Author: Saul W. Tanpepper
Date: 2015-04-26 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Zombies; Dystopia; Fiction; Post Apocalyptic; Apocalyptic; Science Fiction; Thriller
Description: They thought they were safe. They were wrong. Three years. That's how long Finnian Bolles has been hiding inside the impregnable walls of the hydroelectric complex known as Bunker 8. Three years, with enough resources to last him and the other thirty survivors three more.But then a series of disturbing events culminates in the sudden appearance of a stranger at their door. Before he too falls victim to the mysterious sickness known as the Flense, he warns them of a fate more horrific than the one they've been avoiding. But to prevent it, they must leave and seek a place many insist doesn't exi
Publisher: Saul Tanpepper

CONTENTS

CONTAIN

BUNKER 12 Series, Book 1

Excerpt

THE FLENSE

Companion series to BUNKER 12

‡ ‡ ‡

Care to share?

Copyright Notice

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Tanpepper Tidings Newsletter

(subscribe for exclusive early access to THE FLENSE)

‡ ‡ ‡

Contain (Bunker 12, Book 1)
by Saul Tanpepper

Copyright © 2015 by Saul Tanpepper
All rights reserved.

May 4, 2015 by Brinestone Press, San Martin, CA 95046

Cover credit K.J. Howe Copyright © 2015
Photo licensed from Depositphoto.com

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LICENSE NOTES

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

http://www.brinestonepress.com

Tanpepper, Saul (2015-05-04). Contain (Bunker 12, Book 1)

Brinestone Press Digital Edition (rv150423)

For more information about this and other titles by this author:
authorsaultanpepper@gmail.com

‡ ‡ ‡

CONTAIN

a BUNKER 12 novel

by Saul Tanpepper

© 2015

All rights reserved (full notice)

authorsaultanpepper@gmail.com

(rv.150423)

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.

The scream builds in my chest, threatens to erupt out of me.

Harper, run! Get the hell out of there!

And my mind does that thing where the scene warps: the background shrinks away while the terrified looks on my brother's and sister's faces zoom in. They fill my vision, my mind, permeating me with such horror that I'm unable to move.

Harper, please, run. Leah, run.

The words never make it past my throat. My jaw clamps shut. I don't dare make a sound. To do so would be suicide.

Someone behind me whimpers— one of the children with us on the bus. There's movement, and the vehicle rocks the tiniest bit. The shocks let out a soft, rubbery squeak, and someone hisses in distress. Too loud. It’s all much too loud.

The whimper comes again, is abruptly stifled.

Don't make a sound.

Don't draw any attention.

Don't let them know we're alive.

Dad edges closer to me. I'm aware of the smell of sweat on his skin, the musty tang of three days without benefit of a shower or air conditioning or change of clothing. He slowly slips his hand onto my shoulder so I won't be startled. He whispers into my ear to be still and urges me not to look.

“You don't want to see this,” he whispers.

But I have to. I have to know the manner of their death, even though it’s always the same.

I pray they die quickly.

I also watch because I'm transfixed by those things, the way they move, like smoke. Like phantoms, but with physical form, silent deliverers of death.

They emerge from the trees, slither down the mountainside, drift along the curves of the road as they draw near, drawn by the flames spouting from the van blocking our path.

My plea changes: Don't run, guys. Please don't run.

It’ll only be worse if they do.

Some of the creatures are still on two legs, but most are on all fours. Hunting. Pack hunting. Getting ready to circle Harper and Leah, stalking them like prey. Moving to block their escape, blocking any path to us and safety.

Harper guides Leah behind his back as they slowly edge their way toward us. His eyes are locked onto the closest ones directly in front of them, some forty-odd feet away now. Trying to judge what their next move might be. He doesn't see the ones closing in on either side.

The bus engine keeps chugging, a low rhythmic thing, like the growl of a half-rabid dog, waiting . . . waiting. Steady now steady now steady . . . steady . . . steady.

The creatures act as if they don't know we're here.

The stink of burning flesh pinches my nose. Their hands sear and blister on the sun-baked pavement. Why don't they feel it? How can they not cry out with pain, or when the broken glass from the shattered windshields slices open their palms?

Because they're gone, Finn, the ghost of my father's voice whispers in my head. Words uttered just seventy-two hours before, words I'd refused to believe until the scene before us resurrects them. Whatever made them human is gone, stripped away by whatever disease now courses through their veins. They're nothing but empty shells now.

Filled with a sickness that seeks only to spread itself. And when challenged, to utterly destroy.

A single touch, that's all it takes. Skin to skin contact. So easy to execute, seemingly so simple to prevent, yet almost impossible to avoid.

I have seen it happen now a dozen times. And each time it's the same: You can see the life leaching out of the victim, whatever force made them human. You can see them become like the ghouls that made them.

Soul-suckers.

That's what one man called them, back at the evac center.

I’ve watched how, within minutes of being touched, their faces go slack. The light leaves their eyes, turns them black. Their skin loses pigment, assumes a pearly white hue. Then gray. They remain cognizant for several more minutes. Then the insanity of what is happening to them sets in. Finally, they're completely gone.

Soul-stealers. Soul-eaters.

Soul-destroyers.

We've been calling them Wraiths. It’s as apt a name as any, even if it’s not very accurate. They're not dead, not ghosts. They still have corporeal form; their bodies are still intact. They can be killed. Not easily, but still possible.

As long as you can avoid being touched.

Harper and Leah are less than twenty feet away now, still slowly edging toward us. More Wraiths are emerging out of the woods, but they're not attacking. Not yet. They're circling. Drawn to my brother and sister as if their absence of infection is a scent on their skin. Hunting them.

But there are too many, and we're too far away to help them. And now I begin to hear a whisper from the people behind me, fear that the Wraiths will overwhelm the bus once they've finished outside. Then they'll figure out we're in here, and when they realize they can't get in to steal our souls—

Then they'll stop being ghosts and start being Death.

I've seen this terrible side of them, as well. A hundred times. A thousand. Fleeing through town I saw them ravage those victims who fought back or ran. The blood isn't the worst part. Or the sound of flesh being torn from bone. Or the smell of them eating.

It's the howls. The howls steal into your mind, settle in, take root.

“Go!” someone hisses behind us, ordering the driver. “Knock the van out of the way. Get us the hell out of here!”

The engine revs. The tires begin to move, crunching over the broken glass.

No! I want to shout. My father holds me tighter. I wrestle with him.

But it's already too late. I can see that. Harper and Leah are surrounded. The Wraiths are twelve feet away from them now. Ten. Eight.

Don't run. Please don't run.

It's my last prayer.

But Harper is a hero. he's always the hero, right to the very end. He turns around to face the ones behind them. He presses his back against Leah's and raises the tire iron in his hand. He swings it and roars.

And the change comes over the Wraiths. They swarm. Their movements are a blur.

A fine red mist begins to lift into the air, and, finally, I cannot hold back my scream as it explodes from my throat.

I lurch upright and gasp for air. My skin's covered in sweat, but the wetness on my cheeks is from tears.

Dad stirs on his bedroll, just a few feet away. “Finn?” he asks.

I turn away, embarrassed, and don't answer. Eighteen-year-olds aren't supposed to cry in front of their fathers, not in this world. Not in any world.

I reach for my threadbare jeans and tee shirt in the darkness, blindly patting the floor next to me until I find them. Blinded more by the vision still fresh in my head, than by the inadequate band of light slipping in under the door. The clothes are well worn and dingy. The shirt, an evacuation center stock white tee, is a size too small and strains at the seams as I pull it on. Used to be too big, but I've grown. The jeans are donations. I'm lucky to have them.

“Nightmare?” he asks. His words are drunk with sleep. “Same one?”

“I'm going out.” I don't bother with shoes or socks. I only wear them when I absolutely have to.

“It's . . . .” He squints at the clock on the wall. “It's not even four o'clock, Finn. Go back to sleep.”

“Food needs to be inventoried. I'll get an early start.”

He grunts and settles back onto his mat and murmurs something about it being too warm. He doesn't force me to talk to him about my problems, for which I am currently grateful, though there are times when I wish he would put forth a little more effort, make it seem like he's interested in my life. In me. Sometimes, he makes me feel more like of a nuisance than a son.

I head down the empty hallway to the stairs. I need to be alone to clear my head, and the mindless task of inventorying helps. Plus, there's the solitude.

There are those who find the isolation here hard to bear. Bix, for example. He thrives on social interaction. For me, solitude has always been an elusive thing, constantly sought, fragile when captured, easily lost. In the crowded world that existed before the Flense, I was lucky to get it whenever I could. Back then, I was the kind of kid who functioned better on my own, away from others. I craved isolation. I needed it.

Now the world is a much emptier place, yet solitude seems even harder to find.

It's not that I'm antisocial. It's just that before coming here I found dealing with people difficult. The connections inside of my head weren't made properly. That's what people said. Whatever. Now I have little choice in the matter.

Of course, I take meals with others, sit with Bix and Bren whenever I can. Bix'd be offended if I didn't, though he's like the Energizer Bunny sometimes and keeps going. It can get obnoxious at times, so I find myself zoning him out a lot. He does make me laugh, though. I give him that. Laughter's a rare thing to hear in this world.

Then there's Bren. I'd be lying if I said I didn't treasure the few moments each day I get to spend with her.

As I pass her door, I hear her father's voice on the other side of it, so I know he's up. I wonder if he pulled the overnight duty watching the security monitors. I don't bother knocking.

Meals are pretty much the extent of my routine social interactions these days. There are the usual hellos in the hallway, of course, which are unavoidable. I try not to be rude. Must be a functioning member of this community, even if that community consists only of some thirty-odd individuals. The last people left alive on the planet, infected or otherwise, at least if some people are to be believed.

I'm not sure I do. There are nine other bunkers like this one. There have to be other survivors in them.

As for my nightly interrogation by Dad, well, that could never be misconstrued for social interaction. He rarely ever asks how I'm doing, rarely asks anything personal about me. I think he's afraid I might actually answer him.

Medication used to help me cope with my fear of crowds, but it's been years since I've been able to take anything. That's one of the many things they forgot to stock in this place, before they sealed the doors shut behind us, a good pharmacy. That and decent food, as Bix is constantly reminding us. “I miss my peanut butter and amotta.”

“What’s amotta?” one of the Rollins twins obliges.

“I don’t know,” Bix responds, not skipping a beat. “What’s amotta with you?”

He also misses his entertainment.

“People'd be a heckuva lot more pleasant if we just had something fun to do. Just give me a decent video library, that’s all I ask. And something modest to watch them on. An eighty-inch hi-def screen.”

“Video library?” Bren teases. “You mean porn.”

“Hey, I gots my needs. They must be satisfied.”

“Satisfied how?” she challenges. Then almost immediately regrets doing so. “Ewww! Gross! Don't answer that!”

He doesn't deny what she's implying. “Can I help it if I'm a hot-blooded teen-aged Lothario with a lot of pent up—?”

“Hormones?”

“I was going to say frustration.”

“Just as bad,” she quips.

“Lothario my ass!” I snort. “You're a horny perv.”

“With a bad haircut,” Bren adds, piling on.

“Guilty as charged.”

“And a terrible complexion,” she continues, and they both laugh.

It makes me uncomfortable that she can joke around with my best friend like that.

“That's cold, dude,” he tells her, when he sobers up. He turns to me. “You gonna let your girl diss your homie like that?”

I roll my eyes.

“Anyway, it's not my fault. It's the constant darkness in here. Zits flourish in artificial light.”

“Then why don't we all have zits?” Bren challenges.

“Because you and the Finn-meister are freaks of nature.”

It's true— the part about us being acne-free, I mean. Mine cleared up sometime after I turned sixteen. And Bren has never had a pimple as long as I've known her.

“Must be another side effect of your, ahem, frustration release,” I say.

Bren nearly spits out her condensed milk.

Usually, by this point, Bix'll leave the conversation in mock disgust or change the subject. Or he'll threaten to deny us access to the only music in this place, which is his father's guitar. Unless you count his singing in the shower.

