Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) (21 page)

"Hey! What are they doing to
Bix?"

The knee in his back pressed down,
driving the air from his lungs. "Shut yer trap!" Billy
said.

The others were gone only a few
seconds when a bloodcurdling scream came through the wooden walls.
It cut off abruptly.

A moment later, the latch released and
Adrian and Luke reappeared.

"What'd you do to Bix?" Finn cried. He
struggled against Billy, but without any leverage he found it
impossible to move. "What'd you do with him? Where is
he?"

Adrian kneeled down beside him and
shook his head. "The good Lord may forgive, but I am only a man and
cannot so easily." He looked genuinely remorseful, and in that
moment, what Finn had suspected deep down became indisputably
clear.

"Should have trusted my
instincts about you from the beginning,"
he
muttered.

"Pardon me?"

"You're a psychopath!"

"And the devil is whisperin in yer
ear."

"You're crazy!"

Adrian tilted his head toward the
shack, and before Finn could react, he was lifted bodily up into
the air. With a yelp of pain, he landed hard on his foot, twisting
his ankle. Then he was half-dragged, half-carried toward the
door.

"Stop!" he screamed. He tried to twist
around and saw Jennifer standing on the porch watching them.
"Liar!" he screamed at her. "Murderers!" Her face was white, but
otherwise showed no emotion.

Billy shoved him through the door into
the shed, then pressed him hard into a wall. Finn tried to see, but
he couldn't turn his head. Behind them, the door shut and the lock
caught.

"Where's Bix?"

A single naked light bulb swung from a
thin wire attached to the ceiling, causing the shadows to sway. The
room was empty.

"What have you done with
Bix?"

Luke stepped past them to the back
wall. He jangled the keys in his hand, found one, and inserted it
into a hole. The wall, flat and gray, swung inward, revealing
nothing but darkness.

"We worked for you," Finn grunted. "We
helped you!"

"Y'all betrayed our trust."

Finn twisted, wrenching his shoulder
against Billy's grip. He brought his foot up and kicked at Billy's
leg, aiming for the place he'd seen Jennifer bandaging. Billy let
out a scream and let go. But Luke grabbed him and shoved him into
the opening. "Get in there!"

Finn tried to catch himself, but there
was no floor. He flailed as he fell, and barely had time to brace
himself before he landed in the darkness below.

With a loud bang, the door slammed
shut behind him. With it went the last of their light. They'd been
locked inside some kind of underground room. And by the sounds
coming to his ears over the rasp of his and Bix's breathing, he
knew they weren't alone.

Flood lamps illuminated every inch of the base perimeter, but many
of the lights along the inner streets and several of those mounted
on various buildings deeper inside the camp had either blown out or
been shut off to conserve what little remained of the depot's
precious diesel. Colonel Wainwright clearly did not expect an
attack to come from within.

He had been the depot's executive
officer prior to the outbreak, and so he'd inherited its command by
virtue of being the most senior officer to survive the Flense. But
he was poorly prepared and had squandered fuel during the first two
years, as he'd always expected relief to come sooner rather than
later.

Then, as local supplies ran thin, he
had to send his patrols out further afield, increasing the risk to
life and limb. Too many casualties forced him to reduce the base's
power consumption, which included banning all nonessential
electrical items, such as video games. He also placed curfews on
lighting.

Now, after more than a year of those
restrictions, diesel supplies were nearly gone. The base's
residents lived in constant fear that the generators would soon go
silent, that the perimeter lights would fade to black, and the
fence be left without its high-voltage protection.

Of course, Eddie didn't know about any
of this, nor would he have cared if he had. All he knew was that
the extra darkness between buildings made it easier for him to slip
from one shadow to the next without being seen by the ever-present
foot patrols.

Getting past the desk sergeant for the
infirmary and evading the on-duty staff was another story, however.
Fortunately, there were very few patients inside, and the medicos
were mostly gathered in the lounge playing cards to while away the
hours.

He checked every bed, and what he
found — and didn't find — deeply worried him.

Earlier that evening, he had asked
Colonel Wainwright if he could visit his people being treated
there, and he'd been told in no uncertain terms that it wouldn't be
possible. The infirmary was strictly off limits to non-medical
personnel, always had been, always would be. "I can assure you,
however, that they are doing fine," the colonel said.

He received several updates each day
from Captain Cheever, who had told him that both Jonathan and the
baby seemed to be improving, that Nami's dislocations were healing,
and that all four, including Jorge and his mother, were responding
well to intravenous fluid replacement. They would be ready for
discharge in a few more days.

Eddie couldn't tell if the man was
speaking the truth or not. Either way, it felt like he was stalling
for time, perhaps hoping to wear them down. The man had repeatedly
asked him and the other Bunker Eight survivors where they'd come
from and where they were planning on going.

They'd all steadfastly refused to
divulge any information. As far as Eddie knew, the man hadn't yet
pressed them very hard, but he knew that Wainwright's — and
Cheever's — patience had limits. He feared what methods they
might resort to once it ran out.

