Alone in the Wild(50)

“You weren’t actually trying to break in at all,” I say. “You knew that door would be locked. You stepped out from behind a tree right when Will passed by. You waited for him, so he’d see you try breaking in. You wanted us to think Maryanne was in danger. You want us to get her out of here before dawn. Why?”

I think I know the answer, but I’m still smarting from my mistake with the hostiles, and so I will hold back here.

“I … I just feel it’s unsafe,” Phil says. “Volatile elements and all that. It seems unwise. I wanted to alert you to the possibility of trouble.”

Dalton leans back on the sofa. “Well, then, next time, just come and tell us. We’re the local law. We’ll decide whether there’s a credible threat. I say there isn’t, so Maryanne stays. In fact, I’m going to encourage her to stick around an extra day and night. Casey and I have a baby’s family to locate, and Maryanne really should get more medical treatment—”

“No,” Phil says. “I’m sorry, but we are not a rehabilitation facility. We can provide emergency aid, and of course we aren’t going to send her into the wilderness without supplies, but she must go by dawn.”

“Why don’t we ask the council about that?” Dalton says. “Dawn is midmorning. We’ll call them at nine and relay your concerns—”

“No, you can’t…”

When Phil trails off, Dalton leans forward. “Can’t what? Can’t tell them that you spoke to us about this? You’ve dug yourself into a hole here, and you’re still grasping at roots, trying to yank yourself out. But you’re grabbing the ones that are going to snap and send you falling back into that hole with a busted leg. Slow down and think.”

Phil does. Then his lips form an unspoken curse.

“Yeah,” Dalton says. “You just advised us to get Maryanne out, and even if we do that, there’s nothing to stop us from innocently mentioning it when we talk to the council next. Telling them that you insisted.”

“The council didn’t say they were fine with having Maryanne here, did they?” I say, finally working up the courage to voice the suspicions Dalton is obviously suggesting. “They’re the threat, not random residents.”

Phil’s mouth opens. Then he thinks better of whatever he’d been about to say and withdraws.

I push on. “You dressed up and pretended to try breaking into Maryanne’s place in hopes we’d worry and shuffle her out before … before what?”

He still doesn’t speak. He’s not denying it either, though.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dalton says. “Would charades help? You act out the situation, and we can guess what the problem is?”

Phil glowers … and says nothing.

“He wants us to guess,” I say. “By now, Phil, you’ve realized that there are a lot of little moments during your stay here when you make a decision that sets your feet on a certain path. Like those old Choose Your Own Adventure books. Constant choices, and for some there’s no turning back. This is one of those forks. If the council told you to do something about Maryanne, and you did, that would be your quicksand fate. There’s no convincing us later that you were still on our side. Instead, you warned us. That’s another of those paths, because if the council finds out, you’ve walked into more quicksand. Now you’re into the smaller choices. They’re subtler. They’re you choosing where you’re going to stand on that line between the two sides. If you decide to stop here, I understand.”

Dalton grumbles under his breath.

I shoot him a look. “The main thing is that we’ve been warned. Of course we want more. But I understand the position you’re in and the dangers of telling us more. I also hope that you understand, Phil, that by not telling us more, you leave us to imagine the worst. I do believe some elements of the council are working toward our common goal. But some of them are very clearly not.”

He’s quiet for another few moments. Then he says, “What if I don’t necessarily agree? If I believe the council is indeed acting in Rockton’s best interests, but that they overestimate the danger and…”

He trails off, and we wait. When he speaks again, his tone is slow, measured. “Being in Rockton, my vantage point has changed, yet I still try to balance the needs of the individuals with the needs of the whole. Ultimately, any choice must favor the whole—keeping Rockton safe and self-sufficient. However, living here, I think you two sometimes fail to see the larger picture.”

“That if the town loses money, we shut down?” Dalton says. “Fuck no, we don’t see that at all. That shit grows on trees, doesn’t it?”

“Rockton isn’t a nonprofit,” I say. “No one expects that. We do think it should be a not-for-profit, though.”

“This isn’t the time for that discussion,” Phil says. “My original point wasn’t financial. By big picture, I mean security as well. We make choices to protect the whole. You both do, and the council does, and some of them are choices you’d rather not make. The difference is…”

Phil searches for something and then blurts, “Zombies.”

I lift my brows.

He continues. “Let’s say one person in your city becomes a zombie. There’s a chance of treating her, but an even greater chance that she’ll infect others and it’ll spread. The obvious solution is to kill her. But what if this zombie is Casey? That will affect your decision. Likewise, living here, you can never be completely unbiased. Imagine you have a resident who is at high risk of going south and telling the world about Rockton. Imagine she’s also a friend. If you fear the council might take drastic measures to stop her, will you inform them? What if you don’t and she tells her story to the world, and Rockton ceases to exist? She lives and others don’t because there’s no Rockton to escape to?”