Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) (11 page)

"Is this the road?" Bix asked, glancing at the sign. "I don't
remember what the reverend said the name was."

Because you were too busy
ingratiating yourself with Jennifer
, Finn
thought, then felt bad for thinking it, especially since his own
mouth was watering at the thought of bacon and fresh eggs. Truth be
told, though, he'd be just as happy with a can of congealed stew
and the security of the dam.

He suddenly felt homesick— oddly, not
for his home before the Flense, but for the bunker. He missed his
food storage room — his own private refuge — and now
regretted that they hadn't thought to pack more of those supplies
before busting out. Of course, they hadn't figured on it taking so
long to get anywhere, or that it would be so hard to find stuff
along the way.

They had passed several houses and
even a general store on the road, but the buildings had clearly
been ransacked, leaving nothing to eat or of any use as a weapon
against anything which might attack them.

Some of the buildings had been burned
down. One house, standing alone at the end of a long dusty
driveway, had some dark brown spatter marks on the walls of the
entryway, and the carpeting just inside the door was shredded into
pieces. They left the place in a hurry, not bothering to search
it.

As a result, all they'd had to eat in
the hours since leaving the gorge behind was some stale homemade
granola bars Jennifer had made and a half dozen small apples that
the couple had given them to tide them over until they met back up
again.

As bruised as the apples were, both
boys had eaten them nearly to completion, nibbling away until
nothing more remained than the seeds and the bottom, which Bix
called the "fuzzy butt" in an attempt to gross Finn out enough that
he'd give his part to him. Which he did not.

It was the first fresh fruit they'd
eaten in over three years, and it was almost too much for their
stomachs to handle. Bix had twice needed to excuse himself.
Thankfully, they'd reached a forest by then, which provided him
with privacy, though not enough that Finn couldn't hear his groans
of misery. He couldn't be sure if Bix was exaggerating them for
comic effect.

The cover also made him nervous, and
he began to wish they were back out in the open again, despite the
blistering sunlight. Bix kept emphasizing that they were safe now,
since Adrian and Jennifer had cleared the area of Wraiths. Finn
seriously doubted that two people could do such a big job as that
on their own.

"Well? Is this, or is this not, the
right road?"

"It is," Finn said. He looked around
them nervously, half expecting to see something following them.
"About a mile up the road, he said, we'll reach a gate. We wait
there."

"Finally. My feet are killing
me."

They walked along the semi-shaded
path, kicking at the thick carpet of alder and birch leaves,
thrilling at the novelty of it. There were also cottonwood and
maple trees, though in lesser abundance.

The surface of the road was visible
only in spots, and had it not been for the overgrown signs and
metal rails, they might have easily wandered off track.

Birds happily chirped in the trees all
around them. Leaves rustled in the breeze. A twig
snapped.

Finn stopped and turned to stare at
the spot where the sound had come from. The road behind them was
clear, as was the road ahead. But the woods seemed to have grown
gloomier, hiding dangers that had not been there a moment
before.

Bix stepped closer to
Finn's side.
"What was that?"

They both stared into the trees and
waited. Something rustled, perhaps thirty or forty feet
away.

"I can't see—"

Another twig snapped.

Finn nudged Bix in the
arm.
"Go,
" he
whispered.
"Quietly."

They began walking again, Finn's hand
on Bix's back, Bix with a fistful of Finn's shirt.

Suddenly, the forest around them was
completely silent. The only sound was the rustle of the leaves
beneath their feet. Their walk became a jog; the jog turned into a
run.

Something trampled through the bracken
off to their right, keeping pace. To the left, birds exploded from
the trees with their raucous cries, blackening the sky.

They were separated now, Bix ahead by
several feet, running at an all out sprint. Finn stumbled, slipped,
and they switched positions. Behind them, to the left, something
howled. Bix cursed. His face had gone white with terror. Off to
their right, something else answered.

"I can't . . . keep it
up!" Bix cried, no longer bothering to be quiet.

"Keep running!"

"They're getting closer!"

"Don't stop!"

"And what do we do when we get to the
gate and can't go any further?"

Shit!
Finn realized. He tried to think as he ran. What should they
do? Should they turn around?

They rounded a curve and a hint of a
shape off to his right caught his eye, a shadow moving quickly,
dark and low to the ground. Branches snapped. The noise grew
louder. Whatever it was, it was getting closer.

"There's something there!" Bix
squeaked. "Finn! It's going to get us!" He was running awkwardly,
trying to shed his backpack.

Something shrieked behind them,
raising the hair on Finn's neck. The creature was on the
road.

Bix flung the pack away, nearly
knocking Finn down with it. "Shoot them!" he screamed.

Finn's hands were full. In his right,
he carried the rifle. In the left was his stun gun. He tried to aim
the latter, but there was nothing to shoot it at.

Don't pull the trigger
until you see the whites of its eyes
, the
reverend had warned.
You get only one
chance to zap em
.

Finn had wanted to remind him that
their eyes were black, not white, but he figured that was just
being a little too literal.

"Take this!" he shouted at Bix, and
tried to pass him the stun gun. Bix reached out and grabbed it. For
a split second, the weapon floated in mid air between them, then it
simply fell away on its own. It slid into the leaves. Neither boy
stopped to retrieve it.

Finn tried to raise the rifle to eye
level. The pack on his back jounced up and down, throwing off his
ability to aim.

"There!" Bix cried, pointing to the
right. Finn pulled the trigger and the air exploded with the blast
of the shot.

