Where It All Goes Down
Apocalyptic Nightmare World
An alien race known as the Others recently touched down on Earth (no, not really—don't panic) and so far they've been the worst guests ever. Let's say a stranger showed up to your house uninvited, killed your entire family, and kicked you to the curb. That's pretty much how Cassie feels about what the Others have done to her and the planet.
Oh yeah, and now they're chasing her through the hellscape that used to be Ohio.
According to Colonel Vosch, aliens have been spying on humans for some 6,000 years. They finally revealed themselves to humanity a few months ago, and in the time since they've killed some seven billion people. Now that Cassie's on the run, she has to watch out for Others (which is tough, since they look like people) as well as garbage humans who've decided to loot and plunder the dying planet.
There are fires everywhere, but very few people (unless you count the bodies, which Cassie doesn't). She keeps a journal because the world hasn't been gone long enough for her to lose all her sentimentality.
Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping the sky. That's how quiet it is. (6.16)
And speaking of sentimentality, she still carries around her cell phone even though it's fried:
Cell towers don't work, and there's no one to call if they did. But, you know, it's my cell phone. (5.20)
It's an apocalypse, for sure, but it's worth noting that all the awfulness is still pretty fresh—Cassie's not a hardened survivor yet; she's still a newly-traumatized victim.
Cassie spends the first part of the novel outside doing her survival thing, but after she's injured, she moves indoors to the farmhouse that belongs to Evan Walker and his family (R.I.P). With scented baths and homemade hamburgers, she has it pretty good there.
Meanwhile, Ben and Cassie's brother, Sammy, are slaving away at Camp Haven, less than a hundred miles away. (Fun fact: Camp Haven is a real place, Wright-Pattersen Air Force Base. It's in Dayton, Ohio.) Long story short, it's a military base that everyone thinks belongs to American soldiers. Secretly, though, it's controlled by Others, who are in the process of rounding up human children and training them to (unwittingly) murder their own kind.
Evan gets a little carried away and blows it sky high at the end of the novel, so that's that for ol' Camp Haven. Good riddance.
One more thing—after the death of her mother, Cassie and her fam spend a short time at a place she calls Camp Ashpit. It's a makeshift shelter built to house sick people during the plague. Named for its charming pit of human cremains, we only see Camp Ashpit in flashbacks. It's only worth mentioning because it's the place where Sammy was kidnapped and Cassie's dad was killed.
Otherwise, we don't really like to think about Camp Ashpit.