He still remembered his phone number, practiced it a few times on the keypad just to be safe, and checked the receiver once more for a dial tone—silence save for the faintest crackling of white noise bleeding through the line that he didn’t recall hearing before.
“Hello? Hello?”
He hung up and lifted the phonebook again. The first time, he’d searched the last names, groping for any word that jogged loose a memory or incited an emotion. Now he scanned first names, tracing his finger down the list and trying to ignore that pain at the base of his skull that was already creeping back.
The first page—nothing.
Second page—nothing.
Third—nothing.
Toward the bottom of the sixth page, his finger stopped.
SKOZIE Mack and Jane
403 E 3rd St W Pines 83278..........559-0196
He skimmed the last two pages—Skozie was the only Mack listed in the Wayward Pines phone directory.
Digging his shoulder into the folding glass door, he stepped out of the booth into the early evening. With the sun now below the ring of cliffs, the light was spilling fast out of the sky, and the temperature had begun to fall.
Where will I sleep tonight?
He staggered down the sidewalk, part of him screaming that he should go straight to the hospital. He was sick. Dehydrated. Hungry. Confused. Penniless. His entire body sore. And it was getting more difficult to breathe with this debilitating pain wracking his ribs every time his lungs inflated against them.
But something in him still resisted the idea of going to the hospital, and as he moved away from the downtown and toward the residence of Mack Skozie, he realized what it was.
Again...fear.
He didn’t know why. It made no sense. But he didn’t want to set foot inside that hospital.
Not in his present condition. Not ever.
It was the strangest sort of fear. Unspecified. Like walking in the woods at night, not knowing exactly what you should be afraid of, and the fear all the more potent precisely because of its mystery.
Two blocks north took him to Third Street, his chest inexplicably tightening as he turned onto the sidewalk and headed east, away from the downtown.
The first mailbox he passed had 201 printed on the side.
He figured the Skozie residence should only be two blocks away.
Kids were playing in the grass of a yard just ahead, taking turns running through a sprinkler. He tried to walk upright and steady as he reached their picket fence, but he couldn’t stop himself from favoring his right side to ease the jarring of his ribs.
The children became still and quiet as he drew near, watching him shuffle past with unrestrained stares—a mix of curiosity and distrust that made him uneasy.
He crossed another road, moving slower still up the next block as he passed under the branches of three enormous pines that overhung the street.
The numbers of the colorful Victorians that populated this block all started with a three.
Skozie’s block would be next.
His palms were beginning to sweat and the pulsing in the back of his head sounded like the thump-thump-thump of a bass drum buried deep underground.
Two seconds of double vision.
He squeezed his eyes shut tight, and when he opened them again, it had gone away.
At the next intersection, he stopped. His mouth had been dry, but now it turned to cotton. He was struggling to breathe, bile threatening to surge up his throat.
This will all make sense when you see his face.
It has to.
He made a tentative step out into the street.
Evening now, the chill coming off those mountains and settling down into the valley.
Alpenglow had given the rock surrounding Wayward Pines a pinkish tint, the same shade as the darkening sky. He tried to find it beautiful and moving, but the agony prevented this.
An older couple moved away from him, hand in hand, on a quiet stroll.
Otherwise, the street stood empty and silent, and the noise of the downtown had completely faded away.
He moved across the smooth, black asphalt and stepped onto the sidewalk.
The mailbox to 401 was straight ahead.
Number 403 next in line.
“Yes.”
He edged closer, the older man coming into sharper focus, the sour sweetness of red wine on his breath.
“Do you know me?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
Now the fear was fermenting into rage.