Survival of The Fittest | Book 3 | Final Ride

by Fawkes, K. M.

  He gave me one long, considering look. And then he started talking. Just liked I’d thought he might.

  Just like I’d hoped he would.

  Chapter 7

  By the time we got to the sleeping quarters, my head was actually spinning with all the information Zach was feeding me. And I was used to information overload. I was used to taking in more facts than any human brain should be able to take in, and doing it quickly.

  The problem was, I was used to taking in information that I’d been at least kind of expecting. I usually had a pretty good idea of what I’d hear—or read—before I got to it. And that made it easier to retain it and then unpack it quickly, so to speak.

  But this story Zach had been telling us? Yeah, I hadn’t been expecting any of that. And that made it a whole lot harder to process in a hurry. God, it made it a whole lot harder to even believe any of it.

  Evidently, the amusement park had once belonged to Adam’s dad—who was also, it turned out, not only filthy stinking rich but also a doomsday prepper, the likes of which my uncle could only dream of matching. They sounded like they would have gotten along fabulously—if they could get around the fact that they were both completely loony. The man had not only had millions of dollars at his disposal but also a dream of being able to move completely underground if the situation called for it.

  Like I said. Doing what my uncle did… only a whole lot bigger.

  “He’d been working on this place for years, and Adam knew about it,” Zach had whispered as we’d walked quickly through the halls of the place, the three of us crunched together like real live conspirators.

  Which, I’d guessed at the time, we sort of were. I mean, Zach had been telling us stuff that he probably—definitely—wasn’t supposed to be telling us. Stuff that would have almost inevitably gotten him into trouble if anyone found out about it.

  I had glanced involuntarily up at the tops of the walls, looking for cameras—only to remember that there weren’t even any ceilings here. At that, my eyes had flown to where I knew the platform to be. What if Adam was up there watching us right now? What if he had a camera up there with its lens aimed at any movement in the place? What if the top of the bunker was covered with them?

  Impossible, the voice in my head had quickly told me. There’s too much movement in the bunker. Any movement-activated tech would short circuit just trying to keep up with everything going on. He would have to have cameras on every room with motion-sensor tech to keep that from happening. Which would mean that if you moved from one room to another, he would—theoretically—lose you.

  Thank you, actually functioning intelligence, I’d thought, turning my eyes back to the walkway in front of me.

  Still, I’d put the information away for later. Because that kind of thing could always come in handy.

  “Wait a minute, if Adam knew about the whole thing, was he in on it from the start?”

  “Negative. The dad didn’t like Adam. Thought he was certifiably insane. He didn’t want him anywhere near the park. Wasn’t allowed here.”

  Ah. Things were, then, starting to come together. “And I bet Adam didn’t like that much.”

  Zach had snorted. “He didn’t like that at all. He was constantly bitching about it. Constantly wanting a piece of the pie over here, and his dad was constantly turning him away.”

  Right, so scorned son syndrome. Got it.

  “Hold the phone, how do you know so much about it?” Will had suddenly asked from Zach’s other side.

  Zach had slid him a sly look. “I used to be his best friend.”

  And in that single line, I'd heard everything I thought I might need to make Zach an actual ally. Because he had been Adam’s best friend—but he didn’t sound like he still was. And I didn’t think it would be a big jump to guess at what had happened. The attack, first of all, and then Adam managing to somehow get a hold of this place—plus, I would assume, Adam suddenly donning the mantle of ‘dear leader’ and thinking he was in charge of everything.

  At the expense of his friendship with Zach, who became just another underling. And that part seemed pretty straightforward, honestly, given what I’d seen in the truck. You didn’t just out of nowhere punch your friends. Not if you wanted them to stay your friends.

  “So, what’s with all the military gear?” I'd asked. “Where did you get all this stuff?”

  And that was where it got really interesting. They didn’t know where it had come from. They’d arrived at the bunker, gotten into it, and started exploring. And during that particular exploration, they’d found an entire room full of abandoned military equipment. The trucks. The guns. The body armor.

  Everything they needed to pose as military members. Without any of the training. Without any of the experience.

  “And from there,” Zach had explained, “we started collecting people. Setting up roadblocks and bringing the people back. Putting them to work. Getting the bunker into shape. We knew there’d been an attack and that there might be another, and we knew we couldn’t be above ground for any length of time. So, we started living down here as much as we could.”

  I'd actually stopped in surprise at that one. “You got all these people from roadblocks? How did they all survive?”

  The two men had kept walking, and I'd reminded myself that I didn’t have time to stand still. Not when I was finally hearing the story of how they got there.

  I'd darted forward to join them just in time to see Zach shaking his head. “They were already here. They were the people in the amusement park when the attack happened. Adam’s uncle got them all down into the bunker to save them. They were the start of our compound.”

