The Ending Series: The Complete Series

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  “By the end of the third week, we started noticing a couple of strange developments: first, some people were displaying unusual talents, and second, others were exhibiting a lack of emotional control and various symptoms of insanity. Some abnormal behavior is, of course, acceptable in such extreme situations, but this was far beyond that.” He flexed his fingers, creating white splotches on the backs of his hands.

  “After the first few people displaying unusual talents were verbally attacked and ostracized by townsfolk—labeled as ‘freaks’—everyone started keeping to themselves. Some of the emotionally unstable survivors tried rallying others against the ‘freaks,’ leading to five violent deaths. Our population was down to 242. After that incident, few people were willing to help with the town’s survival planning. Instead they chose to stay in their homes, defending themselves and their remaining family members, and keeping any new talents a secret. They’d only venture out to attend the nightly town meetings.” He paused, locking eyes with each of us.

  “That all changed on Christmas Eve. The Town Council put together a holiday feast, hoping to create a feeling of community and camaraderie that might help alleviate the recent tensions. Only seventy-four people, a fraction of the remaining townsfolk, showed up. Those present worried about many of their absent friends—people who’d expressed an interest in attending the event. Before eating, we set out in groups to check on the homes of the missing families. What we found was almost too horrible to comprehend.

  “Half of the houses were empty, while the others were occupied by the remains of ghastly atrocities. We called it the Christmas Eve Massacre, in remembrance of those who were murdered. You see, it was the occupants of the empty houses who committed the heinous acts, ripping apart thirty-five of the flu Survivors. We don’t know why they did it; we only know who they are. We call them the Lost Ones.

  “The sane town members, now numbering seventy-four, have relocated to the most defensible position in town—the boats moored at Sand Point Marina. We keep watchmen out at all times and usually travel outside of the defended area only in armed groups. Every person has memorized the names and faces of the 107 remaining Lost Ones. If seen, they are killed if possible and avoided if not.

  “Now,” Mr. Grayson said, separating his hands and splaying them palm down on the table, “we’d like to invite you and your people to join us at our town meeting tomorrow evening. Due to the many tasks we must attend to during the day, it doesn’t begin until half past seven, so I’m afraid you’ll be required to travel to and from the marina in the dark. Even so, I sincerely hope you’ll attend.” He settled back in his chair, folding his hands and resting them on his lap.

  Shaken from the spell woven by his hypnotic voice, I was able to feel the cool wetness of tears streaking down my face. I was also able to feel Jason’s strong fingers intertwined with mine, our joined hands dangling in the space between our chairs. I met Jason’s eyes briefly, and upon seeing the raw horror and sorrow they contained, tightened my grip. An awful thing had happened to our town—to our people—and there was nothing we could do about it.

  “Do you have any questions?” Grayson asked, breaking through the lingering fog of emotion.

  At a complete loss for words, I shook my head.

  “Thank you, Sir, for telling us this”—Jason paused—“this news. We’ll definitely increase our defenses. And yes, some of us will attend your meeting tomorrow night. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of questions by then.”

  Mr. Grayson nodded.

  “Now,” Jason said, his eyes again meeting mine, “we should be going.” He gave my hand one last squeeze and gently placed it on my knee.

  I looked from my hand to Jason to Mr. Grayson, and my head finally cleared. “Wait!” I blurted. “Do you think…maybe…could we borrow some of your books? There are still so many things we can learn to have a better chance at survival.”

  “Oh yes, I forgot. Of course, Danielle. I set aside a handful of books for you based on the ones you pulled and left here yesterday. They’re on the table by the door. And please”—he stood and held his hand out toward the rooms full of bookshelves—“take any others you think you could use.”