Yeah, we've got a guitar. Go figure. But practically no meds except for the emergency ones Doc Cavanaugh has in the supplied med kit downstairs on Level Five. The organizers really could've done a much better job planning for our needs. No antibiotics or videos. No internet or computers. No peanut butter or takeout pizza.

All the things we took for granted before the outbreak.

Before the Flense.

Just food with a fifty-year shelf-life, water, and power. Plus the gift of each others' company and all the time in the world.

And that's why I value my solitude.

I descend to Level Six, exit the stairwell, and slip silently over the metal grating. Levels Five through Seven share a three-story open bay, so noises have a tendency to carry between floors in a way that has always made me feel exposed, like I'm never alone.

I punch in the code on the keypad for the food storage room and the locking mechanism clicks as it releases, granting me access. The clipboard hangs just inside. Counting cans and bags and boxes is mind-numbing work, but it quiets my thoughts, which keeps the bad memories at bay. And the terrifying images they invariably resurrect.

I'm only a few minutes into the count when a bead of sweat drips from my forehead and splatters onto the paper. The pencil lead smears when I wipe it away. A second bead tickles my cheek, pulling me out of my zone.

It troubles me that I'm warm. It's supposed to be cool down here, to help keep the stores from going bad. My first thought is that I'm running a slight fever. So, of course, my natural inclination is to deny it.

Doc says we're to report any illnesses immediately, not that there have been any. We've all been lucky, being as healthy as we have been. Early on, we all agreed that anyone who starts to show any symptoms of illness, no matter how minor, is supposed to place themselves into quarantine, away from anyone else, just in case it's the Flense.

But at this point, after three years of total isolation and absolutely no contact with the outside world, how could it be possible to contract the deadly disease?

I push the thought away. I'm just tired. Or anxious. I wipe away another line of sweat on my neck and resume the inventorying.

Canned soups and vegetables. Canned meats and stews and soups. Dehydrated meats. Nuts. Dried berries. Tasteless protein bars. All stacked neatly from one end of the room to the next.

I tick each item off on my list. As they should, the numbers exactly mirror what they were last week, since Hannah hasn't been down to request that I transfer anything up into the working larder on Level One.

To be honest, nothing really ever changes very quickly, if at all. Not inside these walls. One day slips seamlessly into another. The concept of morning and evening have become nearly meaningless. There are no weekends, no weekdays. There's a calendar on the wall in the common room where we sometimes eat, and it's Maria Caprio's job to keep it current, but I can't remember the last time I even looked at it.

If we want to know the time, we can just check the clocks that are in every single one of our living quarters. If we want to know if the sun is out, we can check the security monitors in the watch room. Or the one in the wall by the loading bay door on Level Four. There's also the windows in the keeper station at the end of the corridor on this level.

But other than the hour or so a day most of us are required to spend watching the monitors for survivors, it's pretty rare that any of us will ever voluntarily seek out those places. The horrors that played out for months outside the bunker abolished any curiosity of the outside world for good. The habit of not looking, of not being reminded of the dangers and how close we came to becoming victims ourselves, has become too deeply ingrained. This is our life now. Outside isn't real.

I know that's not true, but that's how it feels. Nothing there ever changes, either. After three years of monitoring the cameras, not once has there been a single survivor. Not in all the hundreds of hours I or anyone else has spent dutifully watching for them.

Lots of the infected, though.

Like Mom and Harper and Leah.

“Cornmeal,” I bark, as if I can startle the unbidden memory of their faces away from my mind with my voice. The word comes out as a croak, bounces off the concrete walls and ceiling.

I clear my throat, hating the way it distorts down here in this place. And in the spaces between echoes, I become aware once more of the dull thud of the hydroelectric turbines. You can hear them everywhere in the bunker, no matter how far or how deep you go. The sound infects my sleep, my dreams, infusing all with a sense of foreboding that I'll wake one day to find them absent, that the engines of our survival have stopped.

As if an augur of my fears, the dim lights flicker, taunting me, reminding me that it could all end in the blink of an eye.

Dad insists that the flickering is nothing to worry about, despite it happening more and more often lately, it seems. But I've seen the doubt in his eyes. I don't think he believes himself.

The massive generators, which we lack either the means or the skills to repair should they ever fail, are the reason we're able to stay inside here. If for some reason they ever stopped, we'd be totally screwed.

“Rice.”

Tick.

Got to stop thinking such thoughts.

“Barley.”

Tick.

Just need to concentrate.

Tick.

“Nine pallets,” I say aloud. “Nine times ninety-eight cans per. Eight hundred and eighty-two canisters.”

There's little satisfaction in knowing that it's the exact same number as last week's inventory. The last time a pallet of oats was cracked open was four months ago.

It's Jonah's job to maintain the larder stores. He loves lording it over me that he gets to tell me when to transfer another pallet. He never helps move anything, so it always falls to me. Thankfully, Hannah has been a blessing and helps whenever she can.

I know it'll be awhile before he needs more oatmeal, another two months at least. And based on past usage we've got enough to feed us for another three years yet.

The thought of that timeframe terrifies me, not because of how far away that is, but because of how quickly the last three have passed. Already more than halfway through. I don't relish the thought of leaving.

Jonah's dad is confident that the scourge will long be over by then. Based on his calculations, based on the fact that the other busload of survivors never arrived and that the bunker was intended to support twice as many people, he thinks we were only meant to stay in here for three or four years total, which would be right about now. Jonah's even more sure that the danger caused by the Flense has since passed, but most of the rest of us are skeptical.

Jonah's strongest argument is that no one has seen any Wraiths in any of the monitors for several months. “They're all dead,” he tells us.

Mom and Harper and Leah.

I give a corner of the closest pallet an angry kick, and a bag breaks open and spills its precious grain out in a tiny avalanche onto the floor.

“Damn it!”

I reach down to try and stem the flow, and the coolness of the fine rice grain spilling through my fingers reminds me once more how warm I feel.

Or rather, it’s the air that’s warm.

I glance over toward the door with concern, wondering if the ventilation system is starting to act up. I go over and stick my hand up closer to the grate and it's not just warm, but hot. Too hot. I should call my father on the handset by the door.

But I don't have to, because that's when the fire alarm goes off.

I throw the clipboard to the floor and slam through the door. Down the hallway to the stairs. The noise is a thousand times louder out here. I bypass the lift. The first thing Dad taught us is to avoid the elevator during emergencies.

I've only climbed up a single flight when Eddie Mancuso, our lead mechanic, flies around the next landing and nearly plows into me. “Down!” he orders. He's wearing nothing but his undies, having clearly been roused from his sleep. “Malfunction in the furnace! Didn't you notice the heat?”

Seth Abramson is right behind him, as is Stephen Largent, both already dressed. Others are coming. I join them, though I'm not sure what I can do. My thoughts are for Bren. Her shift usually follows her dad's, so she's probably on watch right now. What must she be thinking? Somebody should tell her what's going on.

She must be going crazy wondering. It's forbidden to leave the monitors unattended, no matter what, unless it's a matter of life and death. “Can't take the chance one of the infected gets through,” Dad always says. He refuses to call them Wraiths, unlike everyone else. He also won't concede that they're too dumb to figure out how to get past the security lock on the doors. “And we don't want to miss seeing a survivor,” he adds.

Like me, he still wants to believe there might be people out there who somehow escaped the Flense. But unlike me, he still believes the rest of our family is still alive.

I'm soaking with sweat as we stampede down the steps. The temperature quickly rises the lower we go. Level Seven. Level Eight. The stairwell now feels like the kitchen during mealtime in the summer.

Eddie's right. I should have checked it out sooner. It'll be my fault if the problem is made worse because of it.

A loud hissing fills my ears as we exit onto Level Nine and sprint toward the boiler room door. The air is thick with moisture, making it hard to breathe, to see. Condensation drips down the walls, pools on the floor. I slip, stumble, catch myself as others pass me.

“Broken main!” Eddie yells. He keys in the access code, then forces open the steel door. He's immediately enveloped with steam. The overhead lights flicker and go out. The fog glows red from the emergency beacon. “Must've fried the thermostat!”

I open my mouth to shout at him to stop, but he wades into the mist before I can move. The way it swallows him up reminds me of the Wraiths. I freeze in panic, the words dead on my lips as I envision them coming out to touch us.

But then the image is torn from me. There's a loud clang from inside the room and the hissing grows into an angry roar. The fluorescent lights blink back on, one by one, all in a line.

Eddie yelps once in surprise. His next screams are in agony.

Someone rushes past me, slamming me into the door jamb, shouting something about getting out of the way. Then another person. I hear more shouting inside. I hear the roar of their voices turning to screams of horror.

An instant later, they're pulling Eddie out by his arms. Everything's bright red, so at first I think he's covered in blood, that Wraiths have somehow gotten in and started to eat him. But I quickly realize it's not what I think it is. He wasn't attacked. His skin is burned, horribly so.

“Is he dead?” I ask.

Someone grabs my shirt and shakes me. It's Stephen Largent, Eddie's assistant. He shouts in my face to get Doc Cavanaugh. It feels like it takes forever before my brain can reorder the words into something that makes sense.

I turn on my heels and run to find her, even as I know it's already too late.

“Finn, it's not your fault.”

Bren combs her fingers through my hair and tries to turn my face to look at her. But I feel absolutely terrible about what happened downstairs.

Before I can stop myself, I'm snapping at her that it is my fault.

She draws back, her lips pressed tight. She's used to my moodiness and doesn't often let it get to her, but I know it's no excuse for me to be mean.

“I'm sorry,” I mumble.

I swivel the chair away and stare at the image on the center console. The view is the loading bay doors, two stories down on Level Four. A while back, someone stuck a piece of paper to a corner of the screen labeling it The Welcome Mat, though it has been anything but welcoming.

Sometimes, because the image never changes, I freak myself out believing that the camera is broken and that what's on the screen isn't really happening outside, that the true image is something trying to get in at us and I'm blind to it. But if I stare at the picture long enough, I can see the shadows slowly creeping along, changing shape and size, and I know everything's working fine.

Night watch is the worst. At night, there's only the security lights, and the shadows don't move at all for hours on end.

I know every inch of that view by heart, as well as the ones on the other two monitors. Every crack in the pavement and walls, every weed growing through them, every oil stain. Every faded blood stain. I see them all in my sleep. If I had an iota of artistic talent and a lot of gray paint and a little red, I could recreate them all from memory.

“I mean it, Finn. You didn't send Eddie into that room.”

“I didn't stop him, either,” I repeat.

“He's a grown man. He knew better.”

“And I'm not? I don't?”

Bren lets out a frustrated puff of air and pulls further away from me. Already I miss her touch, the heat of her body, the soft feel of it pressed against mine, and the room suddenly feels a lot larger than it really is.

It's small, actually, barely fifteen feet on each side, but it's made even more cramped by the jumble of equipment along the back wall behind this centrally-positioned table. At the same time, the lack of lighting makes it appear deeper.

A sudden puff of cool air caresses my face, drawing my attention toward the vent near the ceiling. “Looks like they've got it fixed.”

“And Doc'll get Eddie fixed up, too.”

“You didn't see him. It was bad.”

I know I do this to her sometimes, treat her more like a sister than a girlfriend. And she's an angel to bear it. Sometimes I wonder if maybe she'd never even be with me if we weren't stuck inside this place. It's not like there are many options for us.

I reach over and grab her arm and repeat my apology.

There are thirty-one people in Bunker Eight, most of them older adults, a few younger kids. Among the boys our age, there's Jonah, who's a year older than me at nineteen. Bix, my best friend — well, if I'm being totally honest with myself, my only friend — is a year younger. And the two Rollins boys, Jacob and Jareth, thirteen and fourteen, respectively.

On the other side, there's just Bren, seventeen, and Hannah, who's a year younger. It's no secret that Jonah favors Hannah, which is good for me. And everyone knows that Hannah has a huge crush on Bix— everyone but Bix, it seems. I figure that's why Jonah never cuts him any slack.

