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Chapter 12 starts off with Wanderer in panic-mode. Something is up. She goes over the past few days in her head, tallying off how many Twinkies she ate and reviewing the distance of the mountain peaks.
As she does this, Wanderer comes to a startling revelation. As if starving and dying of thirst wasn’t bad enough, all this time, she has been traveling the wrong way. Melanie takes the blame telling Wanderer that she must have miscalculated. Wanderer is in hysterics and Mel figuratively slaps her back into focus bringing up Jared and Jamie. What if they had followed the same path…and failed, as well? A chilling notion comes over Wanderer, as she scans the desert for human “remains”. But “No, of course not,” Melanie assures Wanderer (and herself). “Jared’s too smart.”
“We are going to die,” Wanderer states, matter-of-factly. Melanie agrees but isn’t regretful. She died trying and she never gave up Jamie and Jared’s location. She won. But what about Wanderer? What is she dying for? “…to be human,” Melanie says. “I think you’ve found your home, Wanderer.”
As Mel and Wanderer struggle on, they discuss the afterlife. Wanderer tells Mel that the souls don’t really believe in the ‘afterlife’ since they have so many lives. When Wanderer asks Mel if she believes in it the afterlife, Mel replies, “It seems like there are some things that can’t die.” …like love.
Wanderer ponders if the love she feels for Jamie and Jared will carry on even after her body (or Mel’s body, we should say) is gone. With Melanie maybe, but not for her, she believes.
After a few hours, Wanderer and Mel start what can only be referred to as ‘the death process’. It comes to the point where they can’t even talk to eachother anymore because they are so weak. But then…something shifts. There is a presence, a sound….someone sighs?
Someone is definitely there and someone is definitely giving them water. As they open their eyes, they are able to make out a figure? Santa Claus? No, it’s Uncle Jeb of Mel’s Crazies relatives! “Well, now, here’s a pickle.” A pickle, indeed.
