Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) (9 page)

His knee hyper-extended, twisted the
wrong way. One of his hands slipped out of Susan's grip, and he
began to slide over the side.

"I'm sorry," Susan said. She shook her
head. "I can't hold you."

"Noooo!"

With a roar of defiance, Eddie leaped
over the huddled children and landed hard on the roof beside Susan.
He grabbed Nami's flailing hand and pulled. Susan fell back,
letting go to catch herself from tumbling over the other side of
the bus.

Eddie lifted Nami by the arm, drawing
the two Wraiths up with him, and lashed out at them with his foot.
One fell immediately, slamming into the dirt. The second emitted a
vicious growl and lunged at him.

Nami's body twisted as he tried to
avoid being touched. He screamed in pain and grabbed at his
dislocated shoulder.

The Wraith let go and scrambled onto
the slick surface of the bus. A half second later, it regained its
feet and charged. Eddie let Nami fall from his grip. The man
crumpled to the roof, writhing in agony. Susan screamed in terror.
The creature was too fast.

But Eddie was even faster. He stepped
aside at the last possible moment, just as the Wraith leapt. The
snarling creature flew past him, its arms and legs a blur, and
disappeared over the other side.

"We are not losing anyone!" Eddie
shouted.

"They've stopped," Kari said. "They're
leaving!"

Eddie turned to look. The Wraiths had
indeed retreated.

"What are they doing?"

Six were all that remained. They
seemed to have given up. But then they regrouped.

"They're heading to the
front!"

The survivors knew that they couldn't
defend against a concentrated attack, not when those things could
sustain a seemingly endless assault. Even with Eddie's help, the
risk of being touched was too great.

"We're not going to last like this,"
said Harrison, moving around to help.

"What are you doing? Get back there!"
Eddie shouted at him.

"But you won't be able to—"

"Guys!" Kari yelled, and pointed up
the road. Something new was coming through the scrub, traveling
fast enough to kick up dust.

"Oh no."

The Wraiths, as if sensing the
survivors' desperation, attacked with renewed vigor. They poured
onto the hood of the bus, growling and hissing as they
came.

"Get Nami back!" Eddie cried, and
pulled Susan out of the way so he could take up a position along
the front. He kicked the first Wraith away, snapping its neck and
sending it flying to the dirt. It did not get back up.

The next one ducked beneath his foot,
as if expecting the kick. It grabbed Eddie's plant foot and leaned
forward to bite him. A shot rang out and its head disappeared in a
cloud of red spray. The hand let go; the body slid onto the
hood.

"My last bullet!"

The next two came together, one on
either side of the bus, followed by the last two straight up the
middle.

"I can't hold them off!"

"I'm out of ammo!"

Eddie kicked at one, missed, tried
again. The other was up, preparing to leap.

A shot rang out, and the thing
collapsed and tumbled off.

"Where the hell—"

With another blast, the first one
arched its back. It, too, fell dead to the ground.

Motorcycles roared toward the bus,
circling them. Men in dusty gray and brown garb quickly dismounted
and dispatched the last two Wraiths. Several other men formed a
quick perimeter. They occupied themselves for several minutes
securing the area. The survivors could only watch in numb
relief.

A thick-necked man with graying scruff
on his cheeks stepped to the front. "I'm coming up!" he shouted. He
stepped easily from the bus's bumper to the hood, and from there to
the windshield. He reached up with a gloved hand, waiting for a
lift. Eddie gave it to him.

"Grantham Cheever," he said, by way of
introduction. He held a pistol in his free hand and quickly scanned
the rest of the group. "Anyone touched?"

Eddie turned. "Nami?"

The former guard was moaning in pain.
His leg was still bent the wrong way at the knee, and his arm
dangled uselessly beside him. Susan stood helplessly nearby. She
looked like she wanted to help, but she didn't want to touch
him.

Cheever aimed the pistol for his
head.

"No!" Hannah cried. She jumped up and
onto Nami before anyone could move.

"Hannah!" Eddie yelled.

"Don't shoot him! Daddy, he's not
infected!"

"I'm not . . . .
Please," Nami panted. "It didn't touch skin.
But . . . my shoulder . . . knee." He
cried out. "Oh, god! I think they're broken."

"Dislocated," Cheever stated. He
turned back to Eddie and something like revulsion flashed across
his chiseled face. Or maybe just wariness.

Eddie's visage was still a bit of a
shock, even though his skin had returned to its normal hue in the
three days since they'd escaped the bunker. The veins on his face,
neck, and arms, however, pulsed like dark, wriggling worms. And his
muscles bulged and rippled like a snake's.

Or perhaps it was the complete absence
of hair that startled the stranger.

"Anyone checked on Jonathan?" Eddie
asked, disregarding the man's stare. "Is he . . .
infected?"

No one replied.

Another motorcycle rider pulled up to
the bus. He switched off his bike and dismounted. "All clear,
Captain! Ramsey and Bolton found another straggler in the bushes.
Took it out. Nothing else nearby."

Captain Cheever nodded. "Keep watch.
Private Singh, report!"

