The Outskirts

Part 3: Love

I sat still, for almost twenty hours straight, on Lingards couch. I still felt afraid of Darwin. It was as though his presence was flooding the atmosphere, like some kind of extraterrestrial being. To take my mind off of him, I pulled out a picture that I'd always keep in my wallet. It was of Jane and I, making stupid faces at her sweet sixteen. We looked so young, and innocent. I knew that the Jane in this photo would not even recognize me today.

I fell asleep with it in my hand, after about an hour of reflecting on my life before the bombs. Something I had not done in a while. It honestly just caused my mood to sink from joy to despair, nearly instantly, every time I did. However, the tears in my eyes today were not that of sadness, but of a nostalgic kind of joy.

I dreamed of our house, in the winter. Snow falling in this town was incredibly rare, but was a beautiful sight to see. Our window was tinted a snowy white color. I breathed deeply onto my hand, then wiped the tint off. Doing so, caused me to see Hope standing right in front of me. I waved to her, with a smile, but she did not respond. She did not even look at me. I was nothing but an apparition to her.

"Mom..." Grant called to her.

"Hey sweetie. You okay?" Hope asked, staring down at Grant. Not too far down, however, as Grant was catching up to her height.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Philip told me about the bad man. About how I shouldn't trust everyone."

"He did, didn't he?" Hope muttered, as she continued to wash each plate, with ever growing stamina.

"What are you going to do?" Grant asked.

"Your daddies going to handle it. But..." Hope stopped herself, with a, "Never mind."

I mouthed a, "But what?" at her, with the knowledge that I would not be heard.

"I... I had a vision." Hope finally confessed. "I had been praying all day, and God answered by sending me a vision. He told me that the bad man has to die."

"W- What?" Grant stuttered.

Hope started tearing up. "He said if Jerry does not make the right choices, we'll lose our home. We will lose everything we built. Everything we have done will have been for nothing because it will all be destroyed. Jerry will be taken away, and I will never find out if he is dead or alive. And he... He..." Hope lost it, then fell to the floor, wallowing in her tears. I had never seen her so distraught. "He said I would lose you. That I'd see you die. I can't, Grant! I can't lose everything, not again. Not this time around, because this time, I have a family who knows what love is, and who is strong. You kids are so strong.

"Just please, Jeremy. Wherever you are, make the right choice."

A strong wind blew me away, as though I had faded to dust. I woke up on the same couch I had fallen asleep on, with that same picture of Jane still lying next to me. From there, I walked to Darwins prison cell. He was awake.

"Day twenty-two. I found a rat on the floor today. Crushed it, then ate it raw. Actually, tasted better then the food y'all provide." Darwin joked, as he rose to his feet.

I pulled up the same chair I had sat in when I changed Philips life, then sat in it backwards. The same way I had before, then began his rehabilitation. "It has been two hours, Darwin. Listen, I want to be able to trust you. That's what this whole thing we got going here is about. I don't need you to become the amazing man of God Philip is, though that would be an added bonus, but... Let's make this simple, shall we? What would happen if I let you go?"

Darwin snickered, in a sinister tone. "Here's what I'll do. I will kill your children. Your wife. Your infant daughter, and force you to watch as I slaughter them like the pigs they are. Then I will take you to the hole. Harden you. So, when you come back, you will be the one to kill the rest of your people. You think you can change me? No. I am the one who changes others."