Justin Cronin - The Twelve

—Yes.

An ocean of time, that’s what I told him. That’s what I can give you, Anthony, an ocean of time . A sudden bitterness came into his face. I always did hate Texas, you know .

He had yet to look at her; Amy sensed that the conversation neither required nor even allowed this. Then:

I was thinking just now about the camp. The two of us, reading together, playing Monopoly. Park Place, Boardwalk, Marvin Gardens. You always beat me .

—I think you let me.

Wolgast chuckled to himself. No, it was always you, fair and square. And Jacob Marley . A Christmas Carol, that was your favorite. I think you had the whole book memorized. Do you remember?

—I remember all of it. The day it snowed. Making the snow angels.

He wore the chains he forged in life . Wolgast frowned in sudden puzzlement. It was such a sad story .

Here was the river, Amy thought. The great, coursing river of the past.

I could have gone on that way forever . Wolgast angled his eyes upward, addressing the darkness. Lila, don’t you see? This was what I wanted. It was all I ever wanted . Then: Do you… know this place, Amy?

—I don’t think it’s anywhere. I think that I’m asleep.

He considered these words with a faint nod. Well. That does sound right to me. Now that you say it, that makes a lot of sense . He took a long breath and let the air out slowly. It’s strange. There’s so much I can’t remember. That’s what it’s like, you know. Like there’s only this little bit of yourself you get to keep. But things are coming clearer now .

—I miss you, Daddy.

I know you do. I miss you, too, sweetheart, more than you’ll ever know. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was with you. I wish I could have saved you, Amy .

—But you did. You saved me.

You were just a little girl, alone in the world. I never should have let them take you. I tried, but not hard enough. That’s the real test, you know. That’s the true measure of a man’s life. I was always too afraid. I hope you can forgive me .

A wave of sorrow broke inside her. How she longed to comfort him, to take him in her arms. Yet she knew that if she attempted this, were she to move even one step closer, the dream would dissolve, and she would be alone again.

—I do. Of course I do. There’s nothing to forgive.

There’s so much I never told you . He was staring intently at his hands. About Lila, and Eva. Our own little girl. You were so much like her .

—You didn’t have to, Daddy. I knew, I knew. I always knew.

You filled my heart, Amy. That’s what you did for me. You filled the place where Eva had been. But I couldn’t save you any more than I could save her .

As if these words had willed it, the image of the room had begun to recede, the space between the two of them elongating like a hallway. A sudden desperation took her in its grip.

It’s good to remember these things with you, Amy. If it’s all right, I think I’ll stay here for a while .

He was leaving her, he was telescoping away.

—Daddy, please. Don’t go.

My brave girl. My brave Amy. He’s waiting for you. He’s been waiting all this time, in the ship. The answers are there. You need to go to him when the time comes .

—What ship? I don’t know any ship.

But her pleas were no use; the dream was fading, Wolgast was almost gone. He was poised at the very edge of the enveloping darkness.

—Please, Daddy, she cried. Don’t leave me. I don’t know what to do.

At last he turned his face toward her and found her with his eyes. Bright, shining, piercing her heart.

Oh, I don’t think I will ever leave you, Amy .

Western Headquarters of the Expeditionary

Though Lieutenant Peter Jaxon was a decorated military officer, a veteran of three separate campaigns and a man about whom stories were told, he sometimes felt as if his life had stopped.

He waited for orders; he waited for chow; he waited for the latrine. He waited for the weather to break, and when it didn’t, he waited some more. Orders, weapons, supplies, news—all were things he waited for. For days and weeks and sometimes even months he waited, as if his time on earth had been consecrated to the very act of waiting, as if he were a man-sized waiting machine.

He was waiting now.

Something important was happening in the command tent; he had no doubt in his mind. All morning Apgar and the others had been sealed away. Peter had begun to fear the worst. For months they’d all heard the rumors: if the task force didn’t kill one soon, the hunt would be abandoned.

Five years since his ride up the mountain with Amy. Five years hunting the Twelve. Five years with nothing to show for it.

Houston, home of Anthony Carter, subject Number Twelve, would have been the logical place to start, if the place hadn’t been an impenetrable swamp. So, too, New Orleans, home of Number Five, Thaddeus Turrell. Tulsa, Oklahoma, seat of Rupert Sosa, had yielded nothing but disaster; the city was a vast ruin, dracs everywhere, and they’d lost sixteen men before making their escape.

There were others. Jefferson City, Missouri. Oglala, South Dakota. Everett, Washington. Bloomington, Minnesota. Orlando, Florida. Black Creek, Kentucky. Niagara Falls, New York. All distant and unreachable, many miles and years away. Tacked to the inside of the lid of his locker Peter kept a map, each of these cities circled in ink. The seats of the Twelve. To kill one of the Twelve was to kill his descendants, to free their minds for the journey into death. Or so Peter believed. That was what Lacey had taught him when she’d exploded the bomb that killed Babcock, subject Number One; what Amy had showed him, stepping from Lacey’s cabin into the snowy field, where the Many had lain in the sun to die.

You are Smith, you are Tate, you are Dupree, you are Erie Ramos Ward Cho Singh Atkinson Johnson Montefusco Cohen Murrey Nguyen Elberson Lazaro Torres …

They had been a group of ten then. Now they were six. Peter’s brother was gone, and Maus, and Sara, too. Of the five that had made the trip to Roswell Garrison, only Hollis and Caleb had escaped—“Baby Caleb,” though he was hardly a baby anymore, now in the orphanage in Kerrville, being raised by the sisters. When the virals had broken through the Roswell Garrison’s perimeter, Hollis had run with Caleb to one of the hardboxes. Theo and Maus were already dead. No one knew what became of Sara; she had vanished into the melee. Hollis had looked for her body in the aftermath but found nothing. The only explanation was that she’d been taken up.

The years had scattered the others like the wind. Michael was at the refinery in Freeport, an oiler first class. Greer, who had joined them in Colorado, was in the stockade, sentenced to six years for deserting his command. And who knew where Hollis was. The man they’d known and loved like a brother had broken under the weight of Sara’s death, his grief casting him into the dark underbelly of the city, the world of the trade. Peter had heard he’d risen through the ranks to become one of Tifty’s top lieutenants. Of the original group, only Peter and Alicia had joined the hunt.

And Amy. What of Amy?

Peter thought of her often. She looked very much as she always had—like a girl of fourteen, not the 103 she actually was—but much had changed since their first meeting. The Girl from Nowhere, who spoke only in riddles when she spoke at all, was no more. In her place was a person much more present, more human . She spoke often of her past, not just her lonely years of wandering but her earliest memories of the Time Before: of her mother, and Lacey, and a camp in the mountains and the man who had saved her. Brad Wolgast. Not her real father, Amy said, she had never known who that was, but a father nonetheless. Whenever she spoke of him, a weight of grief entered her eyes. Peter knew without asking that he had died to protect her, and that this was a debt she could never repay, though she might spend her life—that infinite, unknowable span—trying to do just that.