It was also full of sand.
"It's crazy," Finn whispered from the bottom bunk. "I mean, how easy would it be to become infected? All it takes is the slightest—"
"Touch. I know," Bix said, yawning loudly.
"Seems to me like an unnecessary risk. These people don't know what they're dealing with. They have no idea what they're doing."
"How else are they going to figure out how to cure the Flense?" Bix countered. "I mean, think about how helpless we were inside the bunker. After three years, we knew absolutely nothing about it. Isolation doesn't work, maybe this will."
Helpless, maybe, Finn thought, but also safe.
The scene in the barn had deeply troubled him, and once more he sensed his adolescent anxieties returning.
He wanted to find someplace isolated and away from people, someplace he could go and just shut down. The need was so strong that he began to resent the horrific circumstances that had forced him to make the decisions he had over the past few days.
He shoved the feelings angrily away. Hiding wasn't the solution. He couldn't just crawl into a hole anymore and hope tomorrow would magically fix everything. The world had changed. And he had to accept that so had he.
"I'm just—" he started to say, but stopped, unsure what he was trying to convey. "It's just that I—"
"It's okay, bro."
"No, it's not." He sighed. "I just wish I were more like Harper."
"I doubt he would've done much better."
"Don't say that!"
"Finn, can we talk about this in the morning? It's time for sleeping now."
Finn frowned up at the sagging mattress above him. Bix had called dibs on the top bunk the instant Adrian showed them the guest room, like they were at summer camp or something. Finn was just as happy with the bottom one, but for some reason it still irritated him.
You're just jealous that everything seems to roll off of him so easily.
He lay in the darkness for a long time listening to his friend's breathing slow down, and he wished that he could just turn it off as easily as Bix seemed able to do.
But he couldn't. The sight of the Wraiths chained inside that cage in the barn had shocked him to the core, and that shock had remained with him all through dinner. Lying there, he now regretted not having pushed the couple harder for answers while he had the chance.
He had wanted to, but after the humbling grace Adrian had delivered before the meal, he felt it would be incredibly rude, especially when the reverend asked the Lord for forgiveness of their trespasses, including the boys', and begged for His mercy on those who needed salvation.
Even when the topic inevitably gravitated to what they had seen in the barn, Finn couldn't bring himself to be critical. As Jennifer tried to explain, chaining the Wraiths up was actually more humanitarian than letting them run around in the wild, killing and infecting.
"They don't last long out there," she said. "It's because of their violent and delicate nature. They just don't last very long."
Of course, this didn't seem consistent with Finn's understanding of the creatures. But then again, he'd spent the last three years isolated from the real world. He had no relevant experience with Wraiths other than the few minutes they'd spent trying to get away from them back at the dam.
"But I don't understand," Bix had asked between bites. "You said you wanted to rid the world of the Flense. Why keep them? Why not just kill them on sight?"
"They are the Lord's creatures," Father Adrian said. "They may have been taken by the devil's germ, but that don't mean they cain't be saved. It is our job to exorcise them of their disease."
"Just seems like an awful risk," Finn commented. He was terribly uncomfortable with those things so close, even with the safeguards in place, the alarms and mines and sensors and such. What if the industrial scale diesel-burning generators failed?
"The Lord challenges us," Adrian said. "The path to righteousness must be filled with the cleansing fire of hardship. How else can our souls be purified?"
Jennifer nodded. "We try, but we can't eliminate all risk, of course. We do take precautions, especially when it comes to direct physical contact."
"How?"
"Well, first of all, we make sure we're properly covered."
"The gloves," Bix said. "Bandanas."
She nodded. "We also discovered that there are ways to control them using a special electronic device. It sorta works like the stun gun, except it don't knock them out like one. Instead, it makes them more like they're sleepwalking."
This had raised Finn's curiosity, and he had wanted to know more about the nature of the device, but by then it was getting late, and the adults insisted on continuing the discussion in the morning.
"Y'all are dead on yer feet," Adrian said. "And if'n we kept y'all up much longer, yer chins'll leave permanent indents in yer chests."
Bix yawned, and that triggered a wave of yawns from the rest of them, even Finn.
After four days of walking, of constant vigilance and lack of a regular diet, with his stomach full for the first time in as long as he could remember and the road dirt washed off and replaced with soft, clean, fresh clothes, all he wanted to do was sleep.
Except, now he was wide awake. Or, he thought he was.
Before he knew it, it was morning, sunlight was streaming in through the windows, and the delicious smell of bacon filled the house.
* * *
"Now, I know y'all are still tryin to process what you seen last night," Father Bowman told them at breakfast the next morning. "I can see it in yer eyes. It kept y'all up into the wee hours."
"Not me," Bix said, mumbling past a mouthful of pancakes and maple syrup. "I slept like a baby."
"Babies wake up a lot," Finn pointed out. "You snored like an old man."
"Did I keep you up?"
"Actually, no. I slept pretty good, too. I guess I was more tired than I realized."
"From all that runnin," Billy joked. He elbowed Luke and snorted. The two men had already finished their breakfast when Finn and Bix walked in. It did not, however, stop them from stealing the bacon off the boys' plates as soon as Jennifer put it there.