  Filled with unexpected relief, I bounced out of my chair, ran around the table, and flung my arms around my former teacher. “It’s so good to see you, Mr. G,” I said, a hitch in my voice. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  Mr. Grayson gently patted my back. “And I, you, Miss. O’Connor.”

  ~~~~~

  “Hey there Scrubby D,” Ky said as he entered the kitchen.

  I was in the middle of an assault on a stack of mismatched ceramic dishes that were slathered with a stubborn layer of baked beans—tasty, but eerily similar to stucco once it dried. Since I was moderately lethal in the cooking department, I usually ended up with dish duty. Honestly, I didn’t mind.

  “Hey there, Special K,” I replied, cringing at my own lameness.

  “Special K? Really? I’m cereal? Is that all I am to you?” he teased.

  I spared him an eye roll and continued scrubbing.

  Ky hopped up to sit on the tiled counter a few feet away. “We need to talk, D.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “You tell me. You’re the one sending out the anxiety vibes.”

  I ignored him, scrubbing with renewed vigor.

  He leaned toward me like he was preparing to tell me a secret. “Holly and Jason are sitting by the fireplace right now. Together,” he told me. “They’re even whispering…”

  What? If he has sex with her I’ll kick him in the balls. Repeatedly!

  “You do realize you just said that in my head, right?”

  “Did not.”

  “Yep…you said, ‘What? If he has sex with her I’ll—’”

  “Okay! Fine!” I accidentally dropped my latest clean plate back into the dirty water. “So what if I did?” I grumbled, picking the plate back up.

  Ky laughed. “So…you can’t control your telepathy. You’re talking in people’s minds when you don’t mean to. If certain people hear certain things, then a certain you will be very embarrassed. Just saying.”

  “Oh.” I’d known my telepathy was far from under control, but I hadn’t known that stray thoughts were leaking out. “Sorry?”

  “Come on, D. Let Chris help. She’s itching to get her invisible little fingers in your brain. She just won’t ask ‘cause she’s, you know, polite and shit.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  He shrugged. “You trust her, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “So let her help.”

  I thought about it. Learning to control my Ability could be invaluable. It could give us a way to contact Zoe, something becoming increasingly important as our departure neared, especially considering that MG had apparently gone AWOL from my dreams. Of course, it could also save me from some horribly embarrassing moments. “Fine.”

  “You sure? Your anxiety just spiked,” he informed me, rubbing his temples with his fingers. “It kind of feels like you’re gonna make a run for it.”

  “I said ‘fine,’ didn’t I?” I snapped. I felt a twinge of guilt for taking my grouchiness out on Ky, especially since my anxiety seemed to be giving him a headache…literally.

  “Cool,” he said, hopping down from the counter. “I’ll tell Chris.”

  As he left the kitchen, I grabbed a discolored blue bowl and attacked it with the scrub brush. “This’ll be awesome,” I muttered.

  Trying to ignore the impending brain torture, I lost myself in the monotony of washing dishes. It was both therapeutic and finger-wrinkling. Eventually, I placed the last dish in the drying rack, drained the dishwater, and washed my hands. When I turned away from the sink, I nearly screamed. Chris was lounging in the chair at the far end of the rectangular, oak kitchen table.

  My left hand flew to my chest. “Chris! How long’ve you been sitting there?”

  “Don’t know…maybe fifteen minutes,” she said, p
ursing her lips as she studied me. “I’m going to test you. JASON!”

  Within seconds, Jason strolled in and leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “Need something?”

  “Yes.” Chris pointed to a chair at the opposite end of the table. “Sit. Dani’s letting me test her telepathy. Let’s see…I think it’ll work best if we have you knock on the table each time you hear a full thought from our girl.”

  Jason’s eyes shifted to me, seeming to ask for permission, before he gave a single nod and straightened. He walked across the room and eased his powerful body into the empty chair at the head of the table.

