Whispering Pines Memorial Forest

“It is my pleasure to unveil an innovation in burial services.”

The investors looked uncomfortable as they sat in the hot sun on the edge of John’s latest investment. When the tech mogul had bought five hundred acres of swamp land, people had speculated that he meant to build another factory for his microchips. Tech magazines had floated the idea of everything from warehouses to a new robotics division and everything in between, but none of them could have guessed his intentions. His stock price had doubled since the announcement, and investors seemed to be holding their breath to see what would come out of Yomite Solutions this season.

Only his accountant knew the real story, and he had been sworn to secrecy.

“Not a word of it to anyone,” John had said, winking as his casual smile spread across his face.

Wayne had snorted, “John, no one would believe me if I told them.”

Now here they were, their eyebrow raised as he talked about not some new piece of tech but an innovation in the burial of all things.

“Behind me stands five hundred acres of new growth, trees ready to provide mankind with oxygen, and many helpful species of insects and wildlife with a place to live. Beneath them, however, are the first in a long line of subjects in our Land Renewal Initiative. The bodies are infused with seeds, the seeds take root and use them for nourishment and, as such, become a sort of casket for the dead.”

He saw some of the squirming looks held by those gathered and decided to squash them.

“Behind me stands what will one day be a new forest, a forest that will be untouchable thanks to the laws now in place. Think of it, every cemetery, a forest, every boneyard, a park, every place of death, a place of rebirth. This is the future, a future that bodes well for the earth and for the health of our planet. Welcome to Yomite Pines Memorial Forest, a place of peace and rest.”

The investors clapped. It wasn’t over-enthusiastically, but they clapped. They would see, in time, that this was a good middle ground. John had done a lot of harm to this planet with his factories, his smog, and his landfills full of obsolete electronics. If he could turn people's minds and grow a memorial forest in every state, it would go a long way towards making him feel better about his business and his soul.

John Yomite, in fact, hoped to be buried in one of these forests himself one day.

He had no way of knowing how soon that dream might become a reality.

* * * * *

That was the first night he had the dreams.

He was running through the rows of newly planted pines, the ground groaning as they grew towards the heavens. They towered over him, their branches grasping for the sky, and as they blotted out the moon he heard their whispers.

“Join us”

“Join us”

“Join us in the soil!”

The ground sucked at his feet as he ran, the sand clung to him as if trying to hold him down, and as he jogged through the park he had created, a cold wind blew among the trees. He woke up in his bed as the whispers grew, and breathed a sigh of relief when he realized it had all been a dream. Did the water in his morning shower look a little darker as it went down the drain? Were there leaves in the pockets of his sleep shorts? Was there maybe even some mud he overlooked on his arms and legs? Maybe, but if there were, John didn't see them.

He shook it off as nerves as he got ready for the day, but it wouldn't be the last time he ran through the trees by night.

* * * * *

“Wow! John, if you had told me that this thing would take off like this a year ago, I would have called you crazy.”

John looked down over the forest of pines and oaks, their tops coming in as they grew strong. The glass window of his tower made the perfect observation platform, and the glass was thick enough to block out the whispers he sometimes heard when he walked the grounds. Wayne was going over numbers, but John was barely listening.

“You did call me crazy,” John said, looking out over the forest of trees.

He had built this tower so he could watch the forest grow, and he found he was truly at peace when he stood up here.

Watching them sway, watching them grow, it was all so different from anything he had done before.

“Did I?” Wayne asked, “Well, guess I was wrong. This has been a bigger windfall than any of your previous endeavors.”

John would have agreed if it hadn't been for the incidents that kept cropping up.

“Who would have thought that people would pay so much to save the planet and be one with a burgeoning forest?” John asked.

“Now if we could just figure out why people keep going missing we'd be set,” Wayne said.

He said it with a laugh, but John didn't really find it funny.

If it had been one or two then John could have understood, but what kind of memorial garden loses double-digit guests in their first year?

The large forest had become a popular tourist spot and people had come to camp and walk and take in the natural beauty of the new-growth forest. The trees were only about half the size they would grow to be, but there was still an impressive stature to them. They were the living embodiment of those who had nourished them, at least that's what the papers and some of the journals were saying. There were plans to grow more of them if participation was good, and so far it had been. People were interested in helping the environment and having a quiet and beautiful place for their relatives to visit them, and the list of people who had bought places in Yomite Pines would facilitate the buying of another twenty or thirty acres at least.

