The Last Town (The Wayward Pines Trilogy 3) (22 page)

ETHAN

At first light, Ethan drove out of the superstructure in one of the security team’s Dodge Rams, his son riding beside him in the passenger seat.

Through the trees.

The boulders.

Then Ethan pulled onto the main road, heading south out of town.

At the hairpin curve, he turned off into the woods and steered down the embankment, weaving carefully between the trees.

When they reached the fence, Ethan turned parallel to it and drove until they arrived back at the gate.

He killed the engine.

The hum of the current moving through the barbed steel lines could be heard even from inside the truck.

“Do you think Mr. Pilcher is dead yet?” Ben asked.

“I have no idea.”

“But the abbies will eventually get him, right?”

“That’s a certainty.”

Ben glanced back through the rear window into the bed of the truck. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why are we doing this, Dad?”

“Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that thing back there.”

Now Ethan looked into the truck bed.

The female abby from the superstructure sat motionless in a plexiglass cage, staring out into the woods.

“It’s strange,” Ethan said. “The world belongs to them now, but we still possess something they don’t have.”

“What?”

“Kindness. Decency. That’s what it is to be human. At our best at least.”

Ben looked confused.

“I think this abby is different,” Ethan said.

“What do you mean?”

“She has an intelligence, a gentleness I haven’t seen in any of the others. Maybe she has a family she wants to see again.”

“We should shoot her and burn her with all the rest.”

“And what would that accomplish? Feed our anger for a few minutes? What if we did the opposite? What if we sent her out into her world with a message about the species that once lived in this valley? I know it’s crazy, but I’m holding tight to the idea that a small act of kindness can have real resonance.”

Ethan opened his door, stepped out into the forest.

“What do you mean?” Ben asked. “Like it might change the abbies? Maybe more would become like her?”

Ethan walked around to the back of the truck, lowered the tailgate.

He said, “Species evolve. In the beginning, man was a hunter-gatherer. Communicated through grunts and gestures. Then we invented agriculture and language. We became capable of kindness.”

“But that took thousands of years. We’ll all be dead before that ever happens.”

Ethan smiled. “You’re right, son. It would take a long, long, long, long time.”

He turned to face the abby. She sat peacefully in her cage, eyes still heavy from the sedative Ethan had ordered the scientists to administer.

Pulling his Desert Eagle from the holster, he climbed up into the bed, threw the locks on the cage, and eased the door open several inches.

Something between a purr and a growl rumbled in the abby’s throat.

Ethan said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He backed slowly away, climbed down out of the truck bed.

The abby watched him.

After a moment, she pushed the cage door open with her long left arm and crept out.

“What if it does something?” Ben asked. “What if it attacks—”

“She’s not going to hurt us. She knows my meaning.” Ethan caught her eyes. “Don’t you?”

He started toward the fence, the abby following sluggishly, several paces behind.

At the gate, he typed in the code for the manual power override, and waited as the bolts unlatched.

The fence went silent.

He shoved the gate open with his boot.

“Go on,” Ethan said. “You’re free now.”

The abby watched him warily as she slunk past, squeezing herself through the opening, out into her world.

“Dad, you think we’ll ever be able to live side by side with them?”

Ten feet out, the abby shot a glance back at Ethan.

Her head tilted.

She watched him for a beat, and he could have sworn she had something to say, her eyes brimming with intelligence and understanding.

There were no words.

But Ethan understood.

And all at once, it came to him.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

He blinked—

And she was gone.

Ethan sat with Theresa on one of the park benches, watching Ben, who stood in the middle of the field, staring up at the sky. A couple hundred feet above, a kite skirted along on the breeze. It had taken the boy several tries to get the kite up and out of the still air near the surface, but the patch of red was now a fixture against the perfect blue, twirling around on the currents.

It was a nice thing to sit and watch a child with a kite, and it was the first morning in days, maybe weeks, that didn’t feel like winter.

“Ethan, that’s insane.”

“If we stay in this valley,” he said, “we all die in a matter of years. There’s not even a question. So why put it to a vote?”

“You let the
people
decide.”

“What if—”

“You let the people decide.”

“People get it wrong.”

“That’s true, but you have to figure out what kind of a leader you’re going to be.”

“I know what the right decision is, Theresa.”

“So sell your idea to them.”

“It’s a hard sell. It’s risky. And what happens if they make the wrong choice? Even you’re on the fence.”

“It’s our wrong choice to make, honey. If you’re willing to force this on people, then what was the point of ever telling them the truth about Wayward Pines?”