Another man stepped out of the bus. He
spun around as soon as his feet hit the dirt. "All clear inside,
sir. "He shielded his hand from the morning sun. "But you'll want
to see this."

"What is it, Private
Singh?"

The man pointed toward the back of the
vehicle. "I think we got ourselves a ghost."

"Come on, you can do it. We're more than halfway there."

"All right, Colonel Sanders," Finn
growled.

He slid a foot ahead and shifted his
center of mass forward to meet it, then brought his back foot up.
His palms were raw from rubbing against the twisted metal and his
fingers were cramped. His hands were nearly black from the dirt
caked between the twined steel threads.

"Stop telling me I can do it. You were
the one who needed convincing to begin with, remember?"

The river rushed along thousands of
feet below them. He knew it wasn't that far — probably no more
than three hundred feet — but it sure felt a lot farther. And
he hadn't expected the wind to be so strong. It hadn't looked windy
at all standing on the rim.

Another gust slammed into them,
knocking him against a cable. His knees threatened to buckle. The
wind whistled angrily through the perforations in the foot-wide
grating beneath their feet. It had seemed amply wide at the
beginning. Now it felt like he was walking a tightrope.

"Colonel Sanders," Bix said, chuckling
humorlessly. "That's a good one. Finger-lickin' good."

"Last time I ever let you talk me into
anything for a piece of fried chicken."

"Not just chicken. Bacon," Bix
muttered to himself as he inched along. "Soft bed. Warm shower.
Fried chicken. And bacon."

Slowly, they made their way across the
gorge. With his concentration stretched to the breaking point, Finn
began to wonder what would happen if a Wraith suddenly appeared
behind them. Would he be able to run?

What if one shows up
ahead? Or on both ends?

He decided not to share these concerns
with Bix. They just needed to get across, and the sooner, the
better.

"This totally sucks," Bix groused as
the bridge shook, canting them a couple inches to one side. It felt
as if the movement displaced them by a dozen feet. "Can I just say
that? Who the hell's idea was it to put a goddamn footbridge over
the goddamn canyon here? I ain't a freaking mountain
goat!"

"Adrenaline junkies."

"Screw them."

Finn wanted to tell Bix to shut up,
but he had to admit that his griping was amusing enough to distract
him from the vertiginous height.

"I feel like a freaking
spider."

"I don't think spiders get elevation
sickness, Bix."

"That's it, Finn. Next time we take
the bus."

"As I recall, I told everyone to stay
on the bus and get to the evac center."

"And let you have all the bacon to
yourself? No way, man."

"Yeah, because you knew we'd
meet—"

Another gust battered them, and they
both kneeled. A shudder passed through the cables, threatening to
flip them off. "I think I just peed," Bix announced. "I don't want
to look down to see."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Finn
replied.

"If you spew, just keep it on the
downwind side."

"That goes for you, too."

Bix started to laugh.

"Glad you find it funny."

"It's not funny. I'm scared
shitless. This is my terrified laugh. Can't you tell? My hilarious
laugh sounds like this:
'Hee hee
hee!'
 "

Finn nudged him in the back. "Just get
going already."

They traveled another thirty feet.
"You don't trust them, do you, Finn?"

Finn didn't answer right away. He
sighed and said, "They seem nice enough.
But . . . . I just don't think it's wise to
tell people where we were and where we're going and why. Right now,
telling people stuff makes us even more vulnerable than we already
are. And, to be honest, I think Jonah was right about there being
other dangers than Wraiths. We just need to be
more . . . circumspect."

"I'm not Jewish."

"Circumspect, not
circumcised."

They inched along a few
more minutes before Bix muttered Jonah's name with a sour note in
his voice. "That guy is truly messed up in the head. His parents
are messed up—
were
messed up. And what the hell was Bren's father talking about
that was Jonah's big secret?"

He edged forward experimentally, and
when the bridge and wind didn't immediately conspire to throw him
over the side, he straightened up again and stepped forward with
growing confidence.

Finn kept quiet. He had an
idea what the secret might be, but he wasn't sure. Some of the
hints the girls had dropped, both before and after their escape
from the bunker, had opened up his mind about the boy.
People aren't always what they appear.
And that seemed to describe Jonah
perfectly.

If his guess was correct, then this
big secret about Jonah proved deeply insightful. It especially
explained a lot about their interactions with each other over the
past few years.

"You know what I think?"

Finn grunted noncommittally. The
bridge was feeling considerably more stable again, now that the
middle was behind them. They moved along at a faster clip, rising
up toward the end. He honestly didn't want to break his focus to
have a discussion about Jonah with Bix.

"I think he might be in love with
Bren, that's what I think. Or maybe even Bren's mom. I don't know,
it's just a feeling I get."

This brought Finn to a stop. He stared
at Bix's back and shook his head. "No, I don't think it's either of
those things."

"Well, that's because you
ain't the master of
loooove
, bro. I have the
sight."

"Speaking of love, how's that flirting
thing going with Jennifer?"

He expected Bix to blow him off, but
he didn't respond. He didn't even seem to be listening anymore. He
was kneeling with his head down and breathing funny, making strange
little noises with his throat.