Shark shrugged. “Real enough, I guess, but there was nothing.”
“If Lizabeth really saw one, then how come there’s no alert?”
“You know how it is. They went looking because they have to look. Doesn’t mean anyone really believes her. Lizabeth makes a lot of stuff up. She could get in trouble for this.”
Milo nodded. That much was true. Once Lizabeth said she saw a Dissosterin shocktrooper in the swamp. She said it was running on all fours, meaning it was using its secondary set of arms as legs in order to run faster. Two full squads were scrambled to check it out and they found nothing. Not a trace. Lizabeth had some serious “alone time” after that. A week of it. And some kitchen duty. Oddly, she never budged from her story. And the description she gave about what she’d seen was eerily accurate. It was still something she could have gotten from a picture or a sketch, but even so . . .
“Like I said, nobody’s seen anything,” Shark concluded. “Probably just Lizzie being Lizzie.”
“Maybe,” murmured Milo.
“Be scary if she was telling the truth, though.”
“I know.”
Shark changed the subject. “That wolf you keep seeing? You sure it was the same one you saw at the crash site?”
“All I saw just now was a pair of eyes. Same eyes, though. But, like, how many wolves can there actually be out here?”
“Not counting rougarous?”
“Come on, man . . .”
“If it was the wolf,” Shark asked as he looked around, “where’d it go?”
Milo sighed. “I don’t even know if it was really here. My head’s all scrambled today. Come on. Help me look for prints.”
They switched on their flashlights and hunted around the food cart, but they found nothing.
“Must have been the light reflecting on something else,” concluded Shark.
“Sure,” agreed Milo, though he didn’t agree at all.
They walked back to the tent but stopped and stood outside, listening to the night.
“I overheard Aunt Jenny and one of the scouts talking about the two dead shocktroopers,” said Shark after a while. “I was in my bunk, and they must have thought I was asleep. The scout said that the shocktroopers weren’t shot or anything like that.”
“Okay, then maybe their flyer was shot down. What’s the big?”
“No,” Shark said again. “The scout said that it looked like the ’troopers had been attacked by an animal.”
“Yeah,” agreed Milo, “I heard that from Mom. What do you think? Gator?”
Shark’s expression was mysterious. “Something with claws,” he said. “Great big claws that can somehow tear through shocktrooper armor. Sure as heck not your wolf. Whatever this was, it had to be huge.”
Milo thought about it. “Barnaby said he’s seen cougars.”
“Sure, okay, but when have you ever heard of a cougar taking on two armed shocktroopers?”
Milo grunted, remembering his mother’s similar comment about a wolf taking on ’troopers.
“Besides,” continued Shark, “if it was just some big cat, then why send out a whole patrol? And why would your mom go? She’s a colonel. Something like that, they’d send a sergeant like Aunt Jenny.”
Neither of them had an answer, so they stood side by side and watched the darkness. There was nothing to see—the squad was gone—but they faced that direction anyway. Shark had no parents. They’d gone missing during the initial invasion. His guardian was a woman who used to be his kindergarten teacher. Jenny Lu, now a sergeant in the Louisiana Chapter of the Earth Alliance. He called her Aunt Jenny.
“I don’t know,” said Milo.
“Yeah, me neither, but something weird’s happening. That pyramid thing. Whatever stomped all over the crash site. That wolf, and now this? This is all really, really, really weird.”
Shark’s level of distress could always be measured by how many “reallys” he added.
“I wish the patrol didn’t have to go out,” muttered Milo.
“I know. This bites,” said Shark. “I mean really bites. Like with big gator teeth.”
“Yeah,” agreed Milo. “I wish I could go with them.”
That wasn’t the truth and he knew it. Milo didn’t want to go at all. He didn’t want to go within a million miles of the hive ship, the crawler camps, Stingers, or anything even remotely related to those monsters. No way.
What he really meant was that he wished he was big enough and tough enough to do something to protect his mother. To keep her from going missing. Like Dad had gone missing.
In a few years, when he was fifteen or sixteen, he’d be allowed to go on patrols. At eleven? Not a chance.
Even though he was three inches taller than Shark, Milo was as skinny as his friend was big. Everyone always made jokes about him having no meat on his bones, about how his shadow looked like a pencil with shaggy hair.
Shark sighed and said, “I wish I could wake up and this whole thing—the invasion, the Bugs, all of it—is just a bad dream.”
“Yeah,” agreed Milo sadly. “I think Lizzie’ll see a live unicorn first.”
Shark unclipped the canteen from his belt, took a sip, winced, took another sip.
“What’s that?” asked Milo.
“Some kind of herb tea.”
“Taste good?”
“Tastes like boiled snot. Aunt Jenny says it’ll help my asthma.”
“Oh.”
“Want some?”
“No thanks.”
Shark nodded philosophically, took one more sip, recapped the canteen, and clipped it to his belt.
“Who do you think she is?” asked Shark, nodding to the picture tacked to the side of the cart.
“I have no idea.”
“I told Aunt Jenny about her, and she thinks she’s from a rogue family. Maybe staking out that area. Could be why she told you to get lost.”
