Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) Read online

  CONTENTS

  CONDEMN

  BUNKER 12 Series, Book 2

  Excerpt

  THE FLENSE

  Companion series to BUNKER 12

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  Care to share?

  Copyright Notice

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Tanpepper Tidings Newsletter

  (subscribe for exclusive early access to THE FLENSE)

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  CONDEMN

  a BUNKER 12 novel

  by Saul Tanpepper

  © 2015

  All rights reserved (full notice)

  [email protected]

  (rv.151108)

  wraith /rāTH/ (n)

  1. a ghost or ghostlike image of someone, especially one seen shortly before or after death.

  2. an individual infected with, or carrying, the Flense.

  flense /flens/

  (v) to slice or strip away the skin and fat from a carcass.

  (n) a highly contagious disease, spread by touch, capable of stripping away an individual's life essence.

  "You think there'd be more cars on the road," muttered Danny Delacroix as he steered the bus past a faded and dusty stop sign canted forty degrees off the perpendicular.

  He felt Susan Miller's eyes boring into the back of his skull. She was seated in the first row behind him, leaning forward like she wanted to wrestle the steering wheel away from him at any moment. Like she didn't trust his driving abilities. He wondered what she thought about his coming to a full stop and checking in both directions before proceeding.

  Such caution was certainly unwarranted. Theirs was the only vehicle on the road, the only one they'd seen in four hours of driving, and he really had no reason for following the rules at all. In fact, it was quite possible that the bus was the only operating vehicle in the entire world.

  Force of habit. Funny how quickly the old behaviors come back.

  It had been a long three years since he last sat behind a steering wheel. Three years since he'd even been out on the road. And yet, after only twenty minutes of driving, it felt as if it had been just yesterday. Like nothing had changed.

  Except everything had changed. Life as he had known it was gone. Vanished in a touch and a puff of bloody mist. Human civilization had died. And here he was turning on his turn signal and checking the mirrors.

  Stupid.

  He willed Susan to go away. And yet, at the same time, he was glad for her company, even as uncomfortable as it made him feel. He needed to know he wasn't alone.

  "I mean, where on earth are they all?" he wondered aloud.

  "We're in the boonies."

  "Here we are, yeah. But not back there."

  "Home," Susan replied dryly. The sun and rain-rotted plastic crackled as she shifted on her seat, making the skin on the back of his neck prickle. "Dying is a very private matter, you know."

  He turned to frown at her. He could have just glanced at her reflection in the mirror, but this particular comment warranted a more personal treatment. In the slanting rays of sunlight, the dirty tracks of her dried tears stood out from the pale skin on her face. He supposed his own appearance was just about the same. They'd all cried back there.

  She ignored his stare and kept her eyes glued to the road ahead. They had turned onto a particularly flat stretch of cracked and broken blacktop that had, after years of disuse, faded to a silvery shade of gray. The pavement went on for miles through a barren wasteland of desert scrub, the surface sometimes disappearing beneath untouched drifts of sand or else vanishing into the folds between the silvery ripples of overheated air.

  He recalled a memory from his childhood crossing over from Mexico, riding that "ribbon highway" in the back of the coyote's rusted lime green Toyota pickup truck, the tape deck blasting Woody Guthrie. He relived the sensation of the truck diving into the shallow swales and up the other side as they crossed the arroyos.

  This landscape was just as bleak and desolate as the one he remembered, despite their being much further north now, closer to America's northern border. It certainly seemed just as hot and arid as he recalled it had been back then.

  They had seen few homes since leaving Finn behind, just rock and scrub and a few collapsing structures that might have been warehouses of some sort in the past. Before the Flense.

  And a few cars.

  Not a lot of them, but certainly less than he expected. They sat along the sides of the road like hollowed out skulls, covered in thick layers of dust and sand. Weeds grew out of the places that trapped the windblown dirt and held water long enough for seeds to germinate. Where the paint showed through, it had faded away like the road signs.

  More cars is what he'd expected. And more bodies.

  "Death is a very personal matter," Susan explained.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Danny asked. He really didn't want to know.

  "It means that when the shit hit the fan three years ago, when it kept right on hitting the fan and people ran out of places to run to for safety, they all just went back and parked their cars in their garages and driveways. They went inside their houses, locked their doors and drew their curtains. No one wants to die in public. No one wants to be seen with their bodies all messed up, rotting away, turning to soup. It's . . . embarrassing."

  Embarrassing? he thought, more disturbed by her choice of metaphor than her characterization of behavior. But he realized that she had a point. He remembered coming across a van in the Sonora filled with the bloated fly-infested corpses of a family trying to escape the cartels in Columbia. The runners had run out of fuel. And instead of walking out into the desert to die, they'd shut themselves up inside the van and turned to mummies instead.

  "Anyway," she said, "that's what I would've done, if I hadn't bought a spot in the bunker. I would have climbed into bed, probably with a shotgun, a four-pound bag of peanut M&Ms, and a Dean Koontz novel. And when the book was read and the bag empty, I'd stick the—"

  "You guys mind changing the subject?" Harry Rollins asked, stepping quickly up to them. There was a look in his eyes, like barely contained sanity. Danny wondered if it was the same look in his own. They were all on that razor's edge, barely holding on. Barely maintaining.