It had all been looking promising before people started going missing.

At first, it wasn’t anything to get too excited about. A couple of campers never arrived back home. An older couple that never returned to their car after a visit. A man who never walked back out the front gates after walking in. These things were odd, but not unexplainable. People did all kinds of silly things, and this was no more than someone who had simply decided to leave by another way or had forgotten to check out or, perhaps, decided to lose themselves on purpose and find a quiet place to die.

The kid, however, was something else.

Marcus Le’Rane was six and had accompanied his parents into the little forest so they could “visit” his grandmother. They had walked amongst the trees, taken in the paths and little bridges and the shallow river that ran through it, but when they had turned to go, Mrs. Le’Rane had noticed that her son was nowhere to be found. She swore he had been with them when they crossed the little bridge over the river. She swore he had been with them when they stopped to dip their feet in the river. She swore he had been with them when they stopped at the bathrooms. She also swore that she couldn’t be certain after they had passed the picnic area and started heading back towards their car.

“I don’t remember much after the picnic area if I’m being honest,” she said, her dreamy voice at odds with her tearful demeanor of the moment before, “I had been walking along, listening to something, and, for a moment, it was almost like I was hearing my mom talk to me. I know how that sounds, but I’m telling you that I could almost hear her voice.”

Her husband had said something similar, though not the same. He could swear he heard people whispering just out of sight like they were sitting in the woods and discussing important matters. He described it as the scene in The Hobbit where the dwarves kept interrupting the elves' parties. He could hear them, but he knew that if he went to investigate they would all just melt away and reappear somewhere else.

Regardless, neither of them could say when little Marcus had left their side, but he was gone now and they wanted him found.

John stayed with the parents while the Forest was searched. He had set up a little command center near the visitors center and was directing volunteers from there. Mr. Le’Rane had gone out to help them at the start, but by sunset, he was back at the tent and sitting with his wife. The two were holding each other, both praying quietly as they waited for their son to return. They were upset, but John had yet to see them cry. They were afraid, but they didn’t seem overly fearful. He would have thought they were in shock, except that they kept looking into the Forest as if someone were calling them, before going back to their prayers.

“This isn’t good,” Johne said under his breath.

“You don’t say?” Wayne had said, looking at the parents as he pitched his voice low.

“Be as glib as you want, but Marcus Le’Rane’s disappearance doesn’t look good.”

Wayne pulled him aside, out of earshot of the “grieving” parents, so they could talk.

“Do you have any idea how many kids go missing in National Parks every year? Do you know how many theme parks lose kids without the help of creeps? Kids wander off, John. We’ll probably find him asleep under a tree somewhere.”

They did not find him asleep under a tree somewhere.

They didn’t find him at all.

Marcus was the fifteenth person to go missing in the park that year, but he wasn’t the last.

“We've had a hundred more pre-orders for the upcoming acreage. We sell the plots as quickly as they become available. It's almost like printing money.”

John was glad that Wayne had forgotten about the kid so easily, but John found it a little more difficult. He remembered each of the names, each of the civil suits their families tried to file before his lawyers shut them down, and he supposed he probably always would. Wayne went on talking, but John couldn't take his eyes off the trees. The sway was so hypnotic. Maybe this was why people kept going missing.

That, or the whispering he heard sometimes.

He could hear it a little up here, but it was always worse when he was on the ground. It was like a slithery little voice that wormed its way into his ear, begging him to come and join the others who had already come to this place. And why not, he thought. They all seemed to have found peace here. Everyone seemed to find peace here. Maybe that was why so many of them came here to...

“How's your mom?” Wayne asked suddenly, and the question jarred him back to reality.

“Some days better, some days worse. She's fading, but she's going out slowly.”

“Will you plant her too when the time comes?” Wayne asked, the question sounding uneasy.

“I saved her a spot from the very start,” John said, looking at a place near the base of his tower here, “I grew this forest for her, after all.”

Wayne excused himself after a little more small talk, but John just stood there and watched the trees sway.

Who wouldn't want to be laid to rest in such a peaceful place?

* * * * *

“It is an honor to stand here and ring in a year since the opening of Yomite Pines Memorial Forest.”

