The Ending Series: The Complete Series

by Lindsey Fairleigh

“Has there been trouble? Zoe tells us the area’s been clear for over a month—no sightings of the ‘Lost Ones’—based on intel from your Town Council. If they misinformed us, and we’ve been operating under false pretenses…” Jason’s voice contained the subtlest hint of warning.

  “Ah, no,” Lance said, glancing at Zoe. “What they told you was accurate. But when we first put up the wall, before Colonel Marshall and his people managed to dedicate much effort to any sort of offensive strike on the Lost Ones, we had several attacks that likely would have resulted in fatalities had the wall not already been in place. But it has been over a month since we’ve seen any of the Lost Ones.”

  Apparently appeased, Jason nodded. “Glad to hear it.”

  The others dismounted and made their introductions and declarations.

  “Very well,” Lance said. “I just need each of you to answer one question, and I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying.”

  I raised my eyebrows. So Lance was a human lie detector, like Ben had been. It went a long way in explaining how he’d come by his current gig.

  Lance looked at Grayson. “Do you have any intention of doing something that could cause any kind of harm to the people of New Bodega or to the settlement itself?”

  “No,” Grayson said, and one by one, the other seven of us echoed him.

  Lance nodded. “Alright, the rules here are simple and few, but essential to ensure the safety of our people. Don’t steal, and don’t harm another person intentionally. If you end up becoming permanent citizens of New Bodega, certain things will be required of you—”

  “Such as?” Jason said.

  “Do your part—everyone has a role to fulfill here, and if you can’t come up with something that benefits the settlement on your own, the Council will assign you a job—don’t take more than you need, and never do anything that puts New Bodega at risk. When a transgression has occurred, the Town Council makes all final decisions regarding guilt. There is a single course of action on the rare occasions that the Council determines a party is guilty: banishment from New Bodega.”

  A low, humorless laugh rumbled in Jason’s chest. “A little harsh as a one-size-fits-all punishment.”

  Lance met his eyes, cold smile for cold smile. “These are troubling times, and as I said, the rules are simple and few. But New Bodega is a good place, filled with good people, and that gives the threat of banishment almost more weight than capital punishment. There aren’t many other places people can go.”

  I raised my hand, and when Lance looked at me, I said, “Can people come and go as they please?” Because, regardless of being on my home turf and sounding so idyllic compared to what lay on our side of the fence, not being able to leave New Bodega, being a prisoner in all but name, would be a deal-breaker for me.

  Lance nodded. “You’re free to leave at any time. Nobody will force you to stay.” With a shrug, he added, “Organized society isn’t for everyone.”

  I gave him a closemouthed smile and a no-further-questions nod.

  Looking at the armed guard, Lance said, “Clark, if you’ll let them in, please.”

  The guard lifted his rifle so the barrel rested on his shoulder and pointed up at the grayed-out sky, then stuck his hand into his pocket, retrieving a key. He unlocked the padlock securing the gate, rolling it to the side just enough for us lead our horses through in single file.

  As Lance led us down the road, Jason and Grayson fell in step on either side of him, letting me take over guiding their horses. Zoe and I followed close behind them, with the others spreading out behind us.

  “A lot’s changed around here since I left in January,” Grayson said to our guide.

  Lance nodded slowly. “I can imagine. I’ve only been a part of the community since late February, but I know the stories—the massacre…” He shook his head, heaving a heavy sigh. “But at least something good came out of it.”

  I scoffed and gave Zoe a disbelieving look. Something good? More than thirty survivors had been slaughtered, most of them people we knew.

  But Lance remained oblivious to my reaction. “It gave the rest of the survivors a reason to pull together, something to work toward—the safety of the community. Which, as of Monday, consists of four hundred and thirty-seven people.”

  Grayson whistled appreciatively. “How do you feed everyone?”

  “We have a few small garden-farms set up here, mostly in front and back yards.” He pointed to a home coming up on the right side of the road.

