The 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave #1)(18)

I don’t know how Dad answered that question, but apparently it passed inspection, because we were allowed into camp with full privileges, which meant Dad (not me, though) was allowed to have his pick of weapons from the cache. Dad had a thing about guns. Never liked them. Said guns might not kill people, but they sure made it easier. Now he didn’t think they were dangerous so much as he thought they were ridiculously lame.

“How effective do you think our guns are going to be against a technology thousands, if not millions, of years ahead of ours?” he asked Hutchfield. “It’s like using a club and stones against a tactical missile.”

The argument was lost on Hutchfield. He was a marine, for God’s sake. His rifle was his best friend, his most trusted companion, the answer to every possible question.

I didn’t get that back then. I get it now.

13

IN GOOD WEATHER, everyone stayed outside until it was time to go to bed. That ramshackle building had a bad vibe. Because of why it was built. Why it existed. What had brought it—and us—into these woods. Some nights the mood was light, almost like a summer camp where by some miracle everybody liked one another. Someone would say they heard the sound of a helicopter that afternoon, which would set off a round of hopeful speculation that the People in Charge were getting their acts together and preparing for the counterpunch.

Other times the mood was darker and angst was heavy in the twilight air. We were the lucky ones. We’d survived the EMP attack, the obliteration of the coasts, the plague that wasted everyone we knew and loved. We’d beaten the odds. We’d stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You’d think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn’t.

We were like the Japanese who survived the initial blast of the Hiroshima bomb. We didn’t understand why we were still here, and we weren’t completely sure we wanted to be.

We told the stories of our lives before the Arrival. We cried openly over the ones we lost. We wept secretly for our smartphones, our cars, our microwave ovens, and the Internet.

We watched the night sky. The mothership would stare down at us, a pale green, malevolent eye.

There were debates about where we should go. It was pretty much understood we couldn’t squat in these woods indefinitely. Even if the Others weren’t coming anytime soon, winter was. We had to find better shelter. We had several months’ worth of supplies—or less, depending upon how many more refugees wandered into camp. Did we wait for rescue or hit the road to find it? Dad was all for the latter. He still wanted to check out Wright-Patterson. If there were People in Charge, the odds were a lot better we’d find them there.

I got sick of it after a while. Talking about the problem had replaced actually doing something about it. I was ready to tell Dad we should tell these douchebags to stuff it, take off for Wright-Patterson with whoever wanted to go with us and screw the rest.

Sometimes, I thought, strength in numbers was a highly overrated concept.

I brought Sammy inside and put him to bed. Said his prayer with him. “‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’” To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in there somewhere.

It was a clear night. The moon was full. I felt comfortable enough to take a walk in the woods.

Somebody in camp had picked up a guitar. The melody skipped along the trail, following me into the woods. It was the first music I’d heard since the 1st Wave.

“And, in the end, we lie awake

And we dream of making our escape.”

Suddenly I just wanted to curl into a little ball and cry. I wanted to take off through those woods and keep running until my legs fell off. I wanted to puke. I wanted to scream until my throat bled. I wanted to see my mother again, and Lizbeth and all my friends, even the friends I didn’t like, and Ben Parish, just to tell him I loved him and wanted to have his baby more than I wanted to live.

The song faded, was drowned out by the definitely less melodic song of the crickets.

A twig snapped.

And a voice came out of the woods behind me.

“Cassie! Wait up!”

I kept walking. I recognized that voice. Maybe I’d jinxed myself, thinking about Ben. Like when you’re craving chocolate and the only thing in your backpack is a half-crushed bag of Skittles.

“Cassie!”

Now he was running. I didn’t feel like running, so I let him catch up to me.

That was one thing that hadn’t changed: The one sure way of not being alone was wanting to be alone.

“Whatcha doing?” Crisco asked. He was pulling hard for air. Bright red cheeks. Shiny temples, maybe from all the hair grease.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I shot back. “I’m building a nuclear device to take out the mothership.”

“Nukes won’t do it,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “We should build Fermi’s steam cannon.”

“Fermi?”

“The guy who invented the bomb.”

“I thought that was Oppenheimer.”

He seemed impressed I knew something about history.

“Well, maybe he didn’t invent it, but he was the godfather.”

“Crisco, you’re a freak,” I said. That sounded harsh, so I added, “But I didn’t know you before the invasion.”