* * *
He felt better than he had in days walking toward the east side of town as the light began to fail and the temperature dropped.
He strolled past a barbecue in progress.
The smell of charcoal on the breeze.
The good, sour aroma of beer wafting out of plastic cups.
The sound of children’s laughter echoing through the valley.
The cicada-like clicking of a water sprinkler nearby.
Everywhere he looked, it was a painting.
Like the Platonic ideal of a town. There couldn’t have been more than four or five hundred people living here, and he found himself wondering what had brought them. How many had discovered Wayward Pines by accident, fell in love, stayed? How many had been born here and never left?
Much as he’d always been a big-city guy, he could understand not leaving a place like this. Why abandon what appeared to be complete and total perfection? Quintessential Americana surrounded by some of the most striking natural beauty he’d ever laid eyes on. He’d seen pictures of Wayward Pines the night before he left Seattle, but none of them had even come close to doing this little valley justice.
And still, he was here.
And by virtue of that fact, or rather because of it, this place wasn’t perfect.
His experience, there was darkness everywhere human beings gathered.
The way of the world.
Perfection was a surface thing. The epidermis. Cut a few layers deep, you begin to see some darker shades.
Cut to the bone—pitch black.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the mountains as he walked. The eastern wall must have gone up three or four thousand feet. Toward the top, all rock and ice.
The final strands of horizontal sunlight were striking the cliffs at his back, and he turned around and took a moment to stop and watch the glow fade away.
When the light was gone, the rock turned instantly to the color of blued steel.
And the nature of it changed.
It was still beautiful.
But more remote.
Indifferent.