Pines

by Crouch, Blake

  “No idea.”

  Ethan glimpsed the meadow through the oaks.

  Red leaves drifted lazily down from the branches above.

  “Control. There’s an underground contingent in Pines who presents a façade of compliance. But secretly, they want to take over. Call it...an insurgency. A rebellion. They want to break free, to pull back the curtain, to change how things are done. You understand that would mean the end of Pines. The end of us.”

  They came out of the trees, the helicopter a hundred yards away, its bronze paint job gleaming in the late-afternoon sun.

  A part of Ethan thinking, What a perfect autumn day.

  “What do you want from me?” Ethan asked.

  “I want you to help me. You have a rare skill set.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re implying I have no choice in the matter?”

  “Of course you do.”

  A breeze lapped at Ethan’s face, the meadow grasses bending toward the ground.

  They reached the helicopter and Pilcher pulled open the door, let Ethan climb in first.

  When they were seated and facing each other, Pilcher said, “All you’ve wanted to do since you woke up in Pines is leave. I’m giving you that opportunity, plus a bonus. Right now. Look behind you.”

  Ethan glanced over his seat into the cargo hold, pushed back the curtain.

  His eyes became wet.

  It had been right there the whole time—a brutal fragment of knowledge he hadn’t allowed himself to even acknowledge. If what Pilcher said was true, then he would never see his family again. They’d be nothing more than ancient bones.

  And now, here they were—Theresa and Ben unconscious and strapped to a pair of stretchers with a black duffel bag between them.

  His boy did not look like a boy.

  “After I put you into suspension, I looked you up, Ethan. I thought you had real potential. So I went to your family.”

  Ethan wiped his eyes. “How long have they been in Pines?”

  “Five years.”

  “My son...he’s—”

  “He’s twelve now. They both integrated well. I thought it would be better to have them stable and settled before attempting to bring you in.”

  Ethan didn’t bother to mask the rage behind his voice, his words coming like a growl. “Why did you wait so long?”

  “I didn’t. Ethan, this is our third attempt with you.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “One of the effects of suspension is retrograde amnesia. Each time you reanimate, your mind resets to just before your first suspension. In your case—the car wreck. Although, I suspect some memories linger. Maybe they emerge in dreams.”

  “I’ve tried to escape before?”

  “First time, you made it across the river, nearly got yourself killed by the abbies. We intervened, saved you. Second time, we made sure you discovered your family, thinking that might help. But you tried to escape with them. Nearly got all of you killed.”

  “So this time you went after my mind?”

  “We thought if we could induce psychosis, maybe we’d have a chance. Shot you full of some powerful antipsychotics.”

  “My headaches.”

  “We even tried to use your history of torture against you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I have your military file. Your report from what happened to you in Fallujah. We tried to tap into that during Pope’s interrogation.”

  “You’re...sick.”

  “I never expected you to actually break into the bunker. We were going to just let the abbies have you. But when I saw you standing in suspension, something occurred to me. You’re stubborn. A fighter to the end. You were never going to accept the reality of Wayward Pines. I realized I needed to quit fighting you. That instead of a liability, you might actually be an asset.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me about all of this?”

  “Because I didn’t know what you would do with the knowledge, Ethan. Suicide? Escape? Try to make it on your own? But I realize now that you’re one of the rarities.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The people in town, for the most part, can’t handle the truth of what’s out there. But you...you can’t handle the lie. The not knowing. You’re the first resident I’ve ever shared any of this with. Of course, it’s crushed your family to see the difficulty you’ve had.”

  Ethan turned back around and glared at Pilcher. “Why did you bring them here?”

  “I’m giving you a choice, Ethan. They know nothing about the world outside of Pines. But you do. Say the word, and I’ll leave you here in this field with your family. There’s a duffel bag packed with food and supplies, even a few weapons. You’re a man who wants things on his terms, and I respect that. If that’s what’s most important to you, have at it. You can reign in hell here on the outside, or serve in heaven, back in Pines. Your choice. But if you come back to Pines, if you want that safety and support for your family, for yourself, it’s on my terms. And my terms, Ethan, come with severe penalties. If you fail me, if you betray me, I will make you watch while I take your son and—”

  The sudden noise cut Pilcher off. At first, Ethan thought someone had fired up a jackhammer out in the forest, but then the fear hit him right between the eyes.

  It was the tat-tat-tat of the AK.

  Pam’s voice exploded over the radio. “Start the chopper! They’re coming!”

  Pilcher glanced into the cockpit. “Get us out of here,” he said.

  “Working on it, boss.”

  Ethan heard the turbines of the BK117 starting up, the thunderous boom of Pam’s shotgun. He moved over to the window, staring back toward the woods as the gunfire grew louder.

  Already, it was too noisy inside the helicopter to talk, so he tugged on his headset and motioned for Pilcher to do the same.

  “What do you want me to do?” Ethan asked.

