“No, I’m just getting started.”
Finn reaches above my head, wraps two hands around the pole, and snaps it like a twig. The bottom is jagged, and I know that he means to spear me with it. He lifts it high above his head, long and awkward in the blowing gale and grins before he drives it down.
Pow!
I startle as gunfire reverberates off the school’s walls and Finn stumbles and drops the pole, clutching his chest. Red stains his white t-shirt.
Pow!
The next shot echoes with the thunder and blood seeps from the hole in Finn’s forehead. He falls, dead, and thank the good Lord for it.
I hear, “Stay where you are, Mathers.”
It’s Tanner’s voice. I glance to my rear and see him walking toward us, handgun drawn, one black eye swollen shut.
I’m able to croak, “Why did you do that?” when he reaches me. He walks by, ignoring my shock as he steps cautiously over to Finn’s body, then fires until he’s sure that the most powerful weapon on Earth is no more.
“Why?” he says to me. “I warned them this would happen. You can’t give something with a conscious that much power, with a conscious by itself, no, but with a conscience, maybe. Today you. Tomorrow the rest of the world.”
I’m able to sit up with some effort. “You said they could control him.”
Tanner says, “They tried to send him orders. They wanted to shut him down in order to keep you alive.”
“Why?”
“Why, why, why, Mathers? So many questions. Research. Brainwashing. Does it matter? Whatever the case, they wanted you alive, so they sent a string of commands telling him to stand down. It didn’t work. Biometrically, he was able to ignore it, and they don’t know how his body and mind were able to override the signals.” Tanner steps over to me, leans down, and offers his hand. I take it, but only because I don’t think I can get up on my own. He pulls me to my feet and adds, “I’ll likely be court-martialed for letting him talk me into giving you the serum, because ultimately, that led to this. If not, then I’ll have more paperwork to fill out than I could ever dream of.”
“Why get rid of him and not me?”
“People are always killing the old gods to make room for the new ones. You’ll get that one day. Beside, I could put a bullet in your heart right here, Mathers, but what fun would that be? What fun is it killing a wounded animal? We’ll do this again some other time when I’m excited about the possibility of a chase, but for now, you’re not a threat to me.”
I want to say, Are you sure about that?
Instead, I ask him where my parents are. He gives me instructions to where they’re being kept, tells me I’ve earned it. Tells me the men guarding them are under his command, and there won’t be any trouble. They’re under orders to allow us to walk out undeterred.
I say, “It seems stupid to ask you if that’s a promise.”
“Promises are made to be broken, Mathers. I only deal in facts, and the fact is, you’re safe, and they’re safe. For now.” He points to his black eye, the result of my backhand. He says, “I owe you for this. I’ll see you again.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” I say, hobbling away, holding my ribs, “but you’re free to come looking.”
Over a small hill to the southwest, back in the direction of Rafael’s Ridge, I’m sure I see a speck of sunlight peeking through the clouds.
Is that really the sun, or are the spirits of my past glowing like a beacon, guiding me home?
Epilogue
True to his word, Tanner’s men, six of them in total, guard a small warehouse that used to be full of provisions, and they allow me to walk right in the front door to find my parents among a group of PRV citizens high on Happy Juice.
It’s dark in here, nowhere near as bright as the gymnasium, with a random smattering of bare bulbs shining up near the ceiling. Rain pitter-patters off the metal roof and receding lightning flashes in the high windows. It smells like spoiled goat milk and rotten horsemeat in here, and I can’t tell if that’s the actual source of the stench, or if it’s merely the hundreds and hundreds of unwashed bodies.
They’re just as crowded as they were in the other location, but there are fewer of them, and they don’t seem to be as clean as the others were.
However, if not clean, they look healthy, and they’re bubbling with excitement as they cheerily greet me, the intruder covered in blood and bruises that are only now beginning to fade. The healing warmth has returned, but not with its previous strength.
Mother and Father must see me coming before I see them, because I’ve hardly made it a few steps before I’m wrapped up in squeezing arms and smothered in joyful kisses.
Father is saying, “My God, you made it. You made it!” while Mother cups my cheeks in her hands and stares me in the eyes. She can’t hold back her tears.
“My baby,” she says. “My sweetheart. We will never, ever leave you again. Once when you were a child was too many, but twice, back home, that’s unforgiveable.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I’m here now.”
PRV citizen-slaves gather around us in a circle, smiling and squealing with delight. I can tell they’re giddy and drunk on Happy Juice, like the others, like the way we used to sneak sips of sour mash back home and feel our cheeks flush in the lightheadedness.
It’s then I grasp that Mother and Father—however excited they are to see me—appear to be normal.
Two of Tanner’s men gruffly break up the gathering.
When the blackcoats are out of earshot, I ask Mother, “Have you been taking the shots? The green liquid?”
Her finger goes to her lips as she shushes me. “They were short on nurses and ordered me to help. We haven’t had a single dose. We were worried about what it would do to us, and it looks like we made the right choice. Faking it was the hardest part.”
I offer a prayer of thanks for the wonder of small miracles.