"You missed!"

Of course I missed, you
idiot!
Finn wanted to shout back.
How the hell am I supposed to aim when I'm
running?

The forest rang with laughter. Finn's
blood froze in his veins.

"Stop shooting, assholes!" rang out a
man's voice. "Jesus Christ, don't be stupid!"

Bix and Finn kept running. By the time
their minds had parsed the words and what they meant, they'd
reached the gate.

"Don't touch the wire!" another voice
warned.

Finn pulled Bix back by the collar,
and they slid to a stop. The electrified chain link rose up less
than two feet away.

"Billy, you okay?" came a shout from
behind them. The boys spun around, but no one was there.

Once again, laughter pealed through
the trees off to their right.

"Billy?"

"I'm good, Luke!"

"Boys!" Jennifer McCoy appeared on the
other side of the gate astride her horse. "Quit scarin our guests,
boys!"

Bix and Finn scrambled to their feet.
They were both shaking, gasping for air. Feet pounded the road
behind them, and then a figure appeared around the bend, slowing to
a walk. He wore dirty jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and his long
brown hair was tangled with leaves. In his hands was a
military-style assault rifle. He'd slung Bix's discarded backpack
over one shoulder.

"You boys should be ashamed of
yourselves!"

"Aw, come on, mutha!" cried the second
one, emerging out of the woods. He was even more disheveled than
the first. "We were just havin fun."

Finn and Bix stood gaping at the
"boys." They weren't young at all. In fact, they looked to be in
their thirties.

Jennifer flipped a switch, then drew
the wire gate to the side. "Well, y'all coulda gotten yer damn
heads blasted off!" she snapped. She took the rifle from
Finn.

"I, uh, dropped the other one," Finn
panted. "The stun gun. It's back there on the road
somewhere."

"You hear that, Luke? Go back and find
it."

"Aw!"

"I don't want to hear another word!
Billy, go with him." She turned to Finn and Bix. "They ain't the
smartest tools in the shed, those boys. Coupla no good fools." She
shrugged. "But they're family, and we take care of family, don't
we?"

Bix nodded. He'd forgotten to shut his
mouth.

"Good. Now, come on inside before
y'all trip over those chins of yers."

* * *

"We arrived about twenty minutes ago," she explained, riding her
horse beside them as they walked. "Wanted to get here before y'all
to avoid the boys shooting first n'askin questions later. Shoulda
known they was goin to try and scare ya." She shook her head.
"Their mother shoulda whupped them more when they was growin
up."

"They're not yours?"

Jennifer laughed. "Do I look old
enough to have children that age?"

Bix's face flushed bright
red.

They abruptly exited the woods and
found themselves in a broad, flat clearing that had been disked up
to prevent last season's grass seed from growing. Finn guessed that
the deeply rutted ground would also slow anyone and anything that
might try to cross it to get at the house, which was a massive,
beautiful log cabin. It stood several hundred yards away on a short
spit of land jutting out over a pristine lake.

"Oh man," Bix murmured. "Please tell
me there's a Jacuzzi inside."

"There is, but it ain't
workin."

"The lake?"

She shook her head.

"What are the markers for?" Finn
asked, pointing at the several dozen golf flags fluttering in the
field to their left.

"Land mines," Jennifer replied. She
turned to Bix. "They're in the water, too, so no
swimming."

"Mines?"

"It's a different world than the one
y'all remember. Best get used to it."

Later, long after they'd
both enjoyed hot showers and a wonderful home-cooked meal of sliced
smoked ham steaks and scrambled eggs and real potato hash
browns — thankfully without the company of Billy and
Luke — after they'd all gone to bed that night, Finn would
recall that comment and wonder,
How could
anyone get used to it?
The more he thought
about it, the more he worried.

The comment seemed to have been made
offhand, a throwaway remark. But in the darkness and silence of the
giant guest room in the giant house, as his ears longed for the
sound of the old comforting turbines, it would feel more and more
like a veiled threat than advice. And he'd drift off to sleep with
her words echoing hollowly and ominously in his mind.

Of course, the next morning the smell
of cooking bacon would smack him in the nose and make him forget
his trepidation.

"Before we get you settled," Jennifer
said, steering them away from the house, "we should take care of
the horses. Y'all can help Adrian and the boys feed and water while
I rustle us up some dinner."

She shielded her eyes from the setting
sun and peered out over the turned-up field in the direction of the
dark trees and pointed at a new path, which they took.

After a bit, they came to a large barn
adjacent to a number of animal pens. The strong smell of manure
wafted over to them. Bix took a deep breath, as if relishing
it.

Several smaller plots were marked out
with string. They appeared to contain vegetables.

"Just four of you living here?" Finn
asked, incredulous at the amount of work that had clearly been
done.

"That's right," Jennifer said,
chuckling. "We once had more, but life is tough and it sometimes
takes the ones we love before their time. Wish it wasn't so, but it
is. We take wanderers, too. They stay for a bit, but they always
end up leavin sooner or later."

They'd reached the barn by then and
the whinny of several horses inside mingled with the mournful low
of a cow and the agitated squawks of chickens. Jennifer lowered
herself from the saddle and stepped over to the door.

"Now, before we go in, I want y'all to
remember what we said before about findin an end to the plague.
That's always been our main objective."

Finn nodded, but the hairs on his neck
were starting to prickle again.

She pulled the door open and led them
in. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust.