Contain (37 page)

I push through the wrought iron gate that locks the tunnel and step
out into the shadow cast by the mountain. Bix stops beside me and
takes in a deep breath. He looks about ready to cry. “After you,”
he tells me, and he pulls aside the shrubs that have been hiding
the opening.

I brace myself for the crushing
sensation that comes with being out in the open, but it remains
just outside of my reach. Forty feet from the door, the sunlight
hits my face. The heat pinches my skin. I can’t remember anything
ever feeling so good.

When I turn to look for the opening,
it's already disappeared from view, hidden by the heavy
growth.

“
Ready?”

I nod, and we step out onto a pair of
worn and shattered concrete ribbons, part of a temporary road
leading down the side of the mountain to our left.

To the right, the dam rises thirty
feet above us. As we approach the other edge and the cliff draws
nearer, I get my first real glimpse of the outside of the power
plant, the catwalk and helipad, the overflow sluices. I spy the
door to Level Six. From here, I can't make out any of the
blood.

“
I wonder what happened to
Mister Williams,” Bix says.

I shrug. He's probably long gone by
now. He said he knew where some of the other bunkers were. He
probably went to the next closest one.

My eyes trace the line of the narrow
steel stairway he'd used to climb down the opposite side of the
mountain. Nothing moves there — or anywhere — nothing but
the water crashing below. There aren't even any birds.

We turn right and begin to climb, and
soon the weed-choked concrete ribbons become a full road, though
the cement is cracked and buckled, and weeds grow high wherever
they gain a foothold. Old leaves and dust have accumulated in the
crevices, providing even more places for grass and small shrubs to
germinate.

I'm near the front as we approach the
rise, but I turn to make sure the others are able to make the
climb.

Bix passes me, eager to get to the
top, so it's he who sees the two men fighting in the middle of the
dam. “What the—?” he cries.

The surprise in his voice causes me to
spin around. The first man I recognize is Kevin. He and the other
man are locked arm-in-arm, and it isn't until they twist around
that I recognize Micheal Williams.

“
Hey!” I shout, and before
I know what I'm doing, I'm sprinting toward them. Eddie passes me.
He's so much faster, despite his brush with death just two weeks
before.

Now the full force of the sun is upon
me. The heat bakes me from above as well as from below. The light
reflecting off the immense lake to the right is
blinding.

“
No!” Williams yells at us.
“Get back! Stop!”

“
You stop!” I shout back.
“Don’t hurt him!”

He and Kevin tumble to the ground, but
Williams gets back to his feet and starts to drag them both toward
the downstream edge of the dam.

“
What are you doing?” I
scream. “Don't hurt him!”

I hear cries and gasps behind us. One
of the two women shouts Kevin's name.

Once more, Micheal Williams yells for
us to stay away, but he's wrong about us. We're not infected. I try
to yell this. I try to tell him to let Kevin go. I try to run
harder, though my legs feel like rubber. They're not used to even
this small amount of exertion.

Fifty feet. Then forty. Eddie has
stopped short. Why won't he intervene?

Far ahead, over the slight hump of the
dam, the bus appears, still parked where we'd abandoned it three
years before. Sunlight glints off the windows, but even from this
distance I can see that several of the panes are missing, and the
side is riddled with bullet holes, now crusted with rings of
rust.

I hear my name behind me, and I skid
to a stop. Someone new is running up the side of the mountain.
“Finn!” Bren screams. “Finn, wait for me!”

My eyes skip to the right, caught by
movement a hundred feet down the gravel path. First, a few shadows
shift. Then whole pieces of the mountain come alive as the living
skeletons of the infected emerge from out of the scrub— first a
few, then a dozen.

“
Wraiths! Run,
Bren!”

The bus honks. I turn and see someone
appear around the side of it, circling. And I know by the way it's
moving that it's not Jonah. This one is moving slowly, in a manner
that isn't natural. My heart seizes inside my chest. We're trapped
in the middle of the dam!

A thick puff of smoke drifts past the
back end of the bus, and the sound of the engine cranking reaches
my ears. The Wraith changes direction and begins to move quicker
around the other side. Does Jonah know it's even there?

A hand clamps over my wrist and jerks
me. I scream in terror, but it's only Eddie. He hisses into my ear
not to move. He holds his hand up behind us to stop the rest of the
group from coming any closer. And that's when I see what has become
of Kevin, and why Mister Williams is dragging him to the edge of
the dam.

Both have been infected. Kevin is
completely gone, but though the Flense is growing inside Mister
Williams, there's still a trace of sanity left in his eyes. It's
fading fast.

He falls against the railing and
twists his body. At the same time, he lifts Kevin, who can't
possibly weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds, and flips him
over his shoulder. The former guard disappears over the side
without a sound and falls into the rapids far below.

Mister Williams slips to the ground,
panting heavily. He squeezes his eyes shut.
“Don't . . . come . . .
any . . . closer,” he warns.

But we can't go back,
either.

Bren finally reaches me, grabs my
arms. She's gasping for breath. We have only another couple minutes
before we're taken.

