Taylor idly traced the scar under her eye, and it broke Duncan’s heart a little further.
“None of the other men ever came for me. I guess Jacob had marked me as his.” She snorted derisively. “Maybe I should be grateful for that.”
Duncan started to protest, but the words died on his lips as Taylor turned her eyes back to him once more.
“Jacob wanted to break me. And by the end”—she swallowed hard, tears sliding down her cheeks—“I stopped fighting him. I know I should have fought, should have…but I…”
She broke off, sobbing now, unable to dam the flood. Duncan wanted to say something, tell her it was okay, tell her she had just done what she needed to survive. He wanted to scream that it was not her fault, to shake her until she understood she had done nothing wrong, to absolve her of the shame she felt but did not deserve, but he knew anything he said now would sound hollow to Taylor’s ears.
He watched as, slowly, her sobbing eased, and the impassive mask that protected Taylor from the horrible reality of her past slipped back into place.
“Finally, one night, after they were done with one of the women, I heard footsteps again. What little was left of me, that could feel anything but numb, was terrified. I knew one of us was going to die. I heard the lock on my door crack open, and I knew the one dying was going to be me. I looked up through the eye that wasn’t swollen shut and found Tim there, staring down at me.
“He was crying. He raced over to me and untied my hands, asked me if I could walk. I didn’t understand what was happening. He helped me up, told me I had to be quiet. He led me out of my cell, leaned me up against the wall, and told me to wait. I watched him go to the other doors and, one by one, repeat the process with the rest of the women. He led each one out and propped them up next to me while he went for the next. They all stood there silently, hollow and broken, just like me. He came back with Liz and said, ‘Follow me. Quietly.’ Melanie wasn’t with us. I cleared my head enough to ask where she was, and Tim just looked at me sadly. He said she didn’t make it. Then he was leading us out into the night.
“We stumbled along blindly, following Tim past the barn, away from the tents. We rounded another building, and he stopped us. I watched him creep over to some high shrubs and pull out two packs. ‘Food, water, flashlights,’ he said. ‘It’s everything I could get my hands on.’ He handed me one, I guess since I was the most coherent of us, and hiked the other over his shoulders. It was so dark, but we couldn’t turn on the flashlights for fear of being caught.
“Turns out, the flashlights didn’t matter. It wasn’t long before we heard shouts coming from the darkness behind us, then flashlight beams piercing the night. Tim screamed at us to run, and we did. Some of us, anyway. Liz just stood there, frozen. They caught her first. One by one the others fell away, until soon it was just Tim and me crashing through the trees.”
Taylor’s voice hardened, her words growing sharp and dangerous.
“They caught us near a small creek. Or rather, Jacob caught us. He yelled at us to stop, but Tim pushed me forward and told me to keep running. Then I heard the gunshot. I turned back to Tim. His eyes were wide, and he was already falling. I caught him as he fell. He was crying, couldn’t breathe. Blood was trickling out of his mouth, and all he kept saying was sorry, sorry, sorry, over and over. I told him it was okay, that everything was going to be all right. And then he was gone.
“I looked up. Jacob was standing over me, his gun pointed in my face. He glanced down at his brother and then back at me. There was no sadness on his face, no remorse. Only anger. And hate. He pulled back the hammer and fired. Nothing happened. He fired again, and still nothing. It was empty. I knew this was my only chance. I felt around in the dirt, and by some miracle my fingers closed around a large branch. I clenched it in my fist and swung with all my might. Jacob went down and I ran. I left Tim lying dead in the dirt and I ran.”
“You couldn’t have done anything else,” Duncan said softly. Taylor did not acknowledge him.
“I ran and I ran until I finally dropped from exhaustion, my legs just buckling beneath me. I crawled into some bushes and prayed no one would find me. They never did. The next morning, I started moving again. After two days, I found an abandoned house to hole up in. It wasn’t abandoned, exactly. An old woman lay rotting in her bed, forgotten by the world that died around her. I buried her out back underneath a large tree. I thought she might like it there.
