Maybe you always woke before you died in a nightmare. Like when he dreamed of falling. He always woke before he smashed himself to jelly.
So, he woke now.
Or, maybe it was something else that woke him.
A sound.
Was it the creaking voice of the Witch of the World?
The world does not want to die. It wants to fight back. It needs an army, child. It needs champions.
No. That was only an echo of an echo of a dream.
This wasn’t an echo. He heard something.
Distant. Far away, carried by the night winds. Something so faint that it might have only been part of the nightmare.
However, the nightmare was fading, as nightmares do.
The sound, though, was still there, still riding the black breeze that roved over the forests alongside Bayou Teche.
It wasn’t a machine sound. No buzzing or clanking or humming.
This was different.
This was an animal sound.
And, though it was so unlikely as to be almost impossible, Milo Silk believed with every molecule of his being that he knew what it was.
It was the lonely howl of a wolf.
On Tuesday morning Milo woke to Barnaby yelling at him to get up, get his act together, get his head out of his butt, get fed, get dressed, and get in line.
He tried to hurry, but he was worn out by the dream and the hours spent writing in his dream diary instead of trying to get back to sleep. He’d finally fallen asleep with his face on the page and drool smearing the last few lines he’d written.
Milo was not comforted by the thought that it was all a dream and not the reality of the waking world. Too many things from his dreams had come true. He’d dream about people in camp going missing, and within a few days a small patrol was ambushed by shocktroopers. He’d dreamed of choking on food, and the next day twelve people were hit with food poisoning from canned food scavenged by Milo’s pod. No one died, but two of them, including little Lizabeth, were deathly sick.
He’d dreamed of Dad getting into his car and driving away, and the next day he and his whole patrol was lost. Presumed dead.
So, Milo did not lightly dismiss what he dreamed about.
Not that everything came true. He once dreamed of angels coming to rescue everyone. And in another dream the Bugs were bug-sized and everyone from camp gathered around to stomp them under foot.
Even so, the fury of the attack and the precision of detail scared him spitless.
The girl’s words stayed with him, too. They haunted him.
A great darkness is coming.
It will consume this world.
This world and all worlds.
And in his mind he could still hear the echo of that wolf’s lonely cry.
The world needs a hero.
Did any of it mean anything? You are a dreamer, child of the sun, but it is time to wake up and take a stand.
He wished he knew what that meant. If it were a question about how much he would actually risk to stop the Bugs, then he knew he didn’t have an answer. Milo knew that he was a long way from being anyone’s idea of “hero” material.
But what did being a hero actually mean?
He didn’t know.
And he dreaded finding out.
Dressed and more or less washed, he staggered through the darkened camp from the bayou to where the other eleven kids in his training pod were already in line. Shark stood there, fresh and looking rested, grinning like a ghoul. He punched Milo on the arm as he fell into line.
“Overslept by twenty minutes,” said Shark. “Smooth.” He pretended to sniff the predawn air. “Wait. Is that the sweet smell of a freshly dug latrine I smell? No . . . Wait. You haven’t dug it yet. Hope you like poop, dude. If you’re lucky, they’ll let you use a shovel.”
Lizabeth, who stood on Milo’s other side, giggled. So did most of the others.
Shark wore a big, toothy grin.
“Why don’t you stick your head in a hornet’s nest?” suggested Milo sourly. He yawned hard enough to make his jaw hurt, then sighed, long and deep.
A few moments later, Shark took a closer look at him, frowned and leaned closer. “Hey, you okay? You look like you got dragged by your heels down a mile of rocky road.”
“Dreams,” said Milo, which said enough. Not all, but enough.
Shark nodded. “Sorry, man. Knowing your dreams, I hope to heck I wasn’t in them.”
Milo didn’t answer. Everyone died in his nightmare about the hive ship attack. So instead, he said, “Did you hear something last night?”
“Like what?”
“I . . . I thought I heard the wolf howling.”
