As the last of the crowd pushed on past them, they lingered where the main road out of Wayward Pines entered the darkness of the forest.

Behind them, the town stood abandoned.

The morning sun glaring down against the streets.

The storefront glass shimmering on the west side of Main.

They took in all those picket-fenced Victorians.

The surrounding cliffs.

The turning aspen trees as the wind stripped their branches of the last golden leaves.

In this moment, it was so . . . idyllic.

Pilcher’s brilliant, mad creation.

At length, they turned away and moved on down the road together, into the woods, away from Wayward Pines.

Ethan sat at the main console in the surveillance center, Alan on one side, Francis Leven on the other.

“What exactly is the point of this message?” Leven asked.

“In case someone stumbles across this place,” Ethan said.

“I find that highly unlikely.”

“Do you know what you want to say?” Alan asked.

“I wrote something down last night.”

Alan’s fingers danced across the touch screen.

“Ready when you are,” he said.

“Let’s do this.”

“We’re recording.”

Ethan took the scrap of paper out of his back pocket, unfolded it, and leaned into the microphone.

He said his piece.

When he’d finished, Alan stopped the recording.

“Well said, Sheriff.”

Above them, the bank of twenty-five monitors still streamed a rotating series of surveillance feeds from the valley.

The empty corridors of the hospital basement.

The empty hallway in the school.

The empty park.

Vacated homes.

Abandoned streets.

Ethan looked over at Francis Leven. “We ready?” he asked.

“All nonessential systems have been powered down.”

“Everyone’s prepped?”

“It’s already underway.”

As Ethan walked alone down the Level 1 corridor, the overhead lights winked out, one by one. When he reached the sliding glass doors that opened into the ark, he glanced back down the passage as the last light at the far end of the corridor went dark.

Already, it was colder, the heating and ventilation systems running on idle.

The stone floor of the great cavern was freezing against his bare feet.

It was frigid inside the suspension hub, just a few degrees above freezing. Masked by a blue-tinged fog, there was movement all around.

The machines hummed and ejected streams of white gas.

He pushed through the fog, turned a corner, and made his way between two rows of machines.

Men in white lab coats were helping the residents of Wayward Pines to climb into the suspension units.

He stopped at the machine at the end of the row.

The digital nameplate read:

KATE HEWSON

SUSPENSION DATE: 9/19/12

BOISE, ID

RESIDENT: 8 YEARS, 9 MONTHS, 22 DAYS

She was already inside.

Ethan peered through the two-inch-wide panel of glass that ran down the front of the machine.

Kate stared back at him, locked into her suspension unit.

She was trembling.

Ethan put his hand to the glass.

He mouthed, “It’s going to be okay.”

She nodded.