“
Where the hell did they
come from?” Bix whispers.

Mister Williams stands up. It feels
like it takes him forever, though it's probably just a second or
two. Is he going to come for us?

“
I
don't . . . have time,” he pants. He reaches into
his pocket and extracts a black object and skips it over the road
toward us. Then he begins to climb the railing.

“
Find Bunker Twelve,” he
grunts. “It's the only way to stop this.”

Nobody moves. Nobody tries to stop him
as he lifts one leg over the railing, then the other. He balances
for a moment, then turns one last time toward us as the bus's
engine finally roars to life and the gears crunch to
engage.

He stands fully upright, and now his
eyes are black and his face is as gray as the cement walls of the
bunker. He turns, and his gaze skips over us all until it stops
with me. And right before the change finally takes the last of his
mind and soul, his mouth pops open in surprise. He begins to fall,
tipping away.

Instinctively, I step forward,
reaching out for him. But he's too far.

He shouts one last word, which echoes
through the valley long after his body is taken by the
torrent:

“
Haaaarperrrr!
”

Eddie pulls Jonah out of the driver’s seat as soon as we reach the
bus. As we board, we can’t help staring at the Wraith that infected
Kevin, who then went on to deliver his sickness to the stranger
from Bunker Two. It is now little more than a shell of leathery
skin and brittle bones, all crushed beneath the front tires. And
when the rear wheels pass over it, we barely feel the
bump.

I make Eddie promise to stop the first
chance he gets, as soon as it's safe and we know we won’t be
overtaken.

We descend away from the dam, then, as
the roads switches back, ascend the side of the
mountain.

Our greatest fear is that the way will
be blocked, whether by a rock slide or downed branches. Soon, we
approach a crumpled rusting heap pressed up against the side of the
cliff face. Weeds grow up through the twisted metal and out of the
shattered windows. You can't even tell what color the van was
anymore. A pair of bright yellow butterflies emerge as we pass.
They flutter about in our wake, then are gone as we turn around a
corner of the road.

I flip open the dead cell phone I'd
instinctively snatched up off the road before realizing it might be
contagious. Eddie hadn't been quick enough to stop me.

They hadn't wanted to let me on the
bus, but Bren refused to leave me, even though she wouldn't touch
me, and Bix plead with everyone to let me on the bus.

There wasn't time enough to argue, so
they made me sit alone in the backseat. Danny Delacroix held a
pistol trained at my head.

Twenty minutes later, I tell him I
don't feel any different. An hour into the ride, he finally relaxes
and gets up and wanders toward the front of the bus.

Bix and Bren come back. I hand the
phone to him, and he gives me a quizzical look, but then he has
this brilliant idea to check the remaining bags still left on the
bus for a possible charger, and he wanders off to do just that. If
there really is a Bunker Twelve, the phone could very well hold the
key to finding it.

Bren sits with me, and we hold each
other and don't speak. Sobs wrack her body, the first of what I
know will be many such episodes. I want to cry, too, but I can't. I
don't know if it's because my pain is too little or too
great.

After a while, she drifts off to
sleep.

We're lucky about the road, and a
couple hours after starting we finally emerge atop the mesa, all of
the tires still intact despite having to drive over several small
rock slides, multiple downed branches, and around one washout.
Eddie cautiously presses onto the gas and soon we're flying down
the road. Part of me prays he'll forget my request. Part of me
knows already where we will be stopping.

It's later afternoon when he pulls off
to the side of the road just outside a small barren outpost. The
only buildings in sight are a gas station, a Kwik-Buy Mart, and
what looks to be a local crafts stand, though the racks which once
held homemade rugs or quilts now stand unadorned, save for a drift
of tumbleweeds. The wind whistles across the barren land and a sign
swivels noisily on its chain.

He honks on the horn for several
minutes, but nothing comes out to greet us. Bren is so exhausted
that she doesn't even wake.

“
Well,” Eddie finally says,
slipping out of the driver's seat. The engine idles roughly,
sounding unreliable enough that he doesn't dare shut it off.
“What's the plan?”

I stand up and move forward. “The plan
is the same. Make it back to the evac center, then find Bunker
Twelve,” I say. “Jonah, you're sure you know the way?”

He nods.

I reach for the phone, which is
plugged into the charging socket. With shaking hands, I press the
power button and wait for it to turn on. I'm actually surprised
when it does, though I don't wait for it to power up.

They all look at me expectantly.
Finally, I sigh and grab my pack.

“
You all heard what he said
back there,” I tell them, and they all nod. “He thought I was
Harper.”

I turn and climb down off the bus, and
no one stops me. I don't know what I'll find when I reach Bunker
Two, or even if anyone is still alive there. All I know is that my
brother was there six weeks ago. I have to find him.

The wind tosses sand and dust into my
face, drying my tears.

For the first time in my life I feel
alone in the wide open world. And it terrifies me.

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

[END OF
CONTAIN
]

Keep reading to check out an excerpt of the companion series
THE FLENSE

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CONTAIN
(a
BUNKER 12 novel)

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