by Blake Crouch
13
Water Tower
Volunteer Park
Seattle, 2013
As Hassler approached the entrance to the water tower, a woman stepped out of the shadows beside the door.
She said, “You’re late.”
“By five minutes. Relax. He up there?”
“Yeah.”
She couldn’t have been much older than twenty. A thin, muscular build, crazy gorgeous, but with dead eyes. An interesting choice for Pilcher’s muscle. She certainly put out the confidence of someone who could handle herself.
She stood between Hassler and the door, blocking his way.
He said, “Do you mind?”
For a beat, it seemed like she might, but she finally stepped aside.
As Hassler moved past, he said, “Don’t let anyone come up.”
“Thanks for telling me how to do my job, g-man.”
The metal clanged under Hassler’s wing tips.
He trudged up the stairs.
The observation level was low lit, a circular brick wall punctuated with arched windows that had been covered in heavy-gauge screens to stop anyone from going through. More floor-to-ceiling fencing guarded the seventy-five-foot drop into the open spiral staircase.
Wearing a long black coat and a bowler hat, David Pilcher sat on a bench on the other side of the observation deck.
Hassler circled around and took a seat beside him.
For a moment, nothing but the sound of rain hammering on the roof above them.
Pilcher looked over with the faintest smile.
“Agent Hassler.”
“David.”
Out the window, the skyline of Seattle looked like a neon blur through the low cloud deck.
Pilcher reached into his coat and took out a fat envelope.
Set it in Hassler’s lap.
Hassler carefully opened it, peeked inside, thumbed through the hundred-dollar bills.
“Looks like thirty thousand to me,” he said, resealing the envelope.
“You have news?” Pilcher asked.
“It’s been fifteen months since Agent Burke’s disappearance and Agent Stallings’s death. There have been no leads. No new evidence. Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying anyone at the Treasury Department is ever going to forget that we had one agent killed and three go MIA in Wayward Pines, Idaho. But with no new information, they’re just spinning in their tracks and they know it. Two days ago, the internal investigation into my missing agents was officially deprioritized.”
“What do your people think happened?”
“The theories?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s all over the map, but nothing remotely close to a bull’s-eye. They had Ethan Burke’s ‘hope service’ today.”
“What’s a hope service?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“You went?”
“I went to the after-party at Theresa’s house.”
“I’m going to pay her a visit after you and I are finished.”
“Really.”
“It’s time.”
“Theresa and Ben?”
“I have a theory that if I can keep families together when possible, the transition will be smoother on the other side.”
Hassler stood.
Walked over to the window.
Stared out past the glass conservatory, which was illuminated with holiday lights.
He could hear traffic and live music down in Capitol Hill, but up here at the top of the water tower, he felt removed from everything.
Hassler said, “Have you given any thought to what we talked about last time?”
“I have. And you?”
“It’s all I think about.” Hassler turned, stared at Pilcher. “What will it be like?”
“What will what be like?”
“Wayward Pines. When you come out of whatever it is you call—”
“Suspended animation.” Pilcher’s face grew dark. He said, “You already know far more about my project than I’m comfortable with.”
“If I wanted to bring you down, David, I could’ve done that months ago.”
“If I wanted you dead, Agent Hassler—you and everyone you love—there is nothing in the world stopping me from making that happen. Not from prison. Not from the grave.”
“So we’ve established trust,” Hassler said.
“Perhaps. Or at the very least, assured mutual destruction.”
“No difference in my book.” Freezing spits of rain blew in the window. Hassler felt them misting the back of his neck with an unpleasant chill. “So, back to my question, David. What will it be like when you all wake up?”
“At first, work. Lots and lots of work. The town will have to be rebuilt. That’ll take some time. But then? I don’t know. We’re talking two thousand years from now. This tower we’re standing in will be in ruin. That skyline? Gone. All the people in this city and their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren disintegrated into nothing. Even their bones.”
Hassler clutched the fencing over the window.
“I want to be a part of it.”
“It’s no guarantee, Adam.”
“I understand that.”
“This is Columbus in search of the East Indies. Man flying to the moon. A million things could go wrong and we never wake up. An asteroid could hit. An earthquake. We could wake to a toxic atmosphere or a hostile world we never imagined.”
“Do you really think that’ll happen?”
“I have no idea what we’ll be waking up to. Only an image in my head of this perfect little town where humanity gets a chance to start over. That’s all that’s ever driven me.”
“So you’d let me come along?”
“I’m already fully staffed. What skill set would you bring?”
“Intelligence. Ability to lead. Survival skills. I was a Delta Force operator before I joined the Secret Service, but I’m sure you already know that.”
Pilcher just smiled, said, “Well, I guess you’re in.”
“I have one favor to ask, and if you agree to it, you can have this envelope back.”
“What?”
“Ethan Burke never wakes up.”
“Why?”
“I want to be there with Theresa.”
