Capitulum I

Last Hope, Arkansas

T he last thing Lindy ever said to me while we were alive was, "You're a stupid whore."

It was a hot summer day, and even though I had not explicitly told anyone I was pregnant, the news had spread like it so often did in Last Hope.

We always lived like that, like something was peeking over our shoulders and whispering in our ears.

That was how I found out I was pregnant, after all, as those little plastic sticks people piss on in movies were a scarce quantity. I just woke up one morning and knew, along with the rest of the town.

It wasn't my day to work at the general store or clean the church, so I made breakfast in a haze. I was pretty deeply in denial until Lindy stormed into my trailer while I painted my toenails.

Surprised, I knocked the bottle of polish onto the mustard carpet, splashing it with scarlet.

She crossed her arms over her chest, sizing me up while I wiped at the splatter with a towel.

"I can't believe you," she finally said, words thick with disappointment.

"Okay, Mom," I grumbled.

"Thank god I'm not your mom. What happened to her? Oh right, she's fucking dead, like half the people in this town." She paused, looking around suspiciously before crouching beside me. "Remember? That's why we're trying to get the fuck out of here."

Despite being quiet, the words echoed around the empty trailer. I was the only one left, not that that afforded me much sympathy.

Most people belonged to bloodlines piddling out into nothing. No one lived long in Last Hope. Sometimes, their bodies would just fail, having slumped over a table like they'd simply passed out and never woken up, while others were injured in the near-constant earthquakes.

But the most notable deaths were from the people who tried to leave. Because just as sure as the sun rose in the East, no one ever left Last Hope alive.

"I know," I whispered, unable to meet her eyes.

But she must have had the same thought I did. I couldn't just leave now that I was pregnant. If we were to get out, neither of us could care for ourselves, much less a baby.

I'd been hesitant to leave Cass, said baby's father, as it was. Inconveniently enough, I did love him. I'd fought to convince myself that the feeling was nothing more than a side effect of growing up together under isolating circumstances, just to make escape feel less ruinous.

Unfortunately, I wasn't sure the reality of what forged our bond made a difference. Something about us had always interlocked like we'd been formed from the same wedge of clay that had cracked in the great kiln in the sky.

"What if we just waited—"

She scoffed. "We can't just wait. He needs us to go ASAP."

"Who's he ?"

Her eyes darted around the trailer again.

"Let me worry about that, yeah?"

I shook my head, my attention on my half-polished toes. "You go and get me out later, then. I can't do it right now. I need some time..."

"Time to what? Die randomly before your kid even has the opportunity to grow up? Watch them get crushed by the ceiling? What is worth waiting around here for?"

I didn't answer, didn't even look up.

Because the honest truth was, I'd been doubting her plan long before finding out about the pregnancy. Last Hope was a strange place, but it was home.

Despite her grandstanding, she didn't know how to survive in the real world any better than me, granted we even got that far.

The only artifacts of the world beyond the trees were assorted books and movies people brought with them when they had the misfortune of ending up here, most of which were fiction.

When I didn't answer, she keened, smacking the floor next to me before getting to her feet. She stormed over to the door, where she turned and delivered the last words I would ever hear her say while still alive.

"You're a stupid whore."

~

That night, more earthquakes occurred. No one really understood why the earth under us shook so violently. I'd read about it, and Arkansas wasn't known for being particularly prone to seismic disturbance. Only Last Hope had a habit of trembling.

That night, I knew it had to be because of Lindy. I curled into Cass as he slept, trying to tell myself I'd done the right thing.

The following morning, when I got up for my shift at the store, I knew something was wrong.

I wound around Lindy's trailer, finding it scrawled with that familiar marking.

Occidis cito, tardius occido was scratched in blood along the side of the building, ending in a trail of muddy red running from her front door through town to the chapel.

Despite myself, I followed the path, my eyes tracing every thrash and splatter. As I passed the old arcade we'd spent our childhoods in, constantly competing to rank up the leaderboards, the reflection of faces flashed in the window. The eyes of the mournful townsfolk followed me, clearly wondering why I was bothering to look.

We all knew what had happened.

The words were a warning but also a reminder not to let insolence go unpunished. If someone was planning to escape, we were meant to kill them as a mercy. That's what the words meant.

