Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) (13 page)

Danny wasn't waiting where Jonah had left him. The packs were still
there on the ground, but Danny was nowhere to be seen.

"Dammit," Jonah muttered, and looked
around at the ghost houses along the street with their blind
windows and their dead, overgrown lawns. Everything lacked color.
Everything was some variation on dirt. Even the business signs.
"Where the hell did you go?"

He peeked around the corner to check
on the bikes. They were still parked where the two men had left
them. Despite their eagerness to leave, they seemed to be taking
their time.

Get their
bikes!

He couldn't be sure, but he guessed
the keys would be in the ignition for a fast getaway. The men
probably thought someone stealing them was about as likely as them
sprouting wings and flying away.

Can't leave without
Danny
, he thought. And he didn't even know
where to begin looking for the bus. Or this military base the two
men talked about.
"Danny!"
he whispered, as loudly as he dared.

His eye caught the door to the bank
across the street. Had it been open before? Is that where Danny had
gone?

Why would he leave the
packs here?

Checking that the street was empty,
Jonah sprinted across and slipped inside. The floor was littered
with debris. Leaves and old trash had blown in. Weeds grew in the
cracks around the threshold. In the center of the large room, the
business counter rose up like a barricade. The teller windows had
been smashed. Large curtains of dusty cobwebs hung from the ceiling
like moth-eaten tapestries. The place smelled of must and
mold.

He stepped further inside, past a
melamine coffee table whose laminate had been warped by dripping
water. A glass bowl of lollipops sat in the middle of it, the
partially gnawed candy shared space with petrified mouse
droppings.

"Danny?"

Outside, the motorcycle engines roared
to life. Jonah spun around, banging his shin on the table. He ran
limping to the door in time to see the men pass, returning in the
direction they had come.

Danny appeared out of the house on the
opposite corner, running down the porch steps waving his arms. The
bikers screeched to a stop thirty feet away and drew their guns,
which they pointed at Danny.

Jonah was out the door and running
before he realized it. "Wait! " he screamed. "Don't
shoot!"

The guns shifted toward him. He
stopped in the middle of the intersection, hands held out. "I'm not
armed! Don't shoot!"

One of the rifles jerked, directing
him to join Danny on the sidewalk. After he complied, the two men
turned off their bikes and dismounted.

"You two with the people on the bus?"
one of them asked, a hint of a southern accent.

That must be
Wayne
, Jonah thought. His eyes flicked to
the other, who had caramel-colored skin.
And that's Vinnie.

Wayne stared at Jonah for a long time.
He seemed to be making some sort of calculation in his head,
perhaps measuring the distance between the bank and the shop. He
caught sight of the backpacks on the ground, and another
calculation was made. The man's gray eyes were deeply etched with
distrust.

He
knows
, Jonah thought.
Or he suspects
.

"What are you doing in there?" Wayne
asked suspiciously.

"We're not armed," he called out to
them. "You can put those down."

Vinnie lowered his rifle. "You said
they wouldn't be here."

"Shut up, Vin!" He turned to Danny.
"Who are you? Are there more?"

"Just us two," Danny replied. "I'm
Danny Delacroix. We were with others but got stranded when our bus
was overrun by Wraiths."

Wayne lowered his rifle and sheathed
it in the bike's saddlebag. Vinnie followed suit. "Well, Danny. Is
that short for Daniel?"

Danny nodded.

"Your people are fine," he said. "They
were stuck in the sand a few miles from here. Sent us to find
you."

Danny laughed with relief. "God, are
we glad to see you!"

"So glad that it took you nearly
twenty minutes to find us? What've you been doing, spying on
us?"

"We were inside a house," Jonah
quickly answered. "Didn't hear the engines at first."

Wayne turned back to Jonah, once again
studying his face. He glanced pointedly at the bank door, then at
the auto shop a couple buildings away. He knew there was no way for
Jonah to have missed the bikes parked there.

"Well, lucky thing you found us then,
ain't it? We was just about to leave for good."

Danny stepped forward, smiling,
extending his hand. The man took it into his own gloved hand and
shook it. "Name's Wayne Ramsay. This here's Vinnie Singh. Or Vin,
which is short for Vinay, which I'm told is short for
Vinay-lama-dama-ding-dong or something like that." He snorted. "You
two realize how damn lucky you are to even be alive?"

Jonah returned the man's unwelcoming
smile as best as he could. He had to suppress an urge to take the
man's gun and slam the stock into his face.

"Your people are on their way to our
base about seventy miles south of here," Vinnie said.

"Why didn't they come back for us
themselves?"

"That bus is in pretty bad shape,"
Ramsay said. "It's a deathtrap. And it needs repairs. That's
why."

Danny frowned. "So how are we supposed
to get back?"

Ramsay pointed at the bikes. "Well,
Danny-boy, we ride double."

* * *

"Yo, Vin!" Wayne shouted over the roar of the bikes. "Let's stop at
the truck and refuel."

Vinnie looked down at his gauge. "I'm
good!"

"So am I, but I gotta take a piss
anyway. And your guy's looking a little dehydrated."

Jonah glanced over at Danny on the
back of Vinnie's bike. The wind had brought tears to his eyes,
streaking the road dirt over his face. Danny looked over, smiled,
and gave him a thumbs up.

They pulled off the road a few miles
later and onto a dirt track that wound down into an arroyo. Jonah
noticed that there were recent tire tracks in the dust.

After a mile or so, he spied a
refueller tank truck parked in the shade beneath a cut, its shiny
aluminum surface dulled beneath a thick coating of dirt. The tracks
led up to it, but not beyond. It was clearly a common refueling
stop for the bikers.