  A middle-aged woman and a teenage boy were working in the front yard, pulling weeds. Over a dozen rows of mounded dark, rich soil and a variety of plants, some barely sprouted, some well on their way to producing harvestable food, filled the mini-farm.

  The woman paused with a snarly little weed in her hand and looked up as we passed. When her eyes moved from Lance and Jason to Zoe and me, I offered her a tentative smile. She returned it, nodding in silent greeting as well. “Welcome,” she said in my head, and my smile widened.

  “Uh, D…” Zoe nudged my arm with her elbow. “What are you grinning at?”

  “It’s nothing, really.” I pointed to the woman with my chin. “She’s a telepath, and—” I was quiet for a moment while my thoughts floundered. “She just spoke to me telepathically.” I met Zoe’s eyes, biting my lip as I tried to explain why the brief telepathic greeting seemed like such a good sign to me. “She wasn’t afraid to show me—a perfect stranger—her Ability. She feels safe here, safe enough to let her true self shine, and…well, she’s a telepath, but she’s not being forced to do telepathic things. She’s gardening, not locked up in a room, forced to communicate with people, to lure them in.” I lifted my shoulders. “It’s just nice to see something that proves this place is different, better.”

  Smiling, Zoe nodded. “She felt content, too. Content, with a sense of purpose.”

  “You’ll find a lot of that around here,” Lance said, looking back at us. “Most of our people choose their assigned duty based not only on their skills, but also on what they enjoy.” He pointed back at the woman, who’d returned to her weeding and was speaking quietly to the teenage boy. “Kathy and her nephew, Mikey, came here shortly after me. She was a teacher before, but gardening was her favorite hobby. The Council let her choose between taking up a teaching post at the New Bodega schoolhouse and running a home garden, taking on a couple apprentices so she could pass on her skills.”

  “The soil here isn’t great,” Grayson commented.

  “It’s not,” Lance agreed. “And the weather’s not ideal, the plots are too small, and it’s too soon to have anything beyond the most minimal supplement to our main food source, but every little bit helps.”

  “The main food source being the ocean,” Jason clarified.

  Lance nodded. “Fish, crab, abalone, mussels, seaweed—we certainly don’t lack adequate sustenance.”

  “We noticed that some of the houses around town still haven’t been scavenged,” Jason said, and I knew he was thinking of our family homes. “You aren’t scavenging?”

  “We are,” Lance said, “but we focus on targets that promise a larger haul—wholesale stores, supermarkets, hardware stores, that kind of thing.”

  Jason glanced over his shoulder at the horses. “I’m assuming you have some better way to move what you find…?”

  I patted Wings’s heavily muscled shoulder. “Don’t pay any attention to him—you do a fabulous job of hauling our stuff around.”

  Lance looked back as well. “We don’t rely on horses for those trips, no, though we do have a herd of several dozen we keep on the Peninsula for shorter trips outside, and Colonel Marshall and the town guard use them when they head out on security sweeps.” Shaking his head, Lance laughed softly. “We rely on something else entirely for the big trips.”

  Jason focused on Lance, giving me a good view of his profile. His expression was, as I would have expected, carefully blank. “Which is…?”

  “We’ve, uh, requisitioned a few ta
nker trucks, as well as a few semis. Fuel wasn’t hard to find at first—we even used it in the boats—but we burned through it so quickly that we’ve pretty much tapped every source of diesel in the area.” He shook his head. “And regular gasoline is so touch-and-go now—half of what we come across is bad…” He shrugged. “We won’t be able to rely on the trucks for much longer, but hopefully by the time they’re no longer useful, we won’t need them.”

  Zoe and I exchanged identical expressions—eyebrows raised and lips pressed together in little frowns.

  We passed several more houses on the right side of the road, most with two or three people tending burgeoning gardens in the compact front and side yards, until we approached what had been, and still appeared to be, the boatyard. Dozens of people were hustling around, passing between and slipping under the hulls of at least ten sailboats sitting on boat stands.

