Contain (23 page)

Bix and I turn as the crowd parts for
her. She'd arrived after us and is now making her way toward the
front. “I've been caring for Eddie Mancuso,” she says, when she
reaches the window. “It was second degree burns.”

“
How bad?”

“
More than ninety percent
of his body. We didn't think he'd make it.”

“
But he did?”

“
Yes.
He's . . . recovering."

“
Ninety percent? Without
advanced medical devices and medicines? And he's completely healed
already?"

Doc Cavanaugh shakes her head. “No,
but he is ambulatory.”

I look around and wonder how many are
surprised to know this, or whether they've suspected. Were they
aware that Doc Cavanaugh and my father were hiding details about
Eddie's progress from them? Did Hannah tell anyone about her father
after yesterday's encounter? About half of the people look
genuinely surprised, the rest confused, including Mister Abramson,
who I'd expected Dad to keep in the loop.

But none is as surprised as Mister
Williams. Despite the direction of his questioning, he looks like
he was expecting a different answer.

Or hoping for one.

“
Would you characterize it
as nothing short of a miracle?”

“
I wouldn't call it a
miracle,” Dad quickly replies.

“
But not natural,
either?”

Dad hesitates, and it's all everyone
else needs to realize that something strange has been happening
here.

Mister Williams backs away from the
glass. “Where is this man?”

People start picking up on his fear.
They start wondering about Eddie, demanding to know what's
happening with him. Jack accuses Dad and the doctor of hiding
information from him, and the charge gets picked up by others in
the crowd. Seth Abramson tries to calm everyone down.

Questions fill the air. “What's
happened to Eddie?” “What's not natural?” “What does this have to
do with Bunker Two? Is it a breach?”

Jonah pushes past me, followed closely
by Stephen Largent and Harry Rollins. Jack Resnick sees them and
starts to work his way around the crowd, away from the keeper
station. He looks like he's joining them.

It takes me a moment to realize where
they're going. I turn to stop them, but I'm too slow. “Doctor
Cavanaugh!” I scream. “Dad!” But she's being slammed by questions.
Someone mentions blood. I can't see my father.

Mister Abramson is in the middle of
the crowd, gesturing madly and pleading with people to be quiet.
When he reaches me, I tell him that some people have gone down to
the med bay, and he takes off after them.

“
We were going to tell
you!” Doctor Cavanaugh insists. “We didn't want to cause a
panic.”

But that's exactly what's
happening.

The stranger is being ignored. I catch
a glimpse of him pounding on the outside door, screaming to be let
out, and I realize he doesn't know the code.

Bix pulls me to the side, away from
the roiling crowd. I can hear him shouting in my ear, feel him
jostling me. I can't tear my eyes away from Mister Williams. Why is
he panicking? What does he know about the things in our blood that
we don't? Why is he suddenly so eager to get away from
us?

Finally, Bix's words pierce my
consciousness. “What the hell is going on with Eddie?” he demands.
“Finn? What are they talking about? What's in Eddie's
blood?”

“
Machines,” I say, but it's
all I manage to get out. Because right then is when the lights go
out, throwing us all into darkness. Only the daylight from the
window on the opposite side of the keeper station filters in,
drawing my eyes once more to the man slamming his shoulder against
the glass.

I step back, pulling Bix with me, but
my ankle twists on his foot, and I go down hard, crying out.
Someone falls onto me, scrambles off, jabbing a knee into my
kidneys. By the time I get back to my feet, several people have
already found the stairwell, are ramming through the door. Bix
drags me along with him as the light behind us grows weaker and
weaker, until there is no more to see by. We reach the doorway and
squeeze through.

Another body slams into me, and I
lurch to the landing, then tumble down several stairs.

“
Bix!”

“
Right here,
buddy.”

He feels my face, then somehow find my
wrist and grabs it. But his hand is immediately ripped from me. I'm
grabbed again, though I don't know by whom. I lurch to my feet and
scramble to follow.

But then there’s nothing beneath my
feet and I'm falling again. I wrap myself into a ball and grunt
painfully as my body slams into the cold, hard edges of the cement
steps. Down I go, my cries turning to screams. I stop briefly at
the landing. But I'm terrified, and I can't seem to stop
screaming.

Another body crashes into me. I'm
kicked. My head slams hard into the edge of a step, and I'm
tumbling down another flight. I cry out in agony and fright, and my
voice ricochets off the walls, but it's answered only by more
screams.

Finally, I come to a stop. I lay for a
long time, unable to unfurl my body. Minutes pass, maybe hours, and
still the lights do not come on. It's utterly dark. Not even the
emergency exit sign is lit. There is no more noise, no more bodies
to crash into me. I am alone.