  Chris looked at me and explained, “I have a few theories about your…what’d you call it? Oh yeah, your Ability. Anyway, I want to test my theories. I’m going to write down a list of sentences and then give the list to you. I want you to point to each sentence as you read it so I know which one you’re on…and read silently. And don’t read ahead. I want you to send only the underlined parts to Jason’s mind, okay?”

  “Got it,” I said, moving to sit in the chair nearest Chris.

  She took a few minutes to scribble the words in a notebook, underlining select parts as she went, and eventually tore the sheet from the book. She scooted her chair closer to mine and handed me the paper.

  “Okay, I’m also going to be paying attention to what’s going on in your brain while you’re doing this. Go ahead,” she told me, her pen poised over a blank notebook page. I felt like the subject of a bizarre psychology experiment as I looked at the sheet of paper.

  My name is Dani O’Connor.

  Zoe is my best friend, and I miss her.

  Puppies are adorable.

  Puppies are disgusting and ugly.

  This is the end of the world.

  Why did so many people have to die?

  I promise not to run off again without Jason and Chris, even if a crazy psycho slut bitch is threatening me.

  Jason is absolutely gorgeous.

  If he sleeps with Holly I might have to kill her.

  I love him!

  I read the first two lines silently, projecting my thoughts to Jason; he knocked twice. I successfully sent—or refrained from sending—the next three lines, receiving a snort and a knock when I told him that puppies were disgusting and ugly.

  When I read the sixth line about people dying, images of Cam, dead, filled my thoughts. I felt so much guilt—guilt for surviving when he hadn’t, guilt for leaving him to die alone, and guilt for having feelings for Jason. It didn’t matter that I’d always had feelings for him. After receiving four knocks from Jason, I wondered exactly what my stupid mind had sent to him. I glanced at him just as he rubbed the back of his neck. Not good…

  I delivered the seventh line according to plan, but the final three were a mortifying mess. I clutched onto the “Jason is absolutely gorgeous” line desperately—against Chris’s wishes—but accidentally sent the following line about him sleeping with Holly. When he knocked, making a coughing, choking sound, I wanted to crawl under the table.

  With flaming cheeks, I tried not to send the final line—I love him—to Jason. I refused to look at him, instead glaring at Chris. She was cracking up. I cursed her for including those final three words.

  “Oh my God…too funny…” Still laughing, Chris pointed to the Jason is absolutely gorgeous line. “You didn’t say that one in his head, even though you were supposed to.” She pointed to the If he sleeps with Holly line. “But you said that one.”

  I hoped the universe had a sense of decency and that Jason truly hadn’t heard the last sentence.

  “What’d she say that made you knock four times in a row?” Chris asked after she’d quieted her laughter.

  When Jason didn’t respond, I looked at him. He was watching me with a blank expression.

  “Well?” Chris prompted.

  Jason cleared his throat. “She said,” he began, but stopped, leaning across the table and grabbing Chris’s notepad and pen. He scrawled several lines quickly, tore out the paper, folded it, and handed it to Chris. “That,” he said, his voice rough. Without another glance in my direction, he stood and left the kitchen.

  Chris unfolded the paper, read it several times, then crumpled it up in her left hand.

  “What’s it say?” I asked, frustrated. Shouldn’t I know my own thoughts?

  “You really want to know?”

  “Of course I do! It came from my head!”

  Chris placed the wadded-up paper on the table in front of me. “Fine. But don’t make it a bigger deal than it is, okay? I’m sure he doesn’t even know who you’re talking about; he can be unbelievably dense. Though, everything might just be easier if he knew exactly how much…”

  With shaking fingers, I smoothed out the paper and read silently:

  Why did Cam have to die? I loved him! I told him I’d stay with him. Why am I feeling like this about someone else?

  I studied the thoughts I’d sent to Jason, written in his sharp, slanted handwriting, trying to force them out of his memory and back into my head. His abrupt exit suddenly made perfect sense.

  I tore up the paper and grumbled, “Dammit…stupid, crappy brain…”

