Pines (12 page)

New goal: eat.

He crossed the street to the chirping of crickets and lawn sprinklers clicking in the distance.

Wondered: are they real?

Kids chased one another in the grass—shouting, laughing, shrieking.

Tag.

The clinking was coming from a game of horseshoes. Two groups of men stood across from each other in opposing sandpits, cigar smoke clouding around their heads like exploded haloes.

Ethan had almost reached the vacant lot, thinking the best move would be to approach the women. Crank the charm. These seemed like decent people living a perfect moment of the American dream.

He straightened his jacket as he moved from the pavement into the grass, smoothing the wrinkles, fixing his collar.

Five women. One in her early twenties, three between thirty and forty, one silver haired, mid to late fifties.

They were drinking lemonade out of clear, plastic cups and discussing some piece of neighborhood gossip.

No one had noticed him yet.

Ten feet out, while trying to invent some nonintrusive way of breaking into their conversation, a woman his age looked over at him and smiled.

“Hello there,” she said.

She wore a skirt that dropped below her knees, red flats, and a plaid blouse. Her hair was short and vintage, like something from a fifties sitcom.

“Hi,” Ethan said.

“You come to crash our little block party?”

“I have to admit, the smell of whatever you’ve got cooking on that grill pulled me over.”

“I’m Nancy.” She broke away from her group and extended her hand.

Ethan shook it.

“Ethan.”

“You new here?” she asked.

“I just got into town a few days ago.”

“And how are you enjoying our little hamlet?”

“You have a lovely town. Very welcoming and warm.”

“Aw. Maybe we will feed you after all.”

She laughed.

“You live around here?” Ethan asked.

“We all live within a few blocks. The neighborhood tries to get together for a cookout at least once a week.”

“How Mayberry of you.”

The woman blushed deeply. “So what are you doing in Wayward Pines, Ethan?” she asked.

“Just here as a tourist.”

“Must be nice. I can’t even remember my last vacation.”

“When you live in a place like this,” Ethan said, gesturing to the surrounding mountains, “why would you ever leave?”

“Would you care for a cup of lemonade?” Nancy asked. “It’s homemade and delicious.”

“Sure.”

She touched his arm. “Be right back. Then I’ll introduce you around.”

As Nancy went to the coolers, Ethan glanced toward the other women, looking for a window to enter the conversation.

The oldest of the bunch—a woman with pure white hair—was laughing at something, and as it occurred to him that he’d heard this laugh before, she brushed her shoulder-length hair back behind her ears.

The nickel-sized birthmark on her face stopped his heart.

It couldn’t be, but...

Right height.

Right build.

She was speaking now, the voice almost unquestionably familiar. She drew back from the group of women, pointing at the youngest with a mischievous smirk.

“I’m going to hold you to that, Christine,” she said.

Ethan watched her turn and walk to the farthest horseshoe pit, where she laced her fingers through those of a tall, broad-shouldered man with a mane of wavy, silver hair.

“Come on, Harold, we’re going to miss our show.”

She tried to pull him away.

“One more throw,” he protested.

She released him, and Ethan stood speechless as Harold lifted a horseshoe out of the sand, took careful aim, and gave it a toss.

The horseshoe arced over the grass and ringed the metal stake.

Harold’s team cheered. He gave several dramatic bows and let the snow-haired woman drag him away from the party.

Their friends called good night after them.

“Ethan, here’s your lemonade.” Nancy offered him the cup.

“I’m sorry, I have to go.”

He turned and walked back out into the street.

Nancy called after him, “Don’t you want to stay and eat?”

By the time Ethan turned the corner, the older couple were a block ahead of him.

He quickened his pace.

Followed them for several blocks as they walked slowly ahead at the pace of two people who had not a care in the world, holding hands, their voices and laughter lilting up into the pines.

They turned down a street and vanished.

Ethan jogged to the next intersection.

Quaint Victorian houses lined both sides of the street.

He didn’t see them anywhere.