“I stayed a couple of weeks, building up strength, pilfering from the other houses nearby for food and such. Eventually, I recovered enough to move on. I couldn’t stay. The world was dead, and for all I cared the people who hadn’t died could go straight to hell. All I had left was to go home. So I started walking.”
She lapsed into silence again, still looking at Duncan. He drew in a deep breath, buying himself a moment to figure out what to say. Then he realized there was really nothing he could say. He hated what she had been through, hated Jacob and those men for what they had done to her, to all of those poor people. Even more, he hated that she had gone through all that, had not only lived through it but past it, all for the simple hope that one day she would find her family. Now that hope was gone, and everything she had survived meant nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out, tears threatening to overwhelm him. They had all been through so much, but this, what Taylor had been through, was more than any human should have to endure.
Even after his parents had died, Duncan had still seen the beauty in the world. He had heard the stories, knew that desperation and hopelessness had caused some people to do horrible things. He was not entirely stupid. Duncan knew how terrible man could be, had been, even before the plague. Animals could be just as vicious. Duncan’s high school biology teacher had taught them all about survival of the fittest, and how animals were capable of fierce, even cruel, aggression in order to secure food, water, territory, and even mating rights. But where the animals did these things on instinct, man’s inhumanity to man was caused by something far worse.
Thought. Logic. Reason.
These powers might separate man from the animals, but Duncan knew they certainly did not make man any better. Butterflies did not feed Christians to lions. Sparrows did not give Native Americans gifts of disease-ridden blankets. Whales did not try to exterminate the Jews. Monkeys did not build the atomic bomb.
Or maybe they did.
Yet even after the plague, Duncan had thought mankind would overcome its own worst instincts. It seemed so much smarter to work together, like they did at Burninghead Farm, than to struggle separately, fighting for scraps. Everyone had lost family and friends, jobs and homes. Duncan figured people had seen enough death and destruction for one lifetime, and eventually, those who survived would somehow rise above the terrible things men were capable of doing to each other.
Stupid, Duncan. You were so stupid.
Clearly, Duncan had been wrong. Maybe Taylor was right. Maybe they should all just go to hell.
Maybe the earth was right to take the world back from us and kill us all.
“You remind me of Tim.”
The words shot through him like a bullet. She could not have hurt him more if she had ripped out his heart, which is exactly what it felt like to hear that she equated him with the boy who had caused her so much pain.
“But he betrayed you,” Duncan turned toward Taylor, seething.
Taylor reached out to him. “Duncan—”
“No!” he shouted, brushing off her outstretched hand. “He took you to that place, left you to Jacob, and didn’t do a damn thing to help you!”
“He was a good kid,” Taylor said, reaching out once again.
“He was a sonofabitch. He never should have left you there. I wouldn’t have left you there.”
“He tried, Duncan,” she said softly. “He did the best he could.”
“He should have stopped them.” Duncan’s shoulders sagged, his head dropping just a little. He wondered if he would ha
ve been able to do anything differently than Tim had. That thought wounded him even further.
“He did,” Taylor said, forcing Duncan to meet her gaze. “In the end, he did.”
“He should have done something sooner,” Duncan said halfheartedly. He was angry with this boy he had never met, even as he was grateful for what he had been able to do.
“His heart was in the right place, Duncan. And in the end, that’s all that matters.”
Duncan nodded, finally understanding what Taylor was driving at. Maybe there was still a chance the world could right itself. Maybe there was still hope for a better future. And maybe, just maybe, that future included Taylor. If Taylor could find her way back to the world.
“I won’t say anything,” Duncan said quietly. “About what you told me? Not if you don’t want me to.”
