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Just go It doesn’t matter, Cassie Does it matter? No It doesn’t s to your fear--things like It doesn’t

I stood up No, it really didn’t matter if the soldier had a mouth like a lobster or looked like Justin Bieber’s twin brother

I grabbed Sammy’s teddy fro

Soh I didn’t head off into the woods I didn’t rush off to e with the best chance to save ht have been the teddy bear that did it When I picked it up, I saw ainst the backof the bus, heard his little voice inside my head

For when you’re scared But don’t leave hiet If I hadn’t walked over to check Branch for weapons, I would have Branch had fallen practically on top of poor teddy

Don’t leave him

I didn’t actually see any bodies back there Just Dad’s What if someone had survived those three minutes of eternity in the barracks? They could have been wounded, still alive, left for dead

Unless I didn’t leave If there was soone, then I would be the one leaving them for dead

Ah, crap

You kno sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don’t have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn’t mean they apply to you

I turned around and headed back, stepping around the body of Branch as I went, and dove into the dusky tunnel of the trail

23

I DIDN’T FORGET the assault rifle the third tier into my belt, but I couldn’t very well expect to fire an assault rifle with a teddy bear in one hand, so I had to leave hiet you," I whispered to Sammy’s bear

I stepped off the path and wove quietly through the trees When I got close to the coe

Well, that’s why you didn’t hear the to a couple of soldiers at the doorway to the storehouse Another group wasaround by one of the Humvees I counted seven in all, which left five more I couldn’t see Were they off in the woods soone--maybe the others had pulled disposal duty There were forty-two of us, not counting the kids who had left on the buses That’s a lot of disposing

Turns out I was right: It was a disposal operation

It’s just that Silencers don’t dispose of bodies the e do

Vosch had taken off his uys ith hi out of their chins They looked like perfectly ordinary hus, at least from a distance

They didn’t need the masks anymore Why not? The masks must have been part of the act We would expect them to protect themselves from infection

Two of the soldiers calobe the saray metallic color as the drones Vosch pointed at a spot midway between the storehouse and the barracks, the same spot, it looked like, where my father had fallen

Then everybody left, except one felobe

The Huine joined the duet: the flatbed troop carrier, parked at the head of the cootten about that The rest of the soldiersfor what?

The re soldier stood up and trotted back to the Humvee I watched hi cloud of dust Watched the dust swirl and settle The stillness of summer at dusk settled with it The silence pounded in low

That was a good thing, a bad thing, or a thing that was neither good nor bad, but whatever it was, good, bad, or neither, depended on your point of view

They had put the globe there, so to thehter A sickly yellowish green Pulsing slightly Like a…A what? A beacon?

I peered into the darkening sky The first stars had begun to coood thing fro fro more toward definitely

The interval between pulses shortened every few seconds The pulse became a flash The flash became a blink

Pulse…Pulse…Pulse…

Flash, flash, flash

Blinkblinkblink

In the glooreenish-yellow eyeball winking at me

The Eye will take care of her

My memory has preserved what happened next as a series of snapshots, like freeze-frame stills froles

SHOT 1: Ona crab-craay fro The foliage a blur of green and brown and ray