Finn frowned at the two men and wondered if they suffered from some kind of developmental deficiency. They both acted like twelve-year-olds at times.
Jennifer scraped the last of the hash browns onto Bix's plate and told the troublemakers to get on out of the kitchen. "Finish up your chores. We'll meet you at the new barn later and get those walls in place."
"I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea of bringing Wraiths here inside your compound," Finn said. "Why would you take such a risk?"
"Our duty," Adrian told them, leaning in. "The Lord has called us to be soldiers in His army to fight this evil scourge."
"Fight it by inviting the enemy inside?"
"They ain't the enemy, Finn. They're just human, like y'all and me. For too long, the devil was allowed to sow his germ in the world. This is a time of judgment. To prove our worthiness, we must cleanse ourselves of it. All of us."
"Judgment?" Bix asked. "Are you talking, like, the Rapture? Or extinction?"
Finn shifted uncomfortably. It all sounded like a bunch of religious mysticism to him.
"Both," Jennifer answered. "Or neither. Maybe this plague is biblical, or maybe it's manmade. I don't know. All I know is that it nearly destroyed mankind. Most were infected; many were killed. Precious few are left behind to rebuild. But to do so, we have to figure out what caused the Flense— to stop it, to cure those infected, and to rebuild."
"Just as Noah did," Father Adrian said.
"Seems to me that didn't turn out as planned."
"The Lord's will is not for man to understand, Finn."
Jennifer set her plate and a steaming cup of coffee down and sat between the boys. "I think that's enough of this for now, Adrian."
He shrugged.
But Bix wasn't finished. He wanted to know more about the world right after
the Flense. He wanted to know how they'd survived. "You said most people were infected. How did you escape?"
"A fair amount of luck," Jennifer said.
Something dark clouded Adrian's face for a moment. He looked over at Jennifer and took her hand and held it. "The faithful see luck as providence. The good Lord guides us."
"I worked in a pharmacy at Walmart," she said. "It was late one night, and Father Adrian was in for his yearly flu shot when the police ran in and told the managers to lock the doors. There were shootins in the parkin lot. The store went straight into lockdown. We waited for hours. By then, we could see how bad it was through the storefront windows. It just kept getting worse and worse."
Adrian nodded.
"We survived for nearly a year inside that buildin, always holdin out hope that someone would come and tell us it was safe. But that never happened."
"A year in a Walmart?" Bix exclaimed. "How many of you were there?"
"Thirty or so to start, but we lost nearly half in the first few days. When people—" Father Adrian choked up. "When people lose their faith, they stop thinkin clearly. Some drunk themselves into comas on the free liquor. Many others tried to leave when it was clearly not prudent."
"They just wanted to get back to their families," Jennifer quietly countered.
"I don't blame them for that."
"After about six months, we were down to a half dozen, includin Billy and Luke."
"God's children," Adrian said. "They're a bit slow upstairs, in case you ain't noticed. But they's good boys, sometimes a little childish, but harmless nonetheless."
Jennifer gave them both a wide grin. "Which is why it's so refreshin to find a coupla smart young lads such as yourselves."
Bix coughed uncomfortably. His face turned bright red.
"Anyway, we ran outta food and water and had to move on," she continued. "After a year, the world had become unrecognizable. No power, no government. And no longer so full of ferals runnin around wanting to eat everyone."
"What happened to them all?"
"Died, I suppose. Humans are fragile creatures to begin with," Jennifer said. "Poorly adapted to survivin out in the elements. Same with the ferals. I guess most of them died of exposure or starvation."
Finn frowned. Once again, her claims didn't mesh well with his own observations. The creatures were a lot tougher than she gave them credit.
"Or ate each other," Bix said.
"We packed up a coupla cars and drove straight north until we found this place."
"Not straight," Adrian corrected. "Cars kept breakin down. Took us weeks to get here."
"That's why he doesn't like cars. He doesn't trust them."
Finn wanted to ask them where they'd found the land mines, but decided it wasn't that important.
"We resolved then to dedicate our lives to fixin what had been broken. We caught our first feral about a year ago, thinkin we could cure it. Each time, we get just a little bit closer."
Both boys' stomachs were full by then and they were growing drowsy. The conversation strayed to the subject of family. Finn was surprised when Bix opened up about his mother leaving shortly before the Flense.
"I know she's . . . dead, but sometimes I imagine her out there somewhere."
The couple seemed very sympathetic, which only encouraged him to talk about his father's freewheeling lifestyle before the Flense. Finn's thoughts drifted away, but when he heard Bix mention looking for the mine up north he snapped back.
"We're going to look for Harper there, right Finn? Family's important."
Finn wanted to choke him. After reminding him this morning not to divulge any details about where they'd been or where they were going, Bix was spilling everything.
"I think know which mine yer talkin about," Father Bowman said. "There was an old molybdenum operation years ago up along the river."
"You know where it is?" Finn asked, hopeful despite his anger.
"Sure do, son. It's a good ten-day walk from here by foot, three or four on horseback."
