It was like driving through his old neighborhood in Seattle on Halloween night.
People everywhere.
On the sidewalks.
In the streets.
Staggering around clutching open mason jars.
Torches.
Baseball bats.
Golf clubs.
The costumes had been ready and waiting.
He cruised past a man in an old bloodstained tuxedo, carrying a two-by-four carved down into a handle at one end, the other embedded with shards of metal like a mace.
The houses had all gone dark, but there were points of light appearing everywhere.
Flashlights sweeping through bushes and alleyways.
Cones of light shining into trees.
Even from behind the wheel, Ethan could see the divisions in the gathering crowd.
How some people saw the fête as nothing more than a chance to dress up, get drunk, go a little crazy.
How others carried an angry purpose in their visage—a clear intent to do harm, or at the very least, drink their fill of watching violence done.
How some could barely stand it, tears running down their face as they moved toward the center of the madness.
He kept to the side streets.
Between Third and Fourth, the headlights struck a pack of children thirty strong running across the road, bubbling with deadly laughter like hyenas, all costumed, knives gleaming in their little hands.
He kept a lookout for the officers—they’d be dressed in black and wielding machetes—but he never saw them.
Ethan turned onto First, headed south out of town.
In the road beside the pastures, he stopped the Bronco.
Turned off the car, stepped outside.
The phones had stopped ringing, but the noise of an assembling crowd was growing.
It dawned on him that it was in this exact spot, four nights ago, that he’d discovered Alyssa Pilcher.
God, how quickly it had all come to this.
Wasn’t quite time for him to make his appearance, but soon it would be.
Are you still running, Kate?
Have they caught you?
Are they dragging you and your husband toward Main Street?
Are you afraid?
Or on some level, have you been long prepared for this?
Ready for this nightmare to finally end?
On the outskirts of Wayward Pines, it was cold and dark.
He felt strangely isolated.
Like standing outside a stadium and listening to the noise of a game.
In town, something exploded.
Glass bursting.
People cheering.
He waited fifteen minutes, sitting on the hood of the Bronco with the warmth of the engine coming through the metal.
Let them gather.
Let them go mad.
Nothing would be done without him.
No blood would be spilled.
When Pam opened her eyes, it was dark.
She was shivering.
Her head throbbing.
Left leg on fire, like something had ripped a chunk out of it.
She sat up.
Where the fuck was she?
It was freezing and dark and the last thing she remembered was leaving the hospital after her final therapy session of the day.
Wait.
No.
She’d spotted Ethan Burke’s Bronco heading south out of town. Followed him on foot…
It all came back.
They’d fought.
She’d lost apparently.
What the hell had he done to her?
When she stood, the pain in her leg made her cry out. She reached back. A large piece of her jeans had been cut away, and a nasty, open wound oozed down her left thigh.
He’d cut out her microchip.
That fucking motherfucker.
The rage hit like a shot of morphine. She felt no pain, even when she started running away from the fence, back toward town, faster and faster through the dark forest, the electrified hum dwindling into silence.
The sound of screams in the distance stopped her.
Abby screams.
Many, many abby screams.
But something wasn’t right.
How could there be screams coming from straight ahead?
Wayward Pines lay straight ahead.
In fact, she should’ve reached the road by—
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
She didn’t know how long she’d been running, but she’d been running hard, running right through the pain. She’d come a mile at least from the fence.
Not far ahead, in addition to the screams of what sounded like a massive abby swarm, she heard movement coming her way—limbs breaking, sticks snapping.
And she could swear she even smelled them, an eye-watering, carrion stench growing stronger by the second.
In all of her years, she had never wanted to cause someone pain so badly.
Ethan Burke hadn’t just cut her microchip out.
He’d somehow stranded her on the other side of the fence, out in the mean, wild world.
Ethan climbed back into the Bronco, fired up the engine, floored the accelerator.
Tires squealed on the pavement as he launched forward.
He sped into the forest, took the big looping curve that brought him back on a trajectory toward town.
The speedometer read eighty as he blasted past the welcome sign.
He took his foot off the gas, let the RPMs die.
On Main Street now, and still a quarter mile from his destination, but already he could see flames in the distance, the buildings all aglow with firelight and the kinetic shadows of the crowd.