  “Keeping the boatyard stocked with competent workers…” Lance shot a sharp glance at Jason, then looked over his shoulder at the rest of us. “I don’t suppose any of you happen to be sailboat mechanics…?” When he didn’t receive any affirmatives, he sighed. “Well, you can’t blame me for hoping.” He returned his attention to the people cleaning and working on boats on either side of the road. “Since we rely on the ocean for most of our food, keeping the marine vessels in tip-top shape is a high priority, right up there with patrolling the wall and running sweeps through the area outside.”

  We spent several minutes just walking and taking in the hustle and bustle of such a well-oiled machine. As I looked around, I was struck by an odd observation—while there were a ton of sailboats, both on stands in the boatyard and in the marina up ahead, there were absolutely no cars, trucks, or SUVs. At first it seemed odd, but the more I considered it, the more I realized how logical it was. Driving land vehicles around the peninsula would be excessive and wasteful. It made much more sense to stockpile their fuel to use only for their big scavenging excursions.

  As we neared the end of the boatyard, Lance stopped and turned around. The rest of us stopped as well, and most returned their attention to him. Jason, however, continued studying the way ahead, and I couldn’t help but do the same. Small buildings lined the road on the right, and most of the slips in the marina on the left were occupied by sailboats or clusters of smaller, rowable vessels.

  “This is the New Bodega town center,” Lance said. He pointed his thumb over his right shoulder, indicating the marina’s large boathouse; it was where we’d met with the Town Council and most of the townspeople back in January. “That’s Town Hall, where the Council meeting will take place. There will be a reception with food and refreshments in the banquet room upstairs, where you’ll have a chance to get to know us better in a more informal setting.”

  Lance switched hands, pointing over his left shoulder. “Here’s the general store, grocer, hardware supply, and hunting and fishing supply shop. We operate on a simple barter system here, so if you want something, you’ll have to trade for it. If you end up staying in New Bodega, you’ll be provided daily rations, so you won’t have to worry about bartering for food. And we have a steady supply of clean water, courtesy of a few of our people whose mutation enables them to desalinate and cleanse water of impurities.”

  That caused my eyebrows to raise. It sounded a lot like Tavis’s Ability, though he’d never tried to do anything like remove salt from water—or, likely, freshwater from saltwater—but I didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t.

  “Also,” Lance said, once again raising his right hand to point over his shoulder at what lay on the marina side of the road, “the parking lot beyond Town Hall has become the marketplace, where people set up shop in a more temporary manner, selling surplus food and other supplies. We usually have a few outside traders there as well; currently there are two, one from another settlement down south, in the Monterey area, the other a roving trader. And beyond the market, we’re in the process of developing several industrial shops—blacksmithing and metallurgy, woodworking, that sort of thing.”

  I watched Jason turn his full attention to Lance, a curious, considering expression on his face.

  Turning, Lance continued down the road toward Town Hall. We passed the surprisingly crowded marketplace on our right. With only several seconds’ examination, I noted that it looked just like a small run-of-the-mill farmer’s market.

  “You can tie up your horses here,” Lance said, stopping by a bike rack partway up the cement path to the Town Hall’s main entrance. “The Council will be ready for you at five.” Lance peeked down at his watch. “That gives you a little over a half hour to explore. Feel free to wander around, just please don’t keep the Council waiting.”

  We all nodded and said our thanks, and Lance quickly disappeared into the Town Hall, leaving us to tie our mounts to the bike rack. I felt giddy at the opportunity to explore this so familiar, yet so foreign place, and at the same time, I was bummed that I didn’t—nor did any of my companions—have anything to barter with on hand.