You kill fast. I kill slow.

Outside the chapel, I found Aunt Virginia vomiting onto the grass. She wasn't related to me by blood like she was Lindy, but family was a subjective label in Last Hope. I stopped long enough to sit her down safely on the ground before continuing inside.

Someone was already working hard in the chapel, mopping the blood out of the aisle. They wouldn't touch her, though, at least for a few days.

Lindy was hanging naked from the wall behind the podium. She'd been flayed open. Her skin peeled back to reveal her withered organs that now sat cradled in the exposed curve of her pelvis. Her head had been pulled free from her body, the skin ragged and torn, like the process had required a long bought of twisting and yanking.

When I was finished crying over her, I took it upon myself to bury her in the woods as best I could. The superstitious among us usually didn't like handling the bodies killed in such a way, so I had to do it myself, which meant it was done poorly.

When I returned home, Cass hugged me. "I'm so glad you didn't try anything so stupid."

Cassidy fancied himself a realist. He didn't particularly like Last Hope, but I'd never seen him show any sign of wanting to leave. I couldn't blame him, especially after what had happened to Lindy.

Months passed, and I had the baby, naming her Elizabeth in honor of Lindy. But once I finally had the little one in my arms, I wondered if I'd made a horrible mistake.

She was a good baby, healthy and smart, practically vaulting over every milestone in her way. But all I could think about was that, eventually, Last Hope would dull the spark in her if not snuff it out entirely.

The more books she read and movies she watched, the more she itched to be free. She pointed to pictures in books and whimpered, wondering why she couldn't swim in the ocean or investigate bustling cities.

One day, when she was just over a year old, I was tucking her into bed when I made her a promise as quietly as I could manage.

"One day," I told her, rubbing her hair away from her face, "I'm going to get us out of here."

That night brought another earthquake, a hard one. I was so accustomed to them I might have slept through it, but Betty was screaming in terror, so I scrambled out of bed and into her room.

When I opened the door and flipped on the light, I froze on the threshold.

Someone—or something—had used her nubby red crayon to scribble occidis cito, tardius occido on the wall over her crib.

I lifted her into my arms and checked over her, but she appeared unharmed.

That didn't mean we were safe, though. Last Hope knew we wanted to leave, and it would stop us one way or another.

I clutched her to me, desperately trying to figure out what to do. I didn't have much time to think.

Footsteps were approaching the bedroom door, making my insides seize in terror.

Once Cass saw the words, it would be over. He was always the first to grab the shotgun when farm animals got maimed. He'd rather kill us than see us torn apart.

However, Betty was just a baby. Surely, with me gone, there'd be no threat of her leaving. But I didn't trust him not to make that decision for her.

I scrambled over to her closet, sliding the door open, and carving out a spot between her clothes and toys layered in the bottom.

"I need you to sit here and stay quiet, no matter what, okay?" I whispered to her as the steps grew closer.

"Why?" she asked.

It was her favorite question.

"Just stay quiet." I closed her inside the closet, knowing she wouldn't understand but hoping for compliance.

Cass opened the door, freezing like I had, when he noticed the words scrawled on the wall behind me.

Shutting the door carefully, he walked over and wrapped me in a hug. I wanted to feel comforted by the gesture, but it sent an icy chill through my veins. Part of me was hoping he was about to start planning a way to save my life, but I knew better. No matter how much he loved me, I was afraid he feared Last Hope more.

"What have you done?" he whispered.

It was pointless to deny it.

"Don't you want a better future for her?"

He sighed, long and loud. "I never thought you'd be so stupid that you'd put her at risk."

"I didn't—"

I squirmed around to touch his arms, feeling his hard, trembling muscle. Part of me was still convinced I could change his mind. He loved me, after all. Surely, that was worth something to him.

"What happens now is for her. You understand?"

I nodded, my body tensing against his, trying to pull away—to escape.

"I love you," he whispered to me, arms tightening around me in a way that was distinctly different from a hug.

My voice trembled from fear as I said, "We can figure something out..."

He pulled back to meet my eye. "I'm going to get you out of here, I promise."

It was a promise he kept, in a way. When it was done, he took my body and threw it over the cliff, watching as it rolled to the bottom and landed in a clearing next to a hunter's trail.

Finally free.