He passed the hospital.
Four blocks from the intersection of Eighth and Main, he was steering around people in the road.
Something had been thrown through the storefront glass of The Sweet Tooth and kids were looting the candy.
This was all acceptable and expected.
The crowd became denser.
An egg broke across the passenger-side window, yolk running down the glass.
He was barely moving now, people constantly in the way.
Everyone costumed.
He steered through a group of men dressed up in drag, lipstick garishly applied, wearing their wives’ bras and panties over long johns, one of them armed with a cast-iron skillet.
An entire family—including children—had ringed their eyes with dark eye shadow and painted their faces white to resemble the walking dead.
He saw devil’s horns.
Vampire teeth.
Fright wigs.
Angel wings.
Top hats.
Sharpened canes.
Monocles.
Capes.
Vikings.
Kings and queens.
Executioner masks.
Whores.
Now the street was wall-to-wall.
He laid on the horn.
The sea of people begrudgingly parted for him.
Inching along between Ninth and Eighth, he saw other storefronts vandalized, and up ahead—the source of the flames.
People had pushed a car into the middle of Main and set it on fire. Its windows now littered the pavement, shivers of glass glittering in the firelight, flames licking out of the windshield, the seats and the dashboard melting.
Above it all, the traffic signal cycled on obliviously.
Ethan shifted into park and killed the engine.
The energy on the other side of the windshield was dark and volatile—an evil, living thing. He studied all the ruddy faces in the firelight, eyes glassy with whatever bathtub gin had been stockpiled and passed around.
The strangest thing was that Pilcher had been right. Clearly, the fête spoke to them. Met some deep, consuming need.
He glanced into the back of the Bronco and checked his watch.
Soon.
Wool padding had been stitched into the inside of the headpiece, and it fit him snugly. He reached over and locked the passenger door, although he doubted that would make any difference in the end. Grabbing the stinking cloak and the bullhorn, he opened his door, locked it, and stepped out into the fray.
Broken glass crunched under his boots.
The smell of liquor spiced the air.
He donned the cloak.
Pushed his way into the crowd.
People around him began to clap and cheer.
The farther he ventured toward the traffic signal, the louder it grew.
Applause, shouts, screams.
And it was all for him.
They were calling his name, slapping his back.
Someone thrust a jar into his right hand.
He went on.
Bodies packed so tightly it was almost warm between them.
He finally broke through into the eye of the storm—a circle that couldn’t have been more than thirty feet in diameter.
He stepped just inside it.
The sight of them closed his throat with grief.
Harold lay on the pavement, struggling to get up, bleeding from several blows to the head.
Two black-clad officers held Kate, the woman he had once loved, each clutching one of her arms to keep her upright.
While Harold appeared stunned, Kate was fully present and staring straight at him. She was crying and he felt the tears sliding down his face before he even registered the emotion. Her mouth was moving. She screamed at him, screamed questions and disbelief, no doubt pleading for her life, but the noise of the crowd drowned her out.
Kate wore a shredded nightgown, and she stood in bare feet, shivering, her knees stained with grass and dirt, one of them skinned to the bone, blood running down her shin, and her left eye swelling shut.
A scene began to form.
She and Harold had gone to bed early—probably still hungover from the night before. The officers burst in. There hadn’t even been time to dress. Kate had gone out a window, possibly made a break for the drainage tunnels under town. That’s what he would have done. But the ten officers had her house surrounded. They’d most likely run her down within a block or two.
He wanted more than anything in his life to go to her.
Take her in his arms, tell her everything would be okay.
That she would survive this.
But instead he turned his back to her and made his way once more through the crowd.
When he reached the Bronco, he climbed up onto the hood and scrambled the rest of the way up the windshield.
He stood on the roof, the metal dipping under his weight, but it held.
The crowd descended into frenzy again, screaming like their rock star had just walked onstage.
Ethan could see everything from where he stood—the firelit faces crammed between the buildings, the burning car, the circle where Kate and Harold waited to die. He didn’t see Theresa or Ben and this gave him some small piece of comfort. He’d warned his wife not to come. Had instructed her to take their son, against his will if need be, and ride out the fête from the relative safety of the crypt.
