Pines

just a smattering of streetlights and houselights, everything dim and obscured by the rain.
    They took the sidewalk down a quiet street, and after the second block, Ethan stopped and tried to sit down in the grass, but Beverly wouldn’t let him quit.
    “Not yet,” she said.
    “I can’t go any farther. I can barely feel my legs.”
    “One more block, OK? You can make it. You have to make it if you want to live. I promise you in five minutes you’ll be able to lie down and ride this out.”
    Ethan straightened up and staggered on, followed Beverly for one more block, beyond which the houses and streetlights ended.
    They entered a cemetery filled with crumbling headstones interspersed with scrub oaks and pines. It hadn’t been maintained in ages, grass and weeds rising to Ethan’s waist.
    “Where are you taking me?” His words slurred, felt heavy and awkward falling out of his mouth.
    “Straight ahead.”
    They wove through headstones and monuments, most eroded so badly Ethan couldn’t make out the engraving.
    He was cold, his gown soaked through, his feet muddy.
    “There it is.” Beverly pointed to a small, stone mausoleum standing in a grove of aspen. Ethan struggled through the last twenty feet and then collapsed at the entrance between a pair of stone planters that had disintegrated into rubble.
    It took Beverly three digs with her shoulder to force open the iron door, its hinges grinding loudly enough to wake the dead.
    “I need you inside,” she said. “Come on, you’re almost there. Four more feet.”
    Ethan opened his eyes and crawled up the steps through the narrow doorway, out of the rain. Beverly pulled the door closed after them, and for a moment, the darkness inside the crypt was total.
    A flashlight clicked on, the beam skirting across the interior and igniting the color of a stained-glass window inset in the back wall.
    The image—rays of sunlight piercing through clouds and lighting a single, flowering tree.
    Ethan slumped down onto the freezing stone as Beverly unzipped a duffel bag that had been stowed in the corner.
    She pulled out a blanket, unfolded it, spread it over Ethan.
    “I have some clothes for you as well,” she said, “but you can dress when you wake up again.”
    He shivered violently, fighting the undertow of unconsciousness, because there were things he had to ask, had to know. Didn’t want to risk Beverly not being here when he woke up again.
    “What is Wayward Pines?” he asked.
    Beverly sat down beside him, said, “When you wake, I’ll—”
    “No, tell me now. In the last two days, I’ve seen things that were impossible. Things that make me doubt my sanity.”
    “You aren’t crazy. They’re just trying to make you think you are.”
    “Why?”
    “That, I don’t know.”
    He wondered if he could believe her, figured that, all things considered, it was probably wise to err on the side of skepticism.
    “You saved my life,” he said, “and thank you for that. But I have to ask...why, Beverly? Why are you my only friend in Wayward Pines?”
    She smiled. “Because we both want the same thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “To get out.”
    “There’s no road out of this town, is there?”
    “No.”
    “I drove here several days ago. So how is that even possible?”
    “Ethan, just let the drug take you, and when you wake up, I’ll tell you everything I know and how I think we can get out. Close your eyes.”
    He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t stop it from happening.
    “I’m not crazy,” he said.
    “I know that.”
    His shivering had begun to abate, his body heat creating a pocket of warmth under the blanket.
    “Tell me one thing,” he said. “How did you wind up in Wayward Pines?”
    “I was a rep for IBM. Came here on a sales call trying to outfit the local school’s computer lab with our Tandy 1000s. But as I drove into town, I got into a car accident. Truck came out of nowhere, slammed into my car.” Her voice was becoming softer, more distant, harder to follow. “They told me I suffered a head injury and some memory loss, which is why my first recollection of this town is waking up one afternoon beside the river.”
    Ethan wanted to tell her that the same thing had happened to him, but he couldn’t open his mouth to speak,the drug plowing through his system like a rogue wave, engulfing him.
    He’d be gone inside a minute.
    “When?” he rasped.
    She didn’t hear him, had to lean in close, put her ear to his mouth, and it took