The sound of a door closing echoed down the block. He spotted the house it had come from—green with white trim. Front porch with a swing. Third one down on the left.

He crossed the street and took the sidewalk until he stood in front of it.

Little patch of perfect green grass. The front porch under the shadow of an old pine tree. On the mailbox, a last name he didn’t recognize. He put his hands on the picket fence. It was dusk. Lights just beginning to wink on in the houses all
around him. The occasional snippet of conversation sliding through a raised window.

The valley silent and cooling and the highest elevations of the surrounding mountains catching the last bit of daylight.

He unlatched the gate, pushed it open.

Walked up an old stone path to the porch.

The steps creaked under his weight.

Then he stood at the front door.

He could hear voices on the other side.

Footsteps.

A part of him didn’t want to knock.

He rapped his knuckles on the glass of the outer door, took a step back.

Waited a full minute, but no one came.

He knocked harder the second time.

Footsteps approached. He heard a lock turn. The wood door swung open.

That broad-shouldered man looked at him through the glass.

“Can I help you?”

Ethan just needed to see her up close, under the porch light. Confirm it wasn’t her, that he wasn’t going mad. Move on with his myriad other problems in this town.

“I’m looking for Kate.”

For a moment, the man just stared at him.

Finally, he pushed open the glass door.

“Who are you?”

“Ethan.”

“Who are you?”

“An old friend.”

The man stepped back into the house, turned his head, said, “Honey, could you come to the door for a minute?”

She responded with something Ethan couldn’t make out, and the man said, “I have no idea.”

Then she appeared—a shadow at the end of a hallway leading into the kitchen. Passed briefly through the illumination of an overhead light, and padded in bare feet through the living room up to the door.

The man stepped aside and she took his place.

Ethan stared at her through the glass door.

He shut his eyes and opened them again. He was still standing on this porch and she was still, impossibly, behind the glass.

She said, “Yes?”

Those eyes.

Unmistakable.

“Kate?”

“Yes?”

“Hewson?”

“That was my maiden name.”

“Oh my God.”

“I’m sorry...do I know you?”

Ethan couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“It’s me,” he said. “Ethan. I came here to find you, Kate.”

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

“I’d know you anywhere. At any age.”

She glanced over her shoulder, said, “It’s fine, Harold. I’ll be in in a moment.”

Kate opened the door, stepped down onto the welcome mat. She wore cream-colored pants and a faded blue tank top.

A wedding ring.

She smelled like Kate.

But she was old.

“What’s happening?” Ethan asked.

She took him by the hand and led him over to the swing at the end of the porch.

They sat.

Her house stood on a small rise with a view of the valley, the town. House lights were everywhere now and three stars had popped.

A cricket, or a recording of a cricket, chirped in one of the bushes.

“Kate...”

She put her hand on his leg and squeezed, leaned in close.

“They’re watching us.”

“Who?”

“Shhh.” She motioned toward the ceiling, a slight upward gesture with her finger, whispered, “And listening.”

“What’s happened to you?” Ethan asked.

“Don’t you think I’m still pretty?” That snarky, biting tone was pure Kate. She stared down into her lap for a minute, and when she looked up again, her eyes glistened. “When I stand in front of the mirror and brush my hair at night, I still think about your hands on my body. It’s not what it used to be.”

“How old are you, Kate?”

“I don’t know anymore. It’s hard to keep track.”

“I came here looking for you four days ago. They lost contact with you and Evans and sent me here to find you. Evans is dead.” The statement appeared to have little impact. “What were you and Bill doing here?”

She just shook her head.

“What’s going on here, Kate?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you live here.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Years.”

“That’s impossible.” Ethan stood, his thoughts swarming.

“I don’t have answers for you, Ethan.”

“I need a phone, a car, a gun if you have—”

“I can’t, Ethan.” She stood. “You should go.”

“Kate—”

“Right now.”