“Theresa Burke.”
“That’s right.”
“Ethan’s wife.”
“Yes.”
Pilcher said, “Are you in love with her?”
“I am actually.”
“And is she in love with you?”
“Not yet. She’s never stopped loving him.” Hassler felt the ulcer flaring in his stomach. That green flame of envy. “He cheats on her with his ex-partner, Kate Hewson, and still she takes him back. Still she loves him. Have you ever met Theresa Burke?”
“No, but I will shortly.”
“He doesn’t deserve her.”
“And you do.”
“I would love that woman like she was meant to be loved. She’ll be happier with me in Wayward Pines than she’s ever been in her life.” It took his breath away to say the words, to give them voice. He’d never shared this with anyone.
Pilcher laughed as he rose to his feet. “So at the end of the day, this is all just about you getting a girl?”
“No, it’s—”
“I’m kidding. I’ll make it happen.”
The men shook hands.
“When do we go under?” Hassler asked.
“It’s called de-animation. My superstructure is finished. All that’s left is to stock the warehouse and collect the last few recruits. I’m sixty-four years old, not getting any younger, and there’s going to be loads to do on the other side.”
“So…”
“We’re having a party on New Year’s Eve in Wayward Pines. Me, my family, and a hundred and twenty members of my crew are going to drink the best champagne money can buy and go to sleep for a couple thousand years. You’re welcome to join.”
“Two weeks?�
��
“Two weeks.”
“Where will people think you’ve gone?”
“I’ve made arrangements. It’s been seven years since my last public lecture. I’ve become a recluse. I’m guessing it’s fifty-fifty whether the AP even carries my obit. What about you? Considered how you’ll make your exit?”
“I’ll cash out my 401(k), empty my bank accounts, leave a messy trail to some shady purveyor of fake passports. That isn’t the hard part.”
“What is?”
Hassler glanced back out the window toward the mist-enshrouded hills of Queen Anne—Theresa Burke’s neighborhood.
“Knowing I have to wait two thousand years to be with the woman of my dreams.”
III
14
Tobias lay flat on his stomach in the swaying grasses.
He barely breathed.
Five hundred yards away, the abby emerged out of the forest of lodgepole pines.
It entered the field, moving at a comfortable lope in Tobias’s general direction.
Fuck.
Tobias had just come out of a forest on the opposite side of the field not five minutes prior. Thirty minutes before that, he’d crossed a stream and lingered half a second on the bank, debating whether or not to stop for a drink. He’d decided to push on. If he hadn’t, he’d have spent five or ten minutes drinking his fill and replenishing his one-liter bottles. Upshot being he would’ve arrived at the edge of this field with the abby already out in the open. Could’ve tracked its trajectory from the cover and safety of the woods. Made certain to avoid the precise situation of fuckedness he now found himself in: he was going to have to shoot it. A run-in was inevitable. It was midday. The abby was downwind. No other option with him stuck out here and the nearest patch of trees several football fields away. The creature’s sense of smell, sight, and hearing was so finely tuned, the moment he stood it would spot him. Considering the wind direction, it was going to smell him any second now.
Tobias had dropped his pack and rifle in the grass at his first glimpse of movement in the distance. Now he reached out, grabbed his Winchester Model 70.
He gripped the forend stock and came up on his right elbow.
Settled in behind the scope.
It hadn’t been zeroed out in ages, and as the abby came into focus in the reticle, Tobias thought of all the times the scope had been jostled when he’d leaned the gun against a tree or thrown it down. All the rain and the snow that had beat the shit out of his weapon in his thousand-plus days in the wild.
He gauged its distance at two hundred yards now. Still a long shot, but its center mass loomed large in the crosshairs. He made a slight adjustment for the wind. His heart beating against the ground that was still cold from last night’s freeze. It had been weeks, months maybe, since his last encounter. He’d had ammo for his .357 then. God, he missed that gun. If he’d still had his revolver, he’d have stood up, shouted, let that beast come running at him.
Blown its brains out from close range.
He could see its heart pulsing in the crosshairs.
Pushed off the safety.
Touched his finger to the trigger.
He didn’t want to pull.
A gunshot out here would announce his presence to everything in a three-mile radius.
Thinking, Just let it pass, maybe it won’t see you.
And then, No. You have to put it down.
The report echoed across the field, deflected off the distant wall of trees, and began to slowly fade away.
Miss.
The abby stood motionless, frozen midstride on two legs that looked as sturdy as oak, its nose tipped up to the wind. There was a beard of dried blood down its face and neck from a recent kill. Tough to judge size through a scope, and truthfully, it didn’t matter. Even the smaller ones that clocked in around a hundred twenty pounds were absolutely lethal.
Tobias turned the bolt handle up, jerked it back.
The spent cartridge spit out with a puff of smoke.
He shoved the bolt forward, locked it down, looked back through the scope.
