Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) (17 page)

Adrian clapped his hands in
excitement, though to the boys it felt forced. "I hadn't dared to
hope to get this much done so soon," he exclaimed. "Figured it'd
take another week before we even got the roof on. You two boys did
the work of four! Ain't that right, darlin?"

Jennifer nodded.

He pulled the tarp away and began to
unload. "I ain't got no idea what half this stuff was meant for
before the Flense. Some we picked up along the way. Some was
brought to us by others to test. But these here devices have a
definite effect on the ferals, so maybe it was meant fer us to
find, like us runnin into y'all out there on the road, somethin of
a blessin, like the good Lord was lookin out fer us."

They unloaded the equipment, and
Jennifer began to arrange it on a bench they had previously
installed along the back wall. With Finn's and Luke's help, Adrian
erected the chain link inside the building, employing the four
center posts as corner braces and installing a heavy locking
gate.

The cage — for that's clearly
what it was — occupied more than half of the barn's floor
space, an area roughly twenty feet on a side. Not only would the
so-called "church" look nothing like a real one, but it would also
apparently function nothing like the boys imagined.

The vague sense of dread that Finn had
been feeling sharpened.

As soon as the cart was empty, Billy
and Luke left with it. They returned after a half hour with the
generator and hauled it around to the back, where they lowered it
to a platform of wood.

When Finn went to check on it later,
he was amazed to see that they had already built an enclosure to
protect it against the weather.

Adrian showed Bix how to string the
flood lamps across the rafters. It was a race against the dying
light, as the sun dipped into the trees and the shadows grew
darker. When they were finished, it was almost too dark to
continue.

He threw the end of the electrical
cable toward the back wall and shouted for Jennifer. Then he and
Bix climbed down to the ground.

Outside, the gennie started up with a
loud metallic rattle before settling into a steady drone. Jennifer
threaded the cable through a hole in the wall, and soon the bulbs
blinked on, flooding the barn with light.

"Need more lamps there and there,"
Adrian said, pointing to a couple places still in shadow. He
immediately started unspooling more wire through the center of the
cage. "Bury this neath the ground," he told Luke and Billy.
"Connect it like we did in the other. We'll ground it all
tomorrow."

Despite the strangeness of it all,
Finn couldn't help but feel a sense of accomplishment in the work
they had done. He'd never built anything with his hands before,
much less a structure of such scale. The blisters on his hands
stung, and the muscles in his arms and back ached, but it all felt
good in a way.

He glanced over at Bix and saw that he
was smiling, too. "Look what we did," he said.

Bix's brow furrowed, and the smile
thinned, like he hadn't intended to be caught with it on his face.
"Yeah."

"Y'all did some fine work here,"
Jennifer agreed. "But it's getting late, and I ain't even started
supper."

"There's still time," Adrian
said.

"Time for what?" Bix asked. It was the
longest sentence he'd spoken in hours.

"After what y'all seen the past coupla
days, I know y'all have questions, perhaps even serious doubts. I
don't deny it would've been a shock to anyone. So bear with me a
few minutes. Y'all will see that what we done here was worth
it."

"Not tonight, Adrian. The boys are
tired. I'm tired."

"Luke and Billy's already gone to
fetch one, Jenny."

"But it ain't got no roof on
it."

"It's safe."

"Safe for what?" Finn asked. He shot
Bix a worried glance.

But Adrian gestured at the opening in
the wall, where the sound of horses' hooves could be heard growing
louder.

Luke soon emerged from the trees,
astride one of the animals. As he passed them in the clearing, Bix
and Finn yelped in alarm. At the end of a rope, tied to the saddle
horn, was a Wraith. Another rope passed from its neck to the second
horse which carried Billy. In his arms was one of the blue boxes
Finn had seen Jennifer holding the night before.

"Jesus Christ!"
Bix whispered. Finn was already backing away. He
raised the hammer in his hand, ready to defend himself.

"Don't worry. It ain't gonna hurt no
one."

The creature shambled along, its
movements restrained by the ropes. Its head sagged forward. Drool
dripped from its swollen lip. It showed no desire to touch or
attack. In fact, it did not seem to be aware of any of
them.

"What did you do to
it?"
Finn asked.

"We calmed it," Jennifer said in a
normal tone of voice. Any displeasure she had expressed earlier for
Adrian's decision was gone, replaced instead with a hint of
eagerness.

"Stand back," Luke said. "It's still
contagious. Y'all don't want it touchin you just yet."

"What do you mean by 'just yet'?" Finn
asked.

But Adrian guided the boys to one side
as Luke dismounted and pulled the Wraith into the barn. Billy had
also dismounted. They kept the ropes taut so the creature couldn't
go anywhere except where they wanted it to. Together, they
maneuvered it to the cage opening, then swung the gate
shut.

"What if it climbs out?"

"It won't," Adrian assured them.
"We'll finish the top tomorrow, but fer now, we don't need
one."

The men gave the ropes a skilled
flick, and the lassoes slipped off the Wraith's neck. Despite being
free to move about, it just stood there mindlessly staring at the
ground.

"Now," Adrian said, "do we all agree
what will happen if it touches us?"

