→ my name is lana snyder and this is my story on what happened at the end of the world. we were invaded and it was a mass instinctive event. but somehow i was one of the survivors.
- the 5th wave
→ started : 12/22/22 - finished : 3/17/23
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a week after ringer arrived, squad 53 moved up from tenth to seventh place. by week three, we had edged past squad 19 to take fifth. then, with only two weeks to go, we hit a wall, falling sixteen points back from fourth place, a nearly insurmountable deficit.
poundcake, who isn't much for words but is a boss with numbers, breaks down the spread. in every category except one, there's very little room for improvement: we're second in obstacle course, third in air raid and the run, and first in "other duties as assigned," a catchall that includes points for morning inspection and "conduct befitting a unit of the armed forces." our downfall is marksmanship, where we rank sixteenth, despite kickass shooters like ringer, me and poundcake. unless we can pull up that score in the next two weeks, we're doomed.
of course, you don't have to be a boss with numbers to know why our score is so low. the squad leader sucks at shooting. so the sucky-shooting squad leader goes to the senior drill instructor and requests extra practice time, but his scores don't budge. i know how to shoot but i don't know how to teach. ringer agrees it's just dumb luck. she tries hard not to show it, but zombies ineptitude with a gun pisses her off. her former squad ranks second. it she hadn't been reassigned, she'd be guaranteed to graduate with the first class and be first in line for a pair of sergeant stripes.
"i've got a proposition for you," she says one morning as we hit the yard for the morning run. she's wearing a headband to hold back her silky bangs. "i'll help you, on one condition." she says to zombie.
"does it have anything to do with chess?"
"resign as squad leader." she says, i look at zombie praying he won't give up leader. no one would've had the patience with this squad besides him. "you didn't ask for it, you don't care about it, why not let me have it?" she asks, keeping her eyes on the path.
"why do you want it so bad?"
"giving the orders is my best chance to stay alive."
following the path that snakes out of the yard and across the hospital parking lot to the airfield access road. in front of us now the power plant barfing its black and gray smoke.
"how 'bout this," he suggests. "you help me, we win, i step down."
it's a meaningless offer. we're recruits. it isn't our call who's squad leader; it's rezniks.
a black hawk thunders overhead, returning from night patrol.
"ever wonder how they did it?" she asks, watching the chopper swing off to our right toward the landing zone. "got everything running again after the emp strike?"
"no," he answers honestly. "what do you think?"
her breaths tiny white explosions in the frigid air. "underground bunkers, it has to be. that or..."
"or what?"
"too crazy, zombie," she says finally. "come on, let's see what you've got, football star."
he's four inches taller than she is. for every one stride he takes, she has to take two. so he beats her.
barely.
ever since ringer has come zombie and i haven't been talking much. at all actually maybe here and there talks, but he says it's because he wants her to feel welcome and we've been busy making it to number one. but i guess that's what it is now.