Milo grunted. He didn’t want to talk about the girl. It scared him to even think about what happened to him. Every time he tried to apply scavenger logic to the experience, he hit a wall. The hands that had held him made no sense at all.
It frightened him as much as thoughts of the Bugs did.
The whole world seemed filled with shadows and mysteries and monsters.
“We have another hike tomorrow,” said Shark, interrupting his thoughts.
“What? Since when?”
“Since this evening. It was on the schedule in the mess tent.”
“How long?” asked Milo, dreading another trip into those woods.
“Five miles, I think.”
“Oh. That’s not too bad.”
Five miles was within the normal radius of the foot patrols. Not even wolves could do much against soldiers with rifles.
Even so, those woods surrounded them right now. Huge and so dark that anything—anything—could be out there. Hiding. Watching.
“What time do we go out?” Milo asked.
“You won’t like it.”
“I never like it,” said Milo.
“Lineup’s at six, which means we have to be dressed, fed, and geared up by six, not getting up at six.”
The way he said it, Milo knew that Shark was quoting someone. Probably Barnaby, who always tried to sound like an adult drill sergeant.
Milo groaned. Sunrise was around six thirty. That meant getting up and ready in the dark. In an empty tent, with Mom gone. In a camp where most of the soldiers were out on the patrol.
“Maybe we could say we’re sick,” he suggested hopefully. “You could have an asthma attack, and I’d volunteer to stay here and—”
Shark shook his head. “Tried that too many times. Last time Barnaby dimed me out to Aunt Jenny and I got in trouble. And I do not want to shovel out the latrines again. No thanks.”
“Oh.”
“Unless you want to join me. ’Cause, really, shoveling poop is the most fun in the world. You should try it.”
“Forget I said anything. We . . .”
/> His voice trailed off as he caught something out of the corner of his eye. He turned quickly and thought he saw those pale eyes watching him.
“What is it?” asked Shark. Killer came to point and stared fixedly into the shadows.
“I . . . ,” began Milo. “I thought I saw something.”
The darkness was blank now. There was nothing.
“What?”
“That wolf,” said Milo in a frightened whisper. “I thought I saw it looking at me.”
They both peered into the shadows. Killer crept to the edge of the woods and sniffed. After a long time of total concentration, all three of them relaxed.
“Nothing there,” said Shark.
“I guess not.”
Shark didn’t bust on him for “seeing things.” Alertness bordering on paranoia was one way for everyone to stay safe in a world where all humans were constantly being hunted.
They stood there and watched Killer shift from looking for mystery dog eyes to sniffing at all the places he—or the other camp dogs—had peed recently. Exciting stuff. The pale eyes did not reappear.
Very weird, thought Milo. I definitely saw something.
Shark said, “I remember reading once that we have dogs now because a long time ago wolves used to hang around the camps of early humans. You know, to get scraps and stuff. People started leaving stuff out for them, and after a while, they kind of brought some in.”
Milo thought about that. “I don’t think that’s what this is. I don’t think the wolf is looking for scraps.”
“Then why do you keep seeing it?”
“I . . . don’t know. . . .”
The moment stretched and thinned and faded into nothing, leaving them standing in the night with a small dog and not much left to talk about.
Shark nodded to the locked cart. “Want some leftovers? I know where Mr. Mustapha keeps the key.”
Mr. Mustapha was the cook, and finding ways to break into his food cart had become Shark’s mission in life. Mr. Mustapha frequently threatened to add Killer to the stewpot, but no one took him seriously.
“Sure,” said Milo sourly, “and if we get caught, we’ll both be shoveling latrines until we’re fifty.”
Shark sighed. “I guess.” But he gazed longingly at the cart.
Milo knew that this was one of the differences between his friend and him. Shark ate when he was scared and Milo couldn’t. In fact, Shark ate all of the food Milo couldn’t eat. That’s why Shark was heavy and Milo was skinny. People are different even when they’re dealing with the same problems.
“Then I’m going to bed,” decided Shark.
Milo grunted. “You can sleep?”
“Got to. Been a long day and I’m beat.”
“I’m too creeped out,” admitted Milo. “I don’t think I’m ever going to sleep again.”
Shark shrugged. “Got to try, dude, or we’ll be zombies on the hike tomorrow.”
“Zombies,” mused Milo. “I wonder if that would be better than aliens.”
“Couldn’t be worse. But, let’s face it, if there were zombies out there, you’d be safe.”
“Why?”
Shark pinched his arm. “Nothing to eat.”
“Hilarious,” said Milo, not meaning it.
But they laughed anyway.
It was false and it didn’t last long.
“See ya in the morning. Hope you don’t have any dreams.”
Milo nodded. “Hope you don’t, either.”
Both of them meant it. It was the kindest thing friends could wish each other.
Milo watched Shark walk away with little Killer trotting dutifully at his heels, tail wagging as if everything were right with the world. Far above the camp, visible through a gap in the camouflage netting that hid them all from the air, Orion strode across the sky, his belt and sword glittering. Milo wondered how many times the celestial giant had looked down on boys from a war-torn country talking in the night. Probably more than all the stars in the Louisiana sky.
