The Last Town (The Wayward Pines Trilogy 3) (21 page)

All Ethan could think about was how much food this single meal was costing them.

One meal closer to nothing.

And no one had any concept of how fast the supplies were dwindling. Just took for granted that they could walk into this cafeteria, or down to the community gardens, or the town grocery, and find food.

Where would the civility go when it all ran out?

“You want to talk about what’s going to happen later tonight, Ben?” Ethan asked.

“Not really.”

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to see it, sweetheart,” Theresa said.

“I want to see it. This is his punishment for what he did, right?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said, “and we have to do it, you understand, because there aren’t courts anymore. No judges or juries. We have to watch out for ourselves, and that man hurt a lot of people. It has to be made right.”

After dinner, Ethan sent Ben back to their quarters and asked Theresa to take a walk with him.

“So Hassler and I had it out,” he said as they trudged up the stairs.

“Jesus, Ethan, what are you, in high school?”

Three doors down on the right-hand side of the Level 4 corridor, Ethan swiped his card at the reader and pulled open a heavy steel door.

They stepped onto a small platform.

Ethan said, “Hold onto the railing,” and pressed the up arrow button.

The platform accelerated through the rocky tube at the speed of an express elevator.

Four hundred feet straight up.

When it finally shuddered to a stop, they stepped off onto a catwalk that ran for twenty feet until it terminated at a second steel door. Ethan swiped his card again. The lock buzzed. He pulled open the door and they moved outside into a wall of shocking cold.

“What is this place?” Theresa asked.

“Discovered it a few nights ago when I was up and couldn’t sleep.”

The clouds from earlier had blown out.

The stars were stunning.

Bright and sharp.

They stood in a path that had been carved three feet down into rock. On either side, the mountain fell away into oblivion.

He said, “I think people come up here to smoke, to get fresh air. It’s the fastest way to see actual daylight without having to take the tunnel into town. They call this trail the sunroof.”

“How far does it go?”

“All through these high peaks. If you stay with it, I’m told it winds down into the forest west of the cirque.”

They strolled the knife-edge ridge.

Ethan said, “After we beat the shit out of each other, Adam and I talked.”

“That sounds like borderline adult behavior.”

“He said you chose me.”

Theresa stopped, faced him.

He could feel the cold nibbling at the edges of his cheeks.

“It came down to a pretty simple choice for me, Ethan. Would I rather love or be loved?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Adam would do anything for—”

“So would I—”

“Will you listen? I told you I’d never been loved the way Adam loves me, and I meant that. But I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. There are times I hated myself for it. Because I felt weak. When I wished I could’ve just hardened myself to you and walked away, but I could never do it. Even after Kate. It’s like you’ve got some kind of hold on me. It’s a precious thing, Ethan, and you’d better care for it. You’ve hurt me before. Badly.”

“I know I’ve fucked up in the past. I know I haven’t treated you the way you deserved to be treated.”

“Ethan—”

“No, now it’s my turn. I ruined things. Hell, I ruined everything. With my work. With Kate. With not dealing with my shit from the war. But I’m trying, Theresa. Ever since I woke up in this town, I’ve been trying. Trying to protect you and Ben. Trying to love you the best that I possibly could. Trying to make the right choices.”

“I know you have. I see it. I see what we could be. It’s all I want. All I’ve ever wanted.” She kissed him. “You have to promise me something, Ethan.”

“What?”

“That you’ll go easy on Adam. We all have to live together in this valley now.”

Ethan stared down into Theresa’s face, resisting the urge to tell her everything that man had done. He said, finally, “I’ll try. For you.”

“Thank you.”

They walked on.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.

“Um, everything?”

“No, there’s something more. Something new. You were weird at dinner.”

Ethan looked into the canyon three thousand feet below. It was only a month ago he’d had his first encounter with the abbies down there, and as harrowing as that experience had been, at least he’d known hope then. He’d still believed the world was out there. That if only he could escape this town, these mountains, his family and his life would be waiting for him in Seattle.

“Ethan?”

“We’re in trouble,” he said.

“I’m aware.”