Most of the time, Bix just takes it. He's too insecure to stand up to Jonah on his own. And his solution when he's not alone is to try and joke his way out. That goes for just about any uncomfortable situation. He'd probably make fun of Hannah liking him if he had a clue about it.

Not that it makes any difference. Hannah's dad is super protective of her. I doubt he'd let anyone near his daughter as long as we're living in here.

Except now her father’s lying in a bed in the med bay dying, so there's nothing stopping Jonah from weaseling his way into her affections.

“You should be with Hannah,” I tell Bren.

“Bix is with her.”

“Oh?” I say, surprised. “Bet she's happy about that.”

Bren frowns at me. “Stop it, Finn. She's scared to death that her father's going to die.”

Because he is.

“And Jonah?” I ask, despite knowing I'm not doing myself any favors by bringing him up. “Where's he?”

“He's helping out with the repair in the dungeon.”

That's what Bren calls Levels Nine and Ten. She refuses to go any lower than the open area on Level Seven. She insists the place is haunted, that she's heard voices and crying down there, once when she helped my father find a tool or something on Level Eight.

“The senior members called for a meeting once they've finished,” she says, glad to change the subject. “Everyone's supposed to go.”

“Not everyone,” I remind her. I gesture at the screens. Someone has to watch them.

“Nobody blames you,” she assures me. She takes a hold of my face again and tries to kiss me, but I push her away.

“Crowded rooms, remember? I don't do well with a lot of people around me.”

“That's not true. Maybe it was at one time, but not anymore.”

I scowl. “Then why would my father send me up here to relieve you? He was afraid I'd have some kind of episode.”

She squeezes my arm hard, forcing me to look at her. There's something in her eyes that catches my attention, not frustration, but concern.

“Your dad's not the one who called the meeting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jack Resnick did.”

My mouth pops open in surprise. Jonah's dad? “Why? He's not in charge! I mean, okay, he's our chief engineer, but if anyone is going to—” I choke on my anger and am barely able to finish. “If anyone's going to speak for Eddie, it should be Stephen Largent.”

“I think that's what Jack wants to talk about, Finn. Replacements.”

I don't say anything. I try to read her face, but I don't like what I'm seeing. Jack talking about replacements can only mean one thing.

“It's not just the boiler room or the vents, Finn. We've been having trouble with the lights, too. There's . . . .” She sighs. “Things are falling apart.”

“And Dad’s been fixing them.”

“I'm just as worried as everyone else. I mean, how much longer are we supposed to be in here? How much longer will everything keep working? Eventually, something's going to break and we won't be able to fix it. What then?”

“What are you saying?”

“It's just that your father adamantly resists discussing the possibility of—”

“Leaving? He won't talk about it because it's a moot point, Bren. We can't! Not yet.”

“Why not? It's not just me, Finn. Jack is— He and some of the others are saying it's past time for some new thinking, new ideas.” She hesitates, then adds, “New leadership.”

“We don't need change!” I shout. “We need to be strong, hold steady. Sure, things break down. That's what happens after three years! But we fix them as best we can.”

“Your dad can't fix everything forever. We've already lost one of the heating elements we use for cooking.”

“So?” I say, incredulously. “That's such a minor thing.”

“But minor things add up.”

“Dad's doing the best he can! It's not like we can just go to the hardware store and buy replacements! How is anyone else going to do any better?”

“Finn, calm down! I'm on your side. Honest. But you know how Jack is. Once he gets an idea in his head . . . . And everyone knows he's never been happy about not being in charge. Every time your father votes against him just gives him another reason to want your dad out.”

“Dad votes against him because Jack Resnick comes up with the stupidest ideas!”

“Well, he's been going behind your father's back, gathering support for his side.”

“He has?”

She doesn't answer. She knows this isn't news to me, as it's not exactly a secret. I'm just more surprised that Jack would exploit this accident to make his move.

Bren stands up. “Look, I better go,” she says. “Before they come back. I don't want you to get into trouble if they find me here.”

“Yeah, because everyone already thinks so highly of me.”

“Self pity is a terrible look on you.”

I reach for her hand and manage to catch it before she can escape. I don't want her to leave. I want her to reassure me that it'll all be okay. But in my heart, I know changes happening, and I feel helpless to stop them.

“Don't worry,” she whispers. She bends down and brushes her lips against my cheek. “Everyone knows how much your father cares about us and our safety.”

Not everyone, I think.

She straightens up. “We'll get through this.”

I can't tell if she means this in general or this us. The uncertainty is a terrible weight on my chest, and it's crushing the breath from me.

The meeting goes on for hours, leaving me with little to do but eye the monitors while imagining the worst possible outcome for my father. Inevitably, my thoughts drift, and I’m back to watching the mental movie of my siblings dying at the hands and teeth of the Wraiths.

Why do I punish myself like this?

Eventually, Harry Rollins comes to relieve me. He averts his eyes and doesn't speak of what transpired in the meeting. I don't ask. I’m sure I’ll be hearing all about it soon.

I go straight to our room to wait for my father, but despite my agitation, I'm overwhelmed with exhaustion and slip into a restless sleep. Memories of the outbreak plague my dreams. They always start off the same way, with Dad showing up at my school.

I had no idea then that I'd never see the rest of my family again. Of course, in my dreams, I do know this, as well as everything that's going to happen. So it is in my dreams that there's always this voice deep down inside of me desperately screaming not to go with him. That's why, when I finally wake up later, it's always with an overpowering sense of loss and impotence, as if my subconscious is punishing me for being unable to change the outcome of what has already happened.

I'm in the nurse's office, sitting in one of those hard plastic orange chairs with the scratched graffiti on top and the gum stuck underneath. I'm pinching my nose with one hand. The other holds a bloody tissue.

It's an especially bad bleed this time, a gusher, as the nurse says. All I know is that it's a blessing my asthma doesn't kick in, because my lungs are barely treading water in a swamp of my own blood. It drips into the back of my throat, forcing me to swallow it, which just makes my stomach hurt more than it already does.

The stupid nurse won't let me move to spit it out. She orders me to sit still.

I press a little harder on the bridge of my nose, and a spark of pain explodes behind my eyes. A wet gurgle bubbles up out of me.

“Not so hard, Mister Bolles,” she warns in her sugary sweet, don't-you-dare-disobey-me voice. “Gentle pressure. It's not a tourniquet.”

I consider telling her that I'm pretty sure it's broken, but I know it would just come out sounding whiny. Not that she'd care anyway. She's already grumpy enough from having to call my dad for the second time in the same week.

I'm relieved when she finally stops fussing over me and leaves the room, shutting off the lights as she goes. As I sit there, my thoughts drift back to the event that ended in such humiliation. In my mind, I'm winning the fight. I always win the fight in the do-over.

The bell for final period rings and the halls fill with noise, so I don't hear when the door to the room opens.

“Finn?”

I lift my head and look over. And there, clear as day, is the disappointment in my father's eyes. Instinctively, I know what's going through his head: Why couldn't you have been more like Harper? Harper would have fought back. Harper would have kicked the other guy's ass.

He's never actually said anything of the sort to me before. I almost wish he would this time, so I'd know he gave a crap. But he doesn't ask. And for that I'm also glad, because how would I ever be able to face him again if I had to explain that it wasn't a guy who did this?

He wraps a hand around my scrawny forearm and gently leads me out of the office. The hallways are still crowded with students, though they're beginning to thin out. I can feel the stares of my fellow classmates on me, and I wish I could just crawl into a locker and hide. It's such a cliché, but that's how I feel.

He gets me into his car before I remember I’ve left my backpack in the nurse's office. Dad tells me to forget about it.

“But my books. My homework!” It comes out as boogs and hobeworg because of my shattered nose. “My phone!”

Which sounds like phobe.

“I'll leave a message for Harper to pick it up.”

Harper. Somehow, he always ends up saving the day.

Except I remember that Harper's not in school today. He's at his stupid elite genius internship at some bleeding-edge tech company in the valley.

I lean my head back and shut my eyes. I'll just get it in the morning.

We drive home in awkward silence, the news station Dad normally listens to turned all the way down, which means he wants to talk, if he could just dredge up the courage. I pray he doesn't.

“Finn . . . .” he eventually begins, and I wait. But after that rather auspicious start, he quickly loses steam.

I finger the bottle of pills in my pocket with my free hand, turn my head toward the window and shut my eyes. When we get home, I go straight to my room and lie down on my bed.

When I wake hours later, the house is silent and dark. In my dreams, I somehow manage to make my way back to the elementary school where my little sister, Leah, is a third grader. I somehow catch my mother and Harper as they're leaving, and I go with them instead of to the evac center with Dad. But the moment I get into the car, the scene always shifts, and I'm back inside the house, and it's my father's car that pulls into the driveway.

He rushes up the steps and slams through the door and grabs my shoulders. “Have you heard from any of the others?” There's panic in his eyes, and it intensifies as I shake my head. He squeezes me tighter, starts to shake me, and the pain and pressure inside my head feel like a balloon about to burst.

My chest starts to constrict. My breath comes out as a whistle. I reach for my inhaler, but it's back in my room.

“We have to go,” he tells me. “Now!” And he pulls me toward the car.

“Go where?” I ask. “Didn't you try calling them?”

“Phones are down.”

“Phones? How is that even possible?” I notice that the lights on the street are out. In fact, lights everywhere are out. I smell smoke. “What's happening?”

“Not now, Finn,” he says, his words clipped. He slips past the front of the car, keys jangling in his hand. “Hurry!”

A block away, someone is running down the sidewalk in our direction, a woman. I can't tell who it is, but she's really in a hurry. And something in the way she moves strikes me as odd.

“Get in the car!” Dad hisses.

“But maybe she knows—”

“Get in the goddamn car, Finn! Now!”

I glance back at the woman, and suddenly I'm terrified. She's moving way too fast, and I don't like the way her legs scissor. It's not natural.

“Dad, what's going on?”

The door opens and slams into me, jolting me away from the car before he grabs my shirt and yanks me inside. My head hits the edge of the roof. I see stars.

“Close the damn door!”

The engine starts up, howls angrily as he stomps on the gas. But it's not in gear. He shifts, and then we're tearing off down the street, tires screaming.

We approach the running figure, and just for a moment I see her face in the car's headlights. There's nothing but darkness in her eyes. No emotion, no awareness. She turns as we pass and she reaches out for us. Dad swerves.

As we accelerate away, something about her shifts, and a howl of rage erupts out of her throat, sending an icy shiver through me. She grabs for us, but her fingers slip off the metal and she tumbles to the pavement.

“What the hell?” I shout. “I think you hit her! Stop!”

What the hell was wrong with her?

“Get your seatbelt on, son.” He throws a glance at my lap, then into the rearview mirror. “Do it!”

I reach over and clip it on. “Dad, please, tell me what's going on?”

He grips the steering wheel and barely slows when we reach the stop sign at the end of the block. The tires screech and the car fishtails around the corner.

“Dad!”

“Finn! Not now. I need to think.”

“Think about what? This is crazy! Slow down.” I point out the windshield, gesturing at the road ahead. “Speed limit's twenty-five here! You're going to kill—”

And that's when I see them.

They're everywhere— in the streets, on lawns. Standing around with their faces in the air, as if they were watching something in the sky but suddenly forgot that they were. They all turn to look at us, and they all have those dead, empty eyes.

Every coherent thought in my head completely vanishes. They look like zombies.

“Can't go through town,” Dad mutters. “Too many.”

“Too many what? Dad, what's wrong with them?”

The muscles in his cheeks ripple as his jaw flexes. He casts a look over at me, purses his lips, then focuses again on the road.

“Dad?”

“It's some sort of disease,” he answers, and once more the Z-word comes to mind. But there's no blood. No one is trying to eat anyone else. No blood yet, anyway, because nobody realized what was happening until much later, when most people were already lost to the infection.

Only then was there blood. And a hell of a lot of it.

“What kind of disease?”