  Of course, it had to be worse for Harry. For three years he'd managed to keep his entire family, his wife and boys, safe from the Flense. Alive and uninfected inside the safe haven of the bunker. What were the odds of that? And then, to just set that safety and security aside one day to follow some kid out into the unknown . . . .

  You did, too.

  "No problem, Harry," Susan said.

  "At least keep it down." He tilted his head to where the boys were sitting with their mother. "I think we've had enough of that kind of talk for now. For a lifetime, actually. Don't you think?"

  This time, Danny used the mirror to check the people behind him. His gaze fell first on Bren Abramson and Hannah Mancuso sitting together, the younger girl's head lolling on the older one's shoulder. Hannah's father, Eddie, sat alone a few seats forward of them. Despite his assurances that he wasn't contagious, it seemed that nobody wanted to be near him, not even his own daughter.

  Or maybe he chose to separate himself from the rest on purpose.

  But it was poor Bren that Danny felt the most pity. She had followed her boyfriend, Finn Bolles, out of the bunker. She'd left her parents behind, mostly because she thought she loved the boy. And then he'd gone and disappointed them all by changing his mind. He betrayed Bren's loyalty by leaving her without so much as a good-bye. He'd just disappeared while she was passed out with exhaustion.

  Oh, how she'd fought them all when she woke.

  Danny's eye
s slipped over to Jonah a couple seats back. The boy, just a year older than Finn, was studying the landscape, drawing on his memories of the day they'd driven this same route from the evac center so he could guide them back there in their search for the mythical twelfth bunker.

  He'd taken the brunt of Bren's tirade. She blamed him for letting Finn go, accusing him of driving him away with their petty fighting. She ordered him to turn the bus around.

  But rather than try and reason with her or calm her down, Jonah threatened to leave her on the side of the road. He was just like his father, insensitive to other people's feelings, lacking in the tact department.

  But it had worked. Bren soon relented and sat back down. Her silence worried Danny more than her protest, and Danny was relieved when Hannah went to comfort her. Hannah was an angel.

  Now Bren stared out the window like Jonah. Unlike him, her face was slack and her eyes empty, seeing nothing. Well, there was nothing out there to see anyway. The tears on her cheeks had long since dried and her hair was a knotted mess by the wind coming in through the shattered window.

  She's in shock, Danny thought We're all in shock, but she more than the rest.

  He couldn't imagine how hard it must have been for her to find out her father had had a hand in bringing about the end of the world, though they were all still unclear exactly how or what the man's specific role had been. Nevertheless, the choice that she'd been forced to make, deciding between staying inside the bunker with a murdering father versus accompanying the boy she loved out into a dead world tore at Danny.

  He sighed unhappily and forced his eyes away. They drifted over the rest of the faces in the mirror. The group was down to seventeen now. Waking up that morning safe inside the bunker — or at least with the semblance of safety — they'd numbered nearly twice that many. Twenty of them had fled, leaving a dozen behind. Now, just six or seven hours later, they were already down by three.

  How soon before we're cut to half? A quarter? How long before we're all gone, dead or scattered?

  He was already regretting leaving.

  Staying would have been worse, Danny. That's what Mamá believed. That's what she always said.

  His gaze came to rest on Harrison Blakeley. The man sat alone, his head bobbing to an unheard tune as he fingered a song on his guitar without actually picking at the strings. Out of all of the adults, Harrison was the oddest, not showing the least bit of concern for their situation, and that was doubly incredible given the choice his seventeen-year-old son, Bix, had made.

  What the hell kind of father would—

  "Danny! Look out!"

  He'd only been half watching the road ahead. They'd come up over a short rise and were beginning their descent into a shallow dip. Tearing his eyes away from the mirror, he saw too late that the ground at the bottom had eroded away during the rains, collapsing the road from underneath. The hardtop had buckled, throwing up a jagged edge of concrete. There was nothing he could do to avoid it.

  The front tires hit, jerking everyone forward in their seats. He nearly lost his grip on the steering wheel. There were startled cries from the back.

  And then they were ascending the other side.

  The rear tires hit the seam with a loud crunch a half second later and threw everyone out of their seats. There were more cries and more than a few shouted curses. The baby started to cry.

  "Anyone hurt?" Danny called out, pulling over to the side of the road. He switched the engine off and got out of his seat to check.

  Jonah pushed past him looking worried. Someone shouted not to open the door. "I need to check underneath!" he yelled angrily back.

  "Wait! There might be Wraiths out there!"

  Jonah made a quick check around them through the windows. Fortunately, Danny had brought the bus to a stop atop the rising edge of the arroyo, and they had a decent view of the surrounding area. Nevertheless, there were still ample hiding places for the things to hide in.

  "Has anyone seen any?" Jonah asked, challenging them. "Because I haven't, not since we left the bunker."