He held her hands. “That was you when I lost consciousness on the street last night.” He stared down into her face—laugh lines, crow’s-feet, and still so beautiful. “Do you know what’s happening to me?”

“Stop.” She tried to pull away.

“I’m in trouble,” he said.

“I know.”

“Tell me what—”

“Ethan, now you’re putting
my
life at risk. And Harold’s.”

“From who?”

She tore away from him, started toward the door. When she reached it, she looked back, and for a moment, standing out of the light, she could have been thirty-six years old again.

“You could be happy, Ethan.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You could have an amazing life here.”

“Kate.”

She pushed open the door, stepped inside.

“Kate.”

“What?”

“Am I crazy?”

“No,” she said. “Not at all.”

The door closed after her, and then he heard the dead bolt turn. He walked to the door and stared at his reflection in the glass, half-expecting to see a sixty-year-old man, but he was unchanged.

He wasn’t hungry anymore.

He wasn’t tired.

Moving down the steps, down the stone path, and onto the sidewalk, he only felt this tightness in the center of his chest, a familiar sensation that used to hit him just before a mission—walking out to the chopper as the ground crew loaded the fifty-cal Gatling gun and the Hellfires.

Fear.

* * *

Ethan didn’t see a car until the next block—a mid-1980s Buick LeSabre, its windshield plastered with dried pine needles and sitting on four tires that could have used some air.

The doors were locked.

Ethan crept up onto the porch of the closest house and lifted a stone cherub from its perch under a window. Through the thin curtains, he saw a young boy inside, seated at an upright piano, playing some gorgeous piece of music, the notes drifting out onto the porch through a four-inch crack where the window had been raised off the sill.

A woman sat beside him, turning pages of sheet music.

Though only a foot tall, the cherub was solid concrete and weighed in excess of thirty pounds.

Ethan hauled it back out into the street.

There was simply no way to do this quietly.

He heaved it at the window behind the driver seat, the angel punching easily through. He unlocked the door, pulled it open, climbed inside over the shattered glass, over the seats, and behind the wheel. The impact had decapitated the angel, and Ethan grabbed its head out of the backseat.

Two blows were sufficient to crack open the plastic sheathing under the steering column and expose the ignition cylinder.

The light inside the car was bad.

He worked solely through feel, fingers tugging out the power and starter wires.

The piano playing inside the house had stopped. He glanced toward the porch, saw two silhouettes now standing behind the curtain.

Ethan fished the pocketknife out of his jacket, opened the largest blade, and cut the pair of white wires he was betting fed power to the car. Then he shaved the plastic sheathing off the ends and twisted them together.

The dashboard lit up.

The front door to the house swung open as he found the darker-colored starter wire.

A boy’s voice: “Look at the car window.”

Ethan shaved some plastic off the end of the starter wire, exposing the threads of copper.

The woman said, “Wait here, Elliot.”

Please, please, please.

Ethan touched the starter wire to the power wire, a blue spark crackling in the darkness.

The engine coughed.

The woman was moving toward him through the yard.

“Come on,” Ethan said.

He touched the wires together again, and the engine turned over.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

On the fourth, it caught and sputtered to life.

He revved the RPMs, shifted into drive, and punched on the headlights as the woman reached the passenger-side door, yelling through the glass.

Ethan sped off down the street.

At the first intersection, he turned left and backed off the gas pedal, reducing his speed into the realm of reason—a
pace that wouldn’t draw attention, somebody out for a nice evening drive.

The gas gauge showed a quarter of a tank remaining. Reserve light not yet on. Not a problem. There was enough fuel to blow out of Wayward Pines. Once he got over the pass, there was a one-stoplight town about forty miles south. Lowman, Idaho. Right on the highway. They’d stopped there for gas on the way out. He could still picture Stallings by the pump in his black suit, filling the tank. Ethan had walked out to the edge of the empty highway, stared at the abandoned buildings across the road—a shuttered roadhouse and general store, and one diner, still alive but barely kicking, the smell of grease in the smoke that trickled out of a vent on the roof.