Once more, Bix charged at the man. Once more, Luke kicked him in the back.
"Enough!" Adrian screamed, and grabbed Bix by the hair. "Y'all just took yer friend's place."
"No! Leave him alone!" Finn shouted. He fell again when the world tilted beneath his feet.
Luke laughed. "You cain't even stand, neither."
"Y'all heard the man. Get up," Billy ordered Bix. "Yer gone be tonight's spotlight attraction."
"No, please!" Finn said. "Take me instead."
"Oh, we will," Adrian replied, dusting himself off. "Don't y'all worry 'bout that. Yer time'll come soon enough."
He stomped up the steps, followed by Bix at the end of Luke's rifle. A moment later, the door slammed shut.
* * *
An hour passed. Maybe two. Or maybe it was only ten minutes. Finn couldn't tell. Nobody came for him.
He redoubled his efforts on the door, but it all seemed for naught. He'd managed to get the top hinge pin to move about a quarter inch, but no more. He screamed out in frustration, then silenced himself worrying he was frightening the children even more than they already were. He couldn't stand not knowing what was happening to his friend.
You know what's happening to him. He's going to die.
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 ha
dn'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.
The inner fence was only slightly shorter. It too was similarly topped, though it wasn't electrified.
Between the two fences ran several dozen very hungry-looking German shepherd guard dogs. There were only two places where the animals didn't have access. One was the main gate; the other was an unused gate in back, which did not appear to be guarded. Instead, barriers had been erected around it on the inside, and signs were posted warning people to stay clear, suggesting the presence of booby traps.
He had slept little, napping whenever he could, waking when he heard the sound of vehicles. But though he hadn't seen Bren, he had caught sight of a few of the others from Bunker Eight. In particular, he'd spotted Hannah and the two Rollins boys and their mother entering what appeared to be a series of greenhouses along the southern fence. And he thought he'd seen Eddie slinking around near the back gate, though by the time he managed to untangle the binoculars and raise them to his eyes, the figure was gone from view.
There appeared to be only one option for him to gain access to the base, and it wasn't one he favored. He would have to walk up to the front gate and ask to speak with this Captain Cheever or Colonel Wainwright. Based on what he'd heard Ramsay say back in the town, he wasn't sure either of them could be trusted.
He gathered his pack and tossed it onto the raised ground before him in preparation for climbing out of his hiding spot. From somewhere to his right, there came a small clatter of stones tumbling to the floor of the arroyo. He froze and stared into the night. Nothing moved.
Vinnie's pistol pressed against his spine inside the waist of his pants. He thought about retrieving it.
A hundred yards away, the new arrivals were being led toward a pair of one-story buildings. Their shadows, fanned by the flood lamps topping the fence posts, danced over the desert sands.
But Jonah didn't see any of this. His eyes remained glued to a spot of darkness some twenty feet away, where another patch of sand and gravel suddenly collapsed down the embankment.
Then came another, a few feet closer.
Something was making its way toward him.
Jonah planted his hands on the sand and kicked a toe into the side for a foothold. He could feel the earth crumbling beneath him, threatening to spill him back into the dry bed. With a grunt, he jumped, landing flat onto the desert floor, and rolled.
But something grabbed his leg. He kicked out, felt his heel connect. The ground collapsed beneath him, pulling him down. He slid into the arroyo and was immediately smothered beneath an avalanche of sand. Darkness in the shape of a human swept over him.
Jonah struggled to reach for the gun, but a hand with the strength of steel clamped over it. Another grabbed his face, choking him.
"Dammit, Jonah! Keep quiet."
The hand slowly peeled away from his mouth.
"Eddie?"
Jonah tried to wipe the sand away, but it clung to his sweaty skin, got in his eyes and blinded him.
"Let me help," Eddie told him. "I've got some water." He formed Jonah's hands into a cup and poured a little in.
"You scared the crap out of me," Jonah sputtered. "I thought you were a Wraith."
"Ther
e aren't any around."
"How do you know?"
"Trust me."
"You could have let me know it was you before grabbing me."
"How? I couldn't very well yell now, could I? Not without them shooting at us. Sound carries out here."
Jonah snatched the bottle from Eddie's hand and put it to his lips. "God, that tastes good," he said after swallowing several mouthfuls of the liquid. "What are you doing out here anyway? And how'd you know it was me?"
"I saw you up in the rocks on the east side of the base this afternoon. Been watching you ever since."
"You saw me?"
"Well, smelled you first, actually."
Jonah sniffed his arm pit, then wrinkled his nose. "Is it that bad?"
"To me, yes." He took the bottle back and shook it. There was only another mouthful left. "We thought you were dead."
"Alive and kicking, although they did try."
"That's what I figured. The search team that went out looking for you reported that you'd been attacked and killed. You and the other biker scout. I had my doubts."
"They found him?"
"Nothing but the bike and a bloody mess. The team claimed it was Wraiths."
Jonah shook his head. "I didn't want to leave him, but I had no choice. I couldn't trust him. He was alive when I took off."
Eddie's eyes glistened in the darkness, reflecting the stray light from the base. He seemed to be searching for something in Jonah's face. "Why'd you come here?"
"What other choice did I have? It's not like I could go back. Where else could I go?"
"It's just that . . . ."
"That nobody here likes me? Hate to break it to you, but they can't stand me back at the bunker."
"You know that's not strictly true. Hannah has always had a soft spot in her heart for you."
"But not you."
"You haven't always made it easy for people to like you."
Jonah looked away. "Can we talk about this later?" He stood up and turned toward the army base. The streaks on his face made it look like he'd been crying.
"If you're thinking about going in there," Eddie said, "that's not a good idea."
Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) Page 17