Finn was crushed. He hadn't realized it would take so long.
"Listen," Adrian said, patting Finn's arm, "I know y'all are eager to find yer family, but there's a lot of ground between here and there and too many chances for somethin to go wrong. But properly outfitted, y'all stand a much better chance of succeedin. Give us a coupla days to get y'all ready. In the mean time, help us erect the new church. When it's finished, we'll put y'all on a coupla horses. It'll sure beat walking. Y'all will still git there ahead a schedule."
Finn was torn. He hated to wait, especially now that Adrian knew exactly where this mine was located. Plus, he worried about inertia setting in, which would make it harder for them to get moving again after a few days of being pampered. He exchanged glances with Bix.
"It's your choice, bro," Bix said.
After a moment, Finn nodded.
"Yahoo!" Bix shouted. He broke out into a huge grin and asked if there were anymore pancakes.
"As much as you want," Jennifer replied, beaming.
Eddie was awake before dawn. He slipped out of his military style bunk bed as quietly as he could, hoping the creaking metal frame wouldn't wake his bunkmate.
He padded over toward the bathroom in his bare feet, frowning as he passed the word LATRINE stenciled into the painted cinderblock beside the door, and relieved himself into one of the sparkling urinals.
"You really are one ugly sonofabitch," he told his reflection in the mirror over the sink. It's what he had told himself every day since Doc Cavanaugh's death. "That's a face only a mother could love."
Or a daughter.
He thanked his lucky stars for Hannah. Without her, he might not have had the will to carry on.
In truth, his appearance wasn't as grisly as it had been just after the accident, when he had begun to heal. It had terrified Hannah at first, but she quickly overcame her fright and accepted that it was what her father had become.
Just in the few days since leaving the bunker, the horrific visage he had once presented was mostly gone, faded away like the ink on an old newspaper left out in the sun. He still had no hair, and his skin was an odd shade of pink with a grayish sheen. His eyes were darker than they had been before. He was still a bit startling to look upon, but no one would mistake him for a freak anymore. Not automatically.
He welcomed the return to normality, but with it came a new fear, a sense of becoming somehow . . . less.
The gruesome superficial changes he had suffered had been accompanied by a startling change in his physical abilities: a heightening of his senses — everything from improved sight and hearing, to touch and taste and smell — and the development of incredible speed and strength. If his appearance was returning to normal, would his abilities do so as well?
Last night after arriving at the base, Captain Cheever had insisted on separating the group by gender and age into quarantine barracks. He claimed that it was only temporary and for their own protection, as well as for the protection of the other residents. The segregation would only be enforced until they could all be thoroughly examined by the base medic, after which they would be assigned regular quarters.
Of course, they'd all protested the arrangement— not only the separation, but the more permanent assignments. They made it explicitly clear that they didn't plan on staying.
However, Cheever would not be budged. It was standard procedure, he explained, the directive coming down from the man in charge himself, Colonel Lyle Wainwright. Civilians and soldiers alike were expected to abide by the same set of rules, and no exceptions would be made, no break from protocol tolerated.
"It's best to just comply until you're ready to leave," he told them.
In his frustration, Eddie had nearly torn out the railing to the men's barracks from its concrete base. The metal made a squealing sound, drawing Cheever's attention. Eddie feigned surprise and gave the railing an experimental shake while mumbling something about the cement failing. The captain grunted a
nd continued on without further comment.
The others in their group knew about Eddie's abilities, though he'd conscientiously tried not to flaunt them. Nevertheless, he didn't want the strangers to know about them. It was partially because he didn't want them to fear him, but also because he knew it gave them an advantage against strangers, one he didn't want to lose.
Mostly, however, he kept his abnormal strengths secret because he lived in constant fear that he would wake up one morning and find that they had forsaken him, and that he had returned to being just as ordinary as everyone else.
From where he stood inside the bathroom, he could still hear the snores of the other three men in their beds down the hall— Harry Rollins, Harrison Blakeley, and Danny Delacroix. He sniffed the air and was relieved to find that he could detect each of their individual scents; only Jonah's was missing.
You also smell hot vegetable oil coming from the cafeteria. Big deal.
He knew that none of this proved he'd retained his full abilities. Those were strong scents. And they said nothing about his other powers.
Above his head, pipes and electrical conduits crisscrossed the open ceiling. He reached up with one hand, hopped slightly, and grabbed onto one. Then, with his free hand tucked against his stomach and very little effort, he pulled himself up until his chin met the bar. It creaked from the weight of his body.
He held the position for a count of a hundred before finally letting go with a satisfied grunt and dropping silently to the floor.
For now, at least, everything seemed to be working just fine.
* * *
The question on everyone's mind when they gathered to meet with Cheever a few hours after breakfast was whether Jonah had been found. Most vocal among them was Danny.
"A couple of hours ago, at daybreak this morning," Cheever reported to them, "I sent out a couple bikes to search the road between here and the refuelling truck. Private Ramsay went along with them. As you know, Private Vinay Singh is also missing. They plan to return to the point where they became separated if necessary. I expect them back at any moment."
Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) Page 9