And yet my sense of dread only
intensifies. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong. I
just can't place what it is.

“
Hello?”

I strain my ears, hoping for a reply,
but none comes. It's totally, completely silent in the
stairwell.

And that's when it hits me: It’s too
quiet.

The turbines have shut
down.

I run into a group of people several flights up. Stephen Largent's
in the lead, and in the wan beam of his emergency flashlight I see
the placard for Level Five on the wall. “Who’s there?” a voice
behind him calls.

After so many rechargings, the
batteries are weak and the meager light illuminates just a few feet
of the darkness. Even so, it blinds me when he points the beam in
my eyes.

“
It's Finn. Looks okay. You
okay, Finn?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Your father's looking for
you. Have you seen . . . anything?”

They're acting strange,
afraid.

“
Like what?” I
ask.

“
Nothing. Just get back
upstairs.”

They hurry on past me, and I ask,
“Where are you going?”

“
To check the turbines,”
Stephen shouts over his shoulder. “We've got to get the power back
on. Straight back upstairs, Finn!”

The dull gray glow winks out, and once
more I'm sunk into pitch darkness. I know I'm not alone, because I
can still hear them making their way down.

I make sure to count the flights as I
make my way up to our quarters.

Dad is up there, organizing more
people. The beams of their lights eerily crisscross the darkened
hallway; their voices and the cries of others lost in this midnight
world make me think of dead miners and seafarers. Sometimes I curse
my overactive imagination.

“
What the hell happened to
you?” Bix says, appearing beside me. “You were there one second,
and the next you were gone. Christ, I thought you'd gone over the
railing or something!”

I don't have time to answer because
Dad sees me and calls me over. “Are you okay?” he asks, shining the
light in my eyes before turning it away.

Looking at my eyes, just
like Stephen did downstairs.

He reaches out to touch the cut on my
forehead, but I shy away.

“
It's nothing.”

His hand hovers a moment, then he
draws it back and nods. “Okay.” The neck of his shirt is dark with
sweat, and a streak of blood stains his cheek.

I realize that I'm sweating, too. The
air's getting warm again. It feels heavy on my skin.

“
What's wrong with the
turbines?”

“
Not sure. Jack has gone up
to the control room. Stephen Largent and Harry went down to Level
Eight to check the power conduit tunnel.”

“
I ran into
them.”

He nods curtly.

“
I'm going down to the
dungeons,” he says, and presses a spare flashlight into my hands.
“Level Ten. Someone needs to check the seepage
reservoirs.”

“
I'll come with
you.”

“
No! That's okay. I've
already got Bix and a few others with me.”

Even in the darkness, I can see the
grim line of his mouth, and the worried whites of Bix's eyes.
There’s an undertone of terror just beneath the surface. Everyone’s
scared.

But of what?

“
What about Mister
Williams?” I ask.

“
I left Gia and Rory Newsom
with him. They're trying to calm him down, convince him not to
leave. Not that he has much choice in the matter right now without
the access code for the outer door.”

“
What can I do to
help?”

He grabs my free hand and gives it a
squeeze. The show of emotion surprises me. “Make sure everyone up
here stays calm,” he answers. “No one is to go wandering off on
their own. Ready, Bix?”

What is he hiding? What is he afraid
of?

I watch as my best friend and a group
of four other men and women follow him back to the stairs. It seems
like an unnecessarily large number of people, but maybe he's got
other plans for them.

Once again, doubt eats away at me. He
has no confidence in my ability to do much more than
babysit.

It's not till he's gone that I realize
he's left me with more than just that dubious responsibility. I
slowly pry open my cramped hand to reveal a tiny book. With my
thumb, I flip it open.

It contains a list of all the security
codes for all the doors.

And I wonder what it means that he's
given it to me for safe keeping.

“
Something weird's going
on
,” I whisper.

Bren stops passing out protein packets
and turns to give me a puzzled look.

I guide her away from the tables in
the dining area, where everyone remaining on Level Three has been
collected and moved. It was her idea to bring them here, rather
than have them all sitting alone and scared in their own quarters.
Plus, it saves on flashlights.

“
What do you mean?” she
asks, keeping her voice low. Her mother is over helping Missus
Rollins with Mia and Sammy, though she's keeping an eye on the two
of us.

“
I don't know, but I
suspect it has something to do with Eddie.”

“
Is he getting worse?
Because I just spoke with Hannah, and she said he's getting
better.”

I frown. “She didn't
seem . . . strange?”

Bren shakes her head. “Hannah's
strange? Eddie's strange? Finn, what's going on with you? The power
goes out and—”

“
You weren't downstairs.
You didn't see the way the stranger acted when the doctor told him
about Eddie's recovery. It scared the holy crap out of
him.”