The Last Town (The Wayward Pines Trilogy 3) (10 page)

ETHAN

In the end, Maggie and Hecter were the only volunteers Ethan felt comfortable with. No one else in the group, not even Kate, had faced down the abbies like those two. He figured most courage would wilt in the face of a charging abby. Go with known quantities.

They armed themselves.

Maggie had only shot a .22 rifle once in her life, so Ethan loaded a Mossberg 930 with buckshot for her and filled the pockets of her trench coat with extra shells. He showed her how to hold it. How to reload. Prepped her for the aggressive recoil.

He slug-loaded a Mossberg and then a .357 Smith & Wesson for Hecter.

Kate chose the Bushmaster AR-15 with a .40 caliber Glock for backup.

Standing in the passage, Ethan glanced back at the handful of people he’d armed to guard the cavern door.

“And if you don’t come back?” the officer asked.

“You’ve got provisions here to last a few days,” Kate said.

“Then what?”

“I guess you’ll have to figure that out for yourselves.”

Theresa and Ben stood just inside the cavern.

They’d already said their goodbyes.

Ethan held eye contact with his wife until the heavy log door swung closed and the bolt rattled home.

It was freezing.

In the distance, daylight streamed past the opening.

Ethan said, “Nobody shoots unless we have no choice. Our best-case scenario, we get down into town without firing a shot. Once we broadcast our position, it’s probably all over for us.”

Kate led the way toward the light at the end of the passage.

Ethan replayed his last glimpse of Theresa and Ben as the door had shut between them.

Thinking,
Was that the last time I’ll ever see you?

Do you know how much I love you?

They stood at the end of the ledge, looking out across the valley.

It was morning.

Not a sound rising out of the town a thousand feet below.

The sunlight felt good on Ethan’s face.

Maggie whispered, “It just feels like a nice, normal morning, doesn’t it?”

They were too far away to see anything distinct in the streets below. Ethan pictured the pair of binoculars sitting in the bottom drawer of his desk at the station. Would’ve been nice to have.

He stepped to the edge and looked straight down three hundred feet of vertical stone that glistened in the sunlight.

They worked their way across the plank and rested on the other side at the top of the highest switchback.

The stone was warm in the sun.

They down-climbed.

Clutching cables.

Following the steps that had been cut into the rock.

There were no birds out.

Not even a whisper of wind.

Just the four of them, breathing quickly.

Below the tops of the trees, below the reach of the sun, the steel cables were like ice.

Then they were off the rock, standing on the soft floor of the forest.

Ethan said, “You know the way into town, Kate?”

“I think so. It’s weird. I’ve never been here in the daylight.”

She led them into the pines.

There were still patches of snow in places, footprints from the night before. They followed the tracks down the mountainside, Ethan scanning the trees, but nothing moved. The woods felt absolutely dead.

After awhile, he heard the waterfall.

They descended a steep pitch of hillside.

Reached the stream and the opening of the drainage tunnel. The abbies Ethan had shot last night lay dead in the water and on the bank.

There was mist in his face.

He stared up at a single cascade that spilled over a ledge two hundred feet above. The sunlight made a rainbow where it passed through the falling water.

“Take the tunnel into town?” Kate asked.

“No,” Ethan said. “We should leave ourselves plenty of room to run.”

After a quarter of a mile, the terrain leveled out and they emerged from the woods behind an old, decrepit house on the eastern edge of town, the same house, Ethan realized, where he’d found the mutilated corpse of Agent Evans when he’d first arrived in Wayward Pines.

They stopped in the weeds on the side of the house.

Up until this moment, Ethan had found comfort in the silence. Now it was disquieting. Like the world was holding its breath for something.

He said, “I was thinking on the hike down. If we could find a functional car, we could haul ass to the south end of town and not have to worry about an ambush the whole time. Kate, does that old beater in front of your house run?”

“Haven’t cranked it in years. I wouldn’t want to chance it.”

“The car in front of mine does,” Maggie said.

Ethan asked, “When’s the last time you took it for a spin?”

“Two weeks ago. I got a phone call one morning, someone telling me to drive around town for a few hours.”

“I’ve always wondered why they did that,” Hecter said.

“Because roads are never completely empty in normal towns,” Ethan said. “Just another ploy to make Wayward Pines feel real. Where’s your place, Maggie?”

“Eighth Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.”

“That’s only six blocks away. Where are the keys?”

“Bedside table drawer.”

“You’re sure.”

“Hundred percent.”

Ethan peeked around the corner of the house, saw bodies in the distance in the street, but no abbies.

“Let’s sit for a minute,” he said. “Catch our breath.”

They all sat against the rotting boards of the house.

Ethan said, “Maggie, Hecter, no military experience, right?”

Headshakes.

“I was a Black Hawk pilot. Saw some insane combat in Fallujah. We have six blocks to cover across very hostile territory, and there’s a right way to move in these situations to minimize exposure. From our current position, we can only see the surrounding block, but when we get across the street, our perspective will change. We’ll have new information. Even though we have six blocks to contend with, we’re going to look at that distance incrementally. Maggie and I will cross the street first and secure a position. I’ll evaluate the area from our new vantage point, and when I give the sign, Kate and Hecter will join us. Make sense?”