“I caused all of this,” Ethan said. “All the death. The suffering and loss. I turned our lives inside out. Now I just want to fix it.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m terrified.” She took his hand into hers. “You’re not just asking me to trust the people with their fate. You’re asking me to trust them with yours. With Ben’s.” Their son sprinted across the field, dragging the kite behind him, laughing. “The day I broke into the superstructure, Pilcher told me that I would come to understand the things he did. The choices he made.”

“And do you now?”

“I’m starting to feel the weight that was on his shoulders.”

“He didn’t trust his people to make the right choices,” Theresa said, “because he was afraid. But you don’t have to be, Ethan. If you do what you know in your heart is right, if you give people the freedom to choose their own fate, their own destiny—”

“We could starve to death in this valley.”

“That’s true. But you won’t have compromised your integrity. That’s the only thing you really have to fear.”

That night, Ethan stood where it had all begun, on the bare stage in the opera house, under the burn of the lights, with the last two hundred fifty people on the planet looking on.

“Here we are,” he said to the crowd, “humanity at the end of the world. We’re here right now because of the choice I made to tell everyone the truth about Wayward Pines. Don’t think I’ve missed that. Many of you lost loved ones. We’ve all suffered. I’ll live with my decision and what it cost for the rest of my life, but right now, it’s time to consider the future. In fact, it’s all I’ve been thinking about this past week.”

The core group of Pilcher’s inner circle sat together off stage left—Francis Leven, Alan, Marcus, Mustin—all watching him.

The quiet in the theater was absolute.

A coiled silence.

“I know we’re all trying to figure out where we go from here,” he said. “What happens next. What our lives might look like. We have some hard truths to face, and we need to face them together. Right now. Here’s the first one. Our food is running out.”

Gasps and whispers trickled through the crowd.

Someone shouted, “How long?”

“About four years,” Ethan said. “Which brings us to the second hard truth. We can’t stay in this valley. I mean, we could. Until the next fence failure. Until a winter comes like we’ve never imagined. Until the food supply is exhausted.

“Francis Leven is here from the superstructure and he can walk you all through the particulars, explain exactly why our lives are no longer sustainable in Wayward Pines.

“But I didn’t drag you down here just to be the bearer of bad news. I also have a proposal for a new course of action. Something radical and dangerous and daring. A leap in the dark.”

Ethan found Theresa in the crowd.

“To be honest, I debated even proposing this as a choice. A friend of mine recently said to me that sometimes we find ourselves in situations that are so life and death, one or two strong leaders need to call the shots. But I think we’re all finished with having our lives controlled. I don’t know how, but we’re going to find our way through this. What it comes down to for me is that I’d rather us make bad decisions as a group, than to live in the absence of freedom. That was the old way. That was Pilcher’s way.

“So all I ask is that you hear me out, and then we’ll decide what to do. Together. Like free human beings.”

X

ONE MONTH LATER

ETHAN

There were still moments like this one, with the power back on and the smell of Theresa’s cooking emanating from the kitchen, when it all felt normal. Like it could’ve been any weeknight in Ethan’s life before.

Ben upstairs in his bedroom.

Ethan sitting in the study, jotting down notes for tomorrow.

Out the window, in the evening light, he could see Jennifer Rochester’s dark house. She’d been killed in the invasion and the recent cold had murdered her garden as well.

But the streetlamps were back on.

The crickets chirping through speakers in a distant bush.

He missed Hecter Gaither’s piano, the sound of it coming through the radios in all the houses of Wayward Pines.

Would’ve loved to lose himself in the music one last time.

For just a moment, sitting in the oversize chair, Ethan shut his eyes and let the normalcy wash over him.

Tried to push their fragility out of his mind.

But it wasn’t possible.

There was no coming to terms with the fact that he was a member of a species on the verge of extinction.

It filled every moment with meaning.

It filled every moment with horror.

He walked into the kitchen to the smell of pasta boiling and spaghetti sauce thickening.

“Smells amazing,” he said.

Moving up behind Theresa at the stove, he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck.

“Last meal in Wayward Pines,” she said. “We’re going big tonight. I’m cleaning out the fridge.”

“Put me to work. I can wash those dishes.”

Stirring the sauce, she said, “I think it’s probably all right to leave them.”

Ethan laughed.

Right.

Of course it was.

Theresa wiped her eyes.

“You’re crying,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

He took hold of her arm and turned her gently around, and asked, “What is it?”

“I’m just scared is all.”

It was the last time they would sit together at this dinner table.

Ethan looked at Theresa.

At his son.

He stood.

He raised his water glass.

“I would like to say a couple words to the two most important people in my life.” Already his voice trembled. “I’m not perfect. In fact, I’m pretty far from it. But there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you, Theresa. And you, Ben. Nothing. I don’t know what tomorrow holds. Or the day after. Or the day after that.” He scowled against the gathering tears. “I’m just so grateful that we’re together in this moment.”

Theresa’s eyes glistened.

