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Back The Last Town Save as PDF
Chapters (72)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ABOUT THE LAST TOWN
  6. Then the Lord...
  7. WE ARE THE...
  8. PRELUDE
  9. DAVID PILCHER
  10. I
  11. TWO HOURS AFTER ETHAN BURKE’S REVELATION
  12. JENNIFER ROCHESTER
  13. SHERIFF ETHAN BURKE
  14. KATE HEWSON BALLINGER
  15. JENNIFER
  16. ETHAN
  17. II
  18. PILCHER
  19. THE TURNERS
  20. ETHAN
  21. THE RICHARDSONS
  22. ETHAN
  23. HAROLD BALLINGER
  24. ETHAN
  25. III
  26. ADAM TOBIAS HASSLER
  27. THE RICHARDSONS
  28. BELINDA MORAN
  29. ETHAN
  30. IV
  31. PILCHER
  32. PAM
  33. TED UPSHAW
  34. ETHAN
  35. HASSLER
  36. V
  37. TED
  38. ETHAN
  39. THERESA BURKE
  40. VI
  41. HASSLER
  42. ETHAN
  43. THERESA
  44. ETHAN
  45. VII
  46. HASSLER
  47. THERESA
  48. ETHAN
  49. THERESA
  50. ETHAN
  51. THERESA
  52. MUSTIN
  53. ETHAN
  54. KATE
  55. ETHAN
  56. VIII
  57. THERESA
  58. ETHAN
  59. THERESA
  60. IX
  61. ETHAN
  62. HASSLER
  63. PILCHER
  64. ETHAN
  65. X
  66. ONE MONTH LATER
  67. ETHAN
  68. EPILOGUE
  69. NOW AVAILABLE: THE FIRST TWO BOOKS IN THE WAYWARD PINES TRILOGY
  70. BLAKE CROUCH’S FULL CATALOG
  71. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  72. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lifting the kettle off the flame, the whistling died away, and she poured the boiling water into her favorite ceramic mug in which she kept a tea infuser perpetually filled with chamomile leaves. Tea in one hand, candle in the other, she moved out of the dark kitchen and into the hallway.

Most of the town was still down at the theater, reeling from the sheriff’s revelation, and maybe she should’ve stayed with everyone else; but the truth of it was that she wanted to be alone. Tonight, she just needed to cry in bed. If sleep came, great, but she wasn’t exactly expecting it.

She turned the corner at the bannister and started up the creaking stairs, candlelight flickering across the walls. The power had gone out several times before, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that tonight of all nights meant something.

The fact that she’d locked every door and every window gave her some small—very small—peace of mind.

SHERIFF ETHAN BURKE

SHERIFF ETHAN BURKE

Ethan stared up at twenty-five feet of steel pylons and spiked conductors wrapped in coils of razor wire. The fence usually hummed with enough current to electrocute a person one thousand times over. So loud you could hear it a hundred yards away and feel it in your fillings at close proximity.

Tonight, Ethan heard nothing.

Worse still, the thirty-foot gate stood wide open.

Locked open.

Shreds of mist skirted past like the front edge of an approaching storm, and Ethan gazed out into the black woods beyond the fence. Over the pounding of his heart, he heard shrieks beginning to echo in the forest.

The abbies were on their way.

David Pilcher’s final words to him were set on repeat.

Hell is coming to you.

This was Ethan’s fault.

Hell is coming to you.

He’d made the mistake of calling that psychofuck’s bluff.

Hell is coming to you.

And telling people the truth.

And now everyone in town, his wife and son included, was going to die.

star

Ethan sprinted back through the forest, the panic growing with every stride, every desperate breath. He weaved between the pines, now running alongside the quiet fence.

His Bronco lay just ahead and already the screams were louder, closer.

Jumping in behind the wheel, he cranked the engine and sped off into the trees, pushing the suspension package to the limit and jarring the last few jags of glass out of what was left of the windshield.

He reached the road that looped back into town and roared up the embankment, back onto pavement.

Pinned the gas pedal to the floorboard.

The engine wailed.

He shot out of the trees and raced beside a pasture.

High beams blazed across the billboard at the edge of town, showing a family of four waving, smiling those carefree 1950s shit-eating grins over the slogan:

WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES
WHERE PARADISE IS HOME

Not anymore, Ethan thought.