The Last Town
“I know I’ve f**ked up in the past. I know I haven’t treated you the way you deserved to be treated.”
“Ethan—”
“No, now it’s my turn. I ruined things. Hell, I ruined everything. With my work. With Kate. With not dealing with my shit from the war. But I’m trying, Theresa. Ever since I woke up in this town, I’ve been trying. Trying to protect you and Ben. Trying to love you the best that I possibly could. Trying to make the right choices.”
“I know you have. I see it. I see what we could be. It’s all I want. All I’ve ever wanted.” She kissed him. “You have to promise me something, Ethan.”
“What?”
“That you’ll go easy on Adam. We all have to live together in this valley now.”
Ethan stared down into Theresa’s face, resisting the urge to tell her everything that man had done. He said, finally, “I’ll try. For you.”
“Thank you.”
They walked on.
“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.
“Um, everything?”
“No, there’s something more. Something new. You were weird at dinner.”
Ethan looked into the canyon three thousand feet below. It was only a month ago he’d had his first encounter with the abbies down there, and as harrowing as that experience had been, at least he’d known hope then. He’d still believed the world was out there. That if only he could escape this town, these mountains, his family and his life would be waiting for him in Seattle.
“Ethan?”
“We’re in trouble,” he said.
“I’m aware.”
“No, I mean we’re not going to make it. As a species.”
A meteor crossed the sky.
“Ethan, I’ve been here a lot longer than you have. It feels hopeless sometimes, and now more than ever, but we have everything we need in Wayward Pines.”
“The food’s running out,” he said. “That stuff we ate tonight? Those freeze-dried meals? There isn’t an endless supply, and once it’s gone, we’re not going to be able to grow enough food in this valley to get us through the long, hard winters. If we were farther south, we could make it work, but we’re trapped in this valley. I’m sorry to tell you this, but I don’t want to keep anything from you. No more secrets. I need you in my corner, because I don’t know what to do.”
“How long do we have?” Theresa asked.
“Four years.”
“And then what happens?”
“And then we die.”
HASSLER
He crossed the river on the east side of town, his legs numb by the time he stumbled out of the water and onto the far shore.
On all fours, he scrambled up through the pines that clung to the steepening hillside.
Up.
Up.
Up.
A hundred feet above town, the terrain went vertical, but he didn’t stop, kept fighting his way up the cliff, higher and higher.
Climbing without fear.
Without care.
He couldn’t believe he was actually scaling the suicide cliff. During that year he’d lived in town with Theresa, two people had ascended this stretch of rock and leapt to their deaths. There were plenty of other fatal options on the cliffs that surrounded Wayward Pines, but this particular precipice had the benefit of being the most sheer. No chances of accidentally bungling the jump and taking an unnecessary bounce off a ledge. If one made it to the top without falling, they could bank on an uninterrupted plummet into oblivion.
Hassler topped out five hundred feet above the valley on a long ledge.
He collapsed on the cold granite, his jaw throbbing, probably broken.
It was night and the town lay dark beneath him, paved streets glowing softly under the starlight.
His pant legs had frozen stiff.
As the chill set in, he thought about his life, and the peace he arrived at as he staggered onto his feet again was this: out of thirty-eight years, one had been magic. He’d lived in a canary-yellow house with the love of his life, and there hadn’t been a day he’d woken up beside Theresa that he didn’t know how good he had it.
He ached for more time with her, but the fact that he’d had any time at all . . .
It was enough.
Enough to cling to.
It took him a moment, but he found their home down there in the dark.
Fixing his gaze on it, he saw it not as it was, empty and dark, but rather as it had been in the soft, cool light of those summer evenings as he’d walk toward the front porch, toward everything he loved.
He stepped to the edge.
He wasn’t afraid.
Not of death. Not of pain. He’d experienced enough agony on his nomadic mission for several lifetimes, and death was something he’d long since prepared for. If anything, it held, for him at least, the promise of peace.
He bent his knees to leap.
A noise pulled him out of the moment like a rip cord.
He turned, couldn’t see much of anything in the darkness, but he realized it was the sound of someone crying.
He said, “Hello?”
The crying stopped.
A woman’s voice asked, “Who’s there?”
“Are you all right?”
“If I was do you think I’d be up here?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s a fair point. Do you want me to come over?”
“No.”
Hassler stepped back from the ledge, eased down onto the rock. “You shouldn’t do this,” he said.
“Excuse me? What the hell are you doing up here? I could tell you the same damn thing.”
“Yeah, except I actually should be up here.”
“Why? Because your life is so terrible too?”
“Do you want to hear my sob story?”
“No, I wanted to have jumped by now. I’d finally worked up the nerve when this ass**le interrupted me. This is the second time I’ve climbed up here.”
“What happened the first?” Hassler asked.
“It was daylight, and I hate heights. I chickened out.”
“Why are you up here?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you as long as you don’t try to save me.”
“Deal.”
The woman sighed. “I lost my husband when the abbies came into town.”
“Sorry to hear that. Were you two married in Wayward Pines?”
“Yes, and I know what you’re thinking, but I loved him. I also loved this other man who’s here. Crazy thing is we knew each other in our lives before. He’s here with his wife and son, and when he came to tell me that my husband had been killed, I asked him if his family had survived.”