  Well, that was weird—though it did make me like Adam’s dad a little bit more, because it sounded like he’d actually used this place to save people, which was pretty generous of him. Amazing that he’d been able to get everyone down here before it all went right to hell, but I figured there had probably been other entrances to the bunker spread throughout the park, and maybe he’d had a bunch of employees who had known about it and started shuffling people into those entrances almost immediately.

  That did, though, leave one big question unanswered.

  “Where the hell is the dad, now?” Will had asked, getting to it before I could.

  And at that, Zach had finally stopped and looked from Will to me, his face serious.

  “Dead,” he'd said succinctly. “A bomb full of that stuff went off right above the park and killed him. He’d already given orders to get people into the bunker in case of any emergency, though, so the park workers had gone through with that. He just didn’t make it. We got here and found his body before we got into the bunker.”

  And then Zach had dropped the final bomb. So to speak. I asked why, exactly, Adam hadn’t been here himself, and Zach had given a sort of snort/laugh thing, then said that it had to do with who Adam had been before.

  He’d been a marine, but had been dishonorably discharged due to a few incidents to do with his delusions of grandeur, Zach had said—and had thought ever since that there was someone after him. Something that his dad had taken serious issue with, being a generally more rational person.

  “Adam’s convinced that the bomb was meant for him, and that he was lucky he wasn’t here at the time,” Zach had finished, his voice hollow and resigned. “He thinks it serves his dad right, that he got killed. He thinks that whoever sent the bombs was after him, and that they’re still after him. That’s why we’re bringing people here. He’s not actually saving them. He’s building an army.”

  I'd opened my mouth to reply to that, but found that I actually didn’t have the voice to do it. Because there were a lot of things I might have been expecting—a lot of things I would have accepted, even—but building an army? A psycho who thought someone was after him and had actually sent the chemical weapon that had, for all I knew, killed most of the world’s population, just to get rid of him, some no-name guy who had been kicked out of the military for
bad behavior and wasn’t even allowed to help with his father’s amusement park?

  And on top of that, a guy whose dad had been so freaking rich that he’d been able to build an entire bunker right underneath that amusement park, and equip it with not only everything he needed (presumably) to support an unknown number of people for an unknown amount of time, but also a bunch of military equipment, just in case?

  Wait.

  “Was this place ever actually a military base?” I'd asked, remembering not only the equipment but also a question I’d been asking myself earlier about whether there was one around here.

  Zach had shrugged. “No clue. As far as Adam knows, his dad built the whole thing, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it had been here before and been abandoned, and he’d just sort of built the amusement park over it and… claimed it. Not like it really matters, is it? It’s Adam’s now, and he’s going to do whatever he wants with it.”

  He glanced up, looked surprised, and then gestured in the direction we’d been walking.

  “Well, we’re here. This is the living area of the bunker. You’ll find rooms all down this hall, and in the halls both to the right and the left. You guys are sharing a room, I guess, so you won’t be lonely. This here will be your bunk.”

  He took out a key ring that might not have been the one I saw Adam handling earlier but was just as impressive, unlocked the door we’d suddenly arrived at, and threw it open. Inside, I could see that it was a bare-bones version of a room, with hardly any furniture at all.

  And, of course, no ceiling.

  Zach ushered us through the door without saying anything else to us, told us that we’d be summoned for dinner at around six, and then turned and left.

  I heard the sound of the key turning in the door, and then I heard his footsteps walking down the hall again. Will and I were finally alone.

  Chapter 8

  I immediately turned to Will, and found his eyes just as big as mine, his mouth hanging open just as widely.

  “Well that was interesting,” he said quietly. “A nutcase who thinks he’s the messiah and is being hunted by people who happen to have biochemical weapons sitting around? Seriously?”

  “And a guy whose dad just so happens to have a bunker full of military equipment,” I added. “That seems awfully…”

  “Coincidental?”

  “Or just plain old bad luck,” I said with a wry smile. “I mean, nutcases are bad enough on their own. Give them guns and an international disaster that kills most of the population and you’ve got real trouble.”

  Will moved to the door and tried the knob—even though I figured he’d heard the lock just as well as I had. When he turned back to me, he was grinning.

  “So, we’re locked in, but I feel like there’s more out there for us to explore.”

  I grinned back, though I didn’t think either of us was putting much humor behind those smiles. My grin felt more like a wolf baring its teeth.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  He turned and considered the doorknob. Then he reached for the pack on his back. Adam and Zach had left us with both of our packs, though they’d searched them for weapons.

  A mistake on their part. Even I knew that when you took someone hostage or prisoner, you shouldn’t leave them with all their stuff. Then again, they weren’t soldiers or cops. They probably had no idea that weapons could look like anything, and didn’t necessarily have to be guns or knives.

  “I’ll need you to cover me,” Will said, rolling his eyes up to indicate the general lack of ceiling. “I don’t know if they have cameras up there or—”

  “I didn’t see any,” I told him. “But that doesn’t mean anything. What do you need me to do?”