“No, I mean we’re not going to make it. As a species.”

A meteor crossed the sky.

“Ethan, I’ve been here a lot longer than you have. It feels hopeless sometimes, and now more than ever, but we have everything we need in Wayward Pines.”

“The food’s running out,” he said. “That stuff we ate tonight? Those freeze-dried meals? There isn’t an endless supply, and once it’s gone, we’re not going to be able to grow enough food in this valley to get us through the long, hard winters. If we were farther south, we could make it work, but we’re trapped in this valley. I’m sorry to tell you this, but I don’t want to keep anything from you. No more secrets. I need you in my corner, because I don’t know what to do.”

“How long do we have?” Theresa asked.

“Four years.”

“And then what happens?”

“And then we die.”

HASSLER

He crossed the river on the east side of town, his legs numb by the time he stumbled out of the water and onto the far shore.

On all fours, he scrambled up through the pines that clung to the steepening hillside.

Up.

Up.

Up.

A hundred feet above town, the terrain went vertical, but he didn’t stop, kept fighting his way up the cliff, higher and higher.

Climbing without fear.

Without care.

He couldn’t believe he was actually scaling the suicide cliff. During that year he’d lived in town with Theresa, two people had ascended this stretch of rock and leapt to their deaths. There were plenty of other fatal options on the cliffs that surrounded Wayward Pines, but this particular precipice had the benefit of being the most sheer. No chances of accidentally bungling the jump and taking an unnecessary bounce off a ledge. If one made it to the top without falling, they could bank on an uninterrupted plummet into oblivion.

Hassler topped out five hundred feet above the valley on a long ledge.

He collapsed on the cold granite, his jaw throbbing, probably broken.

It was night and the town lay dark beneath him, paved streets glowing softly under the starlight.

His pant legs had frozen stiff.

As the chill set in, he thought about his life, and the peace he arrived at as he staggered onto his feet again was this: out of thirty-eight years, one had been magic. He’d lived in a canary-yellow house with the love of his life, and there hadn’t been a day he’d woken up beside Theresa that he didn’t know how good he had it.

He ached for more time with her, but the fact that he’d had any time at all
. . .

It was enough.

Enough to cling to.

It took him a moment, but he found their home down there in the dark.

Fixing his gaze on it, he saw it not as it was, empty and dark, but rather as it had been in the soft, cool light of those summer evenings as he’d walk toward the front porch, toward everything he loved.

He stepped to the edge.

He wasn’t afraid.

Not of death. Not of pain. He’d experienced enough agony on his nomadic mission for several lifetimes, and death was something he’d long since prepared for. If anything, it held, for him at least, the promise of peace.

He bent his knees to leap.

A noise pulled him out of the moment like a rip cord.

He turned, couldn’t see much of anything in the darkness, but he realized it was the sound of someone crying.

He said, “Hello?”

The crying stopped.

A woman’s voice asked, “Who’s there?”

“Are you all right?”

“If I was do you think I’d be up here?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s a fair point. Do you want me to come over?”

“No.”

Hassler stepped back from the ledge, eased down onto the rock. “You shouldn’t do this,” he said.

“Excuse me? What the hell are
you
doing up here? I could tell you the same damn thing.”

“Yeah, except I actually should be up here.”

“Why? Because your life is so terrible too?”

“Do you want to hear my sob story?”

“No, I wanted to have jumped by now. I’d finally worked up the nerve when this asshole interrupted me. This is the second time I’ve climbed up here.”

“What happened the first?” Hassler asked.

“It was daylight, and I hate heights. I chickened out.”

“Why are you up here?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you as long as you don’t try to save me.”

“Deal.”

The woman sighed. “I lost my husband when the abbies came into town.”

“Sorry to hear that. Were you two married in Wayward Pines?”

“Yes, and I know what you’re thinking, but I loved him. I also loved this other man who’s here. Crazy thing is we knew each other in our lives before. He’s here with his wife and son, and when he came to tell me that my husband had been killed, I asked him if his family had survived.”

“Had they?”

