Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) (27 page)

Tears and sweat dripped from his face,
made his hands slippery. He cursed his inability to escape, cursed
his decisions, cursed the world for what it had become and what it
had forced him to do. He cursed his father and the decision he and
his mother had made all those years ago. He cursed that it had all
gone wrong, despite their careful planning. He cursed his father
for discovering the nanites in their blood.

He cursed that it hadn't been his
little sister instead of his father in that bunker with him, like
it was supposed to be. If it had been Leah, none of this ever would
have happened. She knew him, knew his weaknesses. She accepted him
as he was and would never have pushed him like his father had,
urging to be more than he was.

More like Harper.

None of them would have died if he'd
just remained like the old Finn— cowardly, indecisive,
alone.

Finally, he cursed his brother, not
for being better, someone to aspire to, but for simply still being
alive and inside that other bunker, making Finn believe that he
could, for once, be the hero.

Harper would have come up with a plan
to escape and save his friend. In fact, Harper would never have
gotten himself into this situation to begin with. Had their roles
been switched, Harper wouldn't have allowed himself to be
distracted. He would have seen right through Father Adrian. He
would have already made his way to Bunker Two, found Finn, and
saved him.

Harper would have done everything
right.

But it wasn't Harper, it was Finn. And
he had done everything wrong.

Please,
please
, he silently begged.
Please let me be right about the
immunity.

At last they returned for him. Finn
hadn't heard them coming. So deep in his despair was he that he
hadn't been listening. And so, when, in a rush of air that smelled
of rain, the door flew open and knocked him down the
steps.

The buckle and nail flew from his
hands as he tumbled. Luke was there in an instant, descending in a
rush. He saw the objects and guessed immediately what Finn had been
doing. "Check the back of the damn door, Billy," he shouted. "They
was trying to break out!"

"Don't see nothin," Billy said. His
voice was filled with scorn. "Stupid boy thinks he can scratch his
way through a steel door?" He laughed.

Luke kicked Finn in the thigh. "Don't
you move a muscle!"

Finn didn't. What was the use? If
Harper had been there instead of him, he would never have been
caught unawares. He would have expected them, been waiting for
them. He would have been ready. He would have figured out a way to
overpower them and escape.

But he wasn't Harper. He was
Finn.

"Cover him!" Luke yelled at Billy.
"I'm goin to check and see if they's hidin anymore secret
tools."

Finn could hear him slapping the boys
around, calling them freaks. Byron yelled. There was another
sickening crunch as something hard and heavy hit bone. Charlie
shrieked to leave them alone.

A moment later, Luke was back, pulling
Finn to his feet. "It's yer turn, boy!"

Finn had one final glimpse of the
remaining prisoners before being dragged up the steps. Byron lay on
the floor along the wall opposite where Danny lay. Fresh blood
trickled from a new wound on his forehead. Charlie lay draped over
his father's chest, shaking him and screaming for him not to be
dead.

In the far corner cowered a tiny boy,
his face white with terror. With a shock, Finn realized that Jerry,
like his father, was blind.

Luke and Billy wrestled him to the
ground outside the shack and bound his wrists and ankles. Thunder
rolled across the sky, and the air smelled of electricity. The wind
blew, stirring up the horses.

When they finished trussing him, they
threw him into the cart.

"What have you done to my friend?" he
cried.

"Oh, he's just fine," Luke cackled.
"That boy's a natural-born killer, all right. Didn't take him but
two seconds to finish off his feral."

"He's okay?"

"He ain't dead, if'n that's what you
mean. But he ain't been saved, neither."

Finn moaned.

"Yep," Luke replied, mockingly. "Took
him too damn long to get started. Then another damn long time to
turn. Drove everyone nuts. But that's what the reverend
likes."

"After he did turn, it just sat there
in the middle of the cage, sitting on top of the other body, like
it were some kind of trophy or something."

The cart jounced over the uneven
terrain, making it difficult to understand his words. He turned and
gave Finn a wicked grin.

"Maybe y'all will be saved tonight. I
doubt it, though.

"Noooo," Finn wailed. "Bix,
no!"

"He's waitin fer y'all to join him in
the cage," Billy said, turning around. Lightning flashed,
illuminating the mad grin on his face. He blinked as the first
drops of rain hit his face. "What do y'all think, Luke?"

"Yup, I think he's waitin all
right."

"You made the reverend so mad he
changed his mind about doin only one sacrifice tonight." He
snickered, and Luke joined in. "No sense keeping the boyfriends
apart."

They arrived at the barn just as the
rain began to grow heavy. They yanked him off the cart by his bound
feet, letting him drop heavily to the ground. The fall knocked the
wind from his lungs, and before he could recover, his ankles were
unbound and he was yanked upright and turned toward the
barn.

Run!
his mind screamed. He could. He knew the path. But he also
knew it would be impossible the moment the thought entered his
head. He remembered how quickly Luke and Billy had followed them
through the woods that first day. Even if Billy was injured and
couldn't run, Luke was healthy.

They shoved him toward the door, and
the crowd parted. Adrian stood at the far side, watching them over
the top of the cage. "Idiots!" he shouted. "Y'all forgot to put the
damn hood on him!"

Billy and Luke hesitated a
moment.

"Never mind! Just bring him
forward."

