The Pulse (27 page)

He was dead—dead as his brother.

She looked over at Taryn, who screamed at the top of her lungs as the soldiers grabbed the gun from her shaking hands and picked her naked body up, dragging her out of the car.

“I had to do it!” Taryn screamed.

One of the soldiers saw Jenna and grabbed her arm as well.

Taryn shook her head wildly. “Don’t touch her, she didn’t do anything wrong,” she sobbed. “It was all me. I killed him, she told me not to but she couldn’t stop me.”

Tears filled Jenna’s eyes as her friend tried to save her for the second time that evening.

“We’re taking you to Colonel Lanche,” one of the soldiers said, looking down at Taryn with disgust. “He’ll take care of you.”

“Please, please don’t do that,” Jenna said. “He’ll have her executed.”

“She deserves to be executed—she’s a murderer, like your other friend, Emily. Something has to be very wrong with you,” the soldier said thoughtfully, looking at his fallen comrade, “for you to hang out with these fucked-up chicks.”

“Please,” Jenna begged, falling to her knees, “don’t let him kill her for this. She was trying to protect me.”

Taryn cried so hard she looked like she could barely breathe, and her naked flesh shivered in the light of the garbage fire. Jenna picked up her oversized T-shirt and sweat pants and went over to her friend as she struggled weakly in the soldier’s arms.

“Let me dress her,” Jenna said. “Please.”

The soldier nodded and Jenna carefully dropped the shirt over Taryn’s head, pulling her arms through the sleeves like she might dress a child, or a doll.

“Thank you,” Taryn whispered, stepping into the pants as Jenna quickly pulled them up around her waist before the men changed their minds.

“I’m so sorry about this, Taryn,” she whispered, kissing her cheek, tasting the salty tears.

“I’ll be okay,” Taryn said. “Even if they kill me, I’ll be okay.”

Jenna started crying with her then. “I won’t let them kill you,” she said.

The soldier grabbed Taryn again, holding her arms behind her back and forcing her to move forward. Taryn dragged her feet, refusing to walk to her death.

A soldier shook his head as they all walked off with the girl. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Potterskill, NY

MASON

Mason didn’t want
to tell Emily about the town hall meeting that would decide his fate. He had no choice, however. After all, they were deciding whether she could stay as well.

Mason had no doubt the people would vote to keep Emily, but she was obviously very upset anyway. Her brow furrowed as they followed the line of people into the meeting.

“Don’t worry,” Mason whispered as they entered the large town hall, lit with homemade wall sconces and candles. “They need you.”

“I’m not worried about me,” she whispered back, her eyes filled with concern. “What if they make you leave?”

Mason shrugged, trying to act nonchalant even as his stomach churned at the thought.

The Potterskill council consisted of half a dozen men, including Luke. Every resident in town had shown up that evening, murmuring softly amongst themselves.

Luke struck a gavel on an old folding table, and the people quieted.

“We’re here this evening to place a vote on whether or not to allow two new residents into our town,” Luke said, holding everyone’s attention. “In making your decision, please remember that every extra person we take on severely taxes our limited resources. That being said, Emily is a skilled nurse, as many of you know.”

Mason frowned. Luke obviously didn’t want him staying in Potterskill. Mason raised his hand, coughing loudly so he couldn’t be ignored.

Luke nodded in his direction. “Go ahead.”

Mason stood, addressing the group. “I’m Mason. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn my keep here—I can help with any manual labor you have. I’m good with firearms, so I can help hunt, and I can do guard duty up at the road too if you guys needed me to. I know I may seem like another mouth to feed, but if you let me stay I promise I will give more than I take.” That was it. He had nothing more to add, nothing more to offer. He sat back down on the metal folding chair.

Luke turned to Emily. “Do you have anything to add?”

Emily blushed bright pink, making her look even more breathtaking to Mason. “Um, I’m a registered nurse, as you know. I’ve upset some of you by being realistic about your town’s medical resources. If you let me stay that will probably happen again, but I think it’s better to have a trained professional triage than to make the wrong decision based on emotion. I’d really like to stay, and have Mason be allowed to stay too. He’s very strong and like he said he’s great with guns. He’d be a good guy to have around for extra protection.”

The townspeople started murmuring again and Mason felt his insides twist. Most of them were men—and there was no way those men wanted Emily’s lover keeping her off the market. Fuck. This couldn’t end well.

“There’s one more thing I have to say,” Emily interrupted. “Potterskill is an amazing community, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we’d love to be a part of it. But there are other places that are hell on earth, like the military camp at Grand Central run by Colonel Lanche. I don’t know if Potterskill has the ability to get the word out about Grand Central, but if you can help the people living there…” She trailed off as if she didn’t know exactly what she hoped would happen.

Luke lifted his gavel. “Okay,” he said loudly. “All those in favor of Emily being allowed to stay on in Potterskill as a permanent resident, raise your hand.”

Almost every single hand rose. No surprise there.

“All those in favor of Mason being allowed to stay on in Potterskill as a permanent resident, raise your hand.”

This time, out of a room filled with over a hundred people, only a few scattered hands went up. All women.

Mason’s heart sank into his stomach, feeling like it was being slowly eaten away by the churning acid. The town had decided. He was out.

“Emily, welcome to Potterskill,” Luke said. “Mason, you have three days and then you need to leave.”

“Wh-what about Grand Central?” she asked, her voice tight.

Luke’s eyes softened. “We have a very limited mail system, as you know. I can try to get a message out, but there’s not much we can do. We certainly can’t afford to take in a city full of refugees from the camp.”

Mason nodded slowly. He had expected as much, on both counts. Emily had bright tears in her eyes, but she did a pretty good job of holding herself together.

