“That doesn’t sound like heaven! That sounds like prison!” And manned watchtowers and twenty-four/seven video surveillance and twenty-foot fencing topped with razor wire and big, mean guard dogs that can smell a nonhuman five miles away.”
“Does Camp Heaven really have a force field?” The soldier stands up, and Sammy reaches for his hand. Maybe you’re looking at one right now.” A different kind of smile now. He wishes he were old enough to be a soldier like Parker. “Nobody has, at least not in my company, but we’re looking forward to it.” He smiles a hard soldiery smile, and Sammy’s heart quickens. “Well, people used to say the same thing about aliens.” There’s even an invisible force field, in case the visitors try anything.” But it’s probably the most secure place in North America right now. “And you’re gonna love Camp Haven,” the soldier says.
That’s exactly what Daddy said on a night after the power died, after he boarded the windows and blocked off the doors, when the bad men with guns came out to steal things.Īfter Mommy got sick and Daddy slipped the white paper mask over Cassie’s and his faces. When he saw the empty bed and knew without asking that she was gone with Nan-Nan and all the others, the ones he knew and the ones he didn’t know, the ones they piled up and burned at the edge of town. You have to be brave now, Cassie told him the day his mother died. “Not far at all,” the soldier called Parker answers. So he asks the soldier, “How much farther?” Maybe the aliens wouldn’t stop until they had taken everything away, until the whole world was like Sammy, empty and alone and Bearless. When would it-when would they-stop? Maybe never. When morning came, he thought he would wake up and all the wonderful presents the Others had brought would be there.īut the only thing the Others brought was death. It made every night feel like Christmas Eve. And Sammy couldn’t wait to go inside the mothership and blast off into space just like Luke Skywalker in his X-wing starfighter. When the Others first came, his father told him the world had changed and nothing would be like before, and maybe they’d take him inside the mothership, maybe even take him on adventures in outer space.
Nobody told him, but he just knows that when they finally come it will be in the dark and it will be without warning, like the other waves, and there will be nothing you can do about it, it will just happen, like the TV winking out and the cars dying and the planes falling and the plague, the Pesky Ants, Cassie and Daddy called it, and his mommy wrapped in bloody sheets. It will be dark soon, and the dark is the worst time. The soldier sits beside him again, asks his name, and says his name is Parker. He sees something is wrong, though Sammy smiles and pretends he doesn’t feel so empty and Bearless. The soldier offers him a bottle of water. The more he tries to forget Bear, the more he remembers him, the more he misses him, and the more he wishes he hadn’t left him behind. The air in the bus quickly grows stale and the temperature rises, making the children sleepy.īut Sam gave Bear to Cassie to keep her company, and he’s never slept without Bear, not ever, not since Bear came to him, anyway.
The freckle-nosed medic comes down the aisle again, and this time he’s handing out bottles of water and telling them to close the windows because some of the children are cold and some are scared by the rush of the wind that sounds like a monster roaring. They’ve been dragged or pushed onto the roadsides to clear the way for the busloads of children. Their engines rev up to a guttural roar, and they shoot toward the sun on a highway cleared of wrecks and stalled cars. The narrow dusty road becomes a wider paved road, and then the buses turn onto an even wider road. “You’re the most important thing,” the soldier says, and his boyish face is set and serious. He stands up, pulls off his green jacket, and gently lets it fall over her. “As soon as you guys are safe.” The soldier glances at the girl again.