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“Got it?” I ask.
“Got it!” He holds up the device triumphantly. I take it from him. Oh Jesus, I hope so.
Something I’m forgetting. Something important. What could it be?
76
NOW ON TO the next impossible dilemma: bust through the back door or the front?
One bomb. One chance. I leave Nugget with Megan and check the rear entrance first. A wall of rock maybe six feet thick, if I’m remembering my landmarks right. Then returning the length of the cave to the front entrance. Moving too damn slow. Taking too damn long. Finally there, I find exactly what I expected to find: another rock wall, who knows how thick, and no way of telling if this is the better way out.
Oh, screw it.
I jam the PVC pipe into the deepest, highest crack I can reach. The fuse seems too short; I might not have time to reach a safe distance.
The certainty of uncertainty.
I light the fuse and book back up the path, dragging my bad leg behind me like a reluctant kid on the first day of school. The bang of the explosion seems muted, a pitiful echo of the two that trapped us down here.
Ten minutes later, I’ve got Nugget by one hand and Megan by the other. It wasn’t easy for Nugget to talk her out. She felt safe in that cozy little niche and the chain of command wasn’t worth a hill of beans to her. The person in charge of Megan is Megan.
The hole at the top of the fall isn’t very big and doesn’t look very stable, but fresh air whistles through it and I can see a pinprick of light. Nugget says, “Maybe we should just stay here, Zombie.” He’s probably thinking the same thing: Seal the entry points, station sharpshooters at both ends, and then it’s just a waiting game. Nobody makes bunker-busting bombs anymore. Why waste precious munitions needed for the real war on a couple little kids and a gimpy recruit? They’ll come out. They have to come out. The risk of staying is unacceptable.
“Don’t have a choice, Nugget.” Also no choice in who goes first. I grab his sleeve and pull him away from Megan. I don’t want her to hear this. “You wait for my signal, understand?” He nods. “What do you do if I don’t come back?”
He shakes his head. The light’s too weak and the lenses on the mask are too clouded for me to see his eyes, but his voice quivers in pre-cry mode. “But you are coming back.”
“If I’ve got a heartbeat, you bet your ass I’m coming back. But in case I don’t.”
Up comes the chin. Out goes the chest. “I’ll shoot ’em all in the head!”
I heave myself into the hole. My back smacks against the top, the sides squeeze against my shoulders: It’s gonna be a tight fit. Halfway through, I decide to take off the mask. I can’t take the feeling of being slowly smothered anymore. Fresh, cold air bathes my face. Christ, it feels good.
The opening to the outside isn’t big enough for one of cat lady’s dinners to wiggle through. I punch out the loose rocks with my bare hands. A smidgen of night sky, a swath of grass, and the one-lane access road slicing them down the middle. No sound but the wind. Let’s go.
I crawl into the open. I reach for the rifle slung over my shoulder, only there is no rifle slung over my shoulder: I forgot to pick it up on my way back to the entrance. So that’s what I was forgetting. That was it, my rifle. Right?
Squatting beside the hole, holding my sidearm between my legs, listening, looking, Don’t rush this; be sure. Escaping the trap is fine and wonderful, but where to now? Dawn isn’t far off and then the mothership begins her appointed rounds. I can see her balanced on the horizon, green like a traffic light signaling Go.
I stand. A challenging maneuver given my leg’s stiffened up and putting weight on it hurts like hell.
Here I am, boys. Take your best shot.
Nothing to see but the road and grass and the sky. Nothing to hear but the wind.
I whistle into the hole for Nugget. Two short toots, one long. After a hundred years his round little head pokes out, then his shoulders. I pull him the rest of the way. He rips off the gas mask and inhales the fresh air, then yanks the gun from the back of his pants. He swivels left to right, knees slightly bent, gun thrust forward, like countless boys before him with plastic guns and water pistols.
/> I whistle again for Megan. No answer, so I call down, “Megan, let’s go, girl!” Beside me, Nugget sighs deeply.
“She’s so annoying.”
And he sounds so much like his sister that I actually laugh. He gives me a curious look, head tilted slightly to one side.
“Hey, Zombie? There’s a red dot on the side of your head.”
77
DUMBO DIDN’T THINK TWICE in Urbana. I don’t now.