The crowd applauded excitedly, but as he stood looking out over them, all John could hear was the wind through the trees behind him. They were all pines here at Yomite Pines, mighty pines that grew lush and deep green in the hearty soil. In just a year they had grown past the projections put forth at the start, and John now stood beneath towering trees that had been little more than half-grown saplings two years ago when he had begun planting.

He shuddered a little as something else rustled against his subconscious, but he put it aside like he always did.

It was just nerves, after all, just like the dreams.

“We’ve incorporated another one hundred acres, fifty of which have been donated by the North American Wildlife Foundation to help with deforestation efforts. Of those new one hundred acres, we have already filled fifty of them with fresh growth and new remains. The Yomite Pines Memorial Forest will soon be a forest stretching across the newly reclaimed land, and our world will be better for it.”

The applause from the crowd was much more enthusiastic than they had been last time. The thought of a forest of the dead had been a little sickening, a little spooky, but now they were behind him. His reforestation program was a big hit, and people were signing up for plots in the hundreds.

Though Yomite Pines might be a big hit with the people, John was beginning to have reservations about the project.

It had been six months since Marcus had disappeared, and now his mother and father were also missing.

John had once liked to stroll out here, just taking it all in and soaking in the peaceful landscape he had created. He was on one such walk, about two weeks after Marcus had gone missing when he saw Mrs. Le’Rane walking down the path towards him. Walking might have been a stretch. Shelly Le’Rane was wobbling like a drunk as she came towards him and looked like she was barely in the world. He called out to her, asking how she was doing and if there was any news on Marcus, but it took three such calls for her to look up and acknowledge him.

“Huh?” she finally said, shaking her head as if she’d been sleepwalking, “Oh, Mr. Yomite. I’m,” she seemed to muddle through what she was before answering, “As well as I can be, I suppose.”

“Did you come to look for Marcus?” he asked, wondering why she was here if she was still looking for her son.

The whole park had been searched from border to border, but no sign of the kid had been found. It was as if the ground had simply swallowed him up and left nothing behind. They had moved on to the surrounding scrubland, but John was certain he had seen the mother in the park more than once. The father had come in once as well, but that was the last time John had seen him. He hadn’t come back again after that and John supposed he was doing better than his wife.

Here she was, high or drunk or both, and John would have to tell security to keep an eye on her.

“Yes,” she said, looking off into the trees as if someone had called her, “Yes, it's like I can hear him when I’m here. He keeps calling for me and I keep hoping I will find him. Excuse me,” she said and stepped into the tree line as she went off into the towering gravestones that surrounded them.

That was the last time John saw her, the last time anyone saw her, actually.

The whole family had disappeared, and Scott, the security guy over the park, actually showed him a security video of Mr. Le’Rane coming in but never leaving.

He asked what John wanted to do with it, and John told him not to tell anyone about it.

“He must have left in a crowd and we missed him. There is no reason to tell anyone about this.”

It was a tragedy, all of it, but as guilty as John felt, he couldn't have something like this sabotaged by one family.

This was his chance to make amends for some of the things he had done, to make amends to the one person whose opinion mattered to him.

That was the last anyone spoke of the Le’Ranes, but it wasn’t the last John thought of them.

“The new acreage will be open to the public next year, once the new growth has had time to get its roots. Until then, I invite all of you to enjoy Yomite Pines to its fullest.”

They applauded again, dispersing as John waved his way off stage.

Wayne was waiting for him off stage, all smiles.

Maybe it was because he was an accountant, but as long as the money flowed in, Wayne was happy.

“Great speech,” he said, walking beside John as the two walked towards the tower.

John watched as many of the people seated there took up walking through the park, looking in awe at the trees grown from human compost.

“We shouldn’t be letting people just wander around the park anymore.” John said suddenly, “It's too dangerous.”

Wayne looked confused, but as John finished, he grinned like a shot fox.

“How else do you intend to pay for park services and expansion?” he said, smiling woodenly.

“It shouldn’t expand, it shouldn’t be open to the public. No one picnics in a graveyard, and no one goes bird-watching at the cemetery. The longer we let them walk the paths of Yomite Pines the more of them will go missing. We’re up to twenty this year, and it's probably more like twice that number. Something is happening here and you’re too money hungry to see it.” John said, now real emotion in his voice.

Wayne looked like he wanted to say something cutting, but he contented himself with a lame, “Says the billionaire tech mogul.”

