Rick Yancey

Are you okay?" I (Cassie) call up to him."Um. Define okay." (Ben)"Okay means you're not bleeding to death.""I'm okay.

How baffling it is that we imagined cities incinerated by alien bombs and death rays when all they really needed was Mother Nature and time.

But if I'm it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I'm going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield.

Love is forever. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be love. The world is beautiful. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be the world.

Cities are more than the sum of their infrastructure. They transcend brick and mortar, concrete and steel. They're the vessels into which human knowledge is poured.

Time for the world to end.

How would you rather die?" she snapped. "Hiding under your bed or riding Thunder Mountain?

It's an alien apocalypse! Quick, grab the beer!

In the early days, it was nearly omnipresent, a constant background noise, like the hum of traffic on a busy highway: the sound of a human being in pain.

Ten thousand years to build civilization, ten months to tear it down, and each day lasted ten times longer than the one before, and the nights lasted ten times as long as the days. The only thing more excruciating than the boredom of those hours was the terror of knowing that any minute they could end.

When I cry - when I let myself cry - that's who I cry for. I don't cry for myself. I cry for the Cassie that's gone.And I wonder what that Cassie would think of me.The Cassie who kills.

Yes, my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.

You know you've reached a very sad place when the only person who can make you laugh is yourself.

But the most wonderful thing of all, our highest achievement and the one thing for which I pray we will always be remembered, is stuffing wads of polyester into an anatomically incorrect, cartoonish ideal of one of nature's most fearsome predators for no other reason than to soothe a child.

I give her my best smile. Before the alien Armageddon happened, I was known for my smile. Not bragging too much, but I had to be careful never to smile while I drove. It had the capacity to blind oncoming traffic. But it has absolutely no effect on Ringer. She doesn't squint in its overwhelming luminescence. She doesn't even blink.

Zombie!_ Sammy calls. __ knew it was you.__ombie?__here are you taking him?_ Ben says to me in a deep voice. I don__ remember it being that deep. Is my memory bad or is he lowering it on purpose, to sound older?__ombie, that__ Cassie,_ Sam chides him. __ou know__assie.___assie?_ Like he__ never heard the name before.__ombie?_ I say, because I really haven__ heard that name before.I pull off the cap, thinking it might help him recognize me, then immediately regret it. I know what my hair must look like.__e go to the same high school,_ I say, drawing my fingers hastily through my chopped-off locks. __ sit in front of you in Honors Chemistry.__en shakes his head like he__ clearing out the cobwebs.Sammy goes, __ told you she was coming.___uiet, Sam,_ I scold him.__am?_ Ben asks.__y name is Nugget now, Cassie,_ Sam informs me.__ell, sure it is._ I turn to Ben. __ou know my brother.

You're mortal, and only a mortal can afford to be romantic. When we conquered death, we murdered love.

The world will burn for a hundred years. Fire will consume the things we made from wood and plastic and rubber and cloth, then water and wind and time will chew the stone and steel into dust. How baffling it is that we imagined cities incinerated by alien bombs and death rays when all they needed was Mother Nature and time.