  “Help me run Pines. From the inside. It’ll be a helluva job, but you were made for it.”

  “Isn’t that what Pope’s doing?”

  Ethan saw movement in the trees as the turbines began to whine, the cabin vibrating as the RPMs increased.

  Pope and Pam broke out of the forest, backpedaling into the clearing.

  Three abbies leaped out of the trees and Pope cut two of them down with a long burst of full auto while Pam put a pair of slugs through the third one’s chest.

  Ethan lunged to the other side of the cabin and looked out the window.

  “Pilcher.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your gun.”

  “Why?”

  Ethan tapped the glass, motioning to a pack of abbies emerging on the far side of the field—at least four of them, all barreling toward Pam and Pope at a fast, low sprint that utilized all four appendages.

  “You with me, Ethan?”

  “They’re going to be killed.”

  “Are you with me?”

  Ethan nodded.

  Pilcher slapped the .357 into his hand.

  Ethan ripped off his headset and shouted into the cockpit, “How long?”

  “Thirty seconds!”

  Ethan cranked open the door and jumped down into the grass.

  The noise and the wind from the rotors screaming in his ear.

  Pope and Pam were fifty yards away and still backing toward the chopper while laying down a torrent of suppressing fire.

  They’d killed a dozen of them already—pale bodies strewn across the grass—and still more were coming.

  More than Ethan could count.

  He ran in the opposite direction.

  Twenty yards past the copter, he stopped and planted his feet shoulder-width apart.

  Stared at the revolver in his hand—a double-action Ruger with a six-shot cylinder.

  He raised it.

  Sighted down the barrel.

  Five of them charging at full speed.

  He thumbed back the hammer as frantic machine-gun a
nd twelve-gauge fire roared over the turbines.

  The abbies were thirty feet away, Ethan thinking, Anytime you want to start shooting, that might be a good idea. And no double taps. You need single-fire kill shots.

  He drew a bead on the one in the center, and as it came up into the crest of its stride, squeezed off a round that sheered away the top of its head in a fountain of gore.

  At least he was shooting hollow points.

  The other four kept coming, unfazed.

  Twenty feet away.

  He dropped the two on the left—one shot apiece through the face.

  Hit the fourth one in the throat.

  The last abby inside of ten feet now.

  Close enough to smell it.

  Ethan fired as it jumped, the bullet only grazing its leg, Ethan adjusting his aim as the abby rocketed toward him.

  Pulled back the hammer, pulled the trigger as the monster hit, teeth bared, its scream at this proximity louder than the turbines.

  The bullet went through its teeth and tore out of the back of its skull in a spray of bone and brain as it crashed into Ethan.

  He didn’t move.

  Stunned.

  His head jogged so hard that flashes of light were detonating everywhere he looked, and his hearing was jumbled—muffled and slowed down so that he could pick out all the individual pieces of sound that built the symphony of chaos around him.

  Shotgun blasts.

  The AK.

  The spinning rotors.

  The screams of the abbies.

  Telling himself, Get up, get up, get up.

  Ethan heaved the dead weight of the abby off his chest and sat up. Tried to look across the field, but his vision was stuck on blurry. He blinked hard several times and shook his head, the world slowly crystallizing like someone turning the focus knobs on a pair of binoculars.

  Dear God.

  There must have been fifty of them already in the clearing.

  Dozens more breaking out of the trees with every passing second.

  All moving toward the helicopter in the center of the field.

  Ethan struggled up onto his feet, listing left in the wake of the hit, his center of balance annihilated.

  He stumbled toward the helicopter.

  Pam was already inside.

  Pope standing several feet out from the skid, trying to hold the abbies off. He had shouldered the rifle and was taking precision shots now, Ethan figuring he must be down to the final rounds of his magazine.

  Ethan patted him on the shoulder as he stepped onto the skid, screamed in his ear, “Let’s go!”

  Pilcher opened the door and Ethan scrambled up into the cabin.

  He buckled himself in, glanced out the window.

  An army of abbies flooded across the field.

  Hundreds of them.

  Ten seconds from the chopper and closing in like a mongrel horde.

  As he put on his headset, Pilcher pulled the cabin door closed, locked it, said, “Let’s go, Roger.”

  “What about the sheriff?”

  “Pope’s staying.”

  Through his window, Ethan saw Arnold throw down his AK and try to open the door, struggling with the handle but it wouldn’t turn.

  Pope stared through the glass at Pilcher, a beat of confusion flashing through the lawman’s eyes, followed quickly by recognition.

  Then fear.

  Pope screamed something that never had a chance of being heard.

  “Why?” Ethan said.

  Pilcher didn’t avert his eyes from Pope. “He wants to rule.”

  Pope beat his fists against the window, blood smearing across the glass.

  “Not to rush you or anything, Roger, but we’re all going to die if you don’t get us out of here.”

  Ethan felt the skids pivot and go airborne.

  He said, “You can’t just leave him.”