John rounded on him, “This has nothing to do with money, nothing to do with fame or glory either. I have spent years killing this planet with my selfish ventures and now it's time to give back. The planet deserves a chance to heal and I intend to give it that. Yomite Pines will sweep as far as I can push it, an untouchable beauty that will heal this world, but there's no reason people should be free to wander through it.”

The door to his car was opened and as he climbed in he gave Wayne one final, withering look, “I want to close the grounds by the start of next month. I don’t care what it costs, make it happen.”

Wayne watched him go, and he sighed as he watched him get smaller in the rearview mirror.

John felt more at ease as he drove off. The incessant whispering was finally cut off, and that was good because it was getting to be more than he could take. Every time he came out to the Pines it got worse, but John still found himself drawn to the place. Most nights he dreamed about the park, and sometimes he woke up with dirty feet or muddy shoes at the foot of his bed. John didn’t live too far from the park, but it was still five miles or more. Was he walking there in the middle of the night? Surely he wasn’t driving, but what other option could there be?

In his dreams he walked amongst the trees, hearing the voices on the wind.

In his dreams, he saw people walking amongst those trees, people who were as thin as fruit skins.

They wanted him to join them, to come and be a part of them, and John found it harder and harder to ignore their call the longer it went on.

He knew that one day he would have to go to them, but until then he still had work to do.

This was a gift to his mother, to the woman who had been so disappointed with his actions but had never stopped loving him. This was his final gift to her before she left this world forever. This was the last thing he could do to make amends.

The valet parked his car as he pulled up to the hospital, and as he rode the elevator up to the seventh floor he wondered what state he would find her in today. She had been getting weaker as the cancer ate at her, and it seemed unfair that it should be something like that that would take her from this world. She who had marched against deforestation, who had gone to sit-ins for cleaner oceans and for endangered species, the woman who had loved the earth with all she had was going to be taken from the earth by something as mundane as cancer.

His mother was going to be eaten alive by something that none of his money could do anything about, and John hated that more than anything.

He came in to find her napping, but she opened her eyes as he took her hand and smiled at him.

“How are you feeling today, Mom?” he asked, trying not to cry but knowing that his eyes were leaking.

“Like I’m dying,” she said, smiling despite herself, “just not fast enough for the cancer's liking.”

“We added another hundred acres to the park today. The ceremony was great, I wish you could have been there.”

“Me too,” she said, her eyes dropping. She was so tired these days, so easily tapped out.

“Mom, am I doing the right thing here? I know this is helping the environment, helping the world, but is it the right thing?”

His mother smiled, her face sad but content, “I can’t tell you that, dear. We all have to decide what's right and wrong for ourselves.”

“I only wanted to do what would make you proud of me, what would make you proud to have me as a son.”

John was crying, really having a good boohoo, and he didn’t care who saw it as he pressed his face against her shoulder.

“Well,” she said, laughing hoarsely, “then I’m glad my pain could be useful for something.”

He just sat there with her, the two of them enjoying the other's company.

John had saved her a place for after she was gone, a place where she could be at peace within the earth.

Her final good deed for the planet she loved so much.

She would grow within the heart of the park, likely the largest tree in the park when she was done.

She would rise above all the others, dwarfing all the pines as she rose for the sky.

Until then, however, he would mourn her one day at a time.

* * * * *

He was running, the soil mashing between his toes as he went.

The trees rose up around him, their voices high and beautiful. They called to him as he ran, asking why he was fleeing from them. They could bring him peace too. They could make him complete within the soil. The moon was a ghostly sickle over top of him, and as he ran over the muddy ground of the park, his park, he felt more and more lost.

He had built this place, had designed the layout, and it was unthinkable that he should be unable to find his way.

This was a dream anyway, he told himself. He was dreaming all this, no matter how much dirt he found on his sheets some mornings. These were all just nightmares, he reminded himself, regardless of the filth he found on the bottoms of his feet. Nothing here could hurt him, nothing could really get him, but that did little to hamper his fear as he ran.

“Come to us, John. Come find your peace in the soil.”

His spine prickled.

Had that been Mrs. Le'Ranes?

He took turns at random, his feet feeling heavy the further he ran as the ground sucked at him. The ground was hungry, and now it wanted him to go along with all the others he had given it. He didn't understand how it could still be so hungry, but it ate greedily as he sank more and more of them into the soil.

