The 5th Wave Read Free Page B

someone screaming, but it wasn’t him screaming,
     it was me screaming, me and everybody else who was left, if there was anybody left,
     all of us helpless, hopeless, stupid humans screaming, because we got it wrong, we
     got it all wrong, there was no alien swarm descending from the sky in their flying
     saucers or big metal walkers like something out of
Star Wars
or cute little wrinkly E.T.s who just wanted to pluck a couple of leaves, eat some
     Reese’s Pieces, and go home. That’s not how it ends.
    That’s not how it ends at all.
    It ends with us killing each other behind rows of empty beer coolers in the dying
     light of a late-summer day.
    I went up to him before the last of the light was gone. Not to see if he was dead.
     I knew he was dead. I wanted to see what he was still holding in his bloody hand.
    It was a crucifix.

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 orsomething 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