  “Hey,” Zoe said, apparently picking up on my emotions. She linked her arm with mine and led me toward the jumble of folding tables and tents set up as mini-shops. “You could always offer your services as an animal whisperer…”

  ~~~~~

  The eight of us gathered by the “hitching post” five minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, having spent the past half hour broken off into pairs as we wandered around the town center. I’d spent most of the time walking arm-in-arm with Zoe, looking at the various wares offered at each booth—from pots, pans, and cooking utensils to fabric and clothing to handmade net bags of fresh shellfish. With only a few minutes to spare, we’d met up with Jason and Jake, who’d passed the time walking around the far end of the parking lot, where the smithy and workshop were being erected, and the four of us had made our way back to the Town Hall together.

  The Town Hall was a fairly large two-story structure with, as was to be expected of a boathouse, two indoor slips for small vessels on the harbor side. The rest of the ground floor was divided into rooms, including several small offices and a larger conference room. I was only familiar with the layout because one of my high school boyfriends had worked for the marina part time, and he’d snuck me into one of the lesser-used offices more than once for a clandestine rendezvous.

  When we passed through the glass double doors and into a comfortable waiting room that had been redecorated in the months we’d been gone, Lance greeted us again. He led us down a hallway, past the closed doors to all of the smaller offices, and through the open doorway to the conference room at the end of the hall.

  We shuffled through the doorway in singles and in pairs, spreading out along the wall on either side. Nine people were seated, facing us, at a long table that stretched nearly the entire length of the room. With Lance and the eight of us filling the other half of the room, the space was more than a little cramped.

  The woman in the middle of the line of seated Council Members stood, extending her hand toward the chairs on our side of the table. “Please, sit.” She was tall and slender, with brown hair streaked with gray, slightly lined features, and intelligent eyes. Her name was Bethany James, a former high school principal. I didn’t know her well, but I remembered her from the last time we’d met with the Council. “Daniel, it’s so good to see you again,” she said to Grayson with a warm smile. “I hope you’re well.”

  “I am,” Grayson said as he sat in the center seat on our side of the table. “And you’re looking quite well yourself, Beth.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I thought Bethany James might have blushed. I eyed Grayson as I took my own seat between Jason and Zoe, then did a quick scan of the faces of the other Council Members. I recognized a few others besides Bethany, but at least five of them were new to the Council, or rather, new to me. One of the newcomers was a middle-aged man who, based on his fatigues, I guessed had to be Colonel Marshall.

  Lance sat as well, claiming the only other chair, which was locat
ed at the far end of the table, his clipboard and a large, leather-bound journal resting on the table in front of him.

  Bethany’s eyes moved from face to face, examining each of us for several seconds, just long enough to make her gaze uncomfortable. Eventually, her focus returned to Grayson. “You and your people have been through quite a lot, Daniel. I can see it on your faces and feel it in your hearts.” She smiled a warm, genuine smile. “We’re glad you’ve made it back to us.”

  “As am I.”

  I looked from Grayson to Bethany and back, certain there were sparks floating between them. I held in a snicker. I was totally going to give Grayson a hard time about flirting with the leader of the New Bodega Town Council…later.

  “Well,” Bethany said, clearing her throat and sitting up just a tiny bit straighter, “we have an interesting proposal for you and your people, one we hope you’ll be as excited about as we are—but first, we’d appreciate it if you could share with us some of what you’ve experienced.” Her eyes shifted to Zoe. “From what you and the dreamwalker told us, some of you have come all the way from the East Coast, but you’ve all been as far as Colorado. Most of our people are from the Northern California coast, and none, not even the traders who’ve passed through New Bodega, have been further than Oregon or Nevada. Not since the outbreak.” Her gaze settled back on Grayson.

  He held Bethany’s stare, nodding slowly, thoughtfully. “Where would you like us to start?”

  “How about the beginning,” she said, the corner of her mouth curving upward.

  “Hmmm…the beginning is different for each of us, but…” Grayson’s focus shifted, and leaning forward, he looked at Gabe. “Your story might be the best place to start.”

  Shrugging, Gabe sat up straighter and rested his forearms on the table. “For me, it all started when the genetic engineering company I worked for received a DOD contract and moved to some facilities on Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. I—”

  “That’s the location of the Colony…run by this”—Bethany glanced down at a small notebook on the table in front of her, flipping back a few pages—“General Herodson?”