But he refuses to say anything else. He doesn't explain how he knows, and I don't press him on it.

The erratic driving makes my nose throb again. Thankfully, it's not bleeding. A lump has formed on the side of my head where I hit it on the door jamb.

We drive for another thirty minutes, taking side streets and avoiding crowds of people. Everywhere, the power is out. Signal lights aren't working. There's surprisingly little traffic on the roads. Apparently, everyone decided to walk instead of drive.

Dad tells me not to look, but I can't help it. What happened to them? How long will it last? How did it spread so quickly?

The afflicted are in no hurry. They just amble along. At least until we get close enough to pass them. Then they run, and they all have that same loping, slithering gait I first saw in front of the house.

At some point, panic finally sets in among the unafflicted. People are beginning to understand that something very bad is happening, that there's something very wrong with these people. They start fighting back, which only makes matters worse. That's when I see my first killing.

It's a horrible, bloody, violent ordeal, over in a matter of seconds, though in my mind it stretches out to an eternity. And when they're done, there's practically nothing left of the victim but a few tattered strips of flesh and glistening white bone.

“Finn,” my father pleads with me, “don't look.”

When I turn to him to beg him to wake me up, when I see the tears on his own face, I know I'm not dreaming. This is real.

We end up at the small regional airport that services the tiny jets of the rich folks who live and work in the valley. I ask where we're going, if we're flying out. He sighs and says, “Don't worry.”

“What about Mom? What about Harper and Leah?”

“We had a plan,” he explains. “In case this sort of thing happened.”

This sort of thing? I want to shout. This sort of thing is absolutely crazy. How do you plan for this sort of thing? But my throat has constricted. I scramble for my inhaler before remembering I still don't have it.

Through the fog of the asthma attack, I hear him say, “They're supposed to meet us here.”

They never did.

Dad shakes me awake, and for a moment I'm back on the plane that brought us to the evac center. I blink away the sleep as the austere surroundings of our private quarters in the bunker return to me, followed by the memory of the previous day's accident.

“Eddie?” I ask.

He nods, lets out a deep breath, and sits down on the thin pad beside me. He's close enough to make this feel personal, yet far enough away that we don't actually — or accidentally — touch.

I push myself up and face him. Neither of us seems able to look each other in the eye. We each focus on something else in the room, which lately has been feeling more and more cramped.

There's very little that's welcoming about the place. I've tried to give it a homey touch, decorating the walls a bit with drawings, but they're poor representations of the things I remember from before. Bren tells me that if I tried harder, I could be a lot better at art. She's tried to show me. But my hands don't seem able to follow the instructions from my head. I can't make them do what I want.

Maybe it's a good thing, because some of those images are truly horrifying.

There's a sort of mat on the floor, woven from strips of the material some of the food came in. It's scratchy, but it's better than the permanent chill of the bare concrete, especially in the winter. The light seeping under our door glows dimly on my father's face, making it appear bruised and pale.

“What time is it?”

“Almost morning.”

“You didn't wake me when you came back last night?”

“I am just coming back. The senior members continued discussing matters. We finished about an hour ago. I decided to do my walkabout before retiring.”

I frown at him. “You met all night? What did you talk about that whole time?”

“We didn’t talk the whole time. Eddie was having difficulty breathing, so we took a break. Doctor Cavanaugh pulled me and Seth in to work the respirator and to keep an eye on the IV lines. It was . . . . Well, it was touch and go there for a bit.”

He takes my hand and squeezes it, and I can see that his eyes are filled with tears. He so rarely cries, even when we talk about the rest of our family.

“That man is one tough son-of-a-gun.”

“But he's going to die.”

Dad doesn't deny it.

“He couldn't have known that pipe was going to burst right then, Dad. I tried—”

“Nobody's blaming anybody.”

Does he mean me? Or Eddie?

“He just ran inside the boiler room. It was filled with steam already. We couldn't see.”

“I know.”

“I wanted to tell him to stop.”

He straightens up and gives my hand another squeeze, hard this time, then looks me in the eye. “No one can manage the past, Finn, so it's no use trying. The best we can do is to keep preparing for the future.”

I turn away, suddenly disgusted with myself, with my own paralyzing fears. “What future?” I spit. “Counting food stores until there's nothing left to count? What then? Jonah says—”

“Look at me,” he tells me. “Finn, look at me.” But when I do, the steely gaze I expect isn't there. Just the pain. “I hope it doesn't come to that,” he whispers. “But right now isn't the time to be talking about leaving. To even be thinking about it. It's a distraction. Winter'll be coming soon.”

“No one's seen a Wraith in months, Dad.”

“You think we should leave? Is that what you're saying, Finn?”

He's throwing my fears back in my face, and it enrages me, especially after all Bren said to me yesterday.

“I don't know! Maybe.”

“One touch,” he reminds me, snapping his fingers. “One touch is all it takes, and you're gone. Nothing you do can stop it.”

He means that the moment that touch happens, you have a few minutes when you know you're dead. Or whatever passes for dead on this side of the line. You know your mind is leaving you.

There is no cure, no treatment, no way to stop the inevitable decline. In those last few minutes before your humanity slips away, you know it's happening. Those are the worst moments, because you're still human enough to understand that soon you won't be.

“We can't risk it, Finn.”

He studies my face. He knows I'll be the last person to leave this place, if and when it happens. He knows that it'll take a lot of convincing to make me go. I've tried a few times these past three years to make him think otherwise, but it's too difficult. I hate that he thinks of me as a coward.

“Your mother would want you to stay safe inside, Finn.”

“She's dead. She and Harper and Leah.”

“No, Finn. You can't believe that.”

Now he's the one in denial. “You know they're Wraiths.”

He strikes me across the face, surprising me. It's not quite a slap, but not a real punch, either. It's enough to get my attention, which it certainly does. He's never hit me before.

I hold a hand up to my jaw and glare at him.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.”

I push the blanket off of me and stand up. The hit doesn't even hurt, but even if it did, I wouldn't want him to know it. Maybe at fifteen I didn't care enough that he thought of me as weak, but now that I'm eighteen, I'd rather die.

He gets up with me and crosses the room, placing himself between me and the doorway. “Listen to me, Finn. Just give me a few minutes. Things are going to change. Some for the good, some . . . .” He shrugs.

I study his face. What is he saying?

“Jack Resnick,” he says. “He and a few others want me to step down. They want to replace me with someone else.”

I roll my eyes. “You can't really be considering doing it.”

“I'm not.”

“Because Jack would be worse.”

“I know. And nothing is going to happen for the time being, not as long as Eddie is fighting for his life. We've all decided to wait at least that long. But, Finn, when it happens — not if, but when — we'll need someone with some sense in his head.”

“Such as?”

“I want you to consider taking my place.”

Tensions mount over the next three days as Eddie somehow manages to cling to life.

Doctor Cavanaugh is worried at how quickly our precious supply of bandages is dwindling. She's wrapped him up like a mummy and is pumping intravenous antibiotics more than a year expired into his veins. But even more than that, she's beside herself with disbelief. How could anyone survive what he went through? She tells my dad that if he doesn't pass on soon, it'll just be harder for him afterward, when the inevitable infections set in.

But nobody wants to be the one to make the call to stop treating him.

Bren and Bix and I stop down there daily, but we're not allowed to go inside the room, and we can't see anything through the window from the hallway because of the plastic curtain over the bed. Doc Cavanaugh tells us it's for his own protection. I overheard her tell Bren's mom that his destroyed skin is starting to turn white and slough off. She made it sound like it wasn't expected. But then again, she admits she's never treated anything like this before.

She was a pathologist and used to studying her patients through the lens of a microscope, an instrument she's been trying to build with Kari Mueller's and Eddie's help. They’ve been cannibalizing parts from digital cameras and screens. With Eddie injured now, I’m not sure if project will ever get finished.

Dad has stopped doing his daily walkabouts. He's stopped checking up on everyone to make sure the chores get done. He spends many of his waking hours assisting the doctor, as if he feels personally responsible for the accident. I see him comforting Hannah and I can't help but feel a little jealous of the attention he gives her, even though I know how incredibly selfish that is.

What he does with the rest of his time is a mystery. He doesn't spend it in our quarters, which is fine by me. I take advantage of the solitude.

And yet the chores still get done. I guess people need that routine, especially during stressful times such as this. Nobody wants to see our little society break down, no matter how unhappy we may be.

Bren, Bix, and I spend more time in the bunker's common room on the top level than we usually do. With decorated walls, hand-built couches, a small stack of books, and a few homemade board games, it's the closest thing we have to anything resembling the luxuries of the old world. It's where we go to pretend we're not the last uninfected people on the planet. And it's where we are when Jonah walks in on us.

The tension level immediately raises several notches.

Bix and Bren are in the middle of a heated debate about junk food. They know not to expect too much input from me, as I've never mastered the art of small talk. It's beyond me how people could devote so much time and thought into why a Milky Way bar is so much better than a Snickers, or why Coke over Pepsi. It seems like so much unnecessary self-torture.

The discussion ceases as Jonah settles into one of the empty armchairs. He gives us an expectant look before sucking in a breath of air, as if he's about to launch into a speech of his own. Bix groans and shakes his head, but Jonah ignores him.

Since the day after the meeting, the subject of replacing Dad as the group's leader hasn't come up in my presence. I'd been hoping it would just pass, that once the dust settled from Eddie's accident, everyone'd realize what a crappy job it is to be in charge. I mean, who really wants all that responsibility? I sure as hell don't, and I told Dad exactly that. Even I can see the toll it's taken on him. The fact that I haven't been sleeping very well the past few nights convinces me I'm totally the wrong man for the job.

But just because nobody's spoken with me about it, doesn't mean it hasn't been on people's minds and tongues. That much becomes clear as soon as Jonah speaks.

“Poll numbers are in,” he smugly announces. “Your dad lost the vote.” He glares at me, willing me to challenge him. Or maybe he expects me to run away and find my father.

Bix immediately jumps up. “What the hell are you talking about? There wasn't any vote! The rules say everyone has to vote on—”

“Chill, Blackeye.”

Jonah has been calling him that for the past year, ever since Bix showed up with double shiners after falling asleep during watch and slamming his forehead into the edge of the table. It probably wouldn't have stuck if Bix's last name weren't Blakeley. He also lets it get to him, which is exactly what Jonah wants.

This time, however, Bix ignores the taunt and turns to me. “Can he do that? He can't do that.”

Jonah starts laughing, which only makes us angrier.

“Don't listen to him, Bix,” Bren says. “He's just being a pissant.”

“Am I?” Jonah asks. “It's a done deal, sister. Abraham Bolles is out.”

Bix steps over to him, his fists clenched, which takes us all by surprise. He's actually shaking with rage. “You know what your problem is?” he shouts. “You're an ass. You've never even tried to be a part of all this. You're an outsider, always criticizing and making things hard for everyone else.”

“You're the outsider, Blackeye.”

“At least I don't try to stir up trouble everywhere I go, making everyone believe we can just get up and leave.”

“Bix,” I say. I don't want this to end up in a situation he can't win. “Calm down.”

“Calm down? I'm gonna go all Crouching Tiger on his Hidden Dragonfly ass.”

“I'd like to see that,” Jonah taunts.

Bren stands up and gets between them. She may be small, but she can pack an awful lot of power. I roll my eyes and stand up and join them.

Now it's three against one. He'll have to back down. I'm actually surprised how easily he does. He looks over at me, and his eyes pass over me from head to foot and back again, and he shakes his head and steps back.

I used to be scrawny, but in the three years we've been here, I've put on muscle.

Of course, I still don't know a lick about fighting.

Jonah holds up his hands in a conciliatory manner. “Look, I'll be the first to credit Finn's dad with establishing order in this place from the very beginning. He's done well enough for three years with what little he had to work with. But you all have to admit, the situation has changed.”

“The situation hasn't changed,” Bix snaps. “And you've never given Finn's dad credit for anything, so stop acting so gracious.”

Jonah places a palm on Bix's chest and casually pushes him out of the way so he and I can face each other. To his credit, Bix yields just the one step.

