Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) (10 page)

"Downwind, remember," Finn
said.

"Shh!"

"What?"

"Down there."

"Are you serious? I'm not
looking—"

Bix let go of one of the
cables and pointed past his left foot.
"It's him!"

"Who? Jonah?"

It took a moment for Finn to quell the
vertigo that swept over him as he looked down, another moment to
see what Bix was pointing at. Far below, like a tiny ant moving
beside the silver and white thread of the river, was a
person.

"It's that guy," Bix whispered,
"Micheal Williams, from Bunker Two. I recognize the
clothes."

"But that's impossible. He threw
himself over the side of the dam. No person could survive that
fall."

"No human being maybe. But he was
infected."

Finn realized that Bix was right. It
was the same man, his clothes torn and bloodied.

The boys watched as the creature
picked its way over the stones, moving in that creepy way that
brought shivers to their spines.

When it was nearly beneath them, the
Wraith stopped. It suddenly looked up. Both boys sucked in a sharp
breath. A second or two later, a long, faint howl reached their
ears.

They ran the rest of the way across
the bridge.

"Ghost?" Eddie asked. "What do you mean? What's that?"

"Why don't we get down off this roof
first," the captain said.

Using metal hooks, the other men had
already begun pulling the dead Wraiths into a heap twenty yards
away. They were careful not to let any part of their skin come into
contact with the things.

The survivors watched as they
sprinkled gasoline over the bodies and then flung a lit match onto
them. The smell of the burning corpses made Kari sick, and she
dropped to her knees and vomited over the side of the bus. Harrison
had to hold onto her to keep her from taking a header.

"What's a ghost?" Eddie asked again.
He didn't move.

"Are you in charge of this
group?"

Eddie looked around at the others. "We
don't have—"

"Yes," Susan said, stepping forward.
She gave him a pointed look. "Eddie's our leader."

Once again, the captain gestured for
them to climb down first. It took them several minutes to get Nami
off the roof. He cried out in agony half a dozen times. Once they
were all safely on the ground, one of the men came over to attend
to him, a medic by the name of Carter.

"A ghost," Captain Cheever said at
last, "is someone the infected don't seem to bother with. For some
reason, they don't seem to notice them."

Eddie frowned. "What do you
mean?"

He waved at the door of the bus. "May
I?"

Eddie nodded.

The captain climbed the steps with
Eddie, followed by the other adults in their group. He stepped
quickly toward the back, where another of his men stood beside the
seat where Jonathan had been lying before the attack. The former
guard was still there, still very ill, but clearly not infected
with the Flense, despite the Wraiths getting inside.

Kari pushed her way past them. After
Allison's death, she'd taken over caring for him, keeping him
comfortable, applying damp washcloths to his forehead to keep his
fever down.

"They didn't touch him," she
whispered. "They were in here with him, and they didn't touch him.
Why not?"

Eddie shook his head. In all the
attacks he had ever witnessed, the Wraiths spared no one. He'd seen
people lie down and pretend to be dead. The Wraiths always stopped
for them. They didn't for the people who really were dead. Somehow,
they knew corpses wouldn't make suitable hosts to the contagion
they carried.

"A small percentage of people just
seem invisible to them," the captain said again. "It's very rare,
and we don't understand how or why."

"Could it be because he's
sick?"

The captain's eyes narrowed. "Sick
how?"

"We don't know. It's some kind of lung
infection, maybe pneumonia."

Cheever's face tightened, and he
swiveled to each of them in turn. "Anyone else?"

They all shook their heads. "Just the
baby," Susan said.

Outside, as if on cue, the baby cried
out, a wet, gurgling sniffle that became a cough. The captain
leaned down and stared at him through the window. No one spoke for
several heartbeats.

Finally he straightened up again. He
looked like he'd seen a real ghost. "Off," he said. "Outside.
Now."

"Why?"

"Flu."

He pushed his way past them, and they
all followed, all except Kari, who remained behind with
Jonathan.

The moment he exited the bus, the
captain let out a huge breath. His face had gone pale. "Carter!" he
shouted. "Specialist Carter!"

A man ran over. "Yes, sir?"

"You have the first aid kit? Go fetch
it."

Carter nodded and ran to one of the
bikes.

"I want antibiotics!" Cheever shouted
after him.

"You think it's the flu?" Eddie
asked.

A global epidemic of influenza had
swept across the globe two years before the Flense, wiping out a
third of the population before it could be brought under control
again. The infection persisted through the next winter, but its
devastation had been greatly diminished through careful management
and a massive global immunization program. Millions still died, but
those numbers were significantly smaller than the billion who had
succumbed to the disease a year before.

But as devastating as the flu had
been, it had been nothing like the Flense.

"Maybe," Cheever replied.

"Some of our people suffer from severe
malnutrition. Their immune systems are likely compromised. It's
just a cough."

The captain spun around to face Eddie.
"I need to know where you people came from, what you've been
exposed to, where you're going."

Eddie shook his head. "We appreciate
your help, we really do. We would have been in dire straits had you
not shown up when you did."

"Dead or infected is more like
it."

Eddie shrugged. "Point is, we don't
know you. How can we trust you? No offense."

"Understood, and none taken, but it's
a two-way street." He sighed and gestured at his men. "You already
know my name. I was a supply officer at a small military outpost
called Westerton Army Depot before the fall. The base is about
eighty, ninety miles south of here. One of our sentries reported
seeing your vehicle lights in the desert last night."

"Sentry? Army Depot? You're with the
army?"

"Not the army you're thinking of. That
one doesn't exist anymore. We're a group of survivors. We run the
base in a military fashion, but we're more of a sanctuary now. It's
just one of about twenty or so safe refuges that formed after the
fall. Refuges that we know about, anyway."

His last words felt like he was
fishing for information.

"You're able to keep out the
Wraiths?"

"Wraiths?" The captain's eyes
narrowed. "Yes. But they aren't the only things you need to watch
out for out here. There are some unsavory characters living in the
world. Roamers, we call them. They're lawless people. If the
creatures don't get you, a roamer might. Inside our gates, we offer
sanctuary to those who need it. Outside, there are no
guarantees."

"And in exchange?"

"Everyone contributes in one way or
another in our community."

"How many people?"

"About three hundred. We're under the
command of Colonel Wainwright."

"Colonel?" Eddie looked dubiously over
at the men. "Sounds a lot like the old military to me. Your men
don't look like soldiers."

"Listen to me, Eddie. The old military
is gone. So is the government, has been since the fall. But that
doesn't mean we haven't tried to keep some of the structure and
order of the past as we try and rebuild the future."

Eddie realized how much he'd just
given away. The captain now knew that they had been living in
isolation for a while, perhaps as long as the fall, as he put it.
This insight was bound to elicit even more questions about him and
the others, questions he simply wasn't comfortable answering. He
shuddered to think what these men might do with knowledge of the
bunker if they didn't have good intentions.

The captain lowered his voice. "I
understand your reluctance. No pressure. But once we get you back
to Westerton—"

"Whoa, wait a minute," Eddie said.
"We're not going with you."

Cheever spun around. "It's for your
own good."

Eddie glanced at the men around them.
They seemed to have taken on a hostile posture all of a
sudden.

"Are you going to force
us?"

The captain turned around. "Your
vehicle runs, does it not?"

"It's damaged. It needs
oil."

"Oil and repairs we can
provide."

"But, Daddy," Hannah cried. She pulled
Eddie aside and whispered, "What about Jonah and Danny? We can't
just leave them."

"Listen, Eddie," Cheever said. "We
need to move quick. There's too much cover here, and every minute
we spend is another minute those things have to find
us."

Eddie walked back over to him. "We
need to go back to that town."

"Why?"

Eddie pursed his lips. "Because we
left a couple people behind there. They were scouting for supplies
when we were attacked. We had to run."

Captain Cheever's jaw tightened. "How
many?"

"Two men."

"You left them overnight? I can almost
guarantee they're dead. Or infected. We can't afford—"

"Almost is a long way from a
guarantee."

Cheever pointed at the burning pyre.
"Those things attacked you in town last night? They followed you
there, didn't they? Your people are gone. You only put yourselves
at further risk by going back. And you put my men at
risk—"

"Nobody's asking you or your men to do
it, Captain. But I have a responsibility to my people just like you
do to yours. We're going back."

Cheever surveyed his men. "Private
Ramsay," he called. "Singh! You two drive into town. Check in the
shop for a couple people, two men. They were left there last night.
Thorough search, but no dawdling."

"The auto shop?" one of them asked. He
looked troubled, his eyes flicking from the captain to Eddie. "They
won't be alive, sir. Not overnight."

"Did I ask for your opinion, Ramsay?
Just find them."

"And if they're alive, then
what?"

"Bring them back. Do I need to spell
everything out to you?"

Ramsay's face burned with
anger.

"Here, sir?" Private Singh asked.
"Bring them here?"

"Straight back to base, Vinnie. We're
clearing this scene as soon as we get this tub dug out."

"Yes, sir."

"Well? What are you waiting
for?"

Cheever turned back to Eddie. "They're
good men. They will find them, one way or another."

Eddie swallowed his frustration. By
telling his men to take Jonah and Danny back to the base, the
captain had just made it impossible for him to refuse going there,
too.