The smallest, Garrett, runs back to the boardwalk and my back straightens, looking for danger. There’s nothing but dunes, sea grass, and abandoned houses.
“Wyatt, Wyatt…” he calls, grabbing my coat with sandy hands. I check him for wounds.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
He looks up at me with soulful, brown eyes and holds up his hand. Palm flat. “Look what I found.”
My worry subsides and I pick up the smooth, coiled shell. “Good find. I’ll put it with the others,” I tell him, slipping it into my pocket.
He runs back with the others and as unsure as I am about so many things in life, right now I do know I’ve followed her final request. She didn’t want me to just take the kids back to become soldiers. She wanted more than that. She wanted them to live.
Chapter 4
“He
y man,” Davis calls, jogging across the airfield’s abandoned and weedy runway. Although he is still hulking, tall and muscular, my partner has slimmed down over the cold winter months like the rest of us.
“Morning.” I eye the fuzzy strip of hair over his lip. “You decide on a new look while I was gone?”
He falls into step and walks toward the mess hall with me. I ran out of food twenty-four hours ago. I just hope they’ve got something to eat in there. He runs a hand over the barely-there mustache. “Parker suggested it.”
I raise an eyebrow but keep moving. “Did she?”
He shrugs. “I thought I’d give it a shot. I mean, what else is there to do?”
He’s got me there. The worst part of the cold months was the ever-pressing boredom. We spent the first six months of the apocalypse in a never-ending battle. First with the Eaters. Then with Jane. Next with Chloe and the Hybrids. In hindsight, I think we may have just needed to be busy. The alternative leads to a variety of pastimes—the least damaging is growing facial hair at an attractive woman’s suggestion.
“How was your mission?” he asks. We approach the Mess Hall door and a solider quickly opens it from the inside. Even behind the walls the doors are locked. I nod at the kid, who can’t be older than sixteen. He’s dressed in a full combat uniform but that’s only because of the massive warehouse of clothing and supplies Erwin has access to. Even Erwin won’t send minors into the Death Fields; at least, not yet.
“They’re looking for us,” I confirm. “I killed three Hybrid scouts over the last twenty-four hours. They don’t know our exact location but they’re close.”
“Jude said the same thing; well, he killed two and lost track of one. He got back an hour ago.”
“In one piece?” It was his first solo scouting mission.
“A couple of scrapes, but yeah, he held his own.”
There’s a massive pot of oatmeal on the counter—no longer hot—but better than nothing. I scoop a bowlful and grab a spoon before heading to the long table in the middle of the room. It’s midmorning and the hall is quiet.
Davis sits across from me with a cup of muddy brown coffee in front of him. The lack of steam makes me think it’s as warm as my oatmeal but it feels better to have something on the stomach. “Erwin wants to start sending out teams to confront the Hybrids. He thinks it’s time to make a move.”
“We can’t hide here forever,” I agree. I stir the oatmeal, mashing out the lumps. Or try. It’s useless. “Although I’m not sure these new recruits are ready for what’s waiting out there.”
“The main problem is that the Hybrids don’t require a training period. They get the shot and transform into a supersolider.” He glances at the kid guarding the door. “We don’t have that luxury.”
“No, no we don’t.”
“But they’re coming anyway. How long do you think we have?”
“They’re just below Macon, heading straight down Highway 16, spread for miles on either side. It’s like they’re reenacting Sherman’s March.”
The reference is heavy with implication. By the time General Sherman torched his way through Georgia and got to the port town of Savannah, the town was prepared to beg for mercy. In the end they let the devil walk through the door, trading their lives for the cause so many--including their own blood--had died for. If we surrender it’s likely they’ll give us the EVI-2 shot, transforming all of us, men, women, and children, into supersoldiers.
Death would be preferable.
“So a couple weeks,” he guesses.
“At most.”