The last thing she saw as the light went away was the room beyond the bars packed wall to wall with abbies and one of them kneeling down in front of the lock, trying to dig its talon into the keyhole.

Suddenly there was nothing to see. Night had fallen over Wayward Pines.

And they were in the dark with monsters.

ETHAN

ETHAN

Ethan rode the elevator out of Pilcher’s suite to the Level 1 corridor. As the elevator opened, he could still hear gunshots, but they were distant now.

He headed for the glass doors at the end of the hallway, pulling the pistol Alan had given him as he crossed through the threshold into the ark.

It looked as if most of Pilcher’s inner circle had come down to see the source of all the commotion; at least a hundred people were milling about, confused and scared.

The gunshots were louder here, the reports issuing from somewhere deep in the tunnel that led down through the mountain into Wayward Pines.

There were dead abbies everywhere.

Piles of them in the tunnel.

Forty or fifty in the cavern.

Blood running in channels over the stone.

Five bodies, covered by sheets, lay in a row next to the entrance to suspension.

The smell of spent munitions was overpowering.

Alan came running out of the tunnel.

Ethan pushed toward him through the crowd, saw Alan’s face speckled with blood, his right arm torn open by what Ethan surmised was the slash of a talon.

The racket of an AR-15 fired up in the tunnel.

Followed by a scream.

“We’re pushing them back,” Alan said, “but there must’ve been two hundred abbies. I’ve lost men. The M230 is out of ammo. If we hadn’t had the chain gun, this would have gone a whole lot worse. Where’s Pilcher?”

“He’s unconscious, tied up in his office.”

“I’ll send someone down for him.” Alan’s radio squeaked. He answered, “Alan. Over.”

Mustin’s voice crackled through the speaker, shouting above gunfire, “We just drove the last band out of the tunnel, but the door’s compromised! Over.”

Alan said, “I’ve already got a truck heading down to you with sheets of reinforced steel and a three-man team of metalworkers. They’re going to weld the door shut. Over.”

“Copy that, we’ll hold the line! Out!”

Ethan said, “You can’t seal that exit. We have to get to the people in the valley. My wife and son are down there.”

“We will, but we need to regroup, reload. I lost eight men that I know of. If we’re going to roll out in force into Wayward Pines, we better take every last weapon in our arsenal. We have to find more ammo for that chain gun.” His eyes became grave as he said, “And we can’t go out there at night.”

“What are you saying?”