The 5th Wave

Chapter 5

THAT WAS THE LAST PERSON I've seen.
The leaves are falling heavy now, and the nights have turned cold. I can't stay in these woods. No leaves for cover from the drones, can't risk a campfire—I gotta get out of here.

I know where I have to go. I've known for a long time. I made a promise. The kind of promise you don't break because, if you break it, you've broken part of yourself, maybe the most important part.

But you tell yourself things. Things like, I need to come up with something first. I can't just walk into the lion's den without a plan. Or, It's hopeless, there's no point anymore. You've waited too long.

Whatever the reason I didn't leave before, I should have left the night I killed him. I don't know how he was wounded; I didn't examine his body or anything, and I should have, no matter how freaked out I was. I guess he could have gotten hurt in an accident, but the odds were better that someone—or something—had shot him. And if someone or something had shot him, that someone or something was still out there . . . unless the Crucifix Soldier had offed her/him/them/it. Or he was one of them and the crucifix was a trick . . .

Another way the Others mess with your head: the uncertain circumstances of your certain destruction. Maybe that will be the 5th Wave, attacking us from the inside, turning our own minds into weapons.

Maybe the last human being on Earth won't die of starvation or exposure or as a meal for wild animals.

Maybe the last one to die will be killed by the last one alive.

Okay, that's not someplace you want to go, Cassie.

Honestly, even though it's suicide to stay here and I have a promise to keep, I don't want to leave. These woods have been home for a long time. I know every path, every tree, every vine and bush. I lived in the same house for sixteen years and I can't tell you exactly what my backyard looked like, but I can describe in detail every leaf and twig in this stretch of forest. I have no clue what's out there beyond these woods and the two-mile stretch of interstate I hike every week to forage for supplies. I'm guessing a lot more of the same: abandoned towns reeking of sewage and rotting corpses, burned-out shells of houses, feral dogs and cats, pileups that stretch for miles on the highway. And bodies. Lots and lots of bodies.

I pack up. This tent has been my home for a long time, but it's too bulky and I need to travel light. Just the essentials, with the Luger, the M16, the ammo, and my trusty bowie knife topping the list. Sleeping bag, first aid kit, five bottles of water, three boxes of Slim Jims, and some tins of sardines. I hated sardines before the Arrival. Now I've developed a real taste for them. First thing I look for when I hit a grocery store? Sardines.

Books? They're heavy and take up room in my already bulging backpack. But I have a thing about books. So did my father. Our house was stacked floor to ceiling with every book he could find after the 3rd Wave took out more than 3.5 billion people. While the rest of us scrounged for potable water and food and stocked up on the weaponry for the last stand we were sure was coming, Daddy was out with my little brother's Radio Flyer carting home the books.

The mind-blowing numbers didn't faze him. The fact that we'd gone from seven billion strong to a couple hundred thousand in four months didn't shake his confidence that our race would survive.