He lifted the questionable mason jar of hooch into the air.
The crowd reciprocated—hundreds of glass bottles raising, catching the bonfire light of the burning car.
A toast in hell.
He drank.
They all drank.
God-awful.
He smashed the bottle into the street, drew the Desert Eagle, and fired three shots into the sky.
It kicked like a motherfucker and the crowd went crazy.
He holstered the pistol and took the bullhorn, which dangled from a strap on his shoulder.
Everyone hushed.
Everyone but Kate.
She was screaming his name, screaming why for God’s sake why are you doing this to me I trusted you I loved you why?
He let her go, let her finish, let her scream it all out of her system.
Then he raised the bullhorn.
“Welcome to the fête!”
Screams and cheers.
Ethan forced himself to smile as he said, “I love it even more from this side of the bullhorn!”
That got a big laugh.
The manual had given specific guidance for how the sheriff should handle this moment when everyone had gathered and the time for the execution was at hand.
While a handful of residents may have no issues with killing their neighbors, or even relish the job, when it actually comes time for the execution to begin, most people will feel uneasy about spilling blood. This is why your job as leader of the fête is so critical to its overall success. You set the tone of the celebration. You create the mood. Remind them why the guests of honor have been singled out. Remind them that the fête ultimately preserves the safety of Wayward Pines. Remind them that deviation from the rules is a slippery slope, which could easily result in any one of them landing in the circle next time around.
Ethan said, “You all know Kate and Harold Ballinger. Many of you would call them friends. You’ve broken bread with them. You’ve laughed and cried with them. And maybe you think that makes tonight a tough pill to swallow.”
He glanced at his watch.
It had been more than three hours.
For fuck’s sake. Any time now.
“Let me tell you about Kate and Harold. The real Kate and Harold. They hate this town!”
The crowd erupted in aggressive boos.
“They go out at night in secret, and here’s the worst of it—they meet with others. Others just like them who despise our little slice of paradise.” He drummed up some rage. “How could anybody hate this town?”
For a moment, the noise was deafening.
He waved everyone quiet.
“Some of those people, the secret friends of the Ballingers—they’re here with us tonight. Standing in this very crowd. Dressed up and pretending to be just like you.”
Someone shouted, “No!”
“But in their hearts, they hate Wayward Pines. Look around you. There are more of them than you think. But I promise you—we will root them out!”
It was slight, but as the crowd roared again, Ethan felt the Bronco shift imperceptibly on its shocks.
“So the question arises—why do they hate Wayward Pines? We have everything we need here. Food. Water. Shelter. Safety. We lack for nothing, and still, some people feel this isn’t enough.”
Something struck the metal roof under Ethan’s boots.
“They want more. They want the freedom to leave this town. To speak their minds. To know what their children are being taught in school.”
The boos continued but with a measurable lessening of conviction.
“They have the audacity to want to know where they are.”
The boos stopped altogether.
“Why they’re here.”
The crowd dead silent, heads cocked and brows beginning to furrow as they sensed the sheriff’s speech taking an unexpected turn.
“Why they aren’t allowed to leave.”
Ethan screamed through the bullhorn, “How dare they!”
Thinking, Are you watching this, Pilcher?
The Bronco shook under his feet and he wondered if the crowd could hear the noise.
Ethan said, “Almost three weeks ago, on a cold, rainy night, I watched from that window”—he pointed at the apartment building that fronted Main—“while you people beat to death a woman named Beverly. You would’ve killed me. God knows you tried. But I escaped. And now I stand up here under the guise of leading this celebration of depravity.”
Someone shouted, “What are you doing?”
Ethan ignored this.
He said, “Let me ask you all something. Do you love life in Wayward Pines? Do you love having cameras in your bedrooms? Do you love knowing nothing?”
No one in the crowd dared answer.
Ethan spotted two officers shoving their way through the people, no doubt coming for him.
“Have all of you,” Ethan asked, “resigned to Wayward Pines? To life in this town in the dark? Or do some of you still lie in bed at night beside your wife or your husband who you barely even know, wondering why you’re here? Dreaming of what lies beyond the fence.”
Blank, stunned faces.