The last of the crowd parted,
revealing the scene inside the cage. Bix, his head down like he was
resting, crouched on Nami's back. Nami's head was twisted around at
an unnatural angle. Dried blood from the night before caked the
corners of his mouth. His dark eyes held no expression at all. Both
were naked except for their underwear.

"No!" Finn screamed. "You murderers!"
He collapsed to his knees in anguish, but was immediately wrestled
back to his feet.

"Strip him down!" Adrian shouted, and
the crowd roared.

They pulled off his shoes, socks, and
pants. Then held him down as they unbound his wrists and removed
his shirt.

Adrian bent down to speak to him. "I
ain't never seen a smart feral before. Then again, I ain't no one
ever been saved like we saw last night. Too bad it was fer only a
couple minutes, though. He shoulda killed the other when he had a
chance."

He stepped to the side so Finn could
see inside the cage again. The thing that was once Bix still hadn't
moved.

"Cain't get to it with the prods when
it's just sitting there like that, not near the sides, not touchin
the wire. Smart. Cain't get it to come no closer. Y'all know what
that means? Means we cain't zap it. So, what're we gonna do? How
y'all gonna be able to redeem yerself?"

"It's all a lie anyway," Finn growled.
"You know it doesn't work that way."

Something flickered across Adrian's
face, a sense of doubt, perhaps, or irritation. It was gone before
Finn could really get any sense of what it was.

"These people," he quietly said,
gesturing at the crowd, "they're payin customers, and I don't
intend to disappoint them."

"But you will," Finn spat. "Because
it's all fake! They bought into your religious lies. They came
looking for salvation. Why? Because if they see it, it means
there's hope for an end to this nightmare. But you know the truth,
don't you? There's no cure, no salvation!"

Adrian sneered at the boy. "I do
believe you're right," he said. "They want somethin to hold onto,
somethin to hope fer. I give em a good show, a reason fer them to
come back. So here's what we're gonna do. We're sending y'all in
with a stun gun to zap it yerself. You should be happy, havin a
full forty-five seconds instead of the usual fifteen to kill it.
Them's pretty good odds, don't you think?" He smiled tenderly, then
stood up and gestured. "The crowd'll pay more to see a
salvation."

Billy hobbled over, a cattle prod in
his hands and stood by as Adrian unlocked the gate. They kept their
eyes glued to Bix's body, ready to slam the gate shut in case he
moved. The crowd stood in hushed anticipation.

The Bix-thing in the cage remained
still, not even a sudden peal of thunder seemed to affect
it.

Finn was lifted up by a wrist and
ankle and heaved inside. The gate clanged shut behind him just as
he hit the dirt.

Only then did the thing that had once
been his friend begin to stir.

Jonah kneeled in the darkness in a small dry creek bed and trained
the binoculars on the gate.

A pair of trucks had just arrived.
He'd seen them coming from a couple miles away, the sand and dust
blown up by their tires from the road turning the beams of their
headlights into ghostly shapes.

Above him, storm clouds raced across
the moon, masking it more often than not. He hoped for rain. He
wouldn't make it another day without water.

The trucks were inspected by several
armed guards and sniffed by dogs before being allowed to enter the
compound, where they stopped and disgorged about a dozen people.
Most of these appeared bewildered, stepping out and turning in
circles to inspect their surroundings, as if it was all new to
them. Some appeared frightened.

One couple, a man and woman with a
girl huddled tight against their legs, were talking with a pair of
heavily-armed men. Jonah couldn't be exactly sure if they were
arguing, as he couldn't hear them over the rumbling of the trucks'
engines.

The door to the administrative
building opened and a figure hurried out and down the steps. He
shouted something, and the trucks shut off.

"Everyone, may I please have your
attention?" His voice boomed over the desert sands, clipped and
full of assurance. "Thank you. My name is Captain Cheever. On
behalf of Colonel Wainwright, please allow me to formally welcome
you to Westerton Army Base. I'm sure you're all exhausted after
your long journey, so I'll keep this brief.

"My people will shortly escort you to
your temporary quarters. For your safety and for the safety of the
residents of this community, you will be quarantined in separate
barracks until you can be examined by our medic tomorrow. I
appreciate your understanding in this regard. We'll have you all
back with your families and friends soon enough. There will be a
briefing first thing in the morning. Good night."

Jonah didn't recognize any of the new
people. He had hoped to see Bren, but she wasn't among them.
Wherever she'd gone the night before, he hadn't seen her return,
though he knew it was possible she'd come in while he had been
scouting the perimeter for a way inside or else napping in the
shade.

He'd determined that the compound
covered just over a hundred acres of the desert's ancient seabed,
stretching roughly a half mile by a third. Save for a few scrubby
bushes and rocks, the installation was surrounded on three sides by
flat, barren ground scored by a warren of dry cuts.

The fourth side was bounded by a
narrow arête of exposed rock, the tail end of the mountains rising
fifty miles in the distance, and it was in this maze of
outcroppings and fissures that he had spent the bulk of the day,
mainly searching for pools of water and staying out of the blazing
sun.

He had also concluded that the
perimeter could not be easily breached. The outer fence rose at
least twelve feet high and was topped with razor wire. It had been
buttressed along its length with wooden boards propped up against
it. A set of black cables connected it to a large shed from which
the constant hum of a generator could be heard.