Ben Parish/Zombie Character Analysis

I’m dying. I know that. Seventeen years old and the party’s over.

Short party.

Zombie was born on the morning I left the convalescent ward. Traded in my flimsy gown for a blue jumpsuit. Assigned a bunk in Barracks 10. Whipped back into shape by three squares a day and brutal physical training, but most of all by Reznik, the regiment’s senior drill instructor, the man who smashed Ben Parish into a million pieces, then reconstructed him into the merciless zombie killing machine that he is today.

“Can we pray? Is that against the rules?”

“Sure you can pray. Just not out loud.”

Tank’s body is stacked with the others by the hangar doors to be disposed. He’s loaded onto the transport for the final leg of his journey to the incinerators, where he will be consumed in fire, his ashes mixing with the gray smoke and carried aloft in a column of superheated air, eventually to settle over us in particles too fine to see or feel.

“It’s about connection,” she says. She motions for me to sit down. She sits in front of me, takes my hands.

He whispers something. I bring my ear close to his mouth. “My name is Kenny.” Like it’s a terrible secret he’s been afraid to share.

His eyes roll toward the ceiling. Then he’s gone.

“Ben, we’re the 5th Wave.”

“You know we’re not coming back,” he says, and lights the match.

“I don’t want to be a shark,” I whisper.

He looks at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. He could have said, Shark? Who? What? Huh? Who said you were a shark? Instead, he begins to nod, like he totally gets it. “You aren’t.”

You, not we. I give his long look back to him.

You’re soft. You should have killed him. You can’t rely on luck and wishful thinking. The future of humanity belongs to the hardcore.

I level the silencer at his chest as his hand emerges from the pocket.

The hand that holds a gun.

But my hand holds an M16 assault rifle.

How long is one half of one half second?

Long enough for a little boy who doesn’t know the first rule to leap between the gun and the rifle.

And then, instead of jumping onto the Humvee like a normal person, Ben Parish turns and races back for me.

I wave him back. No time, no time, no time no time no time no time.

I’m shaking. He must notice, because he puts his arm around me and we sit like that for a while, my arms around Sammy, Ben’s arm around me, and together the three of us watch the sun break over the horizon, obliterating the dark in a burst of golden light.

I’m dying. I know that. Seventeen years old and the party’s over.

Short party.

Zombie was born on the morning I left the convalescent ward. Traded in my flimsy gown for a blue jumpsuit. Assigned a bunk in Barracks 10. Whipped back into shape by three squares a day and brutal physical training, but most of all by Reznik, the regiment’s senior drill instructor, the man who smashed Ben Parish into a million pieces, then reconstructed him into the merciless zombie killing machine that he is today.

“Can we pray? Is that against the rules?”

“Sure you can pray. Just not out loud.”

Tank’s body is stacked with the others by the hangar doors to be disposed. He’s loaded onto the transport for the final leg of his journey to the incinerators, where he will be consumed in fire, his ashes mixing with the gray smoke and carried aloft in a column of superheated air, eventually to settle over us in particles too fine to see or feel.

“It’s about connection,” she says. She motions for me to sit down. She sits in front of me, takes my hands.

He whispers something. I bring my ear close to his mouth. “My name is Kenny.” Like it’s a terrible secret he’s been afraid to share.

His eyes roll toward the ceiling. Then he’s gone.

“Ben, we’re the 5th Wave.”

“You know we’re not coming back,” he says, and lights the match.

“I don’t want to be a shark,” I whisper.

He looks at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. He could have said, Shark? Who? What? Huh? Who said you were a shark? Instead, he begins to nod, like he totally gets it. “You aren’t.”

You, not we. I give his long look back to him.

You’re soft. You should have killed him. You can’t rely on luck and wishful thinking. The future of humanity belongs to the hardcore.

I level the silencer at his chest as his hand emerges from the pocket.

The hand that holds a gun.

But my hand holds an M16 assault rifle.

How long is one half of one half second?

Long enough for a little boy who doesn’t know the first rule to leap between the gun and the rifle.

And then, instead of jumping onto the Humvee like a normal person, Ben Parish turns and races back for me.

I wave him back. No time, no time, no time no time no time no time.

I’m shaking. He must notice, because he puts his arm around me and we sit like that for a while, my arms around Sammy, Ben’s arm around me, and together the three of us watch the sun break over the horizon, obliterating the dark in a burst of golden light.