A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

“I thought you backgrounded everyone before you put them into suspension,” said Ethan.

  “We did—thoroughly. Everything said she’s the Quaker farmer’s daughter from Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania. But obviously she’s a lot more.”

  Pam was nodding. “Those weren’t farm-girl moves. What we just saw shows a high level of training. She could have been a field agent in one of the intelligence agencies, or black ops, or maybe Special Forces.” She turned to Ethan and gave him a smile as warm as a great white’s. “But I could take her.”

  “Never mind that,” Pilcher said. “She could have been given a false identity—a damn good one, let me tell you—and hidden away for security reasons.”

  Something about that wasn’t sitting right.

  “Could she have had her identity erased?” Ethan asked.

  Pilcher frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s all gut feeling . . . nah. Forget it.”

  “No,” Pilcher said. “Go ahead. I appreciate gut feelings. I had one about you. That’s why you’re sheriff.”

  “All right. Here goes: I have this gut feeling that she hasn’t been hiding this other self; I get a sense she doesn’t even know about her other self—or at least didn’t know until she woke up in the hospital.”

  “Some sort of mind wipe?” Pam said. She looked at Pilcher. “Is that possible?”

  He nodded. “Techniques of varying efficacy were in various stages of development before we all said good-bye.”

  Ethan kept following the trail he’d started. “Old identity erased from her mind and from the databanks as well; a new identity created. But why? If she posed a risk, wouldn’t people with that kind of power just kill her?”

  “Absolutely,” Pilcher said. “ ‘Disappear her,’ in the lingua franca.”

  Pam snapped her fingers. “A sleeper! Maybe she was supposed to hide in plain sight until activated, like that movie . . .” Her fingers snapped furiously. “What was it called?”

  “The Manchurian Candidate?”

  She jabbed her finger at Ethan like a clue-giver in charades. “That’s it!”

  “Well, even if it’s true,” Pilcher said, “it’s all irrelevant now. That whole bullshit world is gone.”

  Ethan looked at the screens that watched Wayward Pines 24-7.

  Replaced by a new bullshit world.

  He said, “Whoever she is, and however skilled she is, she’s going to need some help.”

  “Stay out of it, Ethan. The more people out there, the less tempting she’ll be.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

  Ethan had failed Karla Lindley—or whoever she was—with her daughter. He wasn’t about to let her face two abbies on her own.

  Pilcher was staring at him. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because I’m lying.”

  He finally cracked a smile. “Okay. Go ahead. But let Pam outfit you with a few things before you go.”

  “How much can I tell her?”

  His eyebrows rose. “Karla? Tell her whatever she needs to know to get the job done. Tell her everything, if you have time.”

  “Everything?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not going to matter, is it.”

  “Don’t come any closer, sheriff,” Karla called from where she sat, far back under the outcrop, deep in the shadows.

  The sheriff stopped, looking in her general direction. The sinking sun was in his eyes, but even if it weren’t, no way could he see her. She’d been too wound up earlier to gauge him. He seemed about her age with rugged good looks and an easygoing manner. Before today she’d glimpsed him only once, on a trip to the grocer. Now he held his old Winchester cradled in the crook of his left arm, his right hand around the grip of the stock, his index finger straight, resting outside the trigger guard. He had a backpack strapped to his shoulders.

  The small campfire she’d built smoldered between them.

  “I came to help,” he called.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Like you helped me save Joanna?”

  It seemed that Joanna had been dead a long time—a lifetime ago. The pain remained, a burning knife through her heart, but it had been eclipsed by rage.

  “I’m sorry about that. I did what I could. I think you know that. Look, can I approach?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “To the best of my knowledge.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Maybe someone followed me. If so, I don’t know about it.”

  “Why would anyone follow you?”

  “You never know.”

  She thought about that. In the context of what she’d started to suspect about this town, it wasn’t so far off.

  Still, he was the sheriff. The masthead of officialdom in Wayward Pines. He had to be in on the secrets, whatever they were.

  All right, she thought. Let’s try a little test.

  “Okay, come on up.” As he took a step forward, she added, “But leave that Winchester back there.”

  He stopped. If he agreed, then something was definitely fishy. No one would want to be unarmed with whatever killed Joanna still roaming about. But if he had backup watching, it wouldn’t make any difference to him.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I’d be comfortable with that.”

  Okay. He passed.

  “All right, bring it with you, but not that way.”

  “What way?”

  “The way you’re coming. That’ll only get you in trouble. A couple of yards to your left there—see that double row of sticks winding this way? Follow that.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You’ll be one very unhappy camper.”

  He shrugged, moved to his left, and followed the sticks. When he reached the fire, he stopped and placed the butt of his shotgun’s stock on the ground. A sign of peace.

  He cupped a hand to his lips. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  Karla moved from the shadows in a crouch, straightening as she reached daylight. She kept the Benelli aimed at his gut.

  “Welcome to my humble abode, Sheriff Burke.”

  “What happened to ‘Ethan’?”