They pulled up beside the tank and
shut off their engines. Everyone dismounted. Jonah noticed that
Wayne removed the keys from his ignition and slipped them into his
pocket.

"Hey, Vinnie, whyn't you take our
guests over to the piss spot while I fill us up?" he
said.

"I don't have to go," Vinnie
said.

"Go anyway and make sure they stay
safe. We don't wanna lose anyone."

When they returned, Wayne was just
finishing up filling Vinnie's tank. He replaced the nozzle to the
truck and secured the padlock holding it in place.

"Might as well fill up the old
stomachs too, while we're at it." He dug out a metal canteen from
his saddlebag and offered it to Jonah, who shook his
head.

"Thanks. I got my own," he
said.

"Suit yourself." He unscrewed the cap
and took a big swig, sighed contentedly, then wiped his mouth on
his sleeve.

Vinnie and Danny shared Vinnie's
water. Jonah stepped out of the shade.

"Don't wander off now," Wayne
warned.

"Wraiths?" Danny asked.

"Funny that you call them that. But,
no. Rattlesnakes, coyotes. And mountain lions."

Jonah ignored him. His mind was going
a mile a minute. He had hoped for a moment alone with Danny so he
could tell him what he'd heard back in town, but it hadn't
happened. And they had to be getting close to wherever this base
was. He had a feeling that once they got inside, it wasn't going to
be easy to get back out again.

He could hear Danny having a
conversation with the two men, asking how much fuel the tanker held
and how they had managed to get it down there.

Vinnie hadn't been able to answer, but
Wayne was more than happy to share what he knew. "Eleven thousand
gallons," he said. "Might be a thousand left. Have to hide it, else
roamers'll come and steal it."

"Are there a lot of people still
alive?"

"Not as much as there were before,
that's for sure." He sat against the rear wheel of the truck,
leaning on an elbow. He used his keys to draw shapes in the dirt.
"Hey, cowboy! Whyn't you join us, instead of standing out there in
the hot sun?"

Jonah remained where he was. "Tell me
about this base camp," he said.

"Used to be an army supply depot or
something. Colonel Wainwright can tell you more about it. He was in
charge there when all hell broke loose. Captain Cheever's in charge
of the scouts, of which you have the pleasure of knowing
two."

"How many people?"

"Few hundred. Stragglers, mostly. They
come in over time. Some stay, some don't. Most of the soldiers
stationed there died in the first few days defending the place, so
it's mostly civilians and volunteer soldiers nowadays."

Danny whistled appreciatively. "Women
and children? Families?"

"Women? Yeah." He seemed to study
Jonah's face as he said this. "A few children. Not enough in my
opinion. Could always use more."

Jonah thought he felt his face redden,
though he tried to remain as stoic as possible. "What do you mean
by that?" he asked.

"Just saying," Wayne coolly replied.
"The whole damn human race got knocked to the mat. Without
children, how're we supposed to rebuild it?"

Vinnie seemed to be picking up on the
tension between the two. He stood up and replaced the canteen into
his pack. "Come on, Wayne." He glanced nervously at his partner.
"Let's get back before dinnertime."

"You know, everyone's got a job to do
on base," Wayne said, not moving. "The men scout and guard, build,
repair. It's hard work, dangerous work. The women,
well . . . ." He smiled at himself. "They take
care of the men."

Something inside of Jonah was close to
snapping. He could feel it.

He's testing you. Don't
let him get to you. Don't lose your cool.

"Sounds positively feudal," he
muttered. "I'm sure the women just love that
arrangement."

Wayne chuckled humorlessly.
"They're more than grateful to do their part. Ain't they, Vin? They
know we might never return from a mission. Lots of men die out here
in the wilderness. Lots. We could, too. All it takes is one screw
up and
BAM!
You're
dead meat."

An image of his father came to Jonah,
standing over him in the middle of the night, waking him up. He'd
been fourteen at the time.

John's not coming home
anymore, Jonah. He screwed up and now he's gone away for good. So
you need to grow up and do your part now.

That's all he'd said, before leaving
again, and Jonah had lain awake the rest of the night, too afraid
to sleep, wondering how his brother had died. Had it been in a
shoot-out with police or the brutal people he worked
for?

Wayne Ramsay stood up and brushed
himself off. "Guess we better get going then, eh?"

"I thought you had to piss," Jonah
said.

"Guess I don't after all." He pointed
at Danny. "Why don't we switch for a while. You can ride with
me."

Vinnie actually seemed to be relieved.
But although the tension was thick, Danny hadn't seemed to clue in
on it. He shrugged and climbed on behind Ramsay.

The bike sprayed dirt as Wayne tore
off up the path. Vinnie cried out for his partner to wait, then he
motioned for Jonah to get on.

By the time they rose up out of the
ditch to the desert floor, Wayne's bike was a cloud of dust in the
distance. Vinnie tried to catch up, but it was clear he wasn't as
comfortable as his partner driving with a passenger over such
questionable terrain.

"Don't worry about them," he tried to
assure Jonah. "They'll wait for us when we hit the
road."

But a half mile later the engine began
to struggle. Jonah felt it hesitate and immediately knew something
was wrong. A hundred feet later the bike stalled. Vinnie tried to
restart it, but it just wouldn't run. "I don't understand," he told
Jonah.

"I think I do." He asked for the keys
and removed the gas cap. He expected to find it empty, perhaps as
some kind of cruel prank. But there was gas in it.

It was also full of sand.