by Blake Crouch
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.”
24
Ethan led the town into the theater.
The dead abby was laid out onstage for everyone to see.
Every seat in the house was filled and there were people in the aisles and sitting on the edge of the stage.
Ethan looked down at his family in the front row, but he couldn’t get Pilcher out of his mind. What would the man do? Was he sending his men into town right now? Would he come after Ethan? Theresa and Ben? The town itself?
No. The news was out. And in spite of everything, how many times had Ethan heard Pilcher refer to the town as “my people.” They were still, after everything, his greatest assets. He might retaliate against Ethan, but the residents of Wayward Pines now knew the truth, and that was that.
Someone turned on a spotlight.
Ethan stepped into the beam.
He couldn’t see the faces now.
Only the harsh, blue-fringed light blazing out of the back of the theater.
He told them everything.
How they had been abducted, suspended, and imprisoned in this town.
How the aberrations had come into existence.
About Pilcher and his inner circle in the mountain.
A few walked out—couldn’t stand to hear the truth or didn’t believe.
But most people stayed.
He could feel the mood in the room shift from disbelief, to sadness, to anger as he described how Pilcher filmed and scrutinized their every private moment.
When he told them about the microchips, a woman jumped up and raised her fist, shouting at what she perceived to be a hidden camera in the ceiling, “Come down here! Are you watching this? Come answer for yourself, you son of a bitch!”
As if in answer, the lights in the theater dimmed.
A projector in the back kicked on and cast an image onto the pearlescent movie screen behind Ethan.
He turned, stared at the heavy white vinyl as David Pilcher appeared.
The man was sitting at his desk in a pose vaguely suggestive of a presidential address, forearms on the surface, hands clasped.
A hush fell upon the theater.
Pilcher said, “Ethan, would you mind stepping aside, letting me have a word?”
Ethan backed out of the limelight.
For a moment, Pilcher just stared into whatever camera was filming him.
He said finally, “Some of you know me as Dr. Jenkins. My real name is David Pilcher, and I’ll keep this short and sweet. All the things your dear sheriff just told you are true. If you think I’m here to explain myself to you, or to apologize, let me disabuse you of that notion. Everything you see, everything, I created. This town. This paradise. The technology that made it possible for you to be here. Your homes. Your beds. The water you drink. The food you eat. The jobs that occupy your time and make you feel like human beings. You draw breath for no other reason than I allow it. Let me show you something.”
Pilcher was replaced with an aerial view of a vast plain, where a swarm of several hundred abbies crossed the rolling grasslands.
Pilcher’s voice filled the theater over the images of the swarm.
He said, “I see you have one of these monsters, dead onstage. You should all take a good look at it, and know that there are millions and millions of them outside the safety of Wayward Pines. This is what a small swarm looks like.”
Pilcher returned, only now he was holding the camera himself, his face taking up the entire movie screen.
“Let’s be clear. For the last fourteen years, I’m the only God you’ve known, and it might be in your best interest to keep acting like I still am.”
A rock hurled out of the darkness and struck the screen.
Someone in the crowd shouted, “Fuck you!”
Pilcher looked away, watching everything unfold on his wall of monitors.
From the wings, Ethan watched as three men climbed up onto the stage and began to tear down the screen.
Pilcher started to speak, but someone in the back of the hall pulled the projector out of the wall and smashed it into pieces.
Pilcher sat alone at his desk.
He picked up the bottle of scotch.
Drained it dry, threw it at the screens.
He had to hold onto the desk as he dragged himself onto his feet.
Swaying.
He’d been drunk.
Now he was annihilated.
Staggered away from the desk across the dark hardwood floor.
Vincent van Gogh watched him from the wall, his face shaven, his right ear bandaged.
Caught himself from falling on the large table in the center of the room. He stared down through the glass at the architectural miniature of Wayward Pines, tracing his finger across it to the intersection of Eighth and Main.
His fist went through on the first try and flattened the intricate model of the opera house.
His hand caught on the jags of glass as he pulled it out.
He punched his bloody fist through another part of the glass.
And another.
His hand was bleeding profusely by the time he’d broken out all of the glass, the tiny shards and pebbles littered across the town like the wake of a biblical hailstorm.
He stumbled alongside the table until he came to Ethan’s yellow Victorian.
Crushed it.
Cr
ushed the sheriff’s station.
Crushed the house of Kate and Harold Ballinger.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
He grabbed hold of the table, bent his knees, lifted, and flipped it upside down.
Even after Ethan had told them everything, after the movie screen had been pulled down, people stayed in their seats.
Nobody would leave.
Some sitting catatonic. Stunned.
Others weeping openly.
By themselves.
Or in small groups.
Into the shoulders of spouses they’d been forced to marry.
The emotion in the room was staggering. Like the hushed devastation of a funeral. And in many ways, that’s exactly what it was. People mourning the loss of their previous lives. All the loved ones they would never see again. All that had been stolen.
So much to process.
So much to grieve.
And so much still to fear.
Ethan sat with his family onstage behind the curtain, holding them tightly.
Theresa whispered in his ear, “I’m so proud of what you did tonight. If you ever wonder what your best moment was, you just lived it.”
He kissed her.
Ben was crying, said, “The stuff I said to you earlier today on the bench…”
“It’s okay, Son.”
“I said you weren’t my father.”
“You didn’t mean it.”
“I thought Mr. Pilcher was good. I thought he was God.”
“It’s not your fault. He took advantage of you. Of every kid in that school.”
“What happens now, Dad?”
“Son, I don’t know, but no matter what, from this moment on, our lives are our own again. That’s all that matters.”
People began coming up to see the dead aberration.
It wasn’t a large one, just a hundred twenty pounds. Ethan figured its small size had kept the effect of the tranq dart going longer than he’d planned for.
It was past midnight, and he was looking out over all the people whose lives he had just immeasurably changed when he heard the sound of a phone ringing in the lobby.
He climbed down off the stage and moved up the aisle, pushing through the doors leading out of the theater.
The ringing was coming from the box office.
He sat down behind the ticket window, lifted the receiver to his ear.