Wayward Pines- Genesis Collection

by Steven Konkoly

  The target passed the sensor line, now invisible to the devices pointed in the opposite direction, but the computer continued to project its path. If it continued without stopping, Mustin’s team could make a positive identification in three minutes. His mind ran with the impossible thought.

  What was the worst Hassler could do? Blow up part of the fence? They could repair it. Sabotage the equipment? He had enough explosives to do that, but not enough to permanently cripple each machine and destroy a significant portion of the fence. The next thought brought a faint grin to his face. Pam was scheduled to accompany Pilcher outside tomorrow.

  Upshaw shook his head. Ridiculous. Nobody was slinking around the forest—especially at night. Not even Hassler. The guy spent more time in the trees than on the ground during both of his trips outside of the superstructure. He navigated to the communications screen and selected “Overwatch,” figuring he’d run it past Mustin. Maybe they could use some target practice. His finger paused over the mouse button. What if it was Hassler? He couldn’t shake the damn idea!

  Instead of contacting Overwatch, he switched to a different screen within the Communications window and conducted a frequency sweep of the valley.

  “No shit,” he mumbled, staring at two new radio signals.

  Why didn’t he put them on the fence? His grin widened.

  “You son of a bitch!” he yelled joyfully.

  “Everything all right in there, Mr. Upshaw?” sounded a voice from the hallway.

  “Just fine, Leo. Got excited about something,” he said, quickly minimizing the screen.

  Excited was an understatement. Hassler was alive, and if Upshaw’s theory about his activities proved correct, everything would change tomorrow—for the better. With redemption in mind, he carefully and permanently scrubbed every digital trace of Hassler’s movements, along with the radio frequency discovery—praying that Pilcher had been asleep for the past fifteen minutes.

  Chapter 57

  David Pilcher held the sweaty bottle of champagne firmly in his left hand, working the cork slowly out of the glass mouth. At just the right moment, he looked up at the crowd of security officers, engineers, and equipment operators.

  “Congratulations on a job well done! Welcome to Wayward Pines!” he said, popping the cork.

  Two nearby explosions rocked the trees south of the fence, shaking the ground and eliciting cheers from the assembled crew of nearly forty dozen men and women. Pilcher cheered with them, feigning a smile as champagne bottles popped and glasses were filled.

  He turned to Pope, talking through his teeth. “What the hell was that?”

  “Hold on, sir,” said Pope.

  The sheriff jogged over to Marcus, who appeared to be talking furiously into his headset. After a brief conversation, they both looked up and shook their heads quickly, trying to look at ease. Something wasn’t right.

  “Pam, I think it’s time to go,” he said, suddenly swarmed by workers wanting to lift him up in celebration. “Pam? I don’t think this is a—”

  Pilcher stopped his words, not wanting to start a panic. They had a fence protecting them on one side and six armored vehicles on the other. If push came to shove, Marcus, Pope and Pam would get him to safety. In his throne of arms and hands, he participated in the usual high-five rituals and accepted a glass of champagne. He took a sip, watching Pope and Marcus exchange heated words. He needed to get out of here, but there was no way to do it without physically and verbally attacking the people around him. The last thing he wanted to do was sour a moment in history that would be taught to the children of Wayward Pines.

  Amidst spraying champagne and shouts of joy, a faint screech reached his ears. He glanced at the turret gunner on the nearest MTVR. She sank into the turret and leveled the barrel of her machine gun at the northern tree line. A pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him down from the group.

  “Mr. Pilcher, we need to go,” said Pope, pulling him upright. “We didn’t set off any explosives.”

  “Hassler,” Pilcher hissed, throwing his champagne glass to the woodchips.

  “Get everyone loaded up! We have abbies inbound!” yelled Pope, inadvertently creating a stampede toward the closest vehicles.

  “Bring Pope’s Humvee up!” screamed Pilcher.

  The chaos dissipated next to the fence as the crowd ran for safety. He hoped they could get everyone into the vehicles in time. They couldn’t afford to lose the heavy equipment operators. It would take too long to train new ones.

