A rock hurled out of the darkness and struck the screen.
Someone in the crowd shouted, “Fuck you!”
Pilcher looked away, watching everything unfold on his wall of monitors.
From the wings, Ethan watched as three men climbed up onto the stage and began to tear down the screen.
Pilcher started to speak, but someone in the back of the hall pulled the projector out of the wall and smashed it into pieces.
Pilcher sat alone at his desk.
He picked up the bottle of scotch.
Drained it dry, threw it at the screens.
He had to hold onto the desk as he dragged himself onto his feet.
Swaying.
He’d been drunk.
Now he was annihilated.
Staggered away from the desk across the dark hardwood floor.
Vincent van Gogh watched him from the wall, his face shaven, his right ear bandaged.
Caught himself from falling on the large table in the center of the room. He stared down through the glass at the architectural miniature of Wayward Pines, tracing his finger across it to the intersection of Eighth and Main.
His fist went through on the first try and flattened the intricate model of the opera house.
His hand caught on the jags of glass as he pulled it out.
He punched his bloody fist through another part of the glass.
And another.
His hand was bleeding profusely by the time he’d broken out all of the glass, the tiny shards and pebbles littered across the town like the wake of a biblical hailstorm.
He stumbled alongside the table until he came to Ethan’s yellow Victorian.
Crushed it.
Crushed the sheriff’s station.
Crushed the house of Kate and Harold Ballinger.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
He grabbed hold of the table, bent his knees, lifted, and flipped it upside down.
Even after Ethan had told them everything, after the movie screen had been pulled down, people stayed in their seats.
Nobody would leave.
Some sitting catatonic. Stunned.
Others weeping openly.
By themselves.
Or in small groups.
Into the shoulders of spouses they’d been forced to marry.
The emotion in the room was staggering. Like the hushed devastation of a funeral. And in many ways, that’s exactly what it was. People mourning the loss of their previous lives. All the loved ones they would never see again. All that had been stolen.
So much to process.
So much to grieve.
And so much still to fear.
Ethan sat with his family onstage behind the curtain, holding them tightly.
Theresa whispered in his ear, “I’m so proud of what you did tonight. If you ever wonder what your best moment was, you just lived it.”
He kissed her.
Ben was crying, said, “The stuff I said to you earlier today on the bench…”
“It’s okay, Son.”
“I said you weren’t my father.”
“You didn’t mean it.”
“I thought Mr. Pilcher was good. I thought he was God.”
“It’s not your fault. He took advantage of you. Of every kid in that school.”
“What happens now, Dad?”
“Son, I don’t know, but no matter what, from this moment on, our lives are our own again. That’s all that matters.”
People began coming up to see the dead aberration.
It wasn’t a large one, just a hundred twenty pounds. Ethan figured its small size had kept the effect of the tranq dart going longer than he’d planned for.
It was past midnight, and he was looking out over all the people whose lives he had just immeasurably changed when he heard the sound of a phone ringing in the lobby.
He climbed down off the stage and moved up the aisle, pushing through the doors leading out of the theater.
The ringing was coming from the box office.
He sat down behind the ticket window, lifted the receiver to his ear.
“How you doing, Sheriff?”
Pilcher’s voice sounded whiskey-thickened and uncharacteristically happy.
“We should meet tomorrow,” Ethan said.
“Would you like to know what you’ve done?”
“I’m sorry?”
Pilcher spoke more slowly, deliberately. “Would you like to know what you’ve done?”
“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“Do you now? Well, I’ll tell you anyway. You just bought yourself a town.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what that means.”
People were coming out of the theater and gathering around the ticket window.
“You don’t know what that means? Means they’re yours now. Each and every one of them. Congratulations.”
“I know what you did to your daughter.”
On the other end of the line—silence.
Ethan said, “What kind of a monster—”
“She betrayed me. Me and everyone in this mountain. She put the residents of Wayward Pines in danger. She didn’t just tell people about the blind spots in town. She created them. Sabotaged everything I—”
“Your daughter, David.”
“I gave her every opportunity to—”
“Your daughter.”
“It had to be done. Maybe not the way it was done, but… I lost my head.”
“I’ve been wondering—why have me investigate her murder? Find her body in the road? I assume you orchestrated that. What did you possibly hope to gain?”
“Alyssa never gave up Ballinger’s group. I didn’t think you’d really investigate your former partner unless you thought she’d actually killed someone. And you should’ve come to the conclusion it was Kate. You would’ve if you’d searched her house. I had Alyssa’s murder weapon stowed in a toolbox in Kate and Harold’s shed. You were supposed to find it, but you never even searched, because I guess you never really thought she did it. Well, doesn’t matter now.”
“How do you sleep at night, David?”
“Because I know that no matter what I’ve done, it’s all been in the service of creating Wayward Pines. Of protecting Wayward Pines. And there’s nothing more important. So I sleep just fine. I have a new nickname for you, by the way.”
“We need to meet,” Ethan said. “We need to talk about what comes next.”
“Light-bringer. That’s my new nickname for you. Translated from the Latin, Lucifer. Do you know the mythology of Lucifer? It’s quite apt. He was an angel of the Lord. The most beautiful creature of them all. But his beauty? It deluded him. He started to believe that he was as lovely as his maker. That perhaps he should be God.”
“Pilcher—”
“Lucifer led a band of angels in revolt against the Almighty, and I want to ask you a question now… how’d that turn out for them?”
“You’re a sick man. These people deserved their freedom.”
“I will share with you that it did not turn out well at all. Do you know what God did to them? He cast them out. He created a place called hell for Lucifer and all his fallen angels.”
Ethan said, “And who am I in this fairy tale? Lucifer? And I suppose that makes you God?”
“Very good, Sheriff.” He could hear Pilcher smiling through the telephone. “And if you’re wondering where to go to find this place of everlasting torment that I’m about to create for you, I would say look no further.”