Both Finn and Bix looked up in
alarm.

Adrian walked over to the bench where
the equipment had been arranged. He selected what appeared to be a
cattle prod, an eight-foot long metal rod with two knobs at the
end. Extending from the handle was a cable, and the cable was
plugged into an electrical power strip.

Sparks flew when he touched the tip to
the chain link.

Before they could stop him,
he carefully threaded the prod through an opening in the gate. For
a moment, Finn flashed to a childhood memory of him and Harper
playing the game
Operation
. His brother had steadier
hands and almost always won.

Any moment now, he's going
to touch the wire and a buzzer'll go off, and then it'll be
Jennifer's turn.

But the man's hands were rock
steady.

"Don't," Bix whispered. He gripped
Finn's arm. "It's not right."

But Finn was fascinated. He wanted to
see what would happen.

The tips touched the skin
of the Wraith, and a loud
bang!
rang out. The lights dimmed at the same moment
that sparks exploded off the creature's body. It flew half the
length of the cage before rolling in a tangled heap on the
ground.

"You killed it," Bix cried.

"It's a Wraith," Finn said, his eyes
glued to the motionless figure. The sharp tang of burning flesh
pinched his nose.

Adrian pulled the prod out and set it
back on the bench. "Forty-five seconds," he said, holding up a
stopwatch. "That's how long they're harmless."

He nodded to Billy, who went inside
the cage. The look on his face as he reached out a hand at the
creature was one of kindness.

"What are you doing?" Bix cried.
"Stop!"

Billy laid his palm on the Wraith's
scalp.

"No!" Finn yelled, but of course it
was already too late.

"It's okay," Billy said. He showed his
hand to the group, as if the absence of any change was proof he
hadn't been infected. He walked back over, a big smile on his
face.

"Twenty seconds," Adrian said, and let
him out.

Finn peered into Billy's eyes. He saw
no trace of the Flense.

"You've figured out how to make them
not infectious!" he gasped. "That's incredible!"

"It's only temporary," Jennifer said.
Excitement danced in her eyes. "Even so, it's a start."

"The first step to salvation is always
the hardest," Adrian said.

"And what is that?"

"Forgiveness."

Finn turned to Bix, his thoughts
whirling. He didn't know what to say.

But Bix did. "This is wrong," he
whispered. "It's not salvation. I don't know what it is, but I do
know it's wrong."

"Finn. Hey man, wake up!"

Finn's eyes popped open. Bix's
disembodied face hovered over him, a dimmer shade of night than the
ocean of darkness it swam in.

For a moment, he thought he was back
in the bunker, and Bix was getting him up to stir up some form of
mischief. Wasn't it time to rearrange Jonah's food supplies in the
upstairs pantry? He couldn't remember if they'd already done that
this week. He almost told him to keep it down or else he'd wake his
father.

"What? What's happening?"

"They're gone."

Finn blinked into the darkness. He
felt stupid for not understanding. "What's gone?"

"Not what, who. Everyone. Adrian and
Jennifer, Billy and Luke. The house is empty."

Finn sat up, pushing Bix away. "What
the hell are you talking about?"

"I couldn't sleep. I was thirsty, so I
got up to get something to drink. I didn't think anything of it at
first, but when I passed Billy's bedroom, I didn't hear
anything."

"So?"

"So? That guy snores louder than a
hive of bumble bees stuck inside a tin can.

"Bumblebees don't snore."

"Not relevant. The point is, I went
down to the kitchen to get some water, and I was standing there
looking out the window, and I see this glowing through the trees.
Scared the crap out of me at first, because I thought it was
moving, like one of those willow wisps."

"Will-o'-the-wisp," Finn
corrected.

"That's what I said, like a ghost or
something. But it wasn't a ghost. It was just the wind blowing the
trees and making it look like it was moving, which made me think
about—"

"Bumblebees? Ghostly
fireballs? Get to the point, Bix." He resented being woken up. He'd
been dreaming about Bren, and to have her taken away from him,
especially
right
at that particular moment, had not put him in a good frame of
mind.

"I knocked on everyone's door to alert
them about the light. You know, because it might be a fire or
something. But no one answered. Everyone's gone."

They got dressed and slipped out of
the house. The grass on the front lawn was wet with dew. Above
them, a nearly full moon sat high in the sky, making everything
look like it had been plated in liquid silver.

Navigating was difficult, as there
were no lamps yet along this part of the trail. And the moonlight
didn't penetrate through the forest canopy that well, so they found
themselves stumbling off the path once or twice.

"Glad thing those mines aren't right
off the trail," Bix whispered.

Finn was beginning to wonder if there
were any at all, or at least as many as Adrian made it sound like.
He recalled how Billy and Luke had raced through the trees that
first day. Maybe they knew exactly where the mines had been set,
but that didn't explain the horses venturing into the wood on a
couple of occasions. He didn't think the animals would know exactly
where to avoid.

Billy and Luke were
running
outside
the wall.

That was another thing that didn't sit
right with him. Wouldn't it make sense to lay the mines there,
rather than inside, stop Wraiths before they had a chance to get
in?