  Good question. Something was very wrong with Wayward Pines, and he seemed to be part of it. How could he not be? But then he had helped as best he could yesterday. She’d call a truce for now, but she’d be watching.

  “Okay. Pull up a chair, Ethan.”

  They both sat crosslegged on the ground, keeping the fire between them. She added a few more twigs. They smoked before they caught.

  “That’s going to attract attention,” he said.

  “One can only hope.”

  He looked back along the path he had come. “Why would I have been an unhappy camper?”

  “Punji sticks,” she said.

  His eyebrows shot up under the brim of his black Stetson. “You know about punji sticks?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “How?”

  “Ain’t got a fucking clue,” Karla replied.

  And that was the god’s honest truth.

  He seemed to be digesting that as his gaze roamed the area. “Where’s the, um, dress?”

  Karla fought the tightening of her throat. Rather than risk speaking, she simply pointed to the fire. She’d watched it burn until it and its obscene bloodstains were ash.

  He nodded. “And the thing that was in it?”

  Now she could speak. She pointed downhill. “Dropkicked it over there somewhere.” She locked eyes with him. “What was that thing?”

  “What makes you think I know?”

  She sighed. “Aren’t we beyond games here? You hardly flinched when you saw it. You know what it is . . . or was. Not a bear cub, not a wolf cub, and sure as shit not human. Share.”

  He paused as his expression became bleak, then, “You’re two-thirds correct.”

  She thought about that a sec, then figured it out.

  �
��Human? That was a human baby? No fucking way!”

  “Yes, fucking way. That was one of our great-great . . .” He shook his head. “Add forty or fifty greats and you’re looking at the future of humanity.”

  This was not computing.

  “But . . . but . . . Jesus, Ethan, that can’t be unless we’re not in the twenty-first century anymore.”

  “We’re not.”

  “Okay.” Humor him. His train has gone off the tracks. “What fucking year is this?”

  “Thirty-nine something.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. The fortieth century.”

  This was totally crazy. “I didn’t think they allowed LSD in Wayward Pines.”

  She thought that would have earned her a smile at the very least, but his expression remained grim. And then he told her a story that stretched credulity beyond anything a drug trip could conjure.

  And yet . . . she believed it.

  “I’ve always sensed this was all artificial, but I thought I was dead and this was some sort of hell until . . . until . . .”

  “Until what?”

  “Until Joanna. Birthing her was real—all too real, if you want to know the truth. But once I held her in my arms, I knew what love was, what connection was. I’d never felt that before.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  Ethan stared at the fire. “I have a son. I never felt him kick in my belly, but I know that connection.”

  “But where do we . . . we as in Homo sapiens . . . where do we go from here?”

  His bleak expression became even bleaker. “Nowhere. It used to be about evolution of the species, but for us it’s become survival of the species.”

  “For real? You’re telling me there’s nothing out there but death? Nothing?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Jesus! Why is this being kept secret from us? If I’d known, I never would have brought a child into this fucking world!” She leaned toward him, feeling her lips draw back over her teeth. “You! You’ve known about this all along! Why haven’t you—?”

  “I’ve known about it for a week or so. I’m not in charge. I have no power.”

  “You’re the sheriff, for fuck’s sake!”

  Listen to me Karla thought, Like every third word out of my mouth is fuck.

  Where had she learned to talk like that? She never did in her everyday life.

  But this wasn’t everyday life.

  “I’m just a puppet,” Ethan explained.

  His expression telegraphed how much he hated to have to say that, to have to be that.

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “Because, if we’re going to survive and kill these things, you need to know what we’re facing. We have to eliminate them, and you can never speak of what you’ve seen here.”

  “Bullshit! I’ll tell the fucking world!”

  “Which means the whopping six hundred plus people in Wayward Pines. And what will that get you?”

  “The truth will set you free!”

  “It will do nothing of the sort.” His eyes bored into hers. “But it will exponentially increase the suicide rate.”

  Jonathan . . . had he learned the truth? Was that why . . .?

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Shit. Think about it, Karla: If you realized that every loved one you had ever known—all family and friends except for whatever few you have here—were now dust; that just about every book that had ever enthralled you was now termite turds; that every wondrous city you had ever visited was now in ruins and overrun by vines; that every great iconic painting—the Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Monet’s lilies, whatever—had rotted to powder; that every profession was obsolete, every ambition an empty dream . . . what would you do?”

  “I’d . . . I’d do what Jonathan did.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’d think about Joanna first,”

  Yes . . . yes, of course she would.

  “Okay, I’d want to do what Jonathan did . . . but now that I no longer have . . .” She couldn’t finish . . . Joanna to worry about . . .

  “I’m with you. I’ve been privy to this awhile and . . . on the surface it may look like living, but it’s not, it’s . . . it’s existing.”

  “Well, obviously, the people holding the strings assume that Homo sapiens is worth preserving. Are we?”

  He shook his head. “I look at my son and the knee-jerk reaction is an emphatic yes. But preserved for what?”