Nods.

“I want to say one last thing about how we’re going to move. It’s called a tactical column. We’ll keep close together as we run, but the pace should be controlled enough for you to stay alert. If the coast is clear, the temptation will be to focus on areas in the distance to see what’s coming, but that’s a mistake. If we see abbies coming from a hundred, two hundred yards out, there’s time for us to react. Worst thing that can happen is a surprise ambush. One of these things coming out of a bush, around a corner, and then you don’t even have time to raise your weapon. So watch your danger areas. That’s top priority. If you pass a bush and you can’t see what’s behind it, you cover that bush. Got it?”

Maggie’s shotgun had begun to tremble in her grasp.

Ethan touched her hand. “You’re going to do fine,” he said.

She turned away suddenly and threw up in the grass.

Kate patted her back, and whispered, “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay to be scared. It’s right to be scared. It’ll make you sharp.”

Ethan considered how utterly unprepared this woman was. Maggie had never been exposed to anything approaching this level of horror and pressure and yet she was slugging her way through it.

Maggie wiped her mouth and took a few deep breaths.

“You okay?” Ethan asked.

“I can’t do it. I thought I could but—”

“I know you can.”

“No, I should just go back.”

“We need you, Maggie. The people in the cavern need you.”

She nodded.

“You’ll be with me,” Ethan said, “and we’ll take it one step at a time.”

“Okay.”

“You can do this.”

“I just need a moment.”

He’d seen this in war. Combat paralysis. When the total horror of the violence and the constant threat of death overwhelmed a soldier. In his time in Iraq, the nightmare scenario was a sniper’s bullet or an IED. But even on the worst days in the streets of Fallujah, there wasn’t anything that wanted to eat you alive.

He gave Maggie a hand up.

“You ready?” he asked.

“I think so.”

He pointed across the street. “We’re going to cross to that house on the corner. Don’t think about anything else.”

“Okay.”

“You’re going to see some bodies in the street. Just want to warn you. Ignore them. Don’t even look at them.”

“Danger areas.” She tried to smile.

“You got it. Now stay close.”

Ethan picked up his shotgun.

Butterflies in his stomach.

That old, familiar fear.

Five steps out from the side of the house, the bodies in the street were in full view. And you couldn’t
not
look at them. He counted seven people, two of them children, literally ripped apart.

Maggie was keeping up.

He could hear her footsteps a few feet behind his.

They hit the street, nothing but the sound of their footfalls on the pavement.

Their panting.

Up and down First Avenue—nothing.

It was so quiet.

They crossed into the yard and accelerated the last few steps to the two-story Victorian.

Crouched down under a window.

Ethan glanced around the corner.

Made another scan up and down First.

All clear.

He looked back at Kate and Hecter and raised his right arm.

They came to their feet and started jogging, Kate out in front and moving with confidence, like she knew what she was doing, Hecter a few uncomfortable paces back. Ethan could tell the moment they saw the bodies. Hecter’s face fell and Kate’s jaw set and they couldn’t tear their eyes away.

Ethan looked at Maggie, and said, “You did great.”

Then all four of them were together again.

Ethan said, “Street’s empty. I don’t know why it’s so quiet, but let’s take advantage. All four of us this time. We’ll head out into the street and go right down the middle of it.”

“Why?” Hecter asked. “Isn’t it safer to stay near the houses, not so out in the open?”

“Corners are not our friends,” Ethan said.

He gave Hecter and Kate a minute to catch their breath.

Then he stood.

“What’s the next destination?” Kate asked.

“There’s a green Victorian two blocks down on the other side of the street. A row of juniper shrubs along the front. We’ll get behind those. Everyone ready?”

“Want me last in line?” Kate asked.

“Yes. Cover everything on our right and glance back every so often to make sure we aren’t getting flanked.”

It was a deceptively peaceful morning on Eighth Street.

They jogged down the middle of the road, quaint Victorians on either side and all those white picket fences bright and perfect in the early sun. Ethan’s stomach ached with hunger. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

He switched between studying the houses on their left and the road ahead.

The side yards unnerved him more than anything. Those narrow canyons between houses that led into backyards he couldn’t see.

They reached the first intersection.

So strange. He’d expected the town to be thick with abbies. Wondered if they’d left. Raided town for a night and gone back out into the wild the way they’d come—through Pilcher’s gate. That would simplify things if he could get control of the fence and just shut them back out.

The green Victorian was close now, two houses down.

He picked up the pace and veered toward the front yard.

Suddenly Kate was running beside him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, breathless.

“Faster,” she gasped. “Just run.”

Ethan jumped the curb, sprinted through the grass.

Glanced back—nothing.

They reached the junipers.

Scrambled through the branches.

Ducked down in the shadow between the bushes and the house.

Everybody out of breath.

Ethan said, “Kate, what happened?”

“I saw one.”

“Where?”

“Inside one of the houses on the street.”

“
Inside?
”

“It was just standing at a window, looking out.”