  Ethan watched as the chopper lifted off the ground, the sheriff hooking his left arm around the skid, fighting to hang on.

  “It’s done,” Pilcher said, “and you’re my new sheriff. Welcome aboard.”

  A mob of abbies swarmed under Pope, jumping, clawing, but he’d established a decent grip on the skid and his feet dangled just out of reach.

  Pilcher said, “Roger, take us down a foot or two if you wouldn’t mind.”

  The chopper descended awkwardly—Ethan could tell the pilot hadn’t flown in years—lowering Pope back down into the madness on the ground.

  When the first abby grabbed hold of Pope’s leg, the tail of the chopper ducked earthward under the weight.

  Another one latched onto his other leg, and for a horrifying second, Ethan thought they would drag the chopper to the ground.

  Roger overcorrected, climbing fast to a twenty-foot hover above the field.

  Ethan stared down into Pope’s wild eyes.

  The man’s grip on the skid had deteriorated to a single handhold, his knuckles blanching under the strain, three abbies clinging to his legs.

  He met Ethan’s eyes.

  Screamed something that was drowned out by the roar of the turbines.

  Pope let go, fell for half a second, and then vanished under a feeding frenzy.

  Ethan looked away.

  Pilcher was staring at him.

  Staring through him.

  The helicopter banked sharply and screamed north toward the mountains.

  * * *

  It was a quiet flight, Ethan’s attention divided between staring out his window and glancing back through the curtain at his sleeping family.

  The third time he looked in on them, Pilcher said, “They’ll be fine, Ethan. They’ll wake up tonight, safe and warm in bed. That’s what matters, right? Out here, you would all surely die.”

  It was getting on toward dusk.

  Ethan dead tired, but every time he shut his eyes, his thoughts ran in a hundred different directions and at blinding speeds.

  So he tried to just watch the world move by.

  His view was west.

  The sun was gone, and in the wake of its passing, mountain ranges stood profiled against the evening sky like a misshapen saw blade.

  There was nothing to see of the pine forest a thousand feet below.

  Not a single speck of light anywhere that existed because of man.

  * * *

  They flew through gaping darkness.

  With the cabin lights dimmed and the glow of the instrument panel in the cockpit hidden behind the curtain, Ethan could just as well have been adrift in a black sea.

  Or space.

  He had his family behind him, and there was comfort in that fact, but as he leaned against the freezing glass, he couldn’t help but feel a plunging stab of fear.

  And despair.

  They were alone.

  So very much alone.

  It hit him center mass.

  These last few days, he’d been fighting to get back to his life outside of Wayward Pines, but it was gone.

  Gone for nearly two thousand years.

  His friends.

  His home.

  His job.

  Almost everything that defined him.

  How was a man supposed to come to terms with a thing like that?

  How did one carry on in the face of such knowledge?

  What got you out of bed and made you want to breathe in and out?

  Your family. The two people sleeping behind you.

  Ethan opened his eyes.

  At first, he didn’t quite believe what he saw.

  In the distance below, a wellspring of light shone in the midst of all that darkness.

  It was Pines.

  The house lights and porch lights.

  The streetlights and car lights.

  All merging into the soft nighttime glow of a town.

  Of civilization.

  They were descending now, and he knew that down in that valley, there stood a Victorian house where his wife and his son lived.

  Where he could live too.
<
br />   There was a warm bed to crawl into.

  And a kitchen that would smell of the food they cooked.

  A porch to sit out on during the long, summer evenings.

  A yard where he might play catch with his son.

  Maybe it even had a tin roof, and there was nothing he loved more than the sound of rain drumming on tin. Especially late at night in bed, with your wife in your arms and your son sleeping just down the hall.

  The lights of Wayward Pines glowed against the cliffs that boxed it in, and for the first time, those steep mountain walls seemed inviting.

  Fortifications against all the horror that lay beyond.

  Shelter for the last town on earth.

  Would it ever feel like home?

  Would it be all right if it did?

  You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. To the earth...a million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

  Michael Crichton

  From Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, copyright © 1990 by Michael Crichton. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

  EPILOGUE

  He sits in the quiet of his office, his boots up on the desk, studying the brass star in his hand and running his fingers over the WP inset in the center, the lettering in some black stone—obsidian perhaps. He wears dark brown canvas pants and a hunter-green long-sleeved button-down, just like his predecessor. The fabric feels new and over starched.

  There is an extensive briefing scheduled with Pilcher and his team tomorrow, but today has been uneventful.

  And strange.

  For eight hours, he sat in the stillness of his office, lost in thought, and the phone interrupted him only once—Belinda, the receptionist, at the noon hour asking if he’d like her to pick up anything for lunch.

  He watches the second hand and the minute hand click over to the twelve.

  It is five o’clock.

  Sliding his boots off the desktop, he rises and puts on his Stetson, slips his brass star into his pocket. Maybe tomorrow he’ll bring himself to finally pin it on.