“The situation has changed,” he reasserts. “And you all know it. Some of you better than others.” He looks at Bren when he says this. “The outbreak is over, the infection gone. Nobody's seen a Wraith in months. The danger's passed. We need to start thinking about the next phase of our survival.”

“Maybe no Wraiths here,” Bix counters. “That doesn't mean they're not still out there somewhere else.”

He shrugs. “So you're perfectly happy stuck inside this place? You'd rather keep living here forever?”

“Nobody believes it's going to be forever,” I say.

“Says the one person who secretly hopes it is.”

“I do not!”

“If it were me, I'd have been gone a long time ago.” He points off to the side, indicating the world outside the bunker. “Your dad knows perfectly well what's waiting for us out there now. Everyone else is dead, and that includes the Wraiths. He's only keeping us locked up in here because he can't face the truth that the rest of your family is de—”

I launch myself at him before I realize what I'm doing, before Jonah can even react. Bix reaches out for me, but I bat his hand away and grab Jonah's shirt, yanking him to his toes. The thin material rips, but I don't care. All I want to do is wipe that smug smile off his face.

“Finn!” Bren yells. I feel her hands on my shoulders, gripping, pulling, but I'm beyond reason now. All those years of being picked on in school, the past three years of unchallenged torment by Jonah, my own frustration with my father, all of that becomes focused in my hands, which pull him toward me until his face is mere inches from mine.

For a moment I think I see pain in his eyes, but then it's gone. “Go ahead,” Jonah whispers. “I know you want to.”

That stops me.

He takes the opportunity to wrap his hands around my wrists. “They're dead,” he repeats. “I'm sorry, man, but you know it as well as I. The sooner you can admit it, the sooner your father can admit it, the quicker we'll all be able to move on with our lives.”

I stare at him. There's not a flicker of emotion in his eyes, nothing but that dark, relentless, condescending look. Almost without effort, he pries my hands apart. I refuse to let go, but he's a lot stronger than me. His shirt tears even more. I know he must be aware of it, too, but it doesn't make him stop. He keeps pulling, and my hands keep squeezing, and his shirt keeps tearing. Even if I wanted to let go, I couldn't. My hands are locked in his grip.

So I do the only thing I can think of to stop him: I knee him in the groin.

Surprise and pain flickers across his face. It erases the smirk, but then it leaves something dark and scary in its wake, and I immediately realize my mistake. I'd stopped myself at the very last moment, held back from putting everything into the attack. Now, all I've done is piss him off, given him an excuse to fully vent his fury. It's probably what he was hoping for all along.

The next thing I know, my back is on the cold hard floor and Jonah's on top of me, pinning me down with his body. He still has my hands in his, trying to immobilize them so he can start punching me. Or choking me. His breath is hot on my face.

“Get off of me, you son-of-a-bitch!” I shout. Bren and Bix are a blur behind Jonah. They're yelling and slapping at him, but he doesn't even flinch from their blows. He smiles and throws an elbow back, catching Bix right on the nose. Bix goes down with a yelp, blood spurting from both nostrils. Bren tries to pull Jonah away from us. She's screaming at us to stop.

I shout with rage and buck beneath Jonah's body and manage to throw him off balance. He nearly tumbles over my head, yet he somehow manages to stay on me by thrusting a hand out and planting it onto the floor. Now, with one hand free, I reach up and plant my palm against his chin and push.

He knocks it away. “If it were me,” he hisses, “I'd be out there looking for them if I believed for a goddamn second they were still alive.”

“Easy for you to say!” I snarl. “You have your whole family here. Lucky you.”

That rage flickers in his eyes again. I can't tell what it means, but in a flash, it's gone.

I don't let the opportunity go to waste. My fist slams into his cheek and knocks him off balance just enough that I'm able to slither out from under him. But he quickly recovers, and he lunges. His fingers rake across my neck before they clamp onto my shoulder.

I won't let him win this time. I won't be the loser. I'm sick of being the loser.

I grab his shirt and yank. Our heads knock against each other with a loud CRACK! I see stars for a moment, before hands are all over me, pulling me to my feet, forcing us apart. There are shouts, buzzing in my ears, but only one of them breaks through the din— my father's. “Finn!” he cries. “Stop this nonsense right now!”

I stumble backward and shrug the hands off of me. Several of the adult men are there. They pull Jonah away, but he immediately steps back toward me. A line of blood trickles down his forehead. He's panting like an injured animal. My own head is pounding. My heart is racing.

“What's this all about?” my father demands.

I glare at Jonah, who doesn't volunteer an explanation. He reaches up, touches the cut. Then licks the blood off his fingers. All while staring at me.

“Son?”

“He said you're out as leader,” I manage to say.

Dad stares at me for a moment, shaking his head. “You're an adult now, Finn. Both of you are. This isn't a schoolyard.”

“He said there was a vote and that you're out!”

“There was no vote.”

Jonah's eyes narrow. He looks like he's considering punching my father.

“But he is right about me being out,” Dad says.

The room spins as I turn my head too fast. “What? How?”

“I've offered to step down.”

There's going to be a vote, once Eddie's condition is stable. Or he dies. For better or for worse, we'll all be deciding whether to keep my father in charge or replace him with someone else. Until then, Dad's still officially the group's leader. That was the deal he made.

Is it wrong that I'm glad Eddie's condition doesn't change, even though I know how terribly unfair it is to Hannah? Each day arrives and he's still alive, still fighting, and I breathe a sigh of relief, as much for my dad as for hers. Each day ends just as it started.

Eddie's survival strains everyone's credulity. Yet the look in Doc Cavanaugh's eyes speak of more than just bewilderment. She's hiding something. But whenever I ask her about it, she's evasive. And so's my dad. It doesn't help that she's completely restricted access to Eddie's room, even to Hannah, who can only sit outside in the hallway and wait.

Jonah certainly seems to be enjoying our torment. He takes every opportunity to remind me that my father's days are numbered, as if the impending vote is already a done deal, and that it somehow validates his lie about my father already being voted out.

His behavior has also been strange. I’ve noticed him sneaking about the bunker at strange hours, acting all smug as he goes into and comes out of various people's quarters, showing up in places he doesn't need to be.

I guess that it has to do with his attempts to rally support for his side. I've been noticing the furtive looks others give me and my father. But I'm less worried than I am irritated— at least, that's what I tell myself. How could he possibly garner enough votes to knock Dad out?

“Nobody wants Jonah to be in charge,” I mutter to myself one morning at breakfast. Bren shrugs and shakes her head at me. “I mean, who would vote for him? Few of the younger people like him, and half the older ones think he's lazy or mean-spirited.”

“He is lazy and mean-spirited,” Bix affirms. “But he can't help it. Anyone with an overripe jalapeno stuck up his corn hole would be.”

“Bix!” Bren says, gasping. She holds a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle.

I can't help but chuckle, too, which only encourages him to keep on going.

“You shouldn't worry about him, Finn,” Bren tells me. I shrug, as if I'm really not, but I'm pretty sure she knows it's just an act.

After finishing our bowls of rationed oatmeal and dried apricot bars, we make our way down to the med bay to check on Eddie. It's been nearly a week since the accident, and the report this morning is that he's turned a corner. Doc Cavanaugh says he's starting to improve, although he's still unconscious. I'm afraid to ask her if he'll ever come out of it. I'm afraid she'll say he might have brain damage or be in constant pain or something like that.

We reach the lift and Bix presses the button to call it. From somewhere behind the doors, deep down inside the shaft, the gears begin to turn. I can hear the car rattling as it rises from down below, and it reminds me that I should be checking the food stores again.

“The Rollins boys like him,” I muse.

“Who?”

“Jonah. They're always hanging off of him, trying to get his attention.”

“They also like Bix,” Bren says. “So obviously they're not very discriminating.”

“Hey!”

“They like Bix because he tells them dirty jokes,” I say.

“My jokes aren't dirty,” Bix protests. “Your minds are.”

“Right.”

“Well, they may think Jonah's cool,” Bren says, “but when it comes time to vote, it won't be for him.”

The lift doors open and we step in. It's an industrial-sized car, meant for large equipment, so it's wide enough and deep enough to hold everyone in the bunker. But despite having it all to ourselves, the three of us instinctively crowd into the corner by the controls.

Bren pushes the button to go down.

“Besides, I don’t believe Jonah's the one throwing his hat into the ring,” she says.

“The way he talks, it sure sounds like he is.”

“He's just cheerleading for his father. Jack's the one who really wants to be in charge.”

“Great,” I reply. “Just what I wanted to hear. Jack Resnick has a better chance of winning than Jonah. He isn't as disliked.”

“It’s not that they dislike him,” Bix says. “It’s that they fear him.”

Bren nods. “People will vote based on who they think is going to help us all survive until we can leave. That means someone who can think his way out of a crisis, not create one.”

“Except it doesn't always happen that way,” I say. “People too often vote with their emotions, not their head.”

“Or their heart.”

We turn to stare at Bix. “What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Well, if Doc Cavanaugh ran, she'd probably get a lot of the male votes. And a few of the female ones, too. Have you seen the way Susan Miller checks her out? She be wanting some of that action.”

Bren rolls her eyes.

“You're joking, right?” I say. “Or am I just clueless?”

“You've never seen her give Doc the lust-eye?” Bix asks. I shake my head, but he's already far away, deep into his own little fantasy world. His eyes glaze over and a crooked smile turns the corners of his lips upward. “Nice,” he croons.

“Ugh!” Bren cries, pretending shock and disgust. “You are such a perv!”

“Yeah!” I knock Bix out of his reverie with a punch to the arm. “Doctor Cavanaugh's, like, twenty years older than you. And Susan's even older.”

“Only sixteen years,” Bix says, doing the calculation. The car comes to an abrupt stop and the doors begin to open. He steps out. “And it's not like she's not available.”

“Who's not available?” Hannah asks, surprising us. She appears to be heading back upstairs.

“Doc Cav—” Bix begins to say, before Bren and I start coughing loudly to interrupt him. But Bix has absolutely no clue. “Doctor Cavanaugh,” he says, raising his voice.

“Available to talk,” I quickly explain.

“Talk?” he says, looking confused. “Sure, if that's what the kids are calling the horizontal tango these days.”

Hannah's mouth drops open.

“Bix!” Bren exclaims. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

A blush reddens Hannah's neck, but she quickly recovers and acts like everything's normal.

“How's your dad,” I ask, changing the subject.

She brightens. “He's doing so much better today! Doc says his skin is healing, and he has no signs of infection. He's still not out of the woods yet, but he's getting better every day.”

“You've been able to see him?”

The smile falters. “No, not yet. She says there's still too much of a risk.” But her happiness partially returns. “Maybe he'll be able to come home soon.”

Home. Even after three years, some people still can't get themselves to call their quarters that.

I'm actually relieved at the news. One thing I've been avoiding thinking about is what would happen to Hannah without Eddie. It's just the two of them in here. I don't know what happened to her mother. I don't think anyone really knows, as neither of them ever speaks of her. I sort of just assumed her parents split up long before the outbreak, possibly when Hannah was very young. If her father dies—

When he dies.

I force myself not to think about it.

“Going back upstairs?” Bren asks.

“Mister Largent's here. He told me I needed to get something to eat. I think I'll try and get some sleep, too. Though I don't know how, I'm too excited.”

She yawns, and for the first time I notice how heavily her exhaustion hangs on her. Her eyes are puffy and the shadows underneath them are dark. Her cheekbones appear even more prominent than I remember them. Her hair's a mess, and her threadbare jumpsuit, handed down from Bren, is rumpled. She looks like she hasn’t taken it off for several days.

Bren takes her hand and leads her back toward the elevator. “You guys go on ahead. I'll stay with Hannah.”

She shoots Bix a sharp look, which he doesn't pick up on.

“It's okay,” Hannah says. “You don't have to. I mean, I have things to do.”

“I want to. We all do, don't we guys?”

