The Last Town (The Wayward Pines Trilogy 3)

EPILOGUE


Seventy thousand years later, Ethan Burke’s eyes slammed open.


WAYWARD PINES





IN CASE YOU MISSED THEM, CHECK OUT THE FIRST TWO BOOKS IN THE WAYWARD PINES TRILOGY . . .



PINES, Book ONE of the Wayward Pines Series, is NOW available in print, audio, and e-book.

Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels . . . off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into the disappearance of his colleagues turns up more questions than answers. Why can’t he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fence surrounding the town? Is it meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out? Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan further from the world he thought he knew, from the man he thought he was, until he must face a horrifying fact: he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive. Intense and gripping, Pines is another masterful thriller from the mind of bestselling novelist Blake Crouch.





WAYWARD, Book TWO of the Wayward Pines Series, is ALSO available in print, audio, and e-book.

Welcome to Wayward Pines, population 461. Nestled amid picture-perfect mountains, the idyllic town is a modern-day Eden . . . except for the electrified fence and razor wire, snipers scoping everything 24-7, and relentless surveillance tracking each word and gesture. None of the residents know how they got here. They are told where to work, how to live, and who to marry. Some believe they are dead. Others think they’re trapped in an unfathomable experiment. Everyone secretly dreams of leaving, but those who dare to try are in for a terrifying surprise. Ethan Burke has seen the world beyond. He’s sheriff, and one of the few who knows the truth: Wayward Pines isn’t just a town. And what lies on the other side of the fence is a nightmare world beyond anyone’s imagining.





BLAKE CROUCH’S FULL CATALOG

THE WAYWARD PINES SERIES

Pines

Wayward

Last Town

THE ANDREW Z. THOMAS/LUTHER KITE SERIES

Desert Places

Locked Doors

Break You

Stirred (with J.A. Konrath)

THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS

Run

Abandon

Snowbound

Famous

Eerie (with Jordan Crouch)

Draculas (with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson)

THE SERIAL SERIES (WITH J.A. KONRATH AND JACK KILBORN)

“Serial” (short story)

“Bad Girl” (short story)

Serial Uncut (novella)

Killers (novella)

Birds of Prey (novel)

Killers Uncut (novel)

Serial Killers Uncut (double novel)

THE LETTY DOBESH SERIES

The Pain of Others (Letty Dobesh #1) (novella)

Sunset Key (Letty Dobesh #2) (novella)

Grab (Letty Dobesh #3) (novella)

THE SHORT STORIES AND NOVELLAS

Hunting Season (with Selena Kitt)

“*69” (short story)

“Remaking” (short story)

“On the Good, Red Road” (short story)

“Shining Rock” (short story)

“The Meteorologist” (short story)

“Unconditional” (short story)

Perfect Little Town (novella)

Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

Six in the Cylinder (collected stories)

Fully Loaded (complete collected stories)

THE BOX SETS

Thicker Than Blood (The Complete Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series)

The Fear Trilogy (Run, Snowbound, Abandon)

Confidence Girl (The Letty Dobesh Chronicles)





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Deepest gratitude to David Hale Smith, Richard Pine, Alexis Hurley, everyone at Inkwell Management, and to my West Coast fighters, Angela Cheng Caplan and Joel VanderKloot. You’re an extraordinary team, and I’m blessed to have you behind my books.

The folks at Thomas & Mercer and Amazon Publishing—Alan Turkus, Daphne Durham, Jeff Belle, Kristi Coulter, Danielle Marshall, Gracie Doyle, Andy Bartlett, Sarah Tomashek, Reema Al-Zaben, Philip Patrick, Tiffany Pokorny, Nick Loeffler, and Jodi Warshaw—are as fearless a group as I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I’m thrilled to be on this ride with you.

Thanks to Jacque Ben-Zekry, who edited the hell out of this book and stopped it from sucking in a thousand different ways.

And to Michelle Hope Anderson for a terrific copyedit.

Ann Voss Peterson, Joe Konrath, Marcus Sakey, and Jordan Crouch offered superb feedback and helped me to take this book to another level.

And lastly—most importantly—thank you to my beautiful, wonderful family.

xoxoxoxo



ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Blake Crouch is the author of over a dozen bestselling suspense, mystery, and horror novels. His short fiction has appeared in numerous short story anthologies, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Cemetery Dance, and many other publications. Much of his work, including the Wayward Pines series, has been optioned for TV and film. Blake lives in Colorado. To learn more, follow him on Twitter or Facebook, or visit his website, www.blakecrouch.com.