Damn had it covered some ground, the abby hauling ass now across the meadow at a full sprint in that low, scuttling gait reminiscent of a pit bull.
In his life before, Tobias had seen combat all over the world. Mogadishu, Baghdad, Kandahar, the coca fields of Colombia. Hostage rescues, high-value target acquisitions, off-grid assassinations. None of it could hold a candle to the shit-yourself-fear evoked by a charging abby.
A hundred fifty yards and closing and no idea how off his scope was.
He put the crosshairs center mass.
Squeezed.
The rifle bucked hard against his shoulder and a streak of blood appeared across the abby’s left side. He’d barely grazed its ribs, the creature still coming, undaunted.
But now he knew the scope’s deviation—off a few degrees right and down.
Tobias ejected the spent shell.
Jacked a new cartridge into the chamber, locked down the bolt, made the adjustment to the scope.
He could hear it now—rapid breathing and the sound of talons ripping through grass.
Noted a strange swell of confidence.
He put the crosshairs on its head and fired.
When the wind pushed the gun smoke out of the way, Tobias saw the abby facedown and motionless in the grass, the back of its head blown out.
Kill number forty-five.
He sat up.
Hands sweating through his fingerless gloves.
A scream erupted from the woods.
He raised the rifle, scoped the line of trees a third of a mile away.
A second scream followed.
A third.
He couldn’t see anything distinctly in the trees.
Just movement in the shadows.
The realization hit with a sickening burst of fear—there were more of them.
He’d only killed a scout for a larger swarm.
Shouldering his pack, he grabbed the Winchester and took off across the field.
The forest he moved toward stood a quarter mile away. He slid the rifle strap over his shoulder and accelerated to a dead run, arms pumping, glancing left every few strides in the direction of the screams that were growing louder and more frequent over his own breathless gasps.
Hit the trees before they see you. For God’s sake. If you reach the woods, you might live. If the swarm spots you, you die in the next ten minutes.
He looked back, saw the dead abby in the grass, the line of woods beyond, but no other movement in the field.
Straight on, the trees that would save him stood fifty yards away.
He hadn’t run for his life in more than a year. Staying alive beyond the fence was an art based upon the principle of avoidance. You never charged ahead into unknown territory. You always took your time. Walked softly. Stayed in the trees whenever possible. Ventured out into the open only when necessary. You didn’t rush. Left nothing to track. And if you stayed alert every second of every day, you had a chance at staying alive.
He finally reached the trees just as the first of the abbies broke out into the clearing. He didn’t know if he’d been seen and he couldn’t see them now. Couldn’t hear them. There was nothing but the riot inside his own chest, his own gasping.
He plowed between trees, branches grabbing at his arms.
A limb sliced open the right side of his face.
Blood ran over his lip.
He leapt over a downed log and glanced back when he hit the ground on the other side—nothing to see but a blur of joggling green.
His legs burned.
Lungs burned.
He couldn’t keep this up much longer.
Out into a clearing studded with boulders and backed by a seventy-foot cliff. The temptation to climb to safety was primal but misguided. Abbies could climb almost as fast as they could run.
A stream meandered through the clearing.
His boots pounded in the water.
Screams tore through the woods behind him.
He was coming to his end. Simply couldn’t keep going like this.
He shot into a grove of scrub oak, the leaves crimson.
Done.
He hit the wall within range of a thicket, fell to his knees, dragged himself into the bushes. Dizzy with exhaustion, Tobias set the gun down and ripped his pack open.
Is this, after everything, the place where I die?
The box of .30-30 cartridges was on top.
Always.
Tore it open, started feeding rounds into the receiver just forward of the bolt. He loaded two in the magazine, the last into the chamber, and shoved the bolt home.
Rolled over onto his stomach.
The foliage surrounding him was orange.
The air carried the scent of dying leaves.
His heart still slamming like it was trying to bust out of his chest.
He stared back through the woods into the clearing.
They were coming.
No telling how large of a swarm he was dealing with.
If he was spotted and their number was more than five, buenas fucking noches.
If he was spotted, their number was five or under, and he made every shot count, he had a slim chance.
But if he missed or didn’t make kill shots every time—if he was forced to reload—he would die.
No pressure.
He glassed the boulder-strewn clearing through the scope.
It wasn’t the first time he was faced with the prospect of not making it back to Wayward Pines. He was already overdue by four months. It was possible they had declared him KIA. Pilcher would wait a little longer. Give him a good six-month past-due window to return before sending someone else beyond the fence deep into hostile country. But what were the chances another nomad would find what he had found? What were the chances they would survive as long as he had?
An abby streaked into the clearing.
Then another.
And another.
A fourth.
Fifth.
No more. Please. No—
A group of five joined the others.
Then ten more.
Soon there were twenty-five of them milling around the boulders in the shadow of that cliff.
His heart fell.
He crawled back deeper into the thicket, dragging his pack and his rifle with him out of sight.
