“Yes, but my prediction was just that. A prediction. I could’ve been wrong. There could be ten-thousand-foot skyscrapers out there. Imagine a man in 213 AD stepping into 2013. ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.’ Albert Einstein said that. We should all savor this moment.”

Leven turns his attention to the release wheel, which he begins to crank counterclockwise.

When it finally locks into place, he says, “Sir? Care to do the honors?”

Pilcher approaches the portal.

Leven says, “It’s this latch, right here.”

Pilcher throws the latch.

For a moment, nothing happens.

The lights of the Humvee cut out.

Only the beam of Pam’s meager flashlight cuts through the darkness.

Something under their feet begins to groan, like an old ship creaking.

The heavy portal door shudders and begins to creak open.

And then . . .

Light spills across the pavement, spreading toward them in a radiant stain.

Pilcher’s heart is pounding.

It is the most thrilling moment of his life.

Snow whisks inside across the pavement, and a shot of bone-chilling cold knifes into the tunnel. Pilcher squints against the light.

When the four-foot portal is fully open, it frames the world beyond like a picture.

They all see a boulder-strewn pine forest in the midst of a snowstorm.

They move into the forest, tracking through a foot of soft powder.

It is beyond quiet.

The sound of falling snow like a whisper.

After two hundred yards, Pilcher stops. The others stop too.

He says, “I think this is where the road into Wayward Pines used to be.”

They’re still standing in a dense pine wood, no sign of a road anywhere.

Pilcher pulls out a compass.

They head north into the valley.

Pines tower above them.

“I wonder,” Pilcher says, “how many times this forest burned and regrew.”

He’s cold. His legs ache. He’s certain the others feel the same weakness, but no one complains.

They trudge on until the trees break. How far they’ve come, he can’t be sure. The snow has let up, and, for the first time, he sees something familiar—those massive cliff walls that almost two thousand years ago surrounded the hamlet of Wayward Pines.

It surprises him how much comfort he finds in seeing these mountains again. Two millennia is a long time when it comes to forests and rivers, but the cliffs look virtually unchanged. Like old friends.

Soon, their party is standing in the dead center of the valley.

There’s not a single building left.

Not even ruins.

Leven says, “It’s like the town was never even here.”

“What does this mean?” Pam asks.

“What does what mean?” Pilcher says.

“That nature has taken back over. That the town is gone.”

“Impossible to say. Maybe Idaho is now a huge preserve. Maybe Idaho doesn’t exist anymore. We have a lot to learn about this new world.”