He can’t take his eyes off its heart: the beating of the muscle visible through the translucent skin, the blood pumping through its arteries—purple highways converging center mass. All obscured and blurred as if he watches it behind a sheet of quartz.

The abby has small eyes that remind him of black diamonds—hard and otherworldly.

But strangely enough, it isn’t the monster’s horrific qualities that so unnerve him.

Shining through the five-taloned claws, the rows of razor teeth, and the devastating physical strength is its humanness. These things have so clearly evolved from us, and now the world is theirs. David Pilcher, Hassler’s boss and the creator of Wayward Pines, estimated there were half a billion abbies on this continent alone.

The steam is thick, but Hassler doesn’t dare to slip back under the surface.

He doesn’t move.

And still the abby watches its reflection in the pool.

It will either see him and he will die, or—

Off in the distance, the mother shrieks.

The young abby’s head lifts.

The mother shrieks again, her voice filling with the intensity of a threat.

The abby scuttles off.

Hassler listens as the trio moves away from the pool, and by the time he chances the smallest degree of movement—a quick turn of the head—they have vanished into the snowstorm.

Hassler waits for a break in the snow, but it never comes. He climbs out of the pool and brushes three inches of powder off his duster and dries off each foot before sliding them into the boots.

He puts the duster on wet and grabs the rest of his gear and jogs across the clearing toward the stand of pines. Ducks under a canopy of low-hanging limbs that protect the ground as thoroughly as a thatched roof. Already shivering, he drops everything and tears open his pack. The old-man’s beard lies on top, and underneath it a bundle of dry tinder that he collected that morning.

The lichen takes the third spark.

As the twigs begin to crackle, Hassler breaks off several larger limbs within reach and snaps them over his knee.

The fire roars.

The cold departs.

He stands naked in the heat of the flames.

Soon, he is dressed and comfortable, leaning back against the trunk of the tree with his hands held out to the fire.

Beyond his weather-protected nook, snow pours down into the meadow.

Night creeps in.

He is warm.

Dry.

And for the moment . . .

Not dead.

All things considered, in this shitty new world, that’s about as much as a man can hope for at the end of a long, cold day.

The next time his eyes open, the sky through the branches is infused with deep blue and the meadow lies buried beneath a foot of sparkling white.

The fire burned out hours ago.

The saplings in the meadow bend under the weight of snow like little arches.