“If you have to leave,” Emily whispered to him, “I’ll leave too.”

“I don’t need you to come with me,” he lied.

The hurt look on her face made him feel like he’d been punched in the gut. He couldn’t think about sparing her feelings right now. If he had to leave on Monday, then he had a lot of preparations to make. Such as finding Emily a replacement—for himself.

Mason urged Emily
to go without him to church the following morning. Not because he had anything against church. He wanted to hang back, and observe. He could always join her later if he needed to.

Potterskill had a large church following, and the place was packed. The town did seem to consist mainly of young men and only a dozen or so women, although those women were already paired off with some of the men. A few skinny children played on the road outside the church, not needing to be mindful of traffic.

Emily went to bed early after the town meeting, but Mason spent Saturday night talking to Luke, who had three suggestions for eligible men. Luke assured him that each of the men would provide for Emily and protect her. Mason walked by their houses the following morning, and instantly got rid of two of the choices.

One man had a woman leaving his house at the crack of dawn, so he wasn’t the right guy to ask to take care of Emily—he already had a woman, whoever she was. The other man looked nice. Too nice. Like the sort of man that other men wouldn’t be afraid of. And that defeated the purpose.

When Mason saw Brad Crimshaw, however, he knew he had found the right guy. Brad was a big dude—the type of guy that other guys wouldn’t want to mess with, so they’d keep their hands off his woman. He had a small but well-maintained house, a ton of firewood already chopped, and the guy certainly didn’t look like he was hungry. So he would do fine.

And he was walking into the church now.

“Brad,” Mason called. The other man looked up in surprise.

“Who’s asking?”

“Name’s Mason. I came here with the nurse, Emily.”

Brad smiled. “Oh yeah, Emily! My cousin got a nasty cut helping me chop wood, and she took real good care of it. Probably won’t get infected now, hopefully, anyway.”

“Must be hard, not having any young women around,” Mason said, trying to think of a way to broach the subject.

“I didn’t touch her,” Brad said darkly, looking ready to throw down.

Mason laughed. “It’s okay, I’m not here about that. I’m not—I told the guards I was her husband, but I’m not. Listen, can we keep this between us for now?”

The man grunted. Mason took that as a yes.

“As you know, I have to be leaving soon. Tomorrow, actually. I want you to meet Emily, see if you like her. And then I have a proposition for you.”

Brad raised his eyebrow. “What?”

“I want you to take care of her after I leave. Let her live with you. Make sure she eats and doesn’t get overworked, that sort of thing.”

Mason looked at Brad, wondering what he’d say to his unusual proposition. Mason needed to know she’d be looked after and protected by a guy who wasn’t a complete douche bag.

“I can’t do that, man,” Brad said, shaking his head.

Mason cursed under his breath. “You already got a woman?”

“No.”

“You, um…” Mason stopped himself. Asking Brad if he was a homosexual was probably not the best way to win points with the guy. But his hesitation gave his question away anyway.

Brad laughed. “Nope, not gay. But that sounds like some sort of arranged marriage, man. It’s still America.”

“I’m not asking you to force her into anything. Just be persistent. I’ll let her know I think she should be with you too.”

“Well, I admit it would be nice to live with a woman. Gets lonely sometimes, especially with so few women left.” Brad looked at Mason. “So I’ll meet her, I guess. But no promises.”

“I don’t have time to fuck around,” Mason growled. “I have to leave tomorrow. So if you can take care of her for me, I’d be able to leave feeling okay about it. And you’d make out well, you know you would. Emily’s a good girl, and she’s beautiful, you know she is.”

Brad nodded. “She is.”

Mason gestured inside the church. “She’s sitting in there.”

“No, I’m not.” Emily’s voice behind him startled him.

“Emily, I thought you were in church,” Mason said, surprised.

“I was. I had to use the outhouse. I was going to go back in but someone twisted his ankle on the way back so I—” She sighed. “You know the drill.” She turned and looked up at Brad. “Hi, I’m Emily.”

Brad shook her hand and smiled at her. “Brad Crimshaw. You fixed up my cousin’s leg. Much obliged.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure. How’s he doing?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“No redness, no oozing, no signs of infection?” she asked, going into nurse mode. “No fever?”

“No,” Brad said, the smile widening. “He’s good. Gosh, you’re a sweet girl, aren’t you?”

Emily blushed and Mason felt his stomach roll. When he left, she was going to fall in love with Brad. And they were going to sleep together. The thought of Brad with his hands all over Emily made him feel sick to his stomach, even if Brad seemed like a nice enough man.

Emily is mine, damn it.

He wanted to take her with him, and forget the whole plan to leave her in another man’s capable hands. But he couldn’t do that. He had to be selfless this time, for Emily’s sake.

“Brad’s got a house on the edge of town,” Mason said. “Lots of firewood.”

“That’s… nice,” Emily said, looking at Mason with a strange expression on her face. “Were you going into the church?” she asked both the men.

“I was going to,” Brad said. “But Mason here had some questions for me.”

“I see.” The confused expression on her face indicated she had no idea what was going on. “Well, I’m going back in. You coming?”

Mason nodded. “In a minute.”

Brad hung back too as Emily walked into the church, taking a seat near the back so as not to disturb the service.

“Well?” Mason asked, looking at Brad, who still watched her from the doorway.

Mason
looked at Brad expectantly, wondering if this was the man who would look after Emily for him when he had to leave her behind tomorrow.

“She’s beautiful,” Brad admitted again. “Why don’t you bring Emily by my place after church so we can get to know each other a bit better before I make any promises. You could help chop more wood.”

Mason nodded. He should feel happy, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before Emily won over Brad and ensured her own future in the town. Instead he felt like he’d been sucker punched in the gut.