Page 159 of Serenity Falls

I look at the gun. It seems churlish, and possibly life-threatening, to refuse. I turn and walk out of the office.

‘We’ll take your car,’ Jerry says.

‘Okay.’

We climb into the truck. I realize, as I start it, that my hands are shaking. In the UK, guns are usually only seen on TV. But Jerry has a gun – real, deadly – and he wants me to ‘go for a drive’.

I can’t die in a fucking yellow monstrosity like this, I think. The indignity.

‘Head north along this road. Keep going straight till you reach the gas station.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere safe to talk.’

‘Your office isn’t safe?’

‘Depends on what you want to talk about.’

‘The picture on your desk—’

‘Wendy. Yeah – Weeping Wendy, as the town knows her now. No one remembers her last name, only her family.’ He pauses. ‘She was my sister.’

Sister. Right.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah. She came here with her fiancé when she was just twenty,’ Jerry continues. ‘They were offering incentives for young couples back then, especially those with skills they wanted – her fiancé, Simon, he was training to be a doctor. Looked like all their dreams had come true when they got approved.’

I guide the car carefully down the road. I can see a few people strolling along the streets, making their way home. Distantly, I hear the chimes of an ice-cream van.

‘So, what happened?’ I ask.

‘For five years, they lived the dream. We came to visit occasionally. I was working out in Jacksonville. I was ten years older than Wendy. I guess I was a little patronizing about this place. I was doing a real job in the real world. But Wendy, she liked it. She’d got herself a good job as a clerk at the sheriff’s office, and when she got engaged, well, she was the happiest I’d ever seen her.’ He points ahead. ‘Turn here.’

I flick the indicator, trying to steady my breathing.

Jerry goes on: ‘Then, one day, I got a call, and Wendy, she didn’t sound like herself. I asked her what was wrong. She said something strange. She said: “You know when you’re a kid and you find out there’s no Santa Claus, just a guy in a red suit? All the magic, the carrots for Rudolph, the footprints by the chimney. None of it is real. And everyone is in on it except you.”’

He shakes his head. ‘I think I probably humoured her and said something like, “Well, I guess that’s called growing up – and yeah, it sucks.” And she laughed, and I asked if everything was all right, and she told me that it would be. Everything would be fine.’

He pauses. We’ve driven out of the main hub of Serenity Falls. The buildings around us are more industrial now. The workings of the beast, I think.

‘That was the last time I spoke to her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say again.

Jerry doesn’t reply for a few moments. Then he says: ‘Out here is where the power generators keep things running. We’ve got a solar field off site. Plus, our own internal power station that feeds off a private grid.’

‘I didn’t realize that was possible.’

‘With Winsom it is.’

Ahead, I can see a security gate, more buildings behind it. Jerry reaches into his jacket and pulls out a card. ‘You press that against the entry pad.’

I do as he says, and the gates open. I drive through. In contrast to the rest of Serenity Falls, this looks more like the typical kind of small industrial estate I’m familiar with from the UK. Bland warehouses. A taller grey octagonal building plastered with signs: Danger of Electrocution. Big four wheelers and a few refuse trucks.

‘You can stop now,’ Jerry says. ‘This is the end of the line.’