Shoshanna Evers - The Pulse

The soldier nodded and Jenna carefully dropped the shirt over Taryn’s head, pulling her arms through the sleeves like she might dress a child, or a doll.

“Thank you,” Taryn whispered, stepping into the pants as Jenna quickly pulled them up around her waist before the men changed their minds.

“I’m so sorry about this, Taryn,” she whispered, kissing her cheek, tasting the salty tears.

“I’ll be okay,” Taryn said. “Even if they kill me, I’ll be okay.”

Jenna started crying with her then. “I won’t let them kill you,” she said.

The soldier grabbed Taryn again, holding her arms behind her back and forcing her to move forward. Taryn dragged her feet, refusing to walk to her death.

A soldier shook his head as they all walked off with the girl. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Potterskill, NY

MASON

Mason didn’t wantto tell Emily about the town hall meeting that would decide his fate. He had no choice, however. After all, they were deciding whether she could stay as well.

Mason had no doubt the people would vote to keep Emily, but she was obviously very upset anyway. Her brow furrowed as they followed the line of people into the meeting.

“Don’t worry,” Mason whispered as they entered the large town hall, lit with homemade wall sconces and candles. “They need you.”

“I’m not worried about me,” she whispered back, her eyes filled with concern. “What if they make you leave?”

Mason shrugged, trying to act nonchalant even as his stomach churned at the thought.

The Potterskill council consisted of half a dozen men, including Luke. Every resident in town had shown up that evening, murmuring softly amongst themselves.

Luke struck a gavel on an old folding table, and the people quieted.

“We’re here this evening to place a vote on whether or not to allow two new residents into our town,” Luke said, holding everyone’s attention. “In making your decision, please remember that every extra person we take on severely taxes our limited resources. That being said, Emily is a skilled nurse, as many of you know.”

Mason frowned. Luke obviously didn’t want him staying in Potterskill. Mason raised his hand, coughing loudly so he couldn’t be ignored.

Luke nodded in his direction. “Go ahead.”

Mason stood, addressing the group. “I’m Mason. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn my keep here—I can help with any manual labor you have. I’m good with firearms, so I can help hunt, and I can do guard duty up at the road too if you guys needed me to. I know I may seem like another mouth to feed, but if you let me stay I promise I will give more than I take.” That was it. He had nothing more to add, nothing more to offer. He sat back down on the metal folding chair.

Luke turned to Emily. “Do you have anything to add?”

Emily blushed bright pink, making her look even more breathtaking to Mason. “Um, I’m a registered nurse, as you know. I’ve upset some of you by being realistic about your town’s medical resources. If you let me stay that will probably happen again, but I think it’s better to have a trained professional triage than to make the wrong decision based on emotion. I’d really like to stay, and have Mason be allowed to stay too. He’s very strong and like he said he’s great with guns. He’d be a good guy to have around for extra protection.”

The townspeople started murmuring again and Mason felt his insides twist. Most of them were men—and there was no way those men wanted Emily’s lover keeping her off the market. Fuck. This couldn’t end well.

“There’s one more thing I have to say,” Emily interrupted. “Potterskill is an amazing community, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we’d love to be a part of it. But there are other places that are hell on earth, like the military camp at Grand Central run by Colonel Lanche. I don’t know if Potterskill has the ability to get the word out about Grand Central, but if you can help the people living there…” She trailed off as if she didn’t know exactly what she hoped would happen.

Luke lifted his gavel. “Okay,” he said loudly. “All those in favor of Emily being allowed to stay on in Potterskill as a permanent resident, raise your hand.”

Almost every single hand rose. No surprise there.

“All those in favor of Mason being allowed to stay on in Potterskill as a permanent resident, raise your hand.”

This time, out of a room filled with over a hundred people, only a few scattered hands went up. All women.

Mason’s heart sank into his stomach, feeling like it was being slowly eaten away by the churning acid. The town had decided. He was out.

“Emily, welcome to Potterskill,” Luke said. “Mason, you have three days and then you need to leave.”

“Wh-what about Grand Central?” she asked, her voice tight.

Luke’s eyes softened. “We have a very limited mail system, as you know. I can try to get a message out, but there’s not much we can do. We certainly can’t afford to take in a city full of refugees from the camp.”

Mason nodded slowly. He had expected as much, on both counts. Emily had bright tears in her eyes, but she did a pretty good job of holding herself together.

“If you have to leave,” Emily whispered to him, “I’ll leave too.”

“I don’t need you to come with me,” he lied.

The hurt look on her face made him feel like he’d been punched in the gut. He couldn’t think about sparing her feelings right now. If he had to leave on Monday, then he had a lot of preparations to make. Such as finding Emily a replacement—for himself.

Mason urged Emilyto go without him to church the following morning. Not because he had anything against church. He wanted to hang back, and observe. He could always join her later if he needed to.

Potterskill had a large church following, and the place was packed. The town did seem to consist mainly of young men and only a dozen or so women, although those women were already paired off with some of the men. A few skinny children played on the road outside the church, not needing to be mindful of traffic.

Emily went to bed early after the town meeting, but Mason spent Saturday night talking to Luke, who had three suggestions for eligible men. Luke assured him that each of the men would provide for Emily and protect her. Mason walked by their houses the following morning, and instantly got rid of two of the choices.

One man had a woman leaving his house at the crack of dawn, so he wasn’t the right guy to ask to take care of Emily—he already had a woman, whoever she was. The other man looked nice. Too nice. Like the sort of man that other men wouldn’t be afraid of. And that defeated the purpose.

When Mason saw Brad Crimshaw, however, he knew he had found the right guy. Brad was a big dude—the type of guy that other guys wouldn’t want to mess with, so they’d keep their hands off his woman. He had a small but well-maintained house, a ton of firewood already chopped, and the guy certainly didn’t look like he was hungry. So he would do fine.

And he was walking into the church now.

“Brad,” Mason called. The other man looked up in surprise.

“Who’s asking?”

“Name’s Mason. I came here with the nurse, Emily.”

Brad smiled. “Oh yeah, Emily! My cousin got a nasty cut helping me chop wood, and she took real good care of it. Probably won’t get infected now, hopefully, anyway.”

“Must be hard, not having any young women around,” Mason said, trying to think of a way to broach the subject.

“I didn’t touch her,” Brad said darkly, looking ready to throw down.

Mason laughed. “It’s okay, I’m not here about that. I’m not—I told the guards I was her husband, but I’m not. Listen, can we keep this between us for now?”