Bix throws a thumb over his shoulder. “In a bit. But first we’re going to visit with the doc.” He waggles his eyebrows.

Bren shakes her head and guides Hannah into the elevator.

As soon as the doors shut, I punch Bix in the arm again, hard this time, and call him an idiot. He frowns at me and rubs the spot.

“Talking about Doc Cavanaugh like that in front of Hannah?” I say. “A bit insensitive, don't you think?”

“Why? She’s a big girl.”

I roll my eyes, but clamp my mouth shut. Hannah made Bren promise not to tell anyone what she thinks of Bix, so, naturally, Bren told me. But now I'm bound not to say anything to Bix, and that's a promise I don't want to break. “Just be a little more sensitive next time is all. Poor girl's going through hell.”

He manages to look adequately contrite, which isn't all that hard once we turn back around and are reminded of the real reason for our visit and not his fantasy reason.

The smell of disinfectant lingers in the air, mixed with the cloying scent of antibiotics. The overhead lights flicker intermittently as we go, but we barely notice it anymore. Our focus is on the man lying in the bed in the room near the end of the hall.

Stephen stands when he sees us. He glances once through the glass, though he can't see Eddie beneath the makeshift tent of thick white plastic. He steps away to cut us off.

“How is he?” I ask.

Stephen shrugs. He looks agitated, though I can't imagine why. “Can't really say. He's a fighter, though.” He shakes his head.

“What is it?”

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and bites his lip.

Stephen Largent is a young guy, not yet thirty. He has two kids, his oldest almost ten. To me, he seems perpetually shell-shocked. Bix says it's because the kids run him ragged, though I think there's more to it than that. I don't think he still quite believes he and the rest of his family are still alive.

For a long time, my father had him doing odd jobs around the complex, as he didn't really have any practical skills, but a few months ago Eddie said he needed some help with the mechanical upkeep. Machines were breaking down faster than he could repair them. He suggested that he train a couple guys, Stephen included. Much to everyone's surprise, the man proved to be a natural.

“There's something screwy about it is all,” he says. “I told Seth Abramson, Finn. But I'm not sure he believes me.”

“Believes what? What's screwy, Eddie's recovery?”

“Well, that, yes. I mean, I'm no doctor, so I can't speak too much on that. But no, I mean the pipe that put him there. The one that burst.”

“What about it?”

“Me and Danny went down after Jack and the others repaired it. I mean, I know he's an engineer and all, but Jack Resnick is no mechanic. Neither is Seth. They know it, which is why they asked me to put a patch on it.”

“Is it going to fail again?”

He shakes his head. “No, it's actually a pretty decent repair job. It'll hold. I double checked the weld, hiked up the pressure and it's good. But . . . there's something strange about the way the pipe failed. It doesn't look like a blowout.”

“What exactly does a blowout look like?” Bix asks.

Stephen shrugs his head. “To be honest, I don't know, but logic tells me it wouldn't look the way it did.”

“Which is?”

“Clean. Like it was cut with a saw. Straight, you know?”

“Are you sure it wasn't just the way the pipe was made? Maybe it was a weak seam.”

He frowns. “A seam that only goes partway around? No, I showed it to Danny, and he agrees that it doesn't look right, and I trust his opinion.” He waves his hands about him. “Besides, with everything breaking all over the place all of a sudden—”

“Things don't last forever, Stephen.”

His head shakes even more intensely. “I know, but doesn't it seem strange?”

Nobody says anything for several seconds. Finally, I ask, “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying I think somebody's going around messing things up on purpose.”

Stephen's suspicion nags me for the rest of the day, but it infuriates Bix to the point that he's ready to publicly accuse Jonah of sabotage. I tell him that would be a mistake. Without proof of the pipe being tampered with, he could be making himself an even bigger target for Jonah's taunting, while drumming up sympathy for Jack. And even with proof, how would we be able to link anyone to it? Most importantly, why would anyone do it?

I can't think of a compelling reason, whether good or bad, why anyone would deliberately risk all of our lives, our security, or at the very least, our complacency, to mess with things that way. And when pressed on the matter, neither can Bren or Bix. The closest we can come is that the constant minor equipment failures might make Dad appear an incompetent leader. But it doesn't take much to shoot that perception down. Nobody expects him to be perfect. Everyone knows the conditions he's working under.

A part of me wants Bix to be right about Jonah being involved. He's petulant and vindictive. But as much as I'd love to knock him down a few notches, my intuition keeps telling me no. It's not his style.

The clock on the wall says it's just past one in the morning. After hours of tossing and turning and enduring the incessant drone of my father's snores just a few feet away from my head, sleep is as unattainable as ever.

I rise without disturbing him and quietly head out of our quarters. I need to walk. I need to clear my mind.

The sleeping quarters are all arranged in a single hallway on Level Three, modified from whatever purpose the builders had in mind for them when the facility was erected twenty years ago. There are more than enough rooms to accommodate the thirty-one of us. And blessedly, it's also one of the quietest levels.

The hall curves, following the arc of the dam, which means that only a few doors are visible at any given time. They're usually closed — given the circumstances, it's understandable that people would value what little privacy the place affords — and tonight's no exception. No one else is out and about.

Aside from the turbine's thrum coming through the thick concrete from the power plant, the only other sound is the soft slap of my bare feet on the floor.

In the level above us, there are a few unused rooms which could have been converted to quarters had the other bus made it with its load of survivors from the evac center. Other than that, there's the watch room with the security monitors, and the facility's main control room. Only a couple people have access to the latter.

The common areas are on Level One, as are the kitchen and working larder.

Just below us, on Level Four, is where we store most of our non-perishables, not that there is very much. It's mostly old, useless equipment; chairs and desks; oil cloths, which we've used to make everything from shirts to pillows; and metal parts and such. One room contains, rather curiously, bags of sand and cement, the latter of which has long since hardened in their sacks. At the end of the hallway is the loading bay door, and, on the other side, the ramp we ran down to get inside the day we arrived.

We never got the chance to ask the man who saved us, who drove us here from the evac center and led us into quarantine, why he hadn't let in the security guards who fought back the attacking Wraiths. Of course, at the beginning, everything was so chaotic and we were so fearful of the disease somehow making its way in with us, that no one dared to ask about the guards once the door was locked. But in the days that followed, I'm sure every single one of us has wondered about it at one time or another.

The man's name was David Gronbach. He was our assigned coordinator at the evac center. Years before, he'd been an engineer on the dam project, so he was quite familiar with the facility and its operation. I never got the chance to ask him why the place was prepped for an end-of-the-world event because six days after we were locked in, he grew suddenly ill and died less than a week later.

There was a lot of paranoia back then, as well as misinformation. Some people thought he'd been infected. We knew so little about the Flense, other than what we'd been told at the EC about how it manifests itself in people, and how it spreads. Not that we know very much more about it now, three years later. So it was understandable that the sudden change in Mister Gronbach's health sent paroxysms of fear rippling through the group. Nobody wanted to go near him.

My father was the exception. He seemed sure that the symptoms weren't the same as the Flense, and he was right. With help from Doctor Cavanaugh and Bren's dad, he tended to Mister Gronbach as he continued to ail. Then, right before he died, he transferred all the security codes to Dad, leaving him the de facto leader of the group.

Jonah's parents have never been happy about that. They've always insisted that Dad wasn't adequately trained to be in charge, nor did he have the right type of personality. As if they were and did. There was even a rumor started accusing Dad of poisoning Mister Gronbach to take his place, but it was quickly squashed, in part because it made no sense. Other than the Resnicks, who seemed to lust after power simply for no other reason than to have it, why would anyone want to be in charge of a group with no common bonds and no clear mission other than to survive?

Over time, Dad has shared many of the various door access codes as he has deemed appropriate, but he has never given out the ones for the exterior doors. And in the three years we've been in here, he has used those exactly once, to open the door to the catwalk on Level Six so that Mister Gronbach's body, wrapped inside one of the oil cloths, could be released into the spillway and the river below.

That day, less than two weeks after we'd been locked away inside, was the last time any of us felt the sunlight or the breeze on our faces. And we couldn't even enjoy it, as the moment was cut short by the appearance of a dozen Wraiths that somehow managed to defeat several eight-foot tall chain linked fences topped with razor wire.

I pass the Abramson's door and wonder if Bren is asleep or if she's having trouble like me. She shares the room with her parents, Seth and Kaleagh. They're both nice people. Seth was a computer programmer before the outbreak, first with the military, then in a startup company. His wife taught fifth grade. According to Bren, his work was his entire life before, but in here, the only computers are those that monitor the power plant and control the various sluice gates, and my father has given strict instructions that no one is to touch any of them.

Bren's mom, at my father's urging, has pieced together a sort of rudimentary school program for the half dozen or so kids in here. The parents are grateful, even if there isn't much she can do without textbooks or computers.

Across the hall from the Abramsons is where Bix and his dad sleep. Harrison Blakely was a guitarist in a cover band called Geemoe K9. Bix's mom was the drummer, but she split about a week before the outbreak hit, and neither Bix nor his dad knows where she went.

Harrison took it hard. He packed Bix and his guitar up and hit the road in a van he paid a hundred bucks for from some nightclub owner. The way Bix described it, the inside was covered floor to ceiling in green and purple shag carpet and stunk of strawberries and cheap massage oil. We picked them up about a mile up the mountain from the dam. They were nearly overcome by Wraiths.

The memory of that scene still sends shivers through me and infects my dreams.

I blink the images away and find myself standing at the end of the hall in front of the lift. But I turn away without pressing the call button. The motor rattles obnoxiously and wakes people. I don't need anyone poking their head out to see who's up. I turn and push through the fire door into the stairwell instead.

The chug of the turbines fills my ears, though it's not so loud that you can't have a normal conversation.

Four stories down, on Level Seven, there's a narrow, enclosed walkway that leads to the power plant, and it’s in there that the noise gets really amplified. That by itself would be enough of a deterrent to anyone who might consider it a cool place to hang out, but for obvious reasons, Dad keeps the door accessing the walkway locked. Only he and a few people are authorized to check on the generators, and it's always supposed to be in teams of two or more.

I reach the level with the food stores and step out, pausing as I often do to listen for voices coming from below. There's a large open area on Seven which we’ve used for recreational purposes. It can get quite loud down there; the shouts easily fill up the entire three-story space. But as it's still nighttime, no one is there right now. And anyway, the homemade masking tape ball we’d been using for soccer finally came unraveled. Now, the only people I know who use the space are the Rollins boys with their homemade skateboards.

Cool air caresses my face. It smells of oil and moldy concrete, plus the faint tang of burnt metal. This last is new, the lingering traces of the pipe repair Jack Resnick and Stephen Largent did down in the boiler room. The smell must be coming in through the vents.

My bare feet make no sound on the metal grating as I make my way to the locked storeroom. I key in the code and push open the door and the light flickers on, buzzing for a moment as the filaments warm up. They sound unusually loud, angry, as if they resent being woken up at such an hour. I find my clipboard where I had flung it and begin my work.

As the minutes and hours pass, my mind settles into the comfortable routine, and I steadily make my way from the front to the far back corner of the room. When I get to the end, I notice the small mountain of rice which has cascaded from the hole I'd accidentally made last week, and I curse myself for forgetting about it. It'll need to be fixed and the spilled grain recovered.

But when I bend down to inspect it, I realize something's wrong.

It's not rice. It’s not even edible.

“Sand?” Bix frowns at me and shakes his head. “In the rice? What are you talking about? Have you been licking the mold in the shower again?”

I grab his arm and pull him out of his quarters and quietly shut the door. He stumbles groggily after me and makes a point of rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Come on, man. Can't this wait until the sun's out?”

I have no patience for his jokes this morning. “Listen to what I'm saying,” I whisper urgently. I hate the way my voice cracks and the way the blood sounds pounding through my head, but right now I'm a little out of control with panic. It's not a feeling I like. “Downstairs, in the storage room.”

“Take a breath, bro,” he tells me. “Start from the beginning.” He yawns widely, and a mouthful of stinkbreath washes over my face.