  Chris, who’d started writing furiously in her notebook, paused to peer at me. “Stop that,” she scolded. “We learned a bunch of things about your Ability. You can lie—that could be really useful. Your emotions can hijack it, but we already kind of knew that. I wonder what makes it possible for someone to talk back?” She stopped speaking, and furrowed her brow. “Did you hear me say that?” she asked eagerly.

  “I didn’t hear anything you didn’t say out loud,” I told her, much to her disappointment. Apparently she’d been attempting to mind-talk.

  “Hmmm…well…,” she mumbled, making notes. “So it’s not that…”

  “I’m kind of tired. Do you still need me?” I asked, standing.

  She stopped writing and looked up. “What? No. I wonder if…maybe…”

  Leaving Chris to her mad scientist mutterings, I slinked from the room. Being a guinea pig was exhausting, and I could feel a mild chill settling into my body. As I tiptoed to the bathroom to wash up for bed, I begged the universe to have mercy on me. Please don’t let me run into Jason!

  For once, the universe obliged.

  39

  ZOE

  Contentment settled over me as unfamiliar, snow-covered mountains appeared in the distance. They lined the horizon, and the green needles of spruces and pines peeked from under winter’s blanket.

  A young girl’s voice carried from within the dense tree line. “Where are you?”

  My attention shifted to a treeless hillside, where snow crunched under a young man’s footsteps as he trudged uphill. “I’m over here!” he called. “Hurry up!” It was Jake—I could tell by the rumbling timber of his voice and the tinge of impatience it so often carried. The sun shone down on him, making his damp forehead glisten.

  The girl’s laughter echoed as she emerged from the trees at the foot of the hill. She looked about eleven years old, with coffee-brown braids framing her round, flushed cheeks. Her eagerness to catch up with Jake was that of a little sister, and I realized I was watching him with Becca.

  “You’re going too fast,” she whined.

  “If you wanna know what it is, you gotta work for it,” Jake yelled as she trekked up the hill behind him. I moved closer to him and could see the amusement lighting his eyes.

  “What’s all this about, anyway?” she asked, huffing as she hurried to catch up with her brother.

  “It’s just over here. We’re almost there.” Reaching a clearing at the top of the hill, Jake paused and looked back at Becca.

  “Holy moly! That’s a steep one,” she said, taking dramatically deep breaths as she joined her brother.

  With a smile, Jake motioned her to the crest of the hill, and they looked down at the children playing below.

  “So this is where they always go,” she said solemnly. There was a sadness in h
er eyes I didn’t understand.

  “Becca!” A young girl shouted and waved from the bottom of the slope. A tall, blond young man around Jake’s age stood behind her, smiling as he nodded at Jake.

  Becca’s frown was replaced with a broad grin at the sight of her friends. She looked over at her brother and exclaimed, “It’s Lizzy and Gabe!”

  “Yep,” Jake said. “You should go join them.”

  Her face scrunched in disappointment. “You think Lizzy’ll let me use her sled?”

  “Why don’t you use your own?” he asked with a smirk, but Becca was too distracted by the playing children to notice.

  She furrowed her brow. “Hellllooo…it’s broken. That’s why I didn’t bring it. You know James and Kristy won’t get me a new one.”

  “What about that one?” Jake asked, pointing to an improvised sled resting against the lone tree to the left of them.

  Becca’s eyes brightened. “You made me one?!” she shrieked and ran to it. “Why? I mean, what’s it for?” Standing the sled on its side, she studied it excitedly.

  “Your birthday…duh.”

  “Umm, sorry to break it to you, Jake, but that’s still four months away.” Becca’s eyes focused on part of the sled, and she gasped. She leaned closer and said, “You used your skateboard…and are those skis?”

  “My skateboard was old,” he said with a shrug and shoved his hands into his pockets; he seemed to revel in his sister’s surprise. “I found the skis. Consider it an early birthday gift.”

  Becca didn’t blink as she inspected every inch of the makeshift sled. “But you love this thing. I can’t believe you used it.”

  “Whatever, don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’ve been complaining all winter about not having a sled. Just enjoy it.”