  He thought for a moment, but then shook his head. “It’s going to be just as suspicious for you to stand right over me while I happen to be kneeling in front of the door. Anyone watching will know immediately what’s going on. Just keep your eyes on the sky. See if you can find anything that looks like a camera. And watch that platform.”

  I whirled around, located the platform, and glued my eyes to it. No one up there, though, and a moment later I was scanning the ceiling of the room, trying to figure out whether there were cameras up there or not. I didn’t see anything, and honestly it didn’t really make sense for Adam’s dad—whoever he’d been—to put cameras in. I mean, based on what I knew, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would have wanted to spy on whoever was in his compound.

  Then again, he had built an entire maze of rooms without any ceilings. It seemed pretty pointless to do that unless you wanted to be able to see what everyone was doing at any given time.

  Maybe there was another reason for it though, I thought reasonably. Maybe it was for better airflow or something structural. I had no idea how the place had been built or whether there were architectural difficulties with dividing it all into separate rooms. I was no structural engineer.

  And I didn’t see any telltale red lights on the ceiling that would have indicated cameras up there. No, I wouldn’t know for sure unless I could get into whatever network they had going in this place.

  But that brought me to an entirely different thought. Because if there were cameras—or any sort of security, actually—then it meant there was a network. And where there was a network…

  Where there was a network, there were holes. Holes I could take advantage of. There were ways to unlock doors I wasn’t supposed to have access to and maps that would include things like exits. And as soon as I had that thought, I started hoping that there were cameras up there. Or… if not cameras, at least some sort of security system. Because if there was, and I could find the computers that fed it…

  “Done,” Will suddenly said from behind me.

  I turned and looked admiringly at the now-opening door, laughing with pleasure.

  “It sure is handy to have a professional lockpick on my team,” I said, helping him to his feet. “I don’t see any cameras up there, but that doesn’t mean much. They might be too far away for me to see them, or they might just be so well-hidden that I can’t see them from down here. If we’re going to go exploring, we better move quickly. Before anyone gets here to stop us.”

  We both settled our packs on our shoulders, nodded at each other, and darted out of the room.

  “What exactly are we looking for, do you think?” Will whispered as we hustled our way down the hallway.

  I threw a glance over my shoulder, half expecting someone to appear out of the woodwork to stop us, but we seemed to be in the one and only deserted area of the entire bunker. Thank God. Maybe everyone else was out doing chores rather than in the residential wing taking naps or reading books.

  With any luck, that trend would continue and we’d get to do some actual research before we were discovered.

  “Anything that looks useful, I guess,” I replied, hitting the main hall and pausing there. “Which way do we go?”

  Will stopped next to me and looked to the right and the left. Zach had told us that this was the residential wing, with several hallways made up of bedrooms. And I didn’t really care to see any other bedrooms. We needed something a little bit more important than that.

  Will’s hand flew past my face, pointing left. “We came from that direction, and I’m guessing that means that’s where most of the action takes place. The kitchen. The garden—or whatever they want to call it. That’s where most of the people are right now. I say we avoid it.”

  “I second that vote,” I said, looking that way as well. “Also, because something tells me we’re looking for the places where Adam doesn’t want people to be able to go. And I just don’t think he’d put those sorts of places in the most crowded areas.”

  “So, to the right?” Will asked, a smile in his voice.

  I marveled for a moment at how excited he was about all of this—especially with how much his shoulder must still be hurting him—but then I remembered the way he’d bucked Sally’s system and g
otten me out of there, stealing me out of that house from almost right under their noses.

  The guy was an adventurer, I guessed. And I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime when it came to breaking out of a bunker.

  “To the right,” I agreed, flashing him an answering smile.

  We turned in unison and made our way down the hall, doing our best to stick to the walls this time—much good might it do us—and moving as quickly as we could.

  As we went, I kept my eye on the halls around us. The first ten or so doors we passed were closed, and if I was guessing, I’d bet that they were bedrooms just like ours. Very little furniture, absolutely no privacy. I wondered about the people who lived in those rooms. I wondered if they got locked in the way we had—and whether Zach was therefore in charge of putting everyone to bed, and then getting them up again in the morning. What happened if they had to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night?

  Wait, had our room even had a bathroom attached?

  Maybe I should have looked around in the room before we hustled out of there, I thought belatedly.

  Then I realized that it didn’t matter. Our room having a bathroom had absolutely no bearing on what we were doing out here in the hallway.

  God, I really needed some sleep. I was starting to come undone. I’d always prided myself on my ability to stay organized, and instead I was having rambling conversations with myself in my head.

  It was a good thing no one else was in my skull to hear it. They would have immediately lost respect for my ability to stay on task.

  “We’re looking for anything that looks like it might be an exit,” I hissed back over my shoulder. “I’ve been trapped in a bunker with a crazy guy before. I don’t want to go through that experience again. And knowing where the exits are seems like it’s a good first step toward actually getting out.”

  “Got it,” Will answered, his voice low. “Anything else, captain?”