• Returnees’ known abilities to protect the living from the Dead, as highlighted by the minority representative.
• Returnees’ explanation for humankind’s extinction.
• Any other (as yet undetermined) anthropological opportunity to learn lessons from the Returnees that could later be used to help stop the Dead, as highlighted by the minority representative.

Outcome of the Resolution

The Nationwide Destruction of all Returnees

Resolved by the Remaining Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress by the Following Signatory:

Senator James O’Hurn

The senator’s name stared at Peter like it wore a smile. O’Hurn was a name he knew. A name he’d come to trust, but that was in reality as trustworthy as that sheriff badge. And in that reassuring image, the sheriff had taken a seat in front of Peter that very first day in his office and planted a seed inside him: the seed of the idea that his own monster, Timberdark, was Cooper’s. All he had to do was plant it deep enough, then sit back and watch it grow. Peter clenched his jaw. He’d trusted Henry and Darlene, but no one had twisted his trust in them more cruelly than Sheriff O’Hurn. He’d achieved what no one before him had been able to. He’d turned love into hate and his Cooper into a monster just so that he’d lead him straight here.

A tear fell across the page and Peter wondered if he might just be left alone to die. Why did anything further even need to happen? He could fall, or he could sit. Soon something would simply come along and take him away and then he’d never have to see Cooper’s face the moment he walked back into his life with an apology that could never be enough. Peter stared into the never-ending darkness of that abyss, when a draught caught the back of his neck making the candle’s flame curl.

“Well, I reckon I did my twenty thousand steps just taking that watchtower alone,” called the sheriff from the other end of the cabin. “But I can’t say I achieved much else.”

Dread surged down Peter’s body into his fingertips like a living thing had burrowed its way right through him. He stuffed the dossier inside his jacket.

“You boys had any luck?”

Quickly, Peter shoved the lid of the trapdoor underneath the bed. “No!” he called back. “Not yet.”