Something flashed in Taylor’s eyes, a spark of something Duncan could not quite understand but that caused him to hold his breath just the same. Her expression hardened, as if she was realizing for the first time just what she had done. Duncan began to worry he had said the wrong thing, but her eyes, formerly so hollow, deepened. She said nothing, but she patted his shoulder and started to walk back down toward the farm.
Duncan let out a slow breath. He did not know exactly what it all meant, but he knew it was a beginning.
Chapter Twenty
I can’t sleep. The day keeps replaying in my head, refusing to let me rest. My mind circles around something I can’t quite understand, yet I know is important. And so, like a dream from which you have just awoken, I keep trying to grasp the meaning, only to find it slipping through my fingers.
I don’t know why I told Duncan about Pennsylvania. I have kept it close for so long. It has been more than three months since I escaped Pittsburgh, but today it feels as horrifyingly real as if it were yesterday. But maybe it’s like a dam pushed to its limits by a swollen, raging river. Eventually, it just has to break, no matter how soundly it’s constructed.
Something broke in me upon learning that Asheville, my home, is no more. I have spent months spinning lie upon lie, telling myself I knew they were dead while pretending I thought they were alive, when the truth was infinitely more complicated.
Over and over again as I made my way toward home, I tried to convince myself that hope was irrelevant, that deep down I already knew my family was dead, and I was simply on a fool’s errand to find an answer I already had. And that was okay with me. The lie kept me going. But I knew once I reached Asheville and saw for myself what I already knew to be true, then I could finally stop. Whether I killed myself or simply stopped living would be of no consequence. Turns out, that’s only what I thought I knew. The ultimate, frightening, and unspeakable truth beneath the web of lies I constructed was that somewhere deep down I had hoped. I had believed that somehow, someway, they were still alive and waiting for me. If I hadn’t, then I would have just let myself die in that field in Pennsylvania.
I thought when the end came, when I finally faced the reality that my family was gone and there really was nothing left, I would be relieved, it would somehow be comforting to know my journey was done and I would have to fight no longer. I would be able to rest at last. But now, facing the reality of their deaths, I feel no such things. I feel only anguish. And grief. And guilt.
I have failed my family. I have wasted my survival, bought and paid for by the lives of others. The nearly two months of torture in Pennsylvania were for nothing. The last three months crawling and scavenging my way home were for nothing. The hope that sustained me through it all, that kept me alive and forced me forward even when I didn’t consciously know it existed, has been for nothing. Even worse, the shattering of that hope has torn a gaping hole in my heart with the force of its destruction.
I thought I had already lost everything, that no more pain could be inflicted upon me. I was wrong.
If I had only been faster, stronger, smarter, more, I could have made it to Asheville before those murderers had slaughtered what was left of my town. Instead, I paused. I lost sight of my goal. I allowed myself to be subdued by this place, these people. I allowed myself to dream again, whether I knew it or not, and that had cost me everything.
It would be simpler if I just felt like dying. I certainly want the pain to end, the grief, the guilt, the shame, all of it. Everything I have lived for these past months is gone, and even though to continue in this world means having to live through the pain I feel in every cell and synapse, every ounce of blood and bone, and even though I just want it all to be over, for some reason I cannot reconcile dying. Despite myself, and despite the guilt, the last few weeks on the farm have snuck through my defenses and shown me that maybe, just maybe, there is something left worth living for after all.
Now I am on a precipice, caught in the hairsbreadth between falling and stepping back, and I don’t know which way I want it all to go.
And yet, it seems that some part of me has already made a choice. Call it my subconscious, call it whatever is left of my soul, but I opened myself to Dunk despite my tangled mind. I took a step back from the ledge before I even consciously recognized I was standing on it, and while it unnerves me, it also feels remarkably like peace. A peace I don’t deserve yet crave just the same.
The thought of peace naturally conjures up an image of Kate. I have not spoken to her since that night in the barn. I want nothing more than to wrap myself in her arms and lose myself in her gentle care, and yet I can’t. I do not deserve such respite. I do not deserve anything but the weight of the guilt that is pressing down upon me.