His mind took him to some very
unsavory places as he scaled the wall outside the female barracks
where the single women in his group were still being housed, and
climbed in through an open second-story window. Both of the beds in
the room he entered were occupied, but neither woman knew he was
there, even though one of them had not yet fallen fully
asleep.

Stepping silently into the hallway, he
raised his face, sniffed the air, then turned left.

"Hannah,"
he whispered, gently jostling the girl in the top
bunk. The room was nearly pitch black, but he didn't need much
light to see by. He knew his daughter by her scent.

It broke his heart to detect the smell
of her tears mingling with it, tears for Jonah. Cheever had finally
broken the news to them all, and Hannah had taken it especially
hard.

"Hannah, honey, it's
me."

"Daddy? What are you doing in here? Is
something wrong?"

"
Shh.
Listen, we need to
talk."

"Now?" She sat up, shaking the
bunk.

Bren stirred in the bed below.
"Hannah!" she cried in alarm. "Who's there?"

Eddie ducked quickly down, shushing
her as best he could. "It's me, Bren, Hannah's dad. Please, be
quiet."

The barracks were arranged so that
each bay contained several alcoves, each with a pair of beds, and a
central latrine and showers. The cinderblock barriers between them
helped keep some of the noise from traveling, but not
all.

Kari and Susan were in the adjacent
alcove, but strangers occupied others in the same bay, women he
didn't know and therefore couldn't trust.

"Eddie?" Bren asked, and the litany of
questions started anew: "How did you get in here? What's wrong? Why
are you here? What time is it?"

He answered the last one to cut her
off. "Listen to me, you two. We need to talk."

"Why now?"

"Just come with me."

Hand in hand, the three slipped out
into the bay, where light from one of the distant flood lamps
spilled in from a single window at the opposite end of the
building. They entered Kari and Susan's room, where the girls
gently roused them.

"Eddie's here," they
whispered.

"We're in danger," he told them.
"They're lying to us, Cheever and Wainwright and the others.
Something bad is happening, and unless we leave soon, we may not be
able to go at all."

"Lying about what?" Kari
asked.

"How Jonah died, for one thing. About
Danny's disappearance for another."

"Danny left on his own," Bren said.
"He told me he wished he'd never left the bunker. He wanted to go
back."

Eddie turned to her in the darkness.
He saw her face clearly enough, though he knew none of the others
could. To them, they were all little more than vague shapes. "Do
you really believe he'd leave, Bren? In the middle of the
night?"

She didn't answer.

Eddie knew that she had grown terribly
depressed and was questioning her own decision to leave the bunker.
Hannah had told him as much. He worried that Bren's resolve was
starting to crumble, and that it'd soon affect them all if they
didn't manage her expectations.

Now he wondered if Bren had already
spoken to anyone outside of their group about her concerns. He had
noticed a couple people, especially Private Ramsay and Sergeant
Bolton, starting to take an inordinate amount of interest in the
girls, going out of their way to endear themselves, almost
flirting. He'd given Hannah a knife to carry underneath her shirt
and told her to be wary of men and their intentions. But he didn't
feel right giving Bren the same precautions. The tiniest thing
might send her over the edge.

But he couldn't afford to be so
cautious anymore.

"Danny may have told you he wanted to
go back," he whispered, "but he wouldn't have left in the middle of
the night, on foot, and without letting one of us know he was going
first. Besides, he knows how dangerous it is out there. He knows it
would have been suicide."

The others were silent. "So, what do
you think happened?" Susan asked.

"I don't know. I just know the story
they gave us is a lie."

"And Jonah?" asked Hannah, hopefully.
"Do you think he was attacked by Wraiths?"

"Something about that story doesn't
jive, either, honey. But I don't think Jonah is alive. I'm
sorry."

Kari shook her head. "You snuck in
here in the middle of the night and woke us up because of a
suspicion?"

"I asked Colonel Wainwright today if I
could visit our people in the infirmary. He told me no."

"Medical personnel only," Susan said.
"I know. I asked, too. I feel bad for Jasmina and the baby all
alone in there."

"She's fine. So's the baby. I saw them
myself."

"How?"

"I snuck in," Eddie said. "She's
there, and Jorge is getting better, but I couldn't find Jonathan or
Nami. They're gone."

"Maybe they moved them. Or they got
better and are in permanent housing."

"I don't think so. I overheard the
medic talking about the cemetery, and when I looked, I found
several fresh graves there."

Susan sucked in a sharp breath. "You
think they're dead?"

Anguished sounds came from both girls'
throats.

"Jonathan was very sick," Kari
acknowledged. "You remember how bad it was at the height of the flu
epidemic. Millions died. And from what Nami told us, Jonathan was
never immunized against it. Even Cheever was afraid he might have
it. And he still refused to take anything for the
fever."

Again, Eddie shook his head.
"Wainwright told me he was getting better."

"So, he lied to you? Why? You think
someone is picking us off? Why would they do that? To what possible
end?"

"I don't know, but the bus has been
sitting in their maintenance bay for three days now and as far as I
can tell nothing's been done to it. They don't seem to be in any
hurry to fix it."