Now it wanted him too, and as his feet came onto the sidewalk he breathed a sigh of relief.

The ground couldn't get him on the sidewalk, at least he didn't think so.

He seemed to come back to himself as that thought came to him, and he realized this may not be a dream. Suddenly he was standing on the sidewalk, wearing his comfortable sleep pants and his sleeveless t-shirt, and staring out at the whispering sea of trees. He had found himself here before, wondering again how he had gotten there, and as he reached for his phone, he realized it wasn't in his pocket. It wouldn't be, would it? It would be on his nightstand, right where he had left it.

He looked at the tower and was thankful that he paid for night security.

He started walking towards the edifice, preparing to answer some questions yet again.

* * * * *

“This is starting to become a problem, John.”

Wayne was pacing around his office in the tower as John sat drinking coffee in his night clothes. Scott had called Wayne for some reason, and John would have to have words with him about it later. John signed the paychecks around here, not his accountant and VP. Scott was likely worried that John was having a break from reality, John realized, but that didn't change matters.

This was still John's project, and he was in charge.

“If the shareholders find out about this, it could be bad.”

John laughed, “Shareholders? What shareholders? This project is being bankrolled by Me and me alone.”

Wayne shook his head, “I'm not talking about the park. I'm talking about the shareholders in your other companies. If they find out that you're wandering around in your memorial gardens every night, they might worry that you're losing it.”

John shrugged, “Let them think what they want. This is more important than anything else.”

Wayne looked at him like he thought John might be crazy.

“Talk like that is going to bankrupt you. I know you're torn up about your mom, John, but this isn't the time to give up.”

John didn't say anything for a little while, staring at the coffee in his cup as it sloshed.

“I don't know if I want to add more acreage to this place. I don't know if I want people here or not. The only thing I do know is that this work is important, to the planet if not to the people, and it needs to continue.”

Wayne left not long after that, and John was left to stare into his cup and wonder.

* * * * *

Despite what he had told Wayne, they added another hundred acres to the park.

Despite what he had told Wayne, the people still came to the park.

They had a man-made lake now, three picnic areas, and enough parking for everyone buried here and then some.

They also had added nearly thirty missing patrons to their tally, putting them around sixty.

There had been many searches of the grounds, but no one was ever found. It had become quite the mystery, and as John drove into the park he grimaced at the graffiti on the welcome sign. People kept spray-painted Whispering over the Yomite on the sign and John had replaced it several times already. He would have to get Scott to check the cameras again, though he found the name extremely appropriate.

John’s dreams had far from abated and he rolled his window up as the whispers tried to find their way in again.

They beseech him to come to them, to join them, and John didn’t know how much longer he could resist them. The dreams were drawing him out here nightly, and he had started waking up in the park more often than not. It was becoming more and more apparent that he was simply walking there at night, and there didn’t seem to be any way to stop it from happening.

Lately, however, the calls had been in a voice he couldn’t refuse.

He walked into the park, sliding in his airpods as he came through the gates and the whispers intensified. It really was a beautiful place. The Pines had come in nicely and they were growing tall and healthy. They stretched out from the gates now, a mighty forest that he had risen from nothing, and he was proud of his work. He was haunted by that work, too, but that didn't stop him from being proud of it. He had accomplished much in the two years since starting, but there was still so much work left to do.

He stopped by one of the trees, the one near the base of his tower, and looked down at the new growth already poking its way through the soil.

“Hey, mom,” he whispered, “Looking good.”

She had passed about three months ago, not long after their conversation in her hospital room. He had laid her to rest here in the park, his last gift to her, and the placard he had put in front of her tree was his only real allocation for grave markers. Everyone else had a small number so their loved ones could find them, but his mother would only be important to him, and he knew it. She had been his last family, the only surviving piece, and now it was down to him to mourn her.

When she had joined his dreams, adding her voice to the chorus, he didn't know how much longer he would be able to hold out.

Wayne was waiting for him when he got to the top of the tower, holding up the plans for the latest expansion.

“We just got approved for another hundred acres,” he said, unrolling the property plan, “We should have it filled before June and then the next hundred filled before this time next,”

“How much would it take to get another thousand acres?”

Wayne's eyes got a little wide, “I mean, some of it would be available through government grants, but the cost would still be steep.”