“Yeah, but you know what? There was a part of me, a bigger part than I want to admit, that was actually
sad
she had lived. Don’t get me wrong, I miss my husband terribly, but I kept thinking
. . .
”

“If his wife had been killed, then the two of you
. . .
”

“Right. So on top of losing my husband, on top of the fact that I can’t be with this man I love, it also turns out I’m a shitty human being.”

Hassler laughed.

“Did you laugh at me?”

“No, I just think it’s cute that you think
that’s
horrible. Do you want to hear horrible?”

“Hit me.”

“In my life before, I loved a woman, but she was married to this guy who worked for me. I
. . .
arranged a chain of events so that her husband would be removed from the picture. See, I knew what this town was as it was being created two thousand years ago. I made certain this woman was abducted by David Pilcher, and then I volunteered to go into suspension so I could be with her when she woke up. We lived together in Wayward Pines, and she never knew she was here because of me. After a year, I was sent away on a mission beyond the fence. I was never supposed to return. Every day I was out there, it was the thought of her that kept me going, kept me breathing, putting one foot in front of the other. Against impossible odds, I made it back. I thought I’d be returning to her, to a hero’s welcome. But instead, I find that her husband is here and the town has been destroyed.”

Down in the darkness of the valley, tiny points of firelight had begun to gather on Main Street.

Watching them, Hassler said, “So I climbed up here to take my life. You thought about bad things. I did them. Does that shift things back into perspective?”

“Why are you up here?” she asked.

“I just told you.”

“No, I mean, is it because you can’t live with what you did? Or because you can’t be with her?”

“Because I can’t be with her. Look, I’m not going to stop loving her just because her husband’s around. That’s not the way the human heart works. I can’t just amputate what I feel. It’s not like we live in a big, wide world anymore where I can just move to another city, another state. There’s no alternate life waiting out there for me to get on with. This is it. We’re down to what? Two hundred fifty people? I can’t avoid her, and what I feel for her has defined me for so long now, I don’t know the person I’d be if I tried to walk away from it.”

“I hear that.”

“And the funny thing is, as bad as I am, I don’t have it in me to murder her husband. Is there a fate worse than being halfway evil?”

For a moment, the only sound was the lonely whisper of wind blowing across the rock.

The woman finally said, “I know you, Adam Hassler.”

“How?”

“I used to work for you.”

“Kate?”

“Is life weird, or what?”

“I can leave you alone now if—”

“I’m not judging you, Adam.”

He heard her get up, move toward him.

In a minute, she emerged out of the darkness, still just a shadow, and sat down beside him, their feet hanging off the edge together.

“Are your pants frozen too?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m freezing my ass off. Do you think it means something that you and I both climbed up here to jump on the same night?”

“What do you mean? Like, is the universe saying ‘don’t’? Can’t we agree that the universe doesn’t give a shit anymore, and probably never did?”

Kate looked over at him. “I don’t care if we jump together or climb down together. But whichever it is, let’s just not do it alone.”

PILCHER

Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him down out of the truck. It was the first time he’d been outside in days, but he couldn’t see anything through the black hood over his head.

“What’s happening?” Pilcher asked.

The hood was ripped off.

He saw lights—fifty, sixty, maybe a hundred of them. Flashlights, torches, held by the residents of Wayward Pines, and by his own people from the mountain, all of whom surrounded him in a tight circle of bodies. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the buildings of Main Street looming above him, their facades and storefronts awash in firelight.

Two men stood with him in the circle—Ethan Burke and Alan Spear, his head of security.

Ethan approached.

“What is this?” Pilcher asked. “You throwing a fête for me?”

He looked around at all the faces, hidden in shadow, distorted by firelight. Angry and intense.

“We took a vote,” Ethan said.

“Who voted?”

“Everyone except you. A fête was on the table, but in the end it didn’t feel right, putting you to death using the same self-policing approach you forced upon the citizens of Wayward Pines.” Ethan took a step closer, his breath clouding in the cold. “Look at these people, David. Everyone here lost family, lost friends. Because of you.”

Pilcher smiled against the rage.

The murderous, soul-melting rage.