Shark shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything, but Killer was acting weird last night. Kept whining. I thought he wanted to go out, but he didn’t want to leave the tent.”
“Yeah, well, I heard the wolf.” Milo paused. “I think it means something.”
“How could that mean anything? It’s only a wolf.”
Milo had no answer for that. None that he wanted to share right then.
Barnaby turned toward them, gave everyone a truly vile scowl, and stuck out his pointy jaw. He was fifteen, four years older than Milo, but not much bigger. Small, thin, with a beaky nose and eyes like a hawk. He rarely smiled and certainly wasn’t doing it now. “Okay, now dat Mr. Silk has decided to grace us with his presence. . .”
“Sorry,” mumbled Milo.
“. . . we can do dis before we waste da whole day.”
The sun wouldn’t be up for another twelve minutes, but Milo didn’t think it was in his best interest to point this out.
“We going along da bayou,” said Barnaby. “A hummingbird drone spotted some wreckage by bolt-hole eight. Our job is go out, find da wreck, and den what we do . . . ?” He arched his eyebrows expectantly.
Everyone spoke in bored unison to give the required answer: “Approach, assess, assimilate.”
“And how we do dat?”
“Smart, skillful, and sly,” they answered.
“What do we do if dey’s trouble?”
“Run, run, run.”
Barnaby folded his arms and gave them a firm nod. “T’as raison.”
That’s right.
The bolt-holes were steel or brick-lined tubes dug into key spots throughout the region. Some were big enough to hide a dozen full-grown soldiers and all their gear; a few were two-person pits. All of the bolt-holes were shielded from radar and were designed to be invisible unless you knew how to find them. Knowing the locations of each bolt-hole was required for everyone. Checking, restocking, and cleaning them was the job of the learning pods. However, the bolt-hole—BH-8—that Barnaby mentioned was at least four miles southward along Bayou Teche toward the Atchafalaya River. That meant four miles in and four miles back, not counting the time it would take to actually find the wreck. Not exactly the five-mile hike Shark had said was on the schedule. Beside him he heard Shark groan as he realized the same thing.
Barnaby got up in Shark’s face. “Do we have a problem, Mr. Sharkey?”
Killer, standing beside Shark’s leg, uttered a low warning growl.
Barnaby glared down at him. “An’ who asked you, gator bait?”
There was a lot of big dog in Barnaby’s tone; Killer shrank into himself and pretended not to be there. Barnaby gave another of his firm nods and repeated his question to Shark.
Milo tensed. Shark had a habit of saying something smart instead of acting smart, and that usually got him in trouble.
But not today.
“No, sir,” said Shark, his face totally straight even though he had to call a teenager “sir.”
Barnaby gave him the stink-eye for a moment, then turned away. He pointed to a row of backpacks that were arranged in front of the food cart. “Supplies for da bolt-hole. Secondary mission is to restock BH-8. Everyone takes a full pack. Everyone carries dere own weight. Nobody helps nobody. To konprann?”
“Yes, sir,
” they all said. Everyone understood.
“Den get ready to pull out, you.”
The predawn sky was showing the first hint of color and the temperature was already climbing. It was going to be another hot one. Everyone shuffled over to fetch a backpack. There was a lot of quiet groaning, but they helped one another to heft the packs—which were heavy—and to adjust the straps.
Little Lizabeth staggered and nearly fell backward when Milo hoisted it on for her. He caught her, steadied her, and making sure Barnaby wasn’t looking, bent close and whispered in her ear, “First rest stop, I’ll dig out some cans and put them in my pack.”
She looked at him for a moment as if expecting some kind of prank or joke, but then smiled and shook her head. “It’s okay, Milo. I got it. Thanks, though.”
“You sure?”
She nodded bravely.
“Okay, my warriors of da wasteland!” snapped Barnaby, clapping his hands together with a sound like a gunshot. “Fall in.”