“Do you want to know what lies beyond the fence?”
An officer broke out of the crowd and ran toward the Bronco, machete in hand.
Ethan pulled the Desert Eagle, aimed it at his chest, said through the bullhorn, “Fun fact. The shockwave alone from a fifty-caliber round will stop your heart.”
The rear left window of the Bronco exploded, glass showering everyone who had crowded up against the side of the vehicle.
Finally.
Ethan glanced down, saw a taloned arm sticking through the hole in the window.
It disappeared and punched through again.
The crowd retreated.
A scream that no one could have mistaken for human ripped out from inside the Bronco.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Those closest to the Bronco were clambering back while those who couldn’t see were fighting their way toward the front of the line.
The abby was going berserk inside, talons shredding the seats as it struggled against the chain Ethan had tied around its neck.
He was still aiming the Desert Eagle at the officer, but the man wasn’t even watching the gun. He stared instead through the Bronco’s windshield at what was trying to get out.
Ethan said into the bullhorn, “I want to tell you all a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a place called Wayward Pines. It was the last town on earth, and the people who lived there were the last of their kind.”
Ethan didn’t hear the chain jingling anymore.
The abby had broken free and climbed into the front seat.
“They had been preserved for two thousand years in a sort of time capsule. Only they didn’t know this. They were kept in the dark. By fear. Sometimes by force. They were led to believe they were dead or dreaming.”
The abby was trying to break through the windshield.
“Some of the residents, like Kate and Harold Ballinger, knew in their hearts that something was very wrong. That none of this was real. Others chose to believe the lie. Like good humans, they adapted. Made the best of a fucked-up situation, and tried to just live their lives. But it wasn’t a life. It was nothing more than a beautiful prison, run by a psychopath.”
A large chunk of the windshield broke out and hit the hood.
“Then one day, a man woke up in town named Ethan Burke. He didn’t know it, the people of Wayward Pines didn’t know it, and the sick fuck that built this town sure as hell didn’t know it, but he had come to pull the wool away from their eyes. To show them the truth. To give them the chance to live like real human beings again.
“And that’s why I’m standing here right now. So tell me. Do you want to know the truth?”
The abby was breathless underneath him, furiously attacking the glass.
“Or do you want to keep living in the dark?”
Its head broke through.
Snarling.
Livid.
Ethan said, “It’s two thousand years later than you think it is, and our species has devolved into the monster that’s inside my car.”
Ethan pointed the pistol at the abby’s head.
It disappeared.
There was a long beat of silence.
People just staring.
Jaws dropped.
Buzzes slayed.
It came through the windshield, talons scraping down the metal hood, and crashed into the officer standing at the bumper before he even thought to raise the machete.
Ethan put a bead on the back of the abby’s head and fired.
It went limp, the man underneath it screaming and flailing against the weight as two of the cross-dressed men helped drag the abby off him.
The officer sat up, drenched in gore, his forearms torn up, skin hanging in tatters where he’d tried to protect his face.
But he was alive.
Ethan said, “Is this too much for you to handle? Want to go back to killing two of your own? Or do you want to walk into the theater with me right now? I know you have questions. Well, I have answers. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes, and I swear to God if any one of you so much as lays a hand on Kate or Harold, I will shoot you where you stand.”
Ethan pulled off the headpiece, sloughed off the cloak.
He jumped onto the hood, and then stepped down to the street.
The crowd parted, giving him a wide, respectful berth.
He was still holding the Desert Eagle and his blood was hot, simmering for a fight.
Shoving one of the officers aside, he stepped into the circle. Harold was sitting up in the street in his pajamas, two officers still clutching Kate.
Ethan aimed at the one on the right.
“Did you not hear what I just said back there?”
The man nodded.
“Then why the fuck are you still touching her?”
They released her.
Kate crumpled.
Ethan ran to her, knelt down in the street. He took off his parka and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She looked up at him.
Said, “I thought you had—”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There was no other way.”
Harold was out of it, in another world.
Ethan lifted Kate in his arms.
He said, “Where are you hurt?”
“Just my knee and my eye. I’m okay.”
“Let’s get you fixed up.”
“After,” she said.
“After what?”
“After you tell us everything.”