The Last Town (The Wayward Pines Trilogy 3)

ETHAN

He stood on the hood of Maggie’s Jeep, staring out at the hundred fifty faces that had gathered around him in the ark. It felt strange to look at this entire group, which for fourteen years had worked together to keep its fellow human beings, the residents of Wayward Pines, living in the dark.

Ethan said, “Last night, I made a difficult choice. I told the residents of Wayward Pines the truth. I told them what year it was. I showed them an abby.”

A voice in the midst of the crowd shouted, “You had no right!”

Ethan ignored this.

“I’m guessing none of you agree with that decision, and that’s not really much of a surprise to me. But let’s see if you agree with the decision David Pilcher made in response. He killed the power to the fence and opened the gate. At least five hundred abbies entered the valley in the middle of the night. More than half the town has been slaughtered. Those who managed to escape are stranded without food or water, and with no heat since Pilcher also cut off the power to the town.”

Disbelief spread quickly across the faces.

Someone yelled, “Liar!”

“I understand that at some point in your lives before, each of you bought in hard to what David Pilcher was selling. And to be honest, he’s a brilliant man. No one can deny that. No one can say he isn’t a man of vision, and possibly the most ambitious person who ever lived. I understand what attracted you to him. It’s a rush to keep company with someone who wields such power. Makes you feel better about yourself.

“From what I gather, a lot of you were at low points when David Pilcher came into your lives. He gave you purpose and meaning, and I totally get that. But he’s as much of a monster as the abbies who lived beyond the fence. Maybe even more. The idea of Wayward Pines was always more important to him than the people who called that town home, and I’m sorry to say, it was more important than any of you.

“You all knew Alyssa. Everything I’ve heard confirms that she was universally loved inside this mountain. She didn’t see eye to eye with her father. She believed the people of Wayward Pines deserved better than 24-7 surveillance, than being forced to murder one another, than never knowing the truth. What I’m about to show you is upsetting, and I apologize for that, but you need to know what kind of a man you served so you can begin to move past it.”

Ethan pointed behind the crowd at a hundred-inch monitor mounted to the rock beside the glass doors.

Most days, it displayed work schedules. Who was on shift in surveillance, security, and suspension. Arrival and departure times for transportation going back and forth to Wayward Pines. An in-mountain message system for Pilcher’s inner circle.

Tonight, it would show David Pilcher, the creator of Wayward Pines, murdering his only daughter.

Ethan shouted to one of Ted’s surveillance techs standing beneath the screen, “Play it!”





THERESA

The smoke trailed up and vented outside through the barred window near the ceiling. Flames ate away at the legs of Belinda’s desk chair, fueled by a ream of printer paper. Ben sprawled on the single mattress, which Theresa had pulled off the metal frame and set next to the fire. She sat across from Hassler, holding her hands close to the heat.

On the other side of the bars, Pam’s body lay slumped across the concrete, the pool of blood still expanding around her head.

“I saw the fence was down,” Hassler said. “I came racing into town. I went to our house, but you weren’t there. I looked everywhere. I thought you and Ben were dead. As I was looking for ammo in the sheriff’s station, I heard your voice, begging Pam to spare you. Isn’t exactly the homecoming I imagined.”

“I didn’t imagine one at all,” Theresa said. “I was told you weren’t coming back.”

“What happened here?”

“The town knows the truth now.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. We lost a lot of people. I guess the man who built all of this decided to trash his play set and go home.”

“Who told everyone the truth?”

“There was a fête called for Kate and Harold Ballinger, but instead of executing them, the sheriff used the opportunity to lift the curtain.”

“Pope?”

“Pope’s dead, Adam.” Theresa hesitated. “A lot has happened since you’ve been gone. Ethan is the sheriff now.”

“Ethan’s here?”

“He was introduced into the town a month or so ago. He turned this place upside down. Nothing’s been the same since.”

Hassler stared into the flames. “I didn’t know he was here,” he said.

“Why would you?”

“No, I just . . . Does Ethan know?”

“About us?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I haven’t told him. I mean, I was going to eventually, but Ben and I talked about it, decided there was no rush. We didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”

Tears dropped out of the corners of Hassler’s eyes, carving clean trails through the grime embedded in his face.

Ben watched him from the mattress.

“It’s like a nightmare,” Hassler said.

“What?”

“Coming home to this. Every day I was out beyond the fence, facing death and hunger and thirst, it was you, only you, that kept me going. The thought of how our life would be when I got back.”

“Adam.”

“That year we lived together—”

“Please.”

“Was the happiest I’d ever been. I love you. I never stopped.” Hassler crawled around the bed of coals and put his arm around her. He looked at Ben. “I was a father to you, wasn’t I?” He looked at Theresa. “And I was your man. Your protector.”

“I wouldn’t have survived Wayward Pines without you, Adam, but I thought you were never coming back. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, my husband is here.”

Somewhere outside, an abby howled.

Hassler pulled his backpack over, opened it, dug around inside until he emerged with a leather-bound journal. Tearing off the plastic, he opened the weathered book to the first page. In the firelight, he pointed to the inscription: When you come back—and you will come back—I’m gonna fuck you, solider, like you just came home from war.

It broke her to see those words.

Knocked her flat.

She’d written them just before Hassler had left.

“I read it every day,” he said. “You have no idea the hard times it got me through.”

She couldn’t see anything now, the tears flowing, the emotion unfurling inside of her like a hemorrhage—too fast to staunch.

“I’m not asking you to predict the future,” he said. “I’m talking about right now. This moment. Do you still love me, Theresa?”

She looked up at the matted beard, the scarred face, his hollowed-out eyes.

God, but she did.

“I never stopped,” she whispered.

The relief in his eyes was like a stay of execution.

“I need to know something,” she said. “When we were living together, did you know?”

“Did I know what?”

“About this town. What it was. All the secrets that were kept.”

He stared into her eyes and said, “Until the day David Pilcher came to me and said I’d been chosen for a nomad mission beyond the fence, I only knew what you knew.”

“Why did he send you out there?”

“To explore. To search for signs of human life outside our valley.”

“Did you find any?”

“My last entry out there . . .” Hassler flipped to the end of his journal. “I wrote, ‘I alone have the key to what will save us all. I’m literally the one man in the world who can save the world.’”

“So what is it?” Theresa asked. “What’s the key?”

“To make our peace.”

“With what?”

“With the fact that this is truly the end. The world belongs to the abbies now.”

Even through her grief and shock, this statement registered.

Theresa felt suddenly, completely, alone.

“There isn’t going to be some discovery that saves us,” Hassler said. “That puts us back on the top of the food chain. This valley is the only place where we can survive. We’re going to become extinct. That’s simply a fact. Might as well do it with grace. Savor each day, each moment.”