I try to calm myself, but I'm shaking all over. “Someone put sand in the rice bags.”

“Sand in the rice?” he asks again. “I'm not following.”

“In the bags. I was doing the inventory and I noticed that they took the rice out and replaced it with sand. I checked the sandbags upstairs. They've definitely been messed with.”

“Why are you inventorying the sand?”

“Not the sand! The rice!”

“Wait a sec,” he says, frowning. “You said bags? As in more than one?”

I nod.

“How many?”

“More than half of what's left.”

It takes a moment for this to sink in. His eyes widen as the impact of what I'm saying finally sinks in.

“The food's gone?” he cries.

I hold a finger up to my lips and start to drag him toward the stairs, but he resists.

“Dude," he says, "at least let me put on some pants. I’m in my boxers, for crying out loud!”

“I need to show you.”

“But I—”

I push my hand against his mouth when a door at the far end of the hall opens. Someone speaks, but the sound is distorted.

I thrust the stairwell door open and plunge into the landing with Bix in tow, a warning look in my eyes signaling him to keep quiet. As soon as we're through, I release him to grab the door and gently, silently guide it shut.

“What the hell, man?”

“I don't know what else to do, Bix. I think I'm in deep trouble.”

“Trouble isn't the word I woulda used, but, yeah.”

“Thanks for your sympathy.”

I take the stairs two at a time, trying not to make too much noise. After a moment's hesitation, he follows.

Two flights down, we stop when the door above us opens. I press myself against the wall, a finger to my lips. My breath threatens to burst from my chest, but I manage to slowly, quietly, let it through. Confusion and impatience flash in Bix's eyes. It turns to anger the moment Jonah begins to speak.

“So, you agree then? Abraham Bolles isn't fit to lead this group anymore. We need a new direction.”

“But how is this going to help?” a second voice asks, male. He's speaking quietly, so I can't be sure who it belongs to. I think it might be Dominic Green. “I'm not a violent man.”

Bix's eyes widen. Violence? he mouths. But I throw him another warning glance and hold up my hand to still him. I need to listen to what else they're saying.

Their voices grow louder as they descend toward us. Bix gives the door beside us a worried glance. I gesture for us to keep going downward. I don't know where Jonah and Dom are going, but I know I don't want them to see us, not now that we've overheard them conspiring to do harm, presumably against my father.

Jonah laughs. “Sometimes, Dom, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.”

Bix's stomach growls. The sound seems to carry all the way up the stairs. He gives me an I can't help it shrug.

“Everyone could use some basic self-defense skills,” Jonah continues. “And offensive attack skills. It's the only way we'll survive in a fight. A little weapons training never hurt anyone.”

“You can't fight them.”

Jonah sniffs. “I'm not worried about them, Dom, you know that. No, I'm talking about people who want what you have and will do anything to take it from you.”

“You think there are still people like that?”

“I think it's dangerous to think there aren't.”

We reach Level Eight, and I pause with my hand on the door handle. If I open it, they're almost sure to hear us. We could keep going down, but eventually we'll run out of stairs. There are only Levels Nine and Ten below us. Getting cornered by Jonah in the dungeons is not my idea of a good time. Especially if he's talking about violence.

I can see the concern in Bix's eyes. He almost shrinks inside the dingy oversized tee shirt he's wearing. It drapes over his bony shoulders and makes him look undernourished. His normally curly hair is sleep-flattened on one side, wild on the other. He looks pitiful, and now I'm beginning to regret getting him up out of bed.

“I hope you know I'm doing this for you because I trust you,” Jonah finishes. “You need to keep this to yourself.”

The door directly above us opens, and Dominic's response is lost when it shuts behind them. They've gone onto Level Seven, which makes sense. They'd need a lot of room if Jonah's going to be teaching him how to fight.

Bix blinks like he's about ready to cry with relief. Finally, he lets out a strangled breath. The sound carries up through the stairwell, but no one is there to hear it.

After a few minutes pass, we return to Level Six. I pull the door open and step through, but Bix reaches out to stop me. “Aren't we going to report him?” he whispers.

I hold a finger to my lips to quiet him. But I don't hear any voices drifting up from Seven. There's only the rumble of the power plant's generators. I know they're down there, but even if we can't hear them, I know they'll be able to hear us.

I pull Bix close and whisper to him that we will tell my dad, but I need to show him the food first. That's more pressing at the moment.

He scowls, but follows me nonetheless down the catwalk to the storeroom, though he keeps making these little sounds of disgust, like he has to vent or else he'll burst.

The moment the storeroom door shuts behind us, he settles against the wall and lets loose with a string of profanity the likes of which I've only heard come out of him once before. It was after a particularly embarrassing verbal smackdown delivered at Jonah's hands, maybe three months ago. I forget what the subject was, just that he was killing Bix.

The man can be infuriatingly logical, which has never been Bix's strength.

“First chance I get," he spits, "I’m going to strangle that jerk. Let’s see how he likes it when we’ve got him by the short and curlies.”

Now it's my turn to tell Bix to catch his breath.

“You want me to relax?” he squeaks. “You heard what Jonah said. He's going around training people to fight. With weapons! He's going to attack your father!”

“I've been thinking about that, and I'm not convinced that's what he's doing.”

“What else could it be?”

“I don't know exactly,” I muse. “But with all his talk recently about leaving the bunker, I wonder if maybe he's seriously thinking about doing it.”

“So?” Bix says. “I say let him go. And good riddance!”

“Except I don't think he’s just talking about himself or his family. I think he's planning on taking everyone else with him.”

It's the multitude of voices rising from Level Seven and the harsh clatter of wood and metal that convince me to confront Jonah now rather than later. When we reach the stairwell door, I steel myself for the inevitable altercation before pushing through. They're so busy at first with their 'training' that nobody notices us.

Check that. It's just me they don't notice, because when I turn around, Bix isn't there. He's apparently chickened out.

“Finn?”

I spin around at the sound of Bren's voice, and my heart nearly stops. “Whuh— what are you doing here?” I demand.

Jonah bullies his way through the gathering, pushing people aside. The Rollins boys shrink away, clearly wary of his strength. Hannah pulls them close to her, and her presence there also startles me.

I scan the faces. It's not just the young ones here, nor is it all of them, as neither of the Largent kids is present. Their parents are. Everyone's holding something in their hands, metal rods, long pieces of wood. For some reason, it makes me think of that scene in Frankenstein, when the townsfolk bear their pitchforks to hunt down the monster.

And right now I feel like the monster, unprotected, misunderstood, alone.

Damn Bix.

I glare at Jonah as he draws near. I just want to turn and run, but I have to know what's going on. Especially now that Bren's a part of it. So I stand my ground and wait for him to make the first move. I brace myself and—

He brushes right past me and instead thrusts open the stairwell door and reaches inside.

Bix tumbles out, a tangle of lanky arms and legs topped by an unbalanced mop of black hair. He tries to catch himself, but then trips over his feet and lands with a loud clatter and a painful sounding crunch on the metal grating.

For a moment, nobody says anything. They're shocked at the sight of him crouching in his briefs. Bix tries to casually pull his tee shirt down to cover himself, but his face is beet red. I hear someone behind me utter a surprised “Oh!” And I know without looking that it's Hannah.

“Nice whiteys, Blackeye,” Jonah says. He thrusts his hand down at Bix's face. Bix flinches, but then refuses the assistance.

“Suit yourself.”

“You want to tell me what the hell's going on here?” I demand. I turn toward the crowd and call for Bren. She steps forward, but she won't look straight at me. She refuses to meet my gaze, and it's this very act that confirms her betrayal. She knows this is wrong.

I turn back in time to catch a glimpse of puzzlement in Jonah's eyes. It quickly vanishes and is replaced by his usual bored facade.

“I asked what you all are doing down here.”

“You first,” he counters. “Spying? Sneaking around? That's so unlike you, Bolles. Or did your father make you do it?”

“Leave him alone, Jonah,” Bren whispers. The meager gesture only makes me angrier.

Bix finally stands up. At five-eleven, he's taller than many in here, and his skinniness makes him look even taller, but he's puny next to Jonah.

“Jesus, cover yourself up,” Jonah says. He holds a hand out to block his view of Bix's bony white legs and knobby knees, which practically glow in the gloom. “You're blinding everyone.”

But Bix is past humiliation. His face is still flushed, though less so with embarrassment now than with rage. “We heard what you said to Dominic. You're training people to fight Finn and his dad.”

Jonah frowns a moment, then chuckles. “Fight Finn? Has that little gerbil inside your head fallen off its squeaky wheel again?”

The Rollins boys twitter in amusement.”

But Jonah's face darkens. “If I wanted to fight Finn, I wouldn't need this.” He holds up the wooden dowel in his hand. It looks like it might have once been the handle of a broom. “And I sure as hell wouldn't need anyone else's help to do it.”

“Do you deny you’re training people to fight?”

“No.”

“I knew it.”

“To be honest,” he says, “you two could both use a little more help in the self-defense department. And by a little, I actually mean a lot.”

I ignore the jibe and turn to Bren, hoping for an explanation. But it's Hannah who steps forward to offer one. “We're training for when we leave.”

Bix sucks in a sharp breath.

Jacob Rollins nods. “In case there's any more Wraiths out there.”

“I keep telling you people, there are no more Wraiths! But there are other things a lot more dangerous.”

“Bears?” Jareth asks.

“People,” he replies.

“And when were you planning on leaving?”

He shrugs. “I don't know. I have no definite timeline, Bolles. All I know is that we can't stay here forever.”

Once more I turn my gaze to Bren. “Does your father know about this?”

She shakes her head.

“Well, nobody's leaving.” I look back at Jonah, who cocks an eyebrow at me, as if he knows better and is just humoring me. “My father has the door codes.”

“Door codes?” He sniffs. “You really think that's going to stop us if we decide to leave?” His voice rises in exasperation. “You can't hide in here forever. The food's going to run out and—”

“Ah ha! I knew it was you!” Bix shouts. He steps forward and grabs Jonah's shirt and shakes him. “You're the one who stole the food! Admit it!”

For the first time, Jonah looks surprised. His face blanches and his mouth pops open. But he doesn't give us the satisfaction of confessing. Instead, he plants a hand on Bix's chest and pushes him away.

“Stolen food?” someone behind me asks. “What are you talking about?”

I sigh and shake my head. I hadn't planned on announcing it. I'd wanted to speak with my father about it first, come up with a plan for figuring out who might be taking it and why. But the revelation that Jonah is planning a mutiny actually does provide a reasonable explanation for the missing food.

Jonah clearly is following the same line of thought, because he shakes his head. “This has nothing to do with any stolen food, Bolles,” he growls at me. Bristling from the accusation, he edges closer, probably wanting me to react and attack him like I did up in the common room. But I won't give him the satisfaction. Not this time.

“Let's go, Bix,” I say, and grab his arm. “Let's get out of here.”

“This isn't over,” I warn Jonah. Then, to the rest of the group: “You want to follow him to your deaths outside the bunker, well, maybe I won't be able to stop you, not if my father loses the vote. But I can guarantee you one thing. We still know very little about the Flense. You go out there now, you will die. All of you.”

I start pulling Bix away, but he can't just leave without having the last word. “I guess now we know who our real friends are!”

“You've got to tell your dad.”

Bix is right, of course. Now that Jonah knows about the missing food stores, word will quickly get around to the rest of the group, and it'd be better if my father heard it first from me. But how exactly do I tell him? The food is my responsibility. It's not hard to imagine his disappointment.

At the same time, Jonah's plans to leave the bunker is the more pressing matter. By opening those doors, by taking away—

Bren

—half our group, he'll put us all at risk. There's barely enough people now with enough skills to keep things running. We can't let him have the—

“Access code!”

I stop and swivel around to face Bix, and he charges into me before catching himself. He backs up a step and frowns.

“Excuse me?”

“Besides my father, I'm the only one who knows the code to that room. Whoever stole the food would have needed it to get in. How'd they get the code?”

