The Land of the Shadow (43 page)

“I killed him because I was mad with fear. I felt guilty about that for a very long time. Until this moment, to tell you the truth. But I don’t feel that way now, because I see what I did was actually a mercy. Otherwise, he simply would have wandered the tunnels until he fell and hit his head or collapsed and starved. What would have happened if he made it back to the station and was found by that mob that chased me? Would they have tormented him or tortured him? Would they have done something to him like these horrible people here?” Pearl looked back at the courthouse and shook her head. She turned back to Carly, and her dark eyes glistened. “You shouldn’t feel guilty either, Carly. You didn’t kill them. The Infection killed them long ago.”

Carly didn’t know if she could accept that yet, but it was a start. She stood and offered her hand to Pearl. Pearl took it, and Carly helped to haul her to her feet. She held on to it for a moment longer and held Pearl’s gaze.

“Thank you,” she said, and she meant far more than Pearl’s words or the events of this long, dark night.

Pearl nodded and, to Carly’s surprise, pulled her into a swift, hard hug.

They walked down the silent street, past the bodies littering the pavement. There would be cleanup. They would have to return to salvage, to bury the bodies and collect the weapons and supplies. To burn the courthouse as they had burned the church in Colby and cleanse that blighted spot from the earth . . . but that would all come later.

A new day had arrived. A new beginning. The road stretched before them, long and winding, likely to take them in directions she never expected.

They were battle-weary and grieved, but hopeful just the same. Carly saw it in the small smiles they exchanged as they set off on the road that would take them home, out of the land of the shadow.

They had only gone a few hundred yards when all of them stopped to stare at each other, surprised and bewildered by a sound they had not heard in over two years. The sound of an automobile engine.

An army truck crested the hill.

~Finis~

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About the Author

Lissa Bryan is an astronaut, renowned Kabuki actress, Olympic pole vault gold medalist, Iron Chef champion, and scientist who recently discovered the cure for athlete’s foot . . . though only in her head. Real life isn’t so interesting, which is why she spends most of her time writing.

She is the author of three other novels,
Ghostwriter,
The End of All Things
, and
Under These Restless Skies
.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my editor, Christine Diane, who made this a much better book. I’m also grateful to my pre-reader, Jess Molly Brown, who has an invaluable talent for “nit-picking.”

Thanks also to Gene Doucette and Karin Hoyle Ballstadt, who helped me find just the right title for this book. Karin’s encyclopedic knowledge of
The Lord of the Rings
came in especially handy!