They lined up again, and before they left, Barnaby asked if anyone had any additional questions about the “mission.”
Shark couldn’t help himself and raised his hand. “I have a question, Mr. Guidry, sir.”
Barnaby’s eyes narrowed with wary suspicion. “Yes, Mr. Sharkey?”
Uh-oh, thought Milo, but Shark was already in gear.
“Rumor control says there’s a Stinger in these woods,” said Shark, his tone reasonable. “What do we do if we run into it? I hear they’re pretty fast. Do we run, run, run with these packs on?”
The team leader took a moment before he spoke, and in that moment he once more got up in Shark’s face. “If we do, Mister Sharkey, den we’ll feed your fat behind to him, and dat’ll give the rest of us all morning to stroll to da bolt-hole. Sound like a sensible plan, you?”
Shark, wisely, said nothing.
“Okay,” said Barnaby, stepping back and pointing toward the Teche. “Single file. I’m on point. Milo, you have our backs. Standard spacing. Everybody knows who dere escape partner is, so make sure you know where dey are at all times. Grab a stave on da way out. Okay, let’s go.”
Shark gave a last meaningful look at Milo, who grinned and shook his head.
One by one, they selected five-foot-long walking staves from a barrel at the edge of camp, and they followed one another into the woods.
Even though the woods around them were empty and dawn was starting to chase back the night, Milo felt an itchy spot between his shoulder blades. The way people do when they are sure they’re being watched. He glanced around, but if there were pale eyes watching him, he couldn’t see them.
That wasn’t as comforting as it should have been.
Everything was great for the first three and a half miles.
The sun rose like a threat. Harsh and glaring. Tentacles of mist curled up from the dewy grass and explored the spaces between trees, creeping along the trails and stretching over the surface of the bayou. The morning birds whispered secrets to one another.
Milo had been assigned to be last in line—not as a punishment but because Barnaby knew that Milo had sharp eyes and was good in the forests. You need a good observer out front and behind any group moving through uncertain territory. Milo was conscientious about his job, and he slowly and steadily let his gaze drift from side to side, watching the bayou, watching the forest, checking behind them, making sure it was all good. That they were all alone out there.
They skirted a small town, where a cluster of buildings was slowly turning to rot and pulp as nature reclaimed it. Milo’s pod had long ago scavenged everything of use, from the last kitchen chair to a cell phone that wasn’t totally rusted. Some of the chips from that phone had been enough to earn them all an afternoon off from chores.
A mile on they walked through a graveyard of dead aircraft. Leftovers from one of the first air battles against the Bugs. Milo knew that there were twenty-six fighter jets smashed into the landscape and only two of the Dissosterin attack ships. As they passed, he could just make out the line of crosses—each of them draped in moss—that marked where the pilots were buried.
The pod marched on, and Milo followed.
However, once, when he turned to make sure their back trail was clear, he saw a strangely familiar shape standing at the neck of the curve they’d just walked.
It was the wolf.
No doubt about it.
The animal stood there, silent and still, watching with its pale, pale eyes.
Once again, though, the girl’s voice whispered in his mind.
A great darkness is coming.
And the whispered words of the Witch of the World.
Would you walk in the shadows if it meant saving the world?
As those words echoed through the corridors of his memory, Milo could swear—absolutely swear—that the wolf bobbed its head. As if it was . . .
. . . nodding?
“Oh, come on,” he told himself. “It was just a dumb dream.”
Except that his voice was a weak and frightened croak.
Without knowing exactly why he did it—this was only an animal after all—he smiled and raised his hand to give a small wave. His hand trembled as he did so.
The wolf watched him.
“Friends, right?” Milo said. It wasn’t loud enough for the animal to hear, but it seemed important for Milo to say it, to put it out there.
The wolf did not nod its head again.
Milo whispered a name.
“Evangelyne.”
The wolf watched him with unblinking eyes.
