Sergeant runs behind them, his gun in his hand. “Don’t waste rounds,” Sergeant calls out to his people. “Pick your target.” He fires his gun, and his people fire, too, and the guns make a sound so loud it runs all the way out into the dark and then comes back again, but Melanie can’t see what it is they’re firing at or if they hit it. She’s got other stuff to worry about, anyway.
This close up, the smelly stuff that Miss Mailer sprayed on herself isn’t strong enough to hide the Miss Mailer smell underneath. The hunger is rising again inside Melanie, filling her up all the way to the top, taking her over: Miss Mailer’s arm is right there beside her head, and she’s thinking
please don’t please don’t please don’t
but who is she pleading with? There’s no one. No one but her.
A shape looms in the darkness: a thing as big as a room, that sits on the ground but rocks from side to side and spits dirt in their faces with its deep, dry breath and drones to itself like a giant trying to sing. It has a door in its side; some of the children sit there, inside the thing, in their chairs, tied in with straps and webbing so it looks like a big spider has caught them. Some of Sergeant’s people are there, too, shouting words that Melanie can’t hear. One of them slaps the side of the big thing: it lifts into the air, all at once, and then it’s gone.
Sergeant’s arm clamps down on Miss Mailer’s shoulder and he turns her around, bodily. “There!” he shouts. “That way!” And they’re running again, but now it’s just Sergeant and Miss Mailer. Melanie doesn’t know where Sergeant’s people have gone.
There’s another one of the big rocking things, a long way away: a
helicopter,
Melanie thinks, the word coming to her from a lesson she doesn’t even remember. And that means they’re outside, under the sky, not in a big room like she thought at first. But even the astonishment is dulled by the gnawing, insistent hunger: her jaws are drawing back, straining open like the hinges of a door; her own thoughts are coming to her from a long way away, like someone shouting at her through a tiny mesh window:
Oh please don’t please don’t!
Miss Mailer is running toward the helicopter and Sergeant is right behind. They’re close to it now, but one of the big swinging lights turns and shows them some men running toward them on a shallow angle.
The men don’t have guns like Sergeant does, but they have sticks and knives and one of them is waving a spear.
Sergeant fires, and nothing seems to happen. He fires again, and the man with the spear falls. Then they’re at the helicopter and Miss Mailer is pulled inside by a woman who seems startled and scared to see Melanie there.
“What the fuck?” she says.
“Sergeant Robertson’s orders!” Miss Mailer yells.
Some more of the children are here. Melanie sees Anne and Kenny and Lizzie in a single flash of one of the swinging lights. But now there’s a shout and Sergeant is fighting with somebody, right there at the door where they just climbed in. The men with the knives and the sticks have gotten there, too. and the sticks have gotten there, too.
Sergeant gets off one more shot, and all of a sudden one of the men doesn’t have a head anymore. He falls down out of sight. Another man knocks the gun out of Sergeant’s hand, but Sergeant takes his knife from him somehow and sticks it into the man’s stomach.
The woman inside the copter slaps the ceiling and points up—for the pilot, Melanie realizes. He’s sitting in his cockpit, fighting to keep the copter more or less level and more or less still, as though the ground is bucking under him and trying to throw him off. But it’s not the ground, it’s the weight of the men swarming on board.
“Shit!” the woman moans.
Miss Mailer hides Melanie’s eyes with her hand, but Melanie pushes the hand away. She knows what she has to do, now. It’s not even a hard choice, because the incredible,
This close up, the smelly stuff that Miss Mailer sprayed on herself isn’t strong enough to hide the Miss Mailer smell underneath. The hunger is rising again inside Melanie, filling her up all the way to the top, taking her over: Miss Mailer’s arm is right there beside her head, and she’s thinking
please don’t please don’t please don’t
but who is she pleading with? There’s no one. No one but her.
A shape looms in the darkness: a thing as big as a room, that sits on the ground but rocks from side to side and spits dirt in their faces with its deep, dry breath and drones to itself like a giant trying to sing. It has a door in its side; some of the children sit there, inside the thing, in their chairs, tied in with straps and webbing so it looks like a big spider has caught them. Some of Sergeant’s people are there, too, shouting words that Melanie can’t hear. One of them slaps the side of the big thing: it lifts into the air, all at once, and then it’s gone.
Sergeant’s arm clamps down on Miss Mailer’s shoulder and he turns her around, bodily. “There!” he shouts. “That way!” And they’re running again, but now it’s just Sergeant and Miss Mailer. Melanie doesn’t know where Sergeant’s people have gone.
There’s another one of the big rocking things, a long way away: a
helicopter,
Melanie thinks, the word coming to her from a lesson she doesn’t even remember. And that means they’re outside, under the sky, not in a big room like she thought at first. But even the astonishment is dulled by the gnawing, insistent hunger: her jaws are drawing back, straining open like the hinges of a door; her own thoughts are coming to her from a long way away, like someone shouting at her through a tiny mesh window:
Oh please don’t please don’t!
Miss Mailer is running toward the helicopter and Sergeant is right behind. They’re close to it now, but one of the big swinging lights turns and shows them some men running toward them on a shallow angle.
The men don’t have guns like Sergeant does, but they have sticks and knives and one of them is waving a spear.
Sergeant fires, and nothing seems to happen. He fires again, and the man with the spear falls. Then they’re at the helicopter and Miss Mailer is pulled inside by a woman who seems startled and scared to see Melanie there.
“What the fuck?” she says.
“Sergeant Robertson’s orders!” Miss Mailer yells.
Some more of the children are here. Melanie sees Anne and Kenny and Lizzie in a single flash of one of the swinging lights. But now there’s a shout and Sergeant is fighting with somebody, right there at the door where they just climbed in. The men with the knives and the sticks have gotten there, too. and the sticks have gotten there, too.
Sergeant gets off one more shot, and all of a sudden one of the men doesn’t have a head anymore. He falls down out of sight. Another man knocks the gun out of Sergeant’s hand, but Sergeant takes his knife from him somehow and sticks it into the man’s stomach.
The woman inside the copter slaps the ceiling and points up—for the pilot, Melanie realizes. He’s sitting in his cockpit, fighting to keep the copter more or less level and more or less still, as though the ground is bucking under him and trying to throw him off. But it’s not the ground, it’s the weight of the men swarming on board.
“Shit!” the woman moans.
Miss Mailer hides Melanie’s eyes with her hand, but Melanie pushes the hand away. She knows what she has to do, now. It’s not even a hard choice, because the incredible,
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