The Last Town

by Blake Crouch

  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.”

&nbs
p; “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.

  Ethan sat at the main console in the surveillance center, Alan on one side, Francis Leven on the other.

  “What exactly is the point of this message?” Leven asked.

  “In case someone stumbles across this place,” Ethan said.

  “I find that highly unlikely.”

  “Do you know what you want to say?” Alan asked.

  “I wrote something down last night.”

  Alan’s fingers danced across the touch screen.

  “Ready when you are,” he said.

  “Let’s do this.”

  “We’re recording.”

  Ethan took the scrap of paper out of his back pocket, unfolded it, and leaned into the microphone.

  He said his piece.

  When he’d finished, Alan stopped the recording.

  “Well said, Sheriff.”

  Above them, the bank of twenty-five monitors still streamed a rotating series of surveillance feeds from the valley.

  The empty corridors of the hospital basement.

  The empty hallway in the school.

  The empty park.

  Vacated homes.

  Abandoned streets.

  Ethan looked over at Francis Leven. “We ready?” he asked.

  “All nonessential systems have been powered down.”

  “Everyone’s prepped?”

  “It’s already underway.”

  As Ethan walked alone down the Level 1 corridor, the overhead lights winked out, one by one. When he reached the sliding glass doors that opened into the ark, he glanced back down the passage as the last light at the far end of the corridor went dark.

  Already, it was colder, the heating and ventilation systems running on idle.

  The stone floor of the great cavern was freezing against his bare feet.

  It was frigid inside the suspension hub, just a few degrees above freezing. Masked by a blue-tinged fog, there was movement all around.

  The machines hummed and ejected streams of white gas.

  He pushed through the fog, turned a corner, and made his way between two rows of machines.

  Men in white lab coats were helping the residents of Wayward Pines to climb into the suspension units.

  He stopped at the machine at the end of the row.

  The digital nameplate read:

  KATE HEWSON

  SUSPENSION DATE: 9/19/12

  BOISE, ID

  RESIDENT: 8 YEARS, 9 MONTHS, 22 DAYS

  She was already inside.

  Ethan peered through the two-inch-wide panel of glass that ran down the front of the machine.

  Kate stared back at him, locked into her suspension unit.

  She was trembling.

  Ethan put his hand to the glass.

  He mouthed, “It’s going to be okay.”

  She nodded.

  He hurried three rows down, threading his way through more people in white sleeping suits.

  Theresa was kneeling down in front of Ben, holding him, whispering in his ear.

  Ethan wrapped his arms around them, pulled his family in close.

  Tears streamed.

  “I don’t want to do it, Dad,” Ben cried. “I’m scared.”

  “I’m scared too,” Ethan said. “We’re all scared and that’s okay.”

  “What if this is the end?” Theresa asked.

  Ethan stared into his wife’s green eyes.

  “Then know I love you. It’s time,” Ethan said.

  He helped Ben onto his feet, held the boy’s arm as he stepped into his machine.

  His son was shaking—from the cold, from the fear.

  Ethan eased him down onto the metal seat.

  Restraints shot out of the walls, locking around Ben’s ankles and wrists.

  “I’m so cold, Dad.”

  “I love you, Ben. I’m so proud of you. I have to shut the door now.”

  “Not yet. Please.”

  Ethan leaned in and kissed his forehead, thinking, This could be the last time I ever touch my boy. He stared into Ben’s eyes.

  “Look at me, son. Be brave.”

  Ben nodded.

  Ethan wiped the tears from his cheek, stepped out of the suspension chamber.

  “I love you, Ben,” Theresa said.

  “Love you, Mom.”

  Ethan gave the door to Ben’s machine a nudge. It swung shut, and an internal locking mechanism triggered the seal.

  Ethan and Theresa stared through the glass as the interior of Ben’s chamber began to fill with gas.

  They smiled through their tears as Ben’s eyes closed.

  Theresa turned to Ethan. “Tuck me in?” she asked.

  He took her by the hand and walked her down to her machine. The door was already open, and she stared inside at the black composite seat, the armrests, the black tubing hanging from the inner wall, tipped with a large-gauge needle that would vacuum every drop of blood from her veins.

  She said, “Oh Jesus Christ.”

  She climbed in and sat down.

  The machine locked her in.

  Ethan said, “I’ll see you on the other side.”

  “You think we’ll really get there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  And then he kissed his wife like it was the last time he would ever touch her.

  Climbing into his suspension chamber, Ethan thought of what he’d written down in his study last night, the words he’d recorded in the surveillance center.

  Possibly the last recorded statement of human history.

  The world is cruel. The world is hard, and in this valley, we lived at the mercy of the abbies. We lived like prisoners, and it went against every fiber of our being. Humanity is meant to explore; we’re meant to conquer, to roam. It’s in our DNA, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

  He sat down in the seat.

  It’s going to be a long journey, and when we reach our destination, there’s no telling what we’ll find.

  The restraints locked around his ankles.

  I’m afraid. We all are.

  His wrists.

  What kind of a world awaits us on the other side of this long sleep? To some extent, it doesn’t matter. Because the residents of Wayward Pines will face it together. No secrets. No lies. No kings.

  The door to his own chamber clanged shut and locked.

  We’ve all said our goodbyes. We all know this could be the end, and we’ve made as much peace with that fact a
s we can.

  The pressurized hiss of releasing gas was accompanied by a woman’s voice, computerized and strangely comforting.

  She said, “Please begin breathing deeply. Smell the flowers while you can.”

  They say time heals all wounds . . . Well, we’ve got plenty of it . . . Enough time for empires to rise and fall. For species to change. For the world to become a kinder place.

  The gas smelled like lavender and lilac, and the moment he breathed it in, he felt his consciousness being kicked out from under his feet.

  So we all embark wondering what lies over the horizon, what’s around the next bend. And isn’t that, in the end, what drives us?

  His eyelids began to lower, and he conjured up the faces of his wife, his son.

  We have hope again.

  Took Theresa and Ben with him, down into that long, long sleep.

  For now, the world belongs to the abbies, but the future . . .

  The future could be ours.

  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.