The words of the witch replayed in his head as clearly as if she were real and whispering in his ear.
The world is always half in shadows and half in the sunlight. That’s what makes a world. If there were only shadows, the world would die in the cold. If there was only sunlight, it would burn up. It needs both sunlight and shadow to survive. Do you understand?”
The wolf watched as if waiting for him to react to a memory from a dream. It made Milo feel strange, as if there were no longer a solid wall between the stuff of his dreams and the things in the real world.
Behind him, Milo could hear the sounds of the others in his pod growing faint. He quickly turned to make sure they were still in sight.
They were, but only just.
He turned back to the wolf. . . .
It was gone.
The path through the forest was empty.
He knew that if he went to look for paw prints, he wouldn’t find any. Just like yesterday.
“So weird,” he said aloud.
Freeze!” hissed Barnaby. He stood stock-still, one fist raised.
Behind him, Milo and the others froze.
It was what they had been trained to do. Like rabbits who want to live a long time in a world of quick-footed predators.
Milo had one hand on his walking stick and the other on the handle of his slingshot. His body was like a statue. The whole swamp seemed to be filled with statues. Everyone stood absolutely still, trying to become part of the foliage. Becoming invisible by not making even a tiny movement that could draw the eye.
Around them the Louisiana wetlands were big and green and noisy.
Frogs thrummed on logs in the bayou. Birds chattered in the trees. Mosquitoes hummed through the air like squadrons of tiny fighter planes. Leaves rustled in the soft easterly breeze.
Milo waited. Everyone waited.
And listened.
Milo prayed this was only an exercise. That it was another drill.
At the front of the line, Barnaby stood with his fist still frozen in the air, his head cocked to listen. Barnaby had been born here in the Cajun swamp country. He knew every inch of the lands all around Bayou Teche. It was impossible to beat him in a game of track-and-trap. So, even though Milo didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary, if Barnaby said to freeze, then everyone, even the youngest of them, did just that.
Forty feet up and to the right, Shark met his eyes and mouthed t
he words: What is it?
Milo didn’t risk shaking his head, so he mouthed, Don’t know.
Barnaby was taking a long time listening. That scared Milo. If this were a drill to teach them to react to commands—which they did a lot—Barnaby would usually turn and watch his team to see if everyone was doing it just right.
So far, though, he hadn’t looked back at the team at all.
That was scary.
This had happened three times before on similar training hikes. Each time they’d waited, waited, and then it was over. All a big nothing.
Now they waited, waited, and kept waiting.
Milo could feel his stomach clench into a knot. His legs trembled with the urge to bolt and run, and he could do that rabbit-fast. Milo may not have had a lot of muscle or height or bulk, but he could run like nobody’s business. Only Killer was faster.
At the moment, Killer was frozen too, his little body crouched down near the ground, eyes alert, ears swiveling like antennae, nose twitching, muscles rigid. A line of hair slowly stood up along his spine.
Then, as Milo watched, Killer’s muzzle slowly scrunched into a snarl. He bared all of his teeth and his nails dug into the dirt, preparing him to attack. Or run.
Past him, Milo saw the expression on Shark’s face as he saw that snarl too.
That’s when Milo knew for sure that this wasn’t an exercise.
A moment later, Barnaby screamed out a single word.
“RUN!”
They scattered like leaves.
The pod, their team leader, and one little dog. Fourteen bodies that blew away from the clearing as if pushed by a gust of strong wind.
“Drop packs!” came Barnaby’s order, and Milo felt his heart freeze. Dropping supplies during flight was serious business. You did it only in the worst circumstances.
Oh my God, Milo thought as he hit the release and let the pack fall off as he ran. Without its weight, he moved twice as fast. He cut left and ran toward a tangle of wild bougainvillea, smashed through the spray of purple flowers, and found a deer trail running southeast.
He hadn’t taken four steps when he heard Barnaby’s voice rise to an even higher shriek.
“No! Not dat way!”