“Make it happen,” John said, “I don't care how much it costs.”

Wayne looked at him oddly, “You feeling okay? Not planning to do anything...drastic are you?”

He seemed to have noticed how close John was standing to the window, and John couldn't exactly blame him for his concern.

John was feeling a little hinkey, as his mom had been want to say, and he wasn't sure what to do about it, or what he might do about it.

“I'll get the papers drawn up,” Wayne said, rolling up the survey charts, “I talked with Scott about the sign too. As usual, he can't find anyone on camera to blame it on. Just kids out for a little helling, I guess.”

John nodded, but it was pretty clear that Wayne couldn't hear the whispering. He didn't get it, and probably never would. He was the perfect one to run something like this, though he would never understand the importance of it or the horror. The nights John spent out here had shown him where the missing people were going and had shown him his own fate as well.

The whispers would get him, one of these nights.

It was only a matter of time.

* * * * *

John was tired, but the terror made his legs move as the mud sucked at his every step. Maybe tonight was the night. Maybe this would be the night they got him. Maybe this was the night he became a part of Whispering Pines. Even the name had slunk into his consciousness. It was fitting, too fitting, and he could no more outrun it than he could the ground that sucked at his feet.

Suddenly, the ground did a little more than pull, and John was up to his thighs in the hungry ground. Beneath the soil, he could feel the strong grip of searching vines and realized that if he didn't start fighting soon, the jig would be up. He yanked and tugged, his strong runner's legs feeling ineffective in the muck. He was losing ground, one step forward and two steps back, and when the paved path came into view, he waded like a drowning man. The roots tripped at him, dragging him back, but John pulled onward, working for the shore. Suddenly the dirt was up to his hips and he was wading through that fresh mud. He wasn't going to make it, he thought. The roots would get him, the ground would take him, and he would be with the dead.

One of his nails tore up painfully as he grasped the sidewalk, but he pulled himself up nonetheless.

He limped a little as he walked towards the tower, one of his ankles having twisted a little as the roots grabbed at him. John's steps weren't just heavy because of the ankle, though. John hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since he opened this damn place. He was exhausted, living off catnaps in his office, or the four to five hours he snatched a night. John was used to weird sleep schedules and had kept strange hours throughout college, but as he got older it became harder to maintain. He didn't know how much longer he could last like this, and as he came to a familiar placard he stopped in front of it.

His mother's tree was larger than it had been a week ago, seemed larger than it had been this morning, and the concrete bit into his knees as he dropped down before it.

“Mom,” he said, the tears running down his face, “Mom, I don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm so tired. I want to rest. I want to,”

When her voice shuddered against him, like the caress of a bird's wing, he looked up and saw her. She was lovely, bedecked in leaves and green, the queen of summer in all her glory. When she reached down to touch his face, her hands felt like flowers against his skin. He closed his eyes as he leaned into her touch, her words like summer sun on his skin.

“You've done the best you can, John. Come, rest with us.”

John nodded, pitching as the earth swallowed him up.

He should have been terrified, but the embrace felt almost womblike.

It felt so natural, like coming home, and John breathed in a lungful of soil as the darkness enveloped him.

“Welcome home,” his mother said, and John felt at home.

* * * * *

“It gives me tremendous pleasure to announce the expansion of Whispering Pines Memorial Forest. The park has become less of a memorial, and more of a forest in its own right now, and I hope someday to see hundreds of forests like it instead of useless granite slabs that do nothing but take up space. I know if my friend, John Yomite, or his mother, Terry Yomite, could see how this project has expanded, they would be very proud of the work we have achieved here. I have watched this garden grow into a mighty forest, and I couldn't be prouder to be a part of it.”

John watched as Wayne spoke to the crowd, telling them about the new backer who was interested in what they were doing here. John understood the words he said, things like the woman named Titania Thurston, the Green Society, and Cashmere Botanical Gardens, but they didn't mean anything to him. If someone was interested in his ideas, that was good. If they let the forest rot, he supposed that was okay too.

John was part of the Whispering Pines now, and he supposed that others would be soon too.

Being a tree was probably the best thing he had ever experienced, and he was eager to share it with others.

Wayne still couldn't hear him, but he would, someday.

Some of those in the crowd could clearly hear him and they would likely join them, eventually.

John had time, after all.

He certainly wasn't going anywhere.