“Let’s get out of here before he changes his mind,” I say, tugging on their arms.
“Who?”
“Tanner.”
“Tanner? Who’s that?” Father asks. “I don’t know anyone—”
“We have to go, now.”
“Caroline, they’re not going to let us walk out of here.” They both struggle against my grip.
“They will, Mother. You have to trust me.”
“They’ll kill us. They’ll kill you if they knew who you were.”
“How do you think I got in here? If they cared, I’d be dead already.”
“But where are we going? What’ll we do?”
“We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
Mother and Father both surrender at the same time and follow me toward the entrance. I can see the fear in their eyes. I take their hands in mine and squeeze to let them know it’ll be okay.
A young blackcoat, who looks to be younger than me, gives us a short nod and opens the door for us, and as we stride past, heading out into our thinly granted freedom, he asks, “Why’d Tanner say y’all could go, huh? What’s so special about a girl like you?”
“Nothing,” I answer. “Not a damn thing.”
We take the shortest route possible back to the old encampment, and that means walking across open fields of green, getting soaked to the bone without any cover until we reach the forests north of where I grew up. Mother and Father ask question after question about how I survived, my life as a Kinder, and what happened back in Warrenville; where did I go? How did I end up here?
I answer everything, giving as much detail as I can remember, because what else is there to do except for putting one foot in front of another?
They’re eager to see the home they left a decade ago, and when I assure them that it’s no longer a place full of happy memories, but a graveyard of regret, they insist that it can’t be that bad.
“Wait and see,” I tell them. “We have work to do, and we won’t be able to stay.”
We hike through the night, making good time, and while my
Kinder energy has returned, Mother and Father are exhausted once we reach the clearing where Merrin and I were assaulted.
Merrin... I hope she’s okay.
The three of us camp under the same pine tree. My memories of my time there are tainted and hard to acknowledge, but the fact of the matter is, this particular tree has the widest boughs, providing cover for the three of us to lie side-by-side, huddled together for warmth. We rotate standing watch throughout the night, and when it’s my turn, I sit calmly, listening to the sounds of the rainy forest, randomly interrupted by my father’s occasional snore.
I see a figure down the hillside, and for a split-second, my senses tingle with fear until I realize it’s our scarecrow hanging against the maple’s trunk. It’s funny to think that thing survived, too.
I look down at the man and woman next to me, so familiar, so distant.
In a way, it seems strange to have them here. They’ve been absent for most of my life. We don’t exactly have a mother-father-child relationship, but I’m hopeful that will come with the passage of our remaining days.
They’re Mother and Father, even if they don’t feel like a mother and a father, not quite yet, but out of everything I have lost—my love, my land, my home, my friends, my Republicon brothers and sisters—having my parents back is the best thing I could have gained.
When the sparrows and chirping robins wake me the next morning, we arise, brush the dirt and leaves away from our clothes, and begin the long, slogging climb up the northern side of Rafael’s Ridge.
We crest at the top, and I pause to allow Mother and Father to catch their breaths. I’m hesitant to go into the valley. I know what it’s like down there.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask. “It’s going to be…tough.”
Father puts his hands on his hips and leans back to stretch his muscles. He squints against the rain while Mother takes her hair down from her ponytail, twists it around in her hands, then cinches it up into a bunch. She wipes at the sweat on her neck, saying, “We have to go, Caroline. You said there’s work to be done.”
I’ve tried to explain to them how horrible it is. I gave them all the details yesterday during our hike. Mother cried. Father struggled to blink back tears, covering a trembling lip with his hand. Regardless, they say they want to see it for closure and to say their goodbyes. I’m not sure my words have done the situation justice, and I expect there will be more tears shed.
Once we reach the northern edge of the lake, I realize that I’m close to where Brandon saved my life.
I stop in the middle of the trail. “Can you guys go ahead without me?”
Mother takes my hand. “We shouldn’t split up, sweetheart.”
“I’ll be okay. Just a few minutes. I have to look for something.” I’m careful to say something and not someone because I don’t feel like answering those questions. They’ll remember Brandon as a child, but they won’t know how close we were. If his body is still there all this time later, I want to have a private moment on my own.
Father nods, sensing something in me, and nudges Mother along. He smiles. “Don’t be long.”
“I won’t.”
It takes ten minutes, maybe more, to find the blackcoat soldiers, the unfortunate ones who dared to sneak ahead for a look while we tried to defend our land.
There’s no sign of Brandon’s body. I look and I look, kicking up piles of leaves and searching behind fallen trees and underneath rock outcroppings. There’s no sign of any tracks. No leaves disturbed, nothing. It’s possible that the constant rain changed the landscape of the forest floor, or perhaps when the DAV army marched through here their footsteps destroyed any evidence of his movements. Hard to say. So much can happen in the woods in such a short amount of time.
There should be some indication, shouldn’t there? Even if a bear dragged his body off for a meal, I should be able to spot his limp legs digging into the bed of leaves, right?
Was he still alive when I ran away? Did he get up and try to walk home? No, he couldn’t have. It’s not possible.