As he sat down, shaken, she reached over and took hold of his hand.

It was the last night he would sleep on a soft mattress.

He and Theresa were intertwined, buried under a mountain of blankets.

The hour was late, but they were both still awake. He could feel her eyelashes blinking against his chest.

“Can you believe this is our life?” she whispered.

“Hasn’t set in yet. Don’t think it ever will.”

“What if this doesn’t work? What if we all die?”

“That’s a real possibility.”

“There’s a part of me,” she said, “that wants to play it safe. Maybe we do only have four years left. So, what if we make them great? Savor every moment. Every bite of food, every breath of air. Every kiss. Every day we aren’t hungry or thirsty or running for our lives.”

“But then we definitely die. Our species is finished.”

“Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. We had our chance. We failed.”

“We have to keep trying. Keep fighting.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what we do.”

“I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”

The door to their bedroom creaked open.

“Mom? Dad?” Ben’s voice.

“What’s up, buddy?” Theresa asked.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Come get in bed with us.”

Ben crawled across the covers and burrowed down between them.

“Is that better?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Much better.”

They all lay in the dark, no one talking.

Ben dosed off first.

Then Theresa.

And still Ethan couldn’t sleep.

He sat up on one elbow and watched his family, watched them all through the night, until the sky lightened in the windows and dawn broke on their final day in Wayward Pines.

In every house throughout the valley, phones began to ring.

Ethan walked in from the kitchen holding a cup of black coffee and answered their rotary phone in the living room on the third ring.

Even though he knew the message that was coming, it still twisted his stomach up in knots as he held the receiver to his ear and listened to his own voice say, “People of Wayward Pines, it’s time.”

Ethan held the front door open for Theresa as she stepped out onto the porch carrying a cardboard box filled with framed photographs of their family—the only material possessions they had decided were worth taking.

It was a beautiful morning for leaving.

Up and down their block, other families were emerging from their houses, some carrying small boxes filled with their most precious belongings, others with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

The Burkes moved down the porch, through the front yard, and out into the street.

All the residents converged on Main and moved as one toward the forest on the southern outskirts of town.

Ethan spotted Kate up ahead, a backpack slung over her shoulder, walking with Adam Hassler.

Caught a stab of something he couldn’t quite wrap his head around, thinking maybe some emotions were too complex. But wherever this one fell on the color wheel, it was definitely in the neighborhood of nostalgia.

He let go of Theresa’s hand and said, “I’ll be right back.”

Ethan caught up with his former partner as the group walked past the Aspen House.

“Morning,” he said.

She glanced over, smiled. “Ready to do this?”

“It’s insane, right?”

“Little bit.”

Hassler said, “Hey, Ethan.” A month in civilization had done wonders for the man. Hassler had put on enough weight to look almost like his old self again.

“Adam. How you guys holding up?”

“All right, I guess.”

Kate said, “I feel like I’m about to get on this terrifying ride, you know? No idea where it’s going.”

They passed the hospital, Ethan thinking back to that first time he’d woken up to the smiling face of Nurse Pam. Those first days he’d wandered in a daze around this town, confused, still trying to call home and unable to reach his family. The first time he’d seen Kate, nine years older than she should’ve been.

What a journey.

Ethan looked at Kate. “It’s going to get crazy in a little while. I was thinking maybe we should say goodbye here.”

Kate stopped in the middle of the road, the last residents of Wayward Pines moving past them. The way she smiled, the early sun in her face, eyes squinting—she looked like the Kate of old. Of Seattle. Of the worst and the best mistake he’d ever made.

They embraced.

Fiercely.

“Thank you for coming to look for me all those years ago,” Kate said. “I’m sorry it ended up like this.”

“I wouldn’t change any of it.”

“You did the right thing,” she whispered. “Never doubt it.”

Theresa reached them.

She smiled at Kate.

She went to Hassler and hugged him.

As they came apart, she asked, “Do you guys want to walk with us for a while?”

“We’d love to,” Adam said. Ethan wondered, as he stood there with his wife, his son, his former mistress, and the man who had once betrayed him,
Is this what a family looks like in this new world?
Because no matter what had happened in the past, in this harrowing present, everybody needed everybody.

As the last of the crowd pushed on past them, they lingered where the main road out of Wayward Pines entered the darkness of the forest.

Behind them, the town stood abandoned.

The morning sun glaring down against the streets.

The storefront glass shimmering on the west side of Main.

They took in all those picket-fenced Victorians.

The surrounding cliffs.

The turning aspen trees as the wind stripped their branches of the last golden leaves.

In this moment, it was so
. . .
idyllic.

Pilcher’s brilliant, mad creation.

At length, they turned away and moved on down the road together, into the woods, away from Wayward Pines.