  “Where’s the damn Humvee?” said Pilcher. “We don’t have all day!”

  “En route,” said Pope, pointing to an armored vehicle racing toward them.

  “Mr. Pilcher!” yelled Marcus, holding out a spare handheld radio. “You need to take this.”

  “Kindly inform Mr. Upshaw I’ll get back to him,” he said, breaking for the Humvee.

  A strong hand grabbed his champagne-soaked jacket, stopping him in his tracks and shoving the radio into his hands.

  “It’s not Mr. Upshaw. You need to take this.”

  Pilcher raised the handheld and transmitted. “This will have to wait. We have an emergency situation at the fence site.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. The fence directly behind you and your entourage is rigged with plastic explosives, and I’m aiming at your head through a riflescope. Send the Humvee away, or this ends horribly for you.”

  “You’re bluffing,” said Pilcher.

  “Check out the fence, but don’t waste too much time. I can’t un-ring the dinner bell,” said Hassler.

  Pilcher turned to Marcus, who was already on all fours peering through the fence section at the nearest post. A few seconds later, Marcus nodded with a grim look.

  “I can rebuild the fence,” stated Pilcher.

  “Can you rebuild the mulchers—or the feller-buncher things?”

  “You can’t stop me from building this town,” said Pilcher.

  “Maybe not, but I can keep you from ever seeing it. Send the Humvee away,” said Hassler.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” replied Pilcher.

  As the Humvee reached a point fifteen feet away, the driver’s side windshield spider-cracked, followed immediately by a second impact a few inches from the first. The vehicle screeched to a halt several feet away. Pilcher searched the boulders and rocks on the high ground to the east. It all looked the same to him.

  “I’m pretty sure two more will penetrate the window. Send it away and get to the fence.”

  “You have no idea what you’re doing,” Pilcher spat into the radio, waving off the vehicle.

  “You better hope I do.”

  Pilcher lowered the radio and turned to Marcus.

  “He’s up there somewhere. Tell Mustin to put an end to this.”

  Chapter 58

  Staring at the scene a few hundred yards away, Hassler had to admit there was some truth to Pilcher’s statement. He’d put a ton of variables into play within a confined system. Chaos was guaranteed, and the outcome was far from certain.

  Gunfire erupted as the first abbies broke out of the trees, hurling themselves toward the men and women pushing frantically to get inside the armored vehicles. If the turret gunners kept their cool, the people would reach safety. If not, he’d have innocent blood on his hands. A deal breaker for returning to Wayward Pines. Somehow, he’d have to negotiate with Pilcher while helping the security team. On top of that, he had Mustin’s snipers to consider. Hassler’s position was concealed, but a well-trained spotter would eventually find him. He needed to close this deal before any .50 caliber projectiles were introduced to the unstable equation.

  “All right! What do you want? I’m sure we can reach a deal.”

  “Sanctuary,” he said, sighting in on an abby that had escaped the gunners’ attention.

  “You want back in? Fine. You’re back in. Can we call this insanity off?” pleaded Pilcher, the sound of gunfire filtering through his transmission.

  Hassler placed the cr
osshairs just in front of the abby and fired twice, hitting it once in the hindquarters. The creature tumbled across the woodchips, crashing into the last few workers climbing into the back of an MTVR. The impact knocked most of them off their feet, dropping them to the ground next to the thrashing abby. Before its talons sliced into flesh, the security guard in the vehicle’s doorway fired a short burst, exploding the abby’s head.

  “I need a guarantee of safety,” said Hassler, searching for another high-risk target.

  “A what? If that’s what you need. Of course. You have my guarantee.”

  “That didn’t sound very convincing,” he stated. “And tell Marcus to quit communicating with Overwatch. I’m monitoring that channel on the radio I grabbed from the downed ultralight pilot.”

  “Very well. I promise that you’ll be safe. No harm will come to you. Are we done yet? I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off.”