“Because of me?” he asked. “That’s hysterical.” He stepped away from Ethan, moving out into the middle of the circle. “What else could I have
possibly
done for you people? I gave you food. I gave you shelter. I gave you purpose. I protected you from the knowledge you couldn’t handle. From the harsh truth of the world that exists beyond the fence. And each of you had to do one thing. One! Goddamn! Thing!” He shrieked the words. “
Obey me.
”

He caught the stare of a woman standing several feet away, the tears glistening as they ran down her cheeks.

So many tears in this crowd.

So much pain.

And once upon a time, he might have given a shit, but tonight he only saw ingratitude. Entitlement. Rebelliousness.

He screamed, “What more could I have fucking
done
for you?”

“They’re not going to answer you,” Ethan said.

“Then what is this?”

“They’re here to walk with you.”

“Walk where?”

Ethan turned to the nearest section of the crowd. “Would you all make way please?” As they parted, Ethan said, “After you, David.”

Pilcher stared down the dark street.

He looked at Ethan.

“I don’t understand.”

“Start walking.”

“Ethan—”

Someone shoved him from behind, and when Pilcher regained his balance, he turned to see Alan glaring at him with a lethal intensity.

“Sheriff said to go,” Alan said. “Now
I’m
telling you, and if you can’t make your legs work, we’ll be happy to drag you by your arms.”

Pilcher started walking south down Main Street, between the dark buildings, Ethan on one side, Alan on the other.

The crowd followed the three men like a vigil, and an uneasy silence descended. No one spoke. There was no sound but footsteps scraping the pavement and the occasional muffled sob.

He tried to hold it together, but his mind was frantic.

Where are they taking me?

Back to the superstructure?

To a place of execution?

They passed the Aspen House and then the hospital.

As everyone moved down the road into the forest south of town, Pilcher realized what was going to happen.

He looked over at Ethan.

The fear sweeping through him like a shot of liquid nitrogen.

Somehow, he kept walking.

At the curve in the road, everyone stepped off the pavement and headed into the woods, Pilcher thinking,
I never even looked back, never got one last glimpse of Wayward Pines
.

A shallow layer of mist had pooled in the forest and the torchlights looked otherworldly cutting through it.

Like disembodied points of fire.

Pilcher was growing colder by the minute.

He heard the buzzing of the fence.

They were walking beside it.

Then they were standing at the gate. It had all happened so fast, as if no time had passed since they’d removed his hood in the middle of Main Street.

Ethan offered a small backpack to Pilcher.

“There’s some food and water inside. Enough for several days if you last that long.”

Pilcher just stared at the pack.

“You all didn’t have the guts to actually kill me yourselves?” he asked.

“No,” Ethan said. “Just the opposite actually. We all wanted it too much. We wanted to torture you. To let each person left standing take their pound of flesh out of you. Do you not want the pack?”

Pilcher grabbed it, slung the strap over his shoulder.

Ethan went to the control panel and punched in the manual power override.

The humming stopped.

The woods became quiet.

Pilcher looked at all his people. Those from town. Those from the mountain. The last human faces he would ever lay eyes upon.

“You ungrateful fucks! You’d all have died two thousand years ago if it wasn’t for me. I created a paradise for you. Heaven on earth. I’m your God! And you have the audacity to kick God out of heaven!”

“I think you got your scripture wrong,” Ethan said. “God didn’t get exiled. It was the other guy.”

Ethan opened the gate.

Pilcher looked at Ethan, long and hard, and then glared out at the crowd.

He crossed out of safety to the other side of the fence.

Ethan shut the gate.

Soon, the lines resumed their protective hum.

Pilcher watched as the crowd turned away from him, the flashlights and torchlights receding into the mist.

Then he was standing alone in the cold, dark forest.

He headed south until the hum of the fence became inaudible.

The starlight coming though the tops of the pines was insufficient to light his way.

When his legs became tired, he sat down against the trunk of a pine tree.

Far off, a mile or so away, an abby screamed.

Another one answered. Much, much closer.

And then another.

Pilcher heard the sound of footsteps.

Out there in the dark, something was running.

Running toward him.