But what if he was? What if he tried to make it back, and I left him here?
I throw myself down on the ground.
I abandoned him. I left him behind when he needed me.
This is stupid. I shouldn’t have done this. I should’ve gone on with Mother and Father. I should’ve gone back to what I knew.
“Caroline?”
The voice is distant, soft.
“Caroline, is that you?”
It can’t be.
“Merrin? Merrin? Is that you? Where are you?”
She screams my name with equal parts of relief and joy. “Caroline!” To the west and down in a shallow ravine, I spot the bravest, strongest little girl I have ever known, and I am overcome with happiness. “Here,” she shouts, waving up at me.
“What’re you doing down there?”
“Hiding,” she answers, climbing up the hillside. “I heard people, and I got scared.” She jumps into my arms and we hug and we cry together and she’s so relieved, I can feel her shaking. She tells me about how she ran away from Chalmers and Blotter and spent days in the woods alone, trying to make sure they weren’t following her. She ate berries, drank rainwater, and slept in caves. “Except for the one with the bobcat,” she says. “He wasn’t happy.”
She says she’s been back in the encampment for a day or so at this point. I ask her what she’s doing this far away from it now, this far north.
“Brandon told me to come.”
I have to play along. I don’t want to muddle her enthusiasm. “Oh, did he now?”
“He wanted to show me something.”
“And what was that?”
“It’s down here. This way.”
I follow her west about twenty yards until we reach a spot on the sloping hill that seems flatter than the rest. There’s a piece of wood jammed into the ground. Old and gray, it looks like the rot in it is so severe the wood would break apart if you glared at it with a disapproving eye.
“What is it?” I ask her.
“Brandon’s grave,” she answers simply, as if it’s the most easily understood thing in the world.
“What? No.”
Pointing at the grave marker, she says, “Look at the wood. There’s something written on it.”
I lean down closer and she’s right. The words are faint and hastily carved, like someone with a pocketknife was in a rush. They read, “PRV BOY. DAMN THE BLACKCOATS.”
“Merrin, is this really Brandon’s grave?”
“Well, that’s what he said.”
“His ghost?”
“Yeah.”
“Then who buried him?”
She shrugs. “He says it was a stranger coming through from down south. There were too many bodies in the village, but he did this to make up for it.”
“Brandon said all this?”
“Just this morning. He wanted to show me.”
I push leaves away from the earth. The dirt looks settled. The grave has been here for a while.
I hesitate to ask her, but I feel like it’s necessary. “Merrin, is Brandon still here? I, uh, I mean do you see him now?”
“No, he left. Time to go to the Great Beyond is what he said.”
I can’t hide my disappointment. “Oh no. Why?”
“Because you were safe. You’re at peace now, and his spirit can rest.”
Whether ghosts exist or they’re just the creation of an overactive imagination, why would I want to tell her she’s wrong about something like that?
The memories of our encampment’s destruction have yet to fade, but we’re all comforted by the fact that every one of the dead can move over to the other side.
We worked tirelessly for days, digging graves, saying prayers, and filling holes.
Merrin brought us food from the General Chief’s basement and fresh water from the river while Mother, Father, and I took turns until our palms were bloody with broken blisters. Mine healed in sec
onds. Theirs still bear the scars.
At one point, during a restful break, Father had said, “Some of the others from the capital had heard a rumor about the seaside states. I didn’t believe a word of it but now...who knows? Said they were opening their borders to tourists.”
“We have to go see. What else do we have to do?” Mother had insisted, eyes gleaming, and that was the end of it. She found no argument from us.
It took us two months. Father nearly broke an ankle. Merrin got so sick from eating wild berries that we lost a week nursing her. Mother found out she was allergic to bees and we lost two more days.
We made it, though.
Warm, sunny Florida. The Panhandle, they call it, in a place that goes by the name of Pensacola.
Sun! Can you believe it?
The people here are nice.
I hadn’t wanted to tell them about my past, but Merrin let it slip one day; they’re curious about me being a Kinder—they thought we were only legends. Already the people of warm, sunny Pensacola, Florida joke about how I’m going to lead them all one day like the great and mighty hero that I am.
I laugh. I shrug and say, “Maybe,” then I pick up another pretty seashell to add to my collection.
Dear Reader
I can’t thank you enough for spending your valuable time with my writing. Caroline’s journey (and mine) through this dismal, rainy world has been a long and arduous one, and I’m glad it was able to end with a little ray of hope and sunshine. I think after everything she went through, she deserved to see blue sky again.
Some of my early readers have already asked if Caroline will be coming back for more adventures, and at this point in time, all I can say is, “…”
We’ll have to wait and see. At the moment I’m involved with a number of other projects—that I encourage you to check out if you enjoy my fiction—but perhaps one of these days we’ll see her again!
Thanks go out to my dedicated readers and those that help make these books possible. You know who you are.
Above all, I wouldn’t be able to do this without the amazing support of my wife. Her kindness, understanding, and willingness to let this crazy ride continue is invaluable.
The Light of Hope Page 17