  A quick glance at the scene validated Pilcher’s concern. At least two dozen abbies were converging on the scattered assembly of vehicles, and the security teams weren’t killing them fast enough to prevent a breakthrough. If Marcus had parked the vehicles in a tight line, parallel to the tree line, the machine gunners could have overlapped their fields of fire and slaughtered the monsters. Instead, nearly half of the turrets couldn’t fire at the abbies without hitting the other vehicles. He needed to wrap this up quickly.

  “Upshaw, I know you’re listening. Broadcast this conversation on the loudspeaker inside the superstructure and on all radio frequencies.”

  “Mr. Pilcher?” said Upshaw.

  “Just do what the man says. They’re breaking through!”

  From his perch in the rocks, he watched Pope, Pam, Marcus and two security officers tighten their one-hundred-and-eighty-degree perimeter around Pilcher. Hassler fired a hasty shot at a creature barreling between two of the Humvees, knocking it flat into the ground. Woodchips and dust erupted on all sides of the beast as Pilcher’s protection detail made sure it was dead. Another abby followed and was quickly shredded by automatic fire from the same guns. Shit. This wasn’t moving fast enough. His rifle bucked, spraying the grill of an MTVR with the contents of an abby’s head. A pale form crashed into the upright, headless corpse, knocking it forward in search of food. The only thing left was Pilcher’s group—so it charged into a hail of gunfire.

  “Mr. Hassler, the conversation is live on all circuits.”

  “About time. I’m sending for my Humvee,” said Pilcher.

  “Not so fast. I need you to guarantee my safety again and apologize for leaving me out here to die.”

  “I didn’t leave you out there to die,” said Pilcher.

  “We can go with the other version of the story if you’d like. Not much time left,” said Hassler. “Nine o’clock, Marcus. Two fast movers.”

  Marcus and Pope unleashed a volley that knocked the creatures into the energized fence, frying them.

  “Tick tock, Pilcher.”

  Chapter 59

  Satisfied that the two abbies were fried, Marcus reloaded the empty rifle and shifted his aim to the creatures running past the vehicles. He fired briefly at each abby, not waiting to see the results before acquiring another target. The process was mechanical at this point. Anything that appeared in the green holographic reticle received two .308 projectiles.

  Over the staccato gunfire, he heard the bizarre conversation play out between Hassler and Pilcher through his headset. Despite the intense close combat, he caught the gist of it. Pilcher had somehow fucked over Hassler, promising that it wouldn’t happen again. Then Hassler started some nonsense about granting him a wish, and Pilcher agreed to give him whatever he wanted. Time to move on.

  “Mr. Pilcher, we need to get the fuck out of here now!” he said, changing rifle magazines again.

  Pilcher gave Marcus a thumbs-up, and they started to run toward the Humvee. They stopped a few moments later when several abbies scrambled past the moving vehicle, barreling toward them.

  “Guns up!” he screamed, firing rapidly into the advancing pack.

  The abbies hit the ground at their feet, shattered and broken by the wall of steel. Earsplitting screeches announced the arrival of a second wave, which leapt over the Humvee to get at them. A hurried barrage of rifle bullets tore into the frenzied monsters, inflicting lethal damage but failing to halt their momentum. The closest abbies careened into their group, slashing one of the security officers across the shoulder and slicing open Pam’s thigh. Both of them howled in pain, the rest of the team fired point blank into the thrashing creatures. They needed to get inside the Humvee immediately, or the next wave would break them.

  The Humvee skidded to a halt twenty feet away as an abby climbed over the window and attacked the turret gunner. Blood sprayed onto the turret’s ballistic windows as gunfire erupted inside the armored enclosure.

  Marcus assessed the situation with one glance. The Humvee wasn’t an option. Even if they could reach it, with the turret out of action there was no conceivable way for them to get into the vehicle without being torn apart. One or two of them might manage to pile inside, but the rest would be quickly overwhelmed as the abbies swarmed around the sides. There had to be another option. He looked behind them and saw that the clearing on the other side of the fence was devoid of threats. That’ll do.

