Condemn (BUNKER 12 Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

in some light.
Come on, Danny, snap to it. We need to hurry."
    They went room by room, opening and
inspecting cabinets. They spent the bulk of their time in the
kitchen and garage, giving the bedrooms a cursory check before
moving on.
    But the small house had clearly been
scavenged already, and there was nothing of any use. Danny was
relieved that they hadn't found any bones in any of the beds, but
he was also disappointed that there was no car in the
garage.
    "Guess Susan was wrong."
    "About what?" Jonah asked, as they
moved onto the next building.
    "Nothing."
    They checked four more houses and what
looked like had been a general store before the sky grew noticeably
dimmer. All they'd managed to collect was a few cans of dog food
and a two liter bottle of cola that the solids had long since
precipitated out of. They decided to take their chances and stuck
it in the pack to bring back with them.
    Kari and Nami returned to the bus a
few minutes after them. They had had better luck, finding more food
and water, as well as a few bottles of motor oil in a dusty shed.
They had brought it back, though Jonah said it wasn't enough to
last them the twelve or so more hours it would take to get to the
evac center. Yet despite their relative success, their mood
remained solemn.
    "Didn't find any cars, just a truck
without an engine in the maintenance garage," Nami quietly said. He
glanced grimly at Kari, who echoed the look. "Looks like it had
been stripped clean of useful parts."
    "So much for people going home to
die," Danny grumbled to himself. He didn't seem to notice the
frowns it brought him.
    After the food and drinks had been
doled out and the children and some of the adults had returned to
their seats, Mister Blakeley drew the scouting parties together.
"Spill it," he quietly told Kari and Nami. "Yes, I noticed. What'd
you find?"
    "Blood," Kari finally conceded. "In
the automotive shop. Lots of it."
    " Old blood," Nami
clarified.
    "I think we'd better get used to
seeing it," Jonah said. "Or did we forget what it was like at the
end?"
    Nobody answered right away.
    "It was more than just blood," Kari
said. "There were chains attached to the walls. It looked like
someone had locked people up inside and then—"
    "We don't know that," Nami quietly
told her. "We don't know what happened in there or why."
    But Kari pressed on. "The blood wasn't
new, but it wasn't three years old, either. And I don't know if
they were Wraiths or uninfected people that had been chained up. I
can't imagine why anyone would do that, but it's pretty damn clear
that something not . . . not nice happened in
there."
    Jonah stood up. "I want to see for
myself."
    "It's almost dark!"
    The sun had now slipped completely
below the horizon, and shadows covered the land, filling the
canyons between buildings with a cold, dead silence. The inside of
the bus itself had grown dark enough that the figures sitting just
a few seats away were little more than huddled shapes.
    "I'd rather check tonight and know
better what we're dealing with than to spend the night
wondering."
    A pair of flashlights was all they had
for illumination, but he didn't want to take them from the other
passengers. He disconnected the cell phone from the bus's charger
and tested the light from the screen. It would do for what he
needed. He said he planned to be gone no more than ten
minutes.
    "You coming, Danny?"
    Danny swallowed dryly. "I should have
known you'd want company."
     
     

Finn came to with a start. And a pounding headache.
    And immediately threw up the dried
nuts he'd eaten for breakfast into the pine needles beside
him.
    "Smooth move, bro," Bix said, wiping
the splatter off his hand onto his pants. "Blech."
    "What happened?"
    "Try not to move," someone else
replied, a woman. She had a thick southern accent.
    Finn attempted to get onto his feet,
then decided it was too soon and sat back down again. His head
spun. The pain was already receding, though it left his