Milo always found comfort in that constellation. He felt that maybe not everything in the universe wanted to hurt him.
Then he remembered that in the myth, Orion had been killed by a scorpion. Even though Scorpius was in the sky on the far side of the world, it reminded him of the Bugs and all the people they’d killed, all the things they’d destroyed.
Depressed, Milo walked over to where his hammock was hung. He could have slept in the tent tonight, but he didn’t want to be alone. Out here there were soldiers sleeping in hammocks or bedrolls. Out here he felt safe. Or, safer, anyway.
He took off his shoes, washed his face and hands with a cupful of water, climbed into the hammock, and lay there for more than an hour, trying to fall asleep.
He didn’t think he would. Or could.
But sleep found him anyway.
And, sadly, he dreamed.
FROM MILO’S DREAM DIARY
Really weird dream last night.
It started with the same feast. Just like always. But then it changed again.
There was a girl at the table this time.
It was the girl from the woods. Those same eyes and the same smoke-colored hair. Her clothes were all dirty and covered with ashes and blood. She looked sick, too. Her skin was yellow and her eyes were bloodshot.
“What happened?” I asked her.
“The world is dying,” she said, “and so are we.”
“‘We’? Who do you mean?”
“All of the orphans who wander in the night.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, but she wouldn’t tell me. So I said, “If you tell me your name, I won’t conjure with it.”
The girl looked at me for a really long time. She looked so sad and scared that I wanted to do something for her. I felt really bad for her.
She said, “My name is Evangelyne Winter.”
I told her that it was a pretty name.
“It’s an old name. It was my grandmother’s name, and she ran with the night winds.”
She wouldn’t explain what that meant.
I turned to get some food for her, but when I turned back, she was gone. Her chair was empty and all rusted and broken.
Then I felt something push against my knee and looked down, expecting it to be Killer under the table, begging for scraps like he does. But it wasn’t.
It was the wolf from the forest, chewing on a beef bone.
I almost screamed. I mean, it was right there, close enough to bite me.
Then the wolf’s mouth moved. Not to bite me. It was trying to speak like people do. It couldn’t, though, because it didn’t have a human mouth.
It scared me. Not because this was an animal trying to talk to me. No, what scared me was that I couldn’t understand it.
And I was very, very sure I needed to.
That’s when we started hearing the thunder in the sky. We ignored it, though, the way we always do. At first, anyway.
I bent down and ducked under the table. I had an idea that if I tried to make my mouth make the same shapes as the wolf was trying to make that I could maybe figure out what it was trying to say. It wasn’t as stupid as it sounds. It made sense in my dream.
It helped, too. I could feel the shape of the words. Real words, but I had to repeat them over and over before they made any sense. “Thayer . . .” That’s what it sounded like.
It wasn’t, though. Not “thayer.” It was . . . two words smooshed into one.
They are.
When I said the words aloud, I could swear the wolf nodded.
It kept speaking, though, repeating that word and another. I had to sound it out, too.
It sounded like “common.”
It wasn’t.
It was “coming.”
When I didn’t understand right away, the wolf got mad and growled at me. Not like it was going to bite, but because it was so frustrated.
The thunder was getting louder, the storm coming closer.
Then I got it.
I said it aloud.
“They’re coming.”
They?
“Who . . . ?” I began to say, but I didn’t need to finish the question.
Suddenly, everyone at the table seemed to finally hear the thunder, and all the laughing and talking just died. It was totally quiet except for the thunder. We all looked up at the storm clouds.
It was the hive ship.
It broke through the clouds, and then all the smaller ships broke off from the bottom and came at us.
Everyone was screaming and running by then. Mom was yelling orders to her soldiers. Dad was yelling to us kids to run and hide.
Then the first wave of burners and buzzers and drinkers hit us. They look like oversized insects. Moths and locusts and dragonflies and mosquitoes. Some were like mashups of different kinds of insects. Centipedes with butterfly wings; ticks with the wings of blowflies. Hunter-killers, all of them. Relentless robots programmed to destroy.
We were all running. The soldiers had guns even though no one had guns while we were eating. Now they all had rifles and handguns and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. They started firing at the wave of hunter-killers.
The Bugs fired back. They don’t use bullets. They fire blue plasma bolts that can burn through anything.
We all scattered. I saw Shark and Lizabeth running with Barnaby, but I lost them when there was a whole bunch of explosions.
Then I saw the girl, Evangelyne, walking through the smoke.
She said, “They’ve stolen the Heart of Darkness.”
“Who cares?” I yelled back. “Get out of here. Get to cover!”
“A great darkness is coming,” she said, and her voice was half hers and half the Witch of the World’s. “It will consume this world. This world and all worlds.”
Then another ship came down. Not a drop-ship. This is the red one I keep seeing. Big and red.
It fired on us and then everything went black.
Milo woke in the dead of night, gasping, clutching with desperate fingers at the edges of the hammock. He was soaked to the skin with fear sweat, his thin sheet tangled like a snake around his legs.
His skin seemed to burn with the heat of the explosions in his dreams.
He lay there, panting, terrified, totally unable to move.
Listening to the night.
He wasn’t sure what woke him up.