  “Yes . . . what?” Karla’s smile felt bitter. “So, what’s left to talk about? China’s threat to the economy? Worldwide Islamic jihad? Megabanks controlling the economy? Obamacare? The Tea Party? Occupy Whatever? Looking at it from this perspective, it was all bullshit, wasn’t it?”

  Ethan smiled. “Like totally, dude.”

  Karla shook her head. “What were we so worried about? Jesus! What were we thinking?”

  “We had a future, then. We had possibilities. Knowing that you don’t changes everything.”

  She laughed—a harsh, nasty sound. “These aberrations, these . . .”

  “Abbies.”

  “Abbies . . . fuck, sound’s like a little girl’s name. Anyway, maybe these abbies aren’t so degenerate. Sounds to me like they’ve solved all of humanity’s problems.”

  “What?”

  “No more racism, no more feuding religions, no more gay bashing, no more cross burning, no more serial killers, no more date rape, no more prisons, no more wars.”

  Ethan countered with, “Also no more music, no more art, no more new books, no love, no kindness, no empathy. They’re the human equivalent of sharks: kill, eat, and make little abbies.”

  “I probably knew a few humans like that back before my abduction. But I don’t remember.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I know I’m not Karla Lindley, née Williamson.”

  She’d expected a reaction from the sheriff, but he didn’t even blink. Obviously he’d come to the same conclusion.

  “Who are you then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He frowned. “To quote somebody: ‘Aren’t we beyond games here?’ ”

  “No game, I swear. I truly don’t know.” She hefted the Benelli. “I could lay out a cloth and field strip this right here. But you know what? I shouldn’t even know what the fuck the term ‘field strip’ means.” She bit her lip. “And I don’t know where I learned to swear like this.” She pounded her fist on the ground. “Shit-shit-shit!”

  “What do you remember?” Ethan asked.

  “I remember being a sales rep for Schelling Pharma. I stopped in Wayward Pines for lunch on my way to a conference in Portland. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital bed and they were telling me I’d had a seizure and that Pines would be my home from now on. But now I’m pretty sure that salesperson wasn’t the real me.”

  “Maybe you really are Karla Lindley, née Williamson, and a part of your life has been erased.”

  “Who would do that?” asked Karla.

  “Some long-extinct, super-secret government agency—”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “—or maybe you yourself.”

  “Me?”

  “Maybe there are things you don’t want to remember,” Ethan offered.

  Now that was creepy. What could she have done that was so abhorrent she’d wiped clean a whole section of her past?

  She didn’t want to go there.

  “How about you? Who were you”—she couldn’t resist a wicked grin—“or who do you think you were before Wayward Pines?”

  His mouth took a sardonic twist. “Very funny. Secret Service.”

  “No shit! Guarding the president and all?”

  “We’re a branch of the Treasury Department. We do other things besides bodyguard service.”

  “Secret Service . . . always thought that was such a corny name. Then I realized the initials are SS.”

  “Don’t go thinking you’re the first to point that out.”


  She liked this Ethan Burke. He didn’t seem to belong in the sheriff job. He struck her as more the kind to be leading a revolution against the powers that be than enforcing their rules.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  “How the fuck did you become sheriff?”

  “Long story.”

  “We’ve got nothing but time.”

  Ethan heard the abby before he saw it.

  Decade upon decade of falling pine needles had left a deep soft carpet on the forest floor. But the pines also continually dropped small branches that disappeared among the needles. To walk the carpet was to snap the twigs hidden below. No choice.

  They’d spent the remainder of the fading daylight hunting for dry, deadfall wood. Karla kept watch with her Benelli while Ethan gathered the small dry branches.

  The Karla of today was definitely not the same woman he had come here with just yesterday. And yet, in many ways, she was. The timid soul looking for her lost child had given way to this case-hardened Valkyrie. He’d decided that he liked them both, in different ways, for different reasons. But the Valkyrie was also a little scary. He knew he’d much rather have her with him than against him.

  In some ways she bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Pam. But he sensed a core of decency, and even integrity, in Karla that was totally absent in Pam. He felt he could trust Karla to have his back, whereas he’d be afraid to turn his back on Pam.

  When dark had fallen they’d taken turns at watch—shotguns ready, fire burning bright.

  Ethan nudged Karla. She snapped upright and looked as if she were about to speak when he pressed a finger over her lips and leaned into her ear.

  “Something out there,” he said in the tiniest whisper he could manage.

  “Abby?” she whispered into his.

  He shrugged. They’d know soon enough.

  The fire had burned low. Flames still flickered in the embers but shed little light. The outcrop limited their visual field to about 120 degrees, but keeping to the rear of the space beneath offered them the tactical advantage of protection from rear or flanking attack. The only way for an abby or anything else to reach them was a direct frontal assault.

  Karla sat to his right, shotgun ready. They’d agreed earlier that each would take the responsibility of covering half the field. If something charged from the left, Ethan would take it while Karla stayed focused on the right, and vice versa. This would prevent them from falling victim to a diversion.