Ethan grabbed the flashlight, which Brad had dropped between the seats.
Shined it out into the street.
Oh my God.
The beam struck an abby.
It was crouched on its hind legs over Brad, its face buried in his throat.
It looked up, mouth blood-dark, and hissed at the light with the venomous warning of a wolf protecting its kill.
Behind it, the light showed more pale figures coming down the middle of the street.
Ethan punched the gas.
In the rearview mirror, a dozen abbies chased the car on all fours. The one out in front came up alongside his door. It leapt at Ethan’s window, just missed, hit the side of the car instead, and bounced off.
Ethan watched it tumble across the street as he forced the pedal to the floor.
When he looked back through the windshield, a small abby stood twenty feet ahead of the grille, frozen in the headlights, teeth bared.
Ethan braced.
At contact, the bumper blasted the abby straight back thirty feet. He ran it over and dragged it for half a block, the Bronco jarring so violently he could barely keep his grip on the steering wheel.
The undercarriage finally spit it out.
Ethan raced north.
The rearview mirror showed a dark, empty street.
He breathed again.
Near the north end of town, Ethan turned west, headed several blocks toward Main until the headlights swiped across a line of people in the street, faces lit by a handful of torches.
He steered the Bronco over the curb.
Left the keys in the ignition so the lights would keep burning.
He went around to the back of the Bronco, lowered the tailgate, and grabbed one of the three loaded shotguns.
Kate was standing beside an open trapdoor behind a bench, its underside constructed of one-by-four planks and rusted hinges, the top camouflaged with dirt and grass. She and another man were lowering people, one by one, underground.
Their eyes met as he approached.
He shoved a shotgun into her hands and looked back at the crowd—still twenty-five or thirty left to go.
“They need to be underground five minutes ago,” Ethan said.
“Going as fast as we can.”
“Where are Ben and Theresa?”
“Already down below.”
“The abbies are here, Kate.”
He saw the question in her eyes before she asked, “Where’s Brad?”
“They got him, and I’m telling you, we have a couple minutes tops and then it’s all over.”
The crowd was moving with the efficiency of an evacuation—orderly, no one talking, a hushed intensity in the air.
Screams—human and inhuman—were erupting across the town with greater frequency.
Ethan turned to the crowd.
He said, “I have a carful of weapons. If you ever owned firearms in your prior life, if you have any experience or comfort level whatsoever, come with me.”
Ten people stepped out of line and followed Ethan over to the back of the Bronco.
Hecter Gaither, the town pianist, stood among them. He was tall and lanky, salt-and-pepper hair with whitewashed wings. Fragile, almost regal features. For the fête, he’d dressed up like a murderous fairy.
Ethan asked, “What’d you shoot in your past life, Hecter?”
“I used to go duck hunting with my father every Christmas morning.”
Ethan handed him a Mossberg.
“I loaded this up with twelve-gauge slugs. It’s going to kick a bit more than the bird-shot rounds you’re used to.”
Hecter held it by the stock—so strange to see those soft, dexterous hands clutching a tactical shotgun.
Ethan said, “You and I will go down last. I’ll be right there with you.” He turned his attention back to the arsenal. “I’ve got a few revolvers and a handful of semiauto pistols left. Who wants what?”
II
PILCHER
WAYWARD PINES
TWELVE YEARS AGO
It’s morning.
An autumn day.
They didn’t make skies this blue in his life before. You can look straight up into purple. The air so clear and clean it suggests a hyperreality, the colors blindingly intense.
Pilcher walks down the road into town. It was paved two weeks ago, and it still reeks of tar.
He passes the new billboard where a worker is painting the “e” in “Paradise.” When completed, the phrase will read, “Welcome to Wayward Pines Where Paradise is Home.”
Pilcher says, “Good morning! Good work!”
“Thank you, sir!”
The town has a long way yet to go, but the valley is beginning to look almost civilized. The forest has been mostly felled, save for a handful of trees left standing to line the streets and shade front yards.
A concrete truck rumbles past.
In the distance, new houses stand in various stages of completion. The residences were prefabricated prior to suspension. With all the foundations laid, the work seems to be accelerating, the town growing faster each day as homes begin to take shape.
The school is nearly finished.
The bottom three floors of the hospital framed.
Pilcher arrives at the graded, unpaved corner of what will one day be Eighth and Main.
The valley hums with the distant whine of saws and the pressurized bursts of nails shooting into studs.
The buildings that will soon line Main Street are fully framed, their yellow pine boards bright in the early sun.
Arnold Pope drives up in a topless Jeep Wrangler.
Pilcher’s right-hand man climbs out of the Jeep and struts over.
“Come down to see the progress?” Pope asks.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?”
“We’re actually ahead of schedule. If all goes well, we’ll have a hundred seventy homes completed before the snow flies, and the exteriors of all the buildings. Which means we’ll be able to continue working on the interiors through the winter.”
“So when may I schedule the formal ribbon cutting?”
“Next spring.”
Pilcher smiles, imagining it—a warm day in May and the valley popping with blossoms and the baby greens and yellows of new leaves.
A fresh start. Humanity’s blank slate.
“Have you considered how you’ll explain all of this to the first residents?”