  “Back to the fence!”

  “We need to get inside one of those vehicles!” screamed Pilcher.

  “Too late! Give me that fucking radio,” barked Marcus, ripping the handheld out of Pilcher’s grip.

  “How many sections of fence are rigged with explosives!” he yelled into the radio.

  “Three in a row. You’re standing in front of the middle section,” replied Hassler.

  “Blow the one closest to the cliffs in five seconds!” he said. “Upshaw, deactivate the fence, right now!”

  “You can’t do that!” yelled Pilcher.

  “Watch me,” he said, grabbing Pilcher’s jacket collar. “Everyone down! Fire in the hole!”

  He jammed Pilcher to the ground moments before a thunderous crack ripped through them. The blast left him mostly deaf, reducing the gunfire to a muffled drumbeat. With a shower of dirt clumps and woodchips raining down on him, Marcus pulled Pilcher to his feet and pushed him toward a gaping breach in the adjacent section of fence.

  “Through the fence! Now!” he yelled, his voice sounding underwater.

  An abby scampered through the dust and smoke, momentarily disoriented by the explosion. Marcus fired two bullets through its chest before it charged them. More dark shapes materialized, racing through the thinning cloud toward their last known position. He sprinted toward the twisted, smoldering fence post, overtaking Pope, who was trying to reload his AK-47.

  “No time for that!” he yelled right into Pope’s ear. “Get everyone set up on the other side. We can hold them at the breach.”

  Pope nodded and took off for the fence, closely following Pilcher and Pam. Marcus wheeled around and fired, determined to buy them a few seconds. His bullets caught the closest abby, spinning it in a bloody pirouette. A surge of creatures stormed their previous location, skidding to a temporary stop before spotting their prey twenty feet away. Marcus turned and raced toward the jagged hole in the fence, pumping his legs and arms as the grey-skinned beasts chased after him.

  He tumbled through the opening, quickly spinning around to face the fence. Hassler’s C4 charge had decoupled three-quarters of the fencing section from the post, bending it outward toward the opposite side and mangling the bottom corner. The detonation created a five-foot-wide gap next to the blackened post, and every abby on the other side was headed toward it.

  “Upshaw, reenergize the fence!” he said, reloading his rifle.

  The muffled response was indiscernible, and Marcus didn’t have time to figure it out. He centered the green circle in his rifle sight on the breach and pressed the trigger when a creature appeared. He was no longer part of an individual effort. Po
pe had formed the group in a semicircle ten feet away from the fence, focusing the combined gunfire of five assault rifles on the gap. The effort prevented an immediate breach—but the creatures were relentless. It was only a matter of time before one got through.

  Chapter 60

  Hassler watched the group’s progress through his riflescope. So far, so good. With the fence energized, they should be able to hold the gap until the abbies thinned to a manageable level. His optimistic outlook ended a few seconds later when intensified gunfire from the vehicles drew his attention to the edge of the northern clearing. The turret-mounted M240s chewed away at a sizeable pack of abbies pouring out of the forest. Fuck. He had underestimated the number of abbies hiding in the northern valley, along with the effectiveness of his charges. By planting the C4 high in the trees, he’d created a different acoustic signal than the explosives buried miles away.

  Tracers stitched through the grey mob, failing to slow it down. Within seconds, the monsters engulfed the vehicles, and the machine guns fell silent as the gunners sought refuge inside the thick armor. Marcus was in trouble.

  “Upshaw, can all of the vehicle units hear this transmission?” he said.

  “Yes. You’re still live.”

  “Is the fence reenergized?”

  “It should be, but I don’t know how much damage you did with the C4.”

  “Marcus! Run west immediately! I say again. Run west immediately! Draw them away from the gap,” yelled Hassler. “All vehicle units form a single line parallel to the fence and prepare to fire on the breach when Marcus is clear.”

  Looking over his scope, he saw the vehicles start to move. Marcus remained in place.

  “Marcus! Anyone in Marcus’s group. Get your ass moving to the west! You can’t hold that line!”