The Last Town

“I don’t want to get eaten,” he said.

“We’re not. We’re tough hombres too. We’re a family of tough hombres.”

“You’re not a tough hombre,” Ben said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a tough hombra.”

Theresa rolled her eyes and said, “Come on, brat. We better keep moving.”

It was late afternoon when they stepped from the rock onto the soft floor of the forest.

They had been on the cliff for hours, under the burn of direct sunlight. They dripped sweat as their eyes readjusted in the cool shadow of the trees.

“What now?” Ben asked.

Theresa wasn’t sure exactly. By her estimate, they were approximately a mile from the edge of town, but she wasn’t confident that heading for Wayward Pines was the safest play. The abbies wanted to feed. They would stay where the people were, or at least where they’d been. Then again, if she and Ben made it into town, they could hole up inside a house. Lock themselves into a basement. If the abbies found them in the forest, there’d be nowhere to hide. It was already getting late, and she didn’t relish the thought of sleeping out here in the woods, in the dark.

Theresa said, “I think we go back into town.”

“But that’s where the abbies are.”

“I know of a place where we can hide. Wait this out until your dad fixes it.”

Theresa started off into the trees, Ben following close on her heels.

“Why are you going so slowly?” he asked.

“Because we don’t want to step on any branches. We don’t want to make a sound. If something comes our way, we need to be able to hear it early enough to hide.”

They went on, winding their way down through the trees.

They heard no more screams, human or abby.

Nothing but their own footsteps in the pine needles, their heavy exhalations, and the whoosh of wind pushing through the tops of the trees.

ETHAN

He followed Alan through the glass doors. They took the stairwell up to the second floor, came off the landing, and headed down the corridor into Level 2.

As they approached surveillance, Alan pulled a keycard out of his pocket.

When he swiped it at the door, a red dot lit up above the reader.

Alan tried again, same result.

He banged on the door.

“It’s Alan Spear. Open up.”

No answer.

Alan stepped back, fired four rounds into the card reader, and then put a size thirteen boot into the center of the door.

It burst open.

Ethan let Alan move in first.

The room was dark, illuminated only by the glow from the wall of monitors.

No one at the console.

Ethan waited in the threshold as Alan approached the i

He tried his keycard again: green light.

Dead bolt retracting.

Alan pointed his AR-15 into the side room.

“Clear!” he said.

Ethan walked in, and asked, “Can you operate this system?”

“I can figure out how to play that memory shard. Give it here.”

They sat at the console.

As Alan slipped the shard into a port, Ethan looked up at the screens.

All were dark but one.

A camera feed showed the school basement—a large crowd packed into a classroom. In the center of the room, the injured lay on makeshift cots while neighbors tended to them and nursed their wounds. He searched for Kate but couldn’t pick her out.

An image appeared on another screen.

It was a long camera view across a field—the riverside park. It showed a man limping beside the river.

Ethan said, “Look, Alan.”

Alan looked up.

The man on the screen began to run—the awkward, stumbling gait of someone who’d been wounded.

Three abbies sprinted into view on the left side of the screen as the man disappeared out of the right.

A new monitor flashed to life—a feed looking down Sixth Street, Ethan’s street. The man ran out of the field and into the road, the abbies in pursuit, upright, all four of them moving closer and closer to the camera.

They ran him down in front of Ethan’s house and killed him in the street.

Ethan felt a surge of nausea. Rage.

“I wondered this morning if something was up,” Alan said.

“Why’s that?”

“Mustin, that guard back there? He’s a sniper. All day every day, he sits on top of a mountain overlooking the town and the canyon and shoots any abbies that try to come in. I saw him in the chow hall this morning when he should’ve been at his post. He said Pilcher had pulled him off the peak for today. No reason given. It was a clear day too.”

“So Mustin wouldn’t see what his boss had done to all those i

“When did they breach the fence?” Alan asked.

“Last night. You weren’t told?”

“Not a word.”

A new screen flared to life.

“That’s the memory shard file?” Ethan asked.

“Yep. Have you seen this?”

“I have.”

“And?”

“You can’t unwatch it.”

Alan played the file.

From high in the corner of a ceiling, a camera looked down on the morgue. There was Pilcher. Pam. And Alyssa. The young woman had been strapped with thick, leather restraints to the autopsy table.

“No audio?” Alan asked.

“It’s a good thing.”

Alyssa was screaming, her head lifting off the table, every muscle straining.

Pam appeared, took a handful of Alyssa’s hair, and jerked her head down against the metal table.

When David Pilcher moved into frame, set a small knife on the metal table, and climbed on top of Alyssa, Ethan looked away.

He’d seen this once before, didn’t need the images reinforced inside his brain.

Alan said, “Jesus God.”

He stopped the video, pushed his chair back from the console, and stood.

“Where are you going?” Ethan asked.

“Where do you think?” He moved toward the door.

“Wait.”

“What?” Alan glanced back. You wouldn’t have known what he’d just seen to look at his face. That Nordic iciness as blank as a winter sky.

“The people in town need you right now,” Ethan said.

“I’m going to go kill him first if that’s okay with you.”

“You’re not thinking.”

“His own daughter!”

“He’s done,” Ethan said. “Finished. But he has information we’re going to need. Go mobilize your men. Send a team to shut the gate and restore power to the fence. I’ll go to Pilcher.”

“You will.”

Ethan stood. “That’s right.”

Alan dug his keycard out of his pocket, dropped it on the floor, and said, “You’ll need this.”

A key fell beside the card.

“That too. It’s for the elevator. And while we’re at it . . .” He pulled a subcompact Glock out of a shoulder holster, held it by the barrel, and offered Ethan the gun. As Ethan took it, Alan said, “If the next time I see you, you confess that, in the heat of the moment, you put a round into that piece of shit’s gut and watched as he bled out slowly, I will totally understand.”

“I’m sorry about Alyssa.”

Alan left the room.

Ethan bent down, lifted the key and the plastic card off the floor.

The corridor was empty.

Halfway down the stairwell, he heard it.

A noise he knew all too well from his time at war.

They were firing the chain gun, and it sounded like death on the drums.

By the time he reached Level 1, the noise was unreal. People would be leaving their workstations, leaving their residences.

At the pair of unmarked doors, he swiped the card through the reader.

The doors opened.

He stepped into the small elevator car, pushed the key into the lock on the control panel, and turned it.

The single button started blinking.

He pressed it, the doors closed, and the racket of the chain gun began to gradually fade away.

He took a deep breath and thought of his family, his fear for them blooming in his stomach like a flower of broken glass.