolling red sea. He looked up and saw the pilot at the controls, looking down.

  He raised his hands and shuffled forward. The fire encircled him. The smoke engulfed him. He walked through the maelstrom into clear, clean air.

  Evan Walker stood still in the middle of the road, hands up, as the helicopter came down.

  44

  SQUAD ONE-NINE

  FROM THEIR POSITION three hundred yards to the north, the five-member strike team from Squad 19 watch the chopper fire two missiles, then it’s bye-bye, house, blasted down to its concrete foundation in an orgasm of fire and smoke.

  In Milk’s earpiece, the pilot’s voice: “Hold your position, One-nine. Repeat: Hold position.”

  Milk raises his fist to signal his team: We hold.

  The chopper makes a wide arc to circle back over the target. Crouched beside Milk, Pixie sighs loudly, fussing with his eyepiece. The strap’s too big for his little head, and he can’t keep it snug. Swizz whispers for him to shut up and Pix instructs him to kiss his ass. Milk tells them both to shut up.

  The team huddles beneath a faded Havoline sign beside an old brick building that had been a body shop before the world went FUBAR. Stacks of used tires and piles of rims, discarded engine parts and tools, all scattered around the lot like wind-driven leaves; the cars and trucks and SUVs and minivans are coated in dust and grime, with shattered windows and mildewed upholstery, relics of the irrelevant past. The generation that followed Squad 19—if there was a generation to follow—would not recognize the strange symbols attached to the trunks and grills of these rusting hulks. In a hundred years, no one would be able to read the sign over their heads or even understand that the letters symbolized sounds.

  Like it matters anymore. Like anyone cares. Better not to remember. Better not to know. You can’t mourn what you never had.

  The chopper hovers over the wreckage, and the downdraft from its blades flattens the smoke and pushes the flames sideways. They squint through their eyepieces, Milk and Pix to the south toward the chopper, Swizz and Snicks to the west, Gummy to the north, scanning the terrain for the green glow of an alien-infested enemy. They will wait for the Black Hawk to pull out, then move south down the highway, clearing the area as they go—if there’s any damn thing to clear. Unless the Teds took off when they heard the chopper’s approach, anythi
ng caught in that house was toast.

  Pix saw it first: a tiny neon-green spark that bobbed about in the flames like a firefly in the summer dusk. He poked Milk in the leg and pointed. Milk nodded with a grim smile. Oh yeah. They’ve drilled for this, dear Jesus, they can’t remember how often, but this is the first time in a real combat situation. A living, breathing, honest-to-God, in-the-flesh infested.

  Six months, two weeks, and three days since the buses brought them together, the girls and boys of Squad 19. One hundred and ninety-nine days. Four thousand, seven hundred and seventy-six hours. Two hundred eighty-six thousand, five hundred and sixty minutes since Pix was Ryan, cowering in a drainage ditch, covered in scabs and sores and lice, with a bloated stomach and stick-thin arms and bulging, buggy eyes, brought onto the bus sobbing tearlessly because his body was starved for water. And Milk was called Kyle then, rescued from a camp a couple miles from the Canadian border, a big kid, sullen and angry and itching for payback, hard to control, difficult to break, but in the end they broke him.

  They broke all of them.

  Jeremy to Swizz, Luis to Gummy, Emily to Snickers. A bunch of candy-assed names for a bunch of candy-assed recruits.

  The ones they could not break, the ones Wonderland told them were unfit, and the ones whose minds or bodies gave way in basic disappeared into incinerators or into secret holding rooms to retrofit their bodies into bombs. It was easy. It was absurdly easy. Empty the vessel of hope and faith and trust and you can fill it with anything you like. They could have told the kids in Squad 19 that two plus two equals five and they would have believed it. No, not just believed it; they would have killed anyone who claimed otherwise.

  A tall figure topped in green fire emerges from the smoke and flame—arms up, hands empty, crossing the blackened rubble onto the road—and the chopper dips its nose and begins descending.