  "You said there wouldn't be any out here at all," Danny reminded him. "You were wrong about that. Part of the reason we left was because we believed you."

  Jonah glared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowed. "Yeah, I was wrong. I admit it. But there weren't any during all the times I spent outside fixing this bus."

  "But now we know they're still around," Kari Mueller said. "So we—"

  "We need to check that we didn't spring a leak or something," Jonah finished. "Sitting here arguing about it isn't wise. We need to get moving again."

  "At least take someone with you."

  "I'll be fine. Just keep everyone quiet." He pulled away from Danny and was out through the driver's door before anything more could be said about it.

  Danny watched him disappear around the side. "That kid is suicidal," he muttered.

  "Aren't we all?" Susan asked.

  Danny frowned as he turned his attention to the passengers. "Anyone hurt?"

  Most shook their heads. Blood trickled down Kari Mueller's cheek, but she shrugged it off when he passed her on his way to check on Jasmina Cardoza and her baby.

  "Is he okay?" he asked the young mother.

  Jasmina nodded up at him. "Es sólo miedo," she whispered.

  "Estara bien," he automatically replied, before realizing they were speaking Spanish. "We're all scared, but it'll be okay."

  There was fear in everyone's eyes to one extent or another, and he wondered yet again if they'd have been better off staying sealed up inside the dam complex.

  Not with that murderer.

  He turned to find Bren Abramson staring at him, as if she had heard his thoughts. He quickly averted his eyes. No one had come right out and said it, but he had to guess that others were thinking what he was, that they should have thrown Seth Abramson out instead.

  Would have, if not for Bunker Twelve.

  Now he wondered if that had been a ruse to get them to come out.

  There was a short, shrill whistle. He found Jonah standing beneath a broken window. "One of the dualies popped," he said. "It's shredded, but we still got three more tires on this side, so we should be good for a while."

  "Is that all the damage?"

  "The rest of the tires are fine. We are leaking oil, though. Not a lot, but steady."

  "Dammit," Danny cursed. "I'm really sorry. I didn't see—"

  "It's not new. I tracked it back to where we hit. We were already leaking before then." He gestured that they should join him outside. "There's something else."

  Danny raised his eyes past Jonah and scanned the surrounding landscape once more. Since leaving Finn behind, the terrain had slowly transitioned, become less flat, dotted by more scrub and scored with more ravines. Anything could be hiding out there. And with the sun so low on the horizon, the shadows were growing longer and deeper. "What is it?"

  "Just come."

  Harrison Blakeley stood up and strode toward the front of the bus, followed by Harry Rollins and Susan Miller. With a shake of his head, Danny trailed after them and made for the door. "Everyone else stay put," he said, then exited.

  The group headed down to where the road had crumpled, perhaps a hundred feet away. Jonah led them. Harry and Susan kept glancing nervously about, just as Danny did, but Harrison's gaze and gait gave no hint of worry. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his threadbare jeans, apparently certain that they would not be attacked.

  "What do you see?" Danny asked.

  When they reached the bottom of the swale, Danny realized just how lucky they'd been. The surface of the road had cracked all the way across. One edge had risen up while the other folded underneath. Mud and other debris had washed into the gap, partially filling it with fine silt, which had dried into a crumbly clay. Deep ruts had been gouged out of it by the bus tires.

  "Tracks," Harrison said. "Not ours."

  He stood off the side of the road with Jonah studying a second set of
tracks. They'd been dug out of the mud the last time it was wet. Harry bent down and snapped off a piece of the dried earth. "Wonder how old they are."

  "Couldn't have been more than a few months."

  "That means there are other people out here," Danny said. "And cars." He felt almost justified for his excessively cautious driving.

  Harry stood up again and handed the dirt to him. "Question is, are they nice people?"

  "I should just leave you here," Finn told Bix.

  "And be depraved of the gift that is my company?"

  "You're depraved; I'm deprived. And gift is not the word I'd use."

  Bix's laughter carried across the canyon and echoed back at them. Finn shushed him, stopping to listen. But all they heard was the sound of the wind blowing through the trees.

  The river was too far below them for its roar to reach their ears, had been since late the previous afternoon. Finn was glad for it. He'd hated being so close to the rushing water. The noise had made it impossible to hear anything else.

  "You need to keep it down," he murmured. "Something tells me once we get back up to the top, there may be trouble."

  The two boys continued on in silence after that. Two full days had passed since leaving the bus behind, the wisdom of which had tormented Finn since the moment his feet hit the ground. But what other choice had there been? He couldn't expect the others to follow him. And how could they expect him not to go after Harper?

  It had been hard — the hardest thing he'd ever done — leaving without telling Bren. He knew she'd want to come with him, and he couldn't let that happen. So he'd instructed the others to keep going, to find the evacuation center just as they had originally planned. It was their only hope of finding Bunker Twelve, answers to the Flense, and a possible cure.

  "No arguments," he'd told them. "This is my choice, my duty, and no one else's. I need to know what happened to my brother. I need to know if he's still alive."