My guilt burns into anger, and I do nothing to prevent the fire from raging. My guilt demands punishment. My failure demands justice. My selfishness demands that my life serve as penance. And my anger demands that I deny myself anything resembling happiness.
I have to keep living so I can properly pay for my sins. I have to pay. I need to pay. And in that moment I know my decision is made. I will begin again, here on Burninghead Farm, and spend the rest of my miserable life making amends. And I will start tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-one
Duncan stretched his arms high above his head, trying to wring out the last of the hold sleep still had on his body. Today he would be out with the boys working on the wall again. He liked working the wall. It was an important job, critical to the farm’s future, Buck had said. For a while that had been reason enough, and Duncan had tried not to think about the need behind building the wall. It did not matter why, he told himself. Buck had said it was so, and that was enough. Or it had been, until his conversation with Taylor the day before. Now, Duncan could not help but think about all the reasons they needed to build that wall, and build it right.
He dressed quickly and plowed through a quick bowl of oatmeal, then headed down to the equipment shed where they would load all their gear into the pickup for the day’s work. It was early enough that the crickets were still chirping out their night songs, and he expected to be the first to reach the truck. He figured he would be able to get the pickup loaded with their tools for the day before any of the others arrived, for which he knew they would be grateful. Most of the guys were not early risers like Duncan. He did not mind. It was just another opportunity to be helpful.
The dark outline of the pickup materialized in the distance, and Duncan’s pace quickened, his feet as eager as the rest of him to work. His eagerness quickly morphed into surprise as two shadowy figures emerged from the darkness next to the pickup. He could not imagine who in his crew was awake yet, let alone who could have beaten him to the shed. In another twenty steps, Duncan had his answer, which surprised him even further.
“Mornin’, Duncan.” Buck sipped his morning coffee, steam rising from the mug, World’s Greatest Dad emblazoned on the side.
“Morning, sir.” Duncan’s voice cracked as his vocal cords adjusted to the damp morning air. “Taylor,” he added, a seeming afterthought even as her presence was at the forefront of his mind. She acknowledged his gr
eeting with a nod.
“Coffee?” Before Duncan could answer, Buck was pouring coffee from a thermos into a mug he had retrieved from a canvas bag at his feet. He held out the coffee cup to Duncan, who was not about to deny the offer despite really disliking coffee, at least without a large helping of cream and sugar.
Duncan blew across the top of the mug, delaying having to drink any of the bitter brew. His eyes moved back and forth between Buck and Taylor. They must have had some purpose to being at the shed this early, Duncan thought. Yet there they stood, silently sipping their coffee, content to just watch the day begin to melt away the lingering night, casting shadows where only moments before the world had been shrouded in a single shade of black. It was starting to bug Duncan.
“So…” Duncan began, hoping one of them would pick up and explain what was going on. Neither one took the bait, forcing Duncan to just come out with it. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Just enjoying our morning coffee,” Buck said, infuriatingly deadpan. Duncan knew there had to be more to it than that. Buck did not work a detail and had more important things to do than hang out with Duncan sipping coffee next to the equipment shed.
Then there was Taylor, who had still not uttered a word. Her presence truly confused him, if for no other reason than it was the first time she had willingly put herself in another person’s company since the night she had found out about Asheville. Their conversation the day before had only happened because Duncan had been following her, not because she had sought him out. Or maybe she had, at least in the sense that she had spoken to him first. As hard as hearing her story had been, Duncan hoped maybe it had helped Taylor in some way to tell it. His momma had always felt better when she let something out after holding it in. Still, Duncan was surprised to find her there, drinking her coffee, seeming almost normal.
Except she was not normal. He searched her eyes, trying to find the truth behind them, and could only find resignation and a barely concealed despair that seemed to Duncan far worse than anything he had felt from her the day before.
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