“Seriously? Dude, I've seen you punch it in enough times that I could probably get in if I needed to. I wouldn't be surprised if Bren knows it.”

My initial reaction to this is denial. As her boyfriend, my instinct is to protect her. And myself. I don't want to believe she'd do something like that to me. But what if he's right?

“You ever bring her down there?”

I sigh and nod. “Yeah. Sometimes.”

“You dog!” He slaps me on the arm.

“It's not like that. Bren helps me out is all. She keeps me company. And, okay, maybe we've made out on occasion.”

“Gah! Stop it! I'll never be able to eat dinner again without picturing you two making mashed potatoes all over the—”

“Bix! Be serious.”

“La la la!” he says, loud enough to drown me out. He cups his hands over his ears. “I don't want the gory details! Okay, maybe I do.”

Bix!”

“No, no, you’re right. It’ll just give me nightmares thinking about a bunch of little Brennians running around in this place.”

“Brennians?”

“Yeah, you know: Bren and Finnian. Like famous celebrity couples.” He waves his hands about as he tries to come up with an example. Then he snaps his fingers. “Like Brangelina!”

“Who?”

“Kimye?” He rolls his eyes and groans. “You're killing me here, Finn.”

“It would be a justifiable homicide.”

“Oh, did the Finn-meister just make a joke?”

“No, I was totally serious.”

“I'm just saying, Finn, Bren's got to know the code. Kind of strange that she's suddenly hanging out with Jerkasaurus rex.”

“She wouldn't . . . .”

My thoughts darken further as I contemplate the possibilities. I can feel my blood beginning to boil. Would she?

I thought she loved me. Maybe she was just using me. Or maybe Jonah was using her. But if that was the case, why wouldn't he just swipe food from the working larder? A cupful of rice here and there over time could really add up. A package of dehydrated fruit. Surely no one would notice that. In fact, it seems more likely than sneaking into the big storage.

Not unless he wanted the blame to fall squarely on me.

“Ground control to Major Tom?” Bix says, snapping his fingers in my face. “Hello?”

I bat his hand away. I don't want to think about any of that right now. Right now I need to tell my father about Jonah. I need to protect us from any ideas he might have of splitting our group apart. It's become imperative that Dad not lose that vote.

He's not in his cot when we return. I glance at the clock on the wall and am startled by how late it is. He's already risen and begun his daily duties, just like the rest of the bunker.

Bix notices the time, too, and excuses himself. “Dad'll be wondering about me. See you at lunch?”

I nod distractedly. I have my other assigned chores to do as well, but I need to find my father.

I run into Kari Mueller, and she tells me she saw him with Doc Cavanaugh heading down to the med bay, but when I get down there and peek into Eddie's room, I don't see them.

Hannah shows up a moment later. When she sees me, she stops and starts to turn around, but then changes her mind.

“I can explain,” she starts to say. But I scowl at her and tell her I don't want to know. It's none of my business what she does with her time, or who she hangs out with. If she wants to spend it with Jonah, so be it. I'm not her father.

No, her father's lying in a bed just on the other side of this door. He's barely clinging to life because I didn't stop him from going inside that room. He'll never be the same now, even if he does manage to survive the infections.

I hurry up the hallway to Doc Cavanaugh's office. Or lab. That's what she calls it, even though she has very little equipment to speak of inside. She and a few others have done their best to scrape together bits and pieces from around the bunker. They've managed to make a stethoscope. And using parts from one of the security cameras, she's been able to make a fairly decent ophthalmoscope.

There had been some hope early on, given that we were lucky to be assigned someone with medical training, that we'd be able to combine her knowledge and others' skills to learn about the Flense. But it's a lot harder when you have no blood machines, no analytical devices. No centrifuges or microscopes. And no access to material that has been exposed to the Flense.

Which is certainly a good thing, given how easily it's transmitted. But after three years, it also means we know essentially nothing new about the disease or how to stop it.

The door is closed, but I can hear voices on the other side of it. I can't make all the words out, but I do hear 'blood' and 'synthetic.' The conversation abruptly stops when I knock. After a brief pause, Doctor Cavanaugh says to come in. I open the door.

“Finn? There you are,” Dad says, when he sees me. “You were up early this morning.”

“Are you busy?”

“I was just talking to Gia about Eddie.”

“H  how is he?” I ask, directing my question to the doctor.

“Healing.” She shakes her head, as if she can't believe it herself. “Still in a coma, but he'll live. Last night he finally stopped needing assistance to breathe.” She and my dad exchange meaningful glances.

“It's why I've been gone so much,” he hurriedly explains. “The doctor and I have been splitting time pumping air into his lungs.”

“You and Doc Cavanaugh?” I say. “I would've helped if you'd asked.”

“We thought it would be best to keep this . . . between just the two of us.”

And that glance confirms what I've been suspecting these past few days. They're keeping something from the rest of us.

“I heard you talking,” I say. “I heard what you said about his blood.”

It's a bluff, and I don't know if it's even close. I cross my arms and wait to see if one of them will bite.

“We're not sure,” the doctor finally says.

“Gia?” Dad says, warningly.

“It's me, Dad. You said it the other day: I'm not a kid anymore.”

He sighs, then gets up and shuts the door. “I want you to keep this to yourself for now, Finn. We don't want to . . . send the wrong message.”

“What message?”

“False hopes?” the doctor suggests.

Dad shakes his head. He passes his fingers through his hair and seems torn. “Panic.”

I lift my eyes in alarm. The best way to cause a panic is to suggest that there might be a reason for one. “Is it the Flense? Is Eddie infected? Is that what's—”

“No!” Doc Cavanaugh quickly says. “No no no.” She jumps up from her stool and comes around the bench toward me. “It's not the Flense, Finn. That much we do know. If it was, we'd all have been infected and . . . . Anyway, it's not. It can't be.”

“Then what is it?”

She gestures at the table behind her. “Eddie's recovery has been highly unusual, since the very start. By all rights, he shouldn't be alive, and yet he is, and not just alive but growing stronger every day.”

“But that's good, right?”

“The rate of healing is highly unexpected. It's . . . unprecedented.”

“You mean unnatural? How?”

“That's what we've been trying to figure out. We know it's at the tissue level, but without any instrumentation, I've been working blind. So I asked Kari to help me out with the optics, and with Eddie's earlier help with the electronics, I was finally able to convert the ophthalmoscope into a crude microscope.”

“Kari doesn't know what we're about to show you,” Dad interjects. “Nobody else does.” His implication is clear: This is a secret, a big one.

I nod.

“We found something in Eddie's blood this morning.”

“A virus?”

She shakes her head. “It's much too large for a virus. It's the size of cells. The problem is, the resolution of the optics and detector still aren't good enough to see much detail, and the image contrast is terrible.”

“I'll ask Seth to have another go at the programming, Gia,” Dad offers. “See if he can improve the image processing. He says with these security cams, the resolution is very bad. But even just feeding it into a larger screen might help.”

Doc Cavanaugh nods. “This thing — well, things, actually — in Eddie's blood, they appear to be helping him heal.”

I frown at her. My knowledge of anatomy from sophomore biology is pretty basic, but from what I recall from Missus Abramson's lessons, I know that white blood cells are responsible for fighting off infections. I ask her if that's what she means.

She shakes her head. “Not white blood cells. Not cells at all.”

“Then what?”

There's another long pause. Finally, she says, “That's what we've been discussing. We just don't know. I personally have never seen anything like them before. They're clearly not natural.”

She gestures toward the contraption, inviting me to come around the desk and take a look.

I step over beside her. There's no eyepiece to look into. Instead, the image is reproduced onto a small LCD screen that had once been part of Kari's digital camera. In the field of view, I can see several blurry disc-shaped objects, which I take to be red blood cells.

“This is Eddie's blood?” I ask.

She nods and points to a syringe on the desk. “I drew it this morning.”

“What are those spiky black blobs? They look like sea urchins.”

“That's what we don't know.”

I shrug. “So?”

Doc Cavanaugh removes the glass slide and wipes it clean. Then she takes the syringe and squirts a little fresh blood onto it and places it into a microwave. After running two or three seconds, it starts to bubble.

“Now watch.” She places the slide back onto the stage. The destroyed serum is a debris field of amorphous clumps, not a single intact red blood cell in sight. Only the larger black blobs and smaller fragments remain. As I watch, the blobs start to quiver, then move about.

I gasp and stumble backward against the wall. “What the hell?”

“Keep watching.”

A moment later, long, thin, spindly appendages emerge from each orb and begin to wave about. Again, I gasp in horror.

After a moment, their movements become coordinated, purposeful. They begin to gather the destroyed cells, teasing apart the clumps and reorganizing the pieces.

“In about an hour,” Dad says, “you'll have nothing but functional blood again.”

Doc Cavanaugh nods. “This is what's happening inside of Eddie. Not just in his blood, but in his skin, too. And, I believe, in his lungs, his eyes, his nose. Everywhere there was damage.”

“Whuh— What the hell are those things? Where did they come from?”

I edge away from the scope and the syringe full of blood, which she's still holding in her hand. I keep expecting it to start oozing out and coating her fingers, smothering her and everything as it expands. All at once, my skin feels itchy. I scrape my hands over my arms, as if I'm covered in bugs.

“They look like . . . spiders.”

“Not spiders,” she says, shaking her head. “But what exactly they are . . . .” She shrugs. “They're clearly not organic, or else they would have been destroyed by the microwaves.”

Synthetic. That was the word I'd heard Dad say when I was standing outside the door.

“You think they're manmade?”

They both nod.

“And you have no idea where they came from? How long they've been inside of Eddie? How they got there, or why?”

“No. But we do know that they were present two weeks ago when we first got the scope converted. Eddie donated his own blood for a sample, but the image quality was too poor. We thought the blobs were some sort of artifact.”

“Are they infectious?”

“We don't believe so. They're not present on the surface of Eddie's skin, not in his saliva or urine. They're too large to be airborne.” She glances at my father, and he nods after a moment. “Not everyone here has them.”

“Who doesn't?”

“We only know for sure one person: Your friend Bix. I managed to get a sample from the bloody tissue paper he discarded the other day up in the common room. They're not in his blood.”

Dad steps forward to grab me as I feel the floor tilt beneath my feet, but I swivel away, slamming my thigh painfully into the corner of the bench. Something topples off and smashes to the floor. “Don't touch me!” I yell. “Nobody touch me!”

I don't want those things inside of me.

Something tells me they already are.

My head is spinning. Suddenly, the missing food stores and Jonah's mutiny seem almost inconsequential by comparison. I need a moment alone to gather my thoughts. But as I stumble away from the doctor's office, Dad follows after me. He reaches for my arm, but I swivel away before he can touch me.

Hannah watches us from the other end of the hallway, curiosity written all over her face. Dad gestures toward an empty room. I tell him no, but he insists, insisting that I need to step up.

“I can understand your fear,” he says, after he's shut the door. “But you see my point about starting a panic?”

I make fists and press them against my temples.

“You need to let me and the doctor figure this out first, Finn. We don't know what it means, whether these things are good or bad, where they came from, how they got inside of us.”

“Maybe this is some kind of new disease.”

“It's not a disease! It's not organic!” He sighs. “If it'll make you feel any better, she can check your blood.”

“No! Nobody's coming near me.”

I don't want to know. I mean, a part of me already suspects they're inside of me. Inside all of us.

Except Bix.

Doing what they do.

Which is what, exactly?

Maybe that’s why nobody ever gets sick in this place. No colds or flus. No stomach ailments. Those things are keeping us healthy.

So why am I so freaked out about them? Why do I feel like throwing up?

“The doctor and I concur about the source,” he says. “We’re not sure, but we suspect it was the shots at the evac center.”

“They told us it was vitamin D, because we wouldn't be able to get very much sunlight.”

I remember how the aid workers insisted the tiny capsule injected under the skin on our forearms would keep us healthy. They lined us up and—
infected

—injected us before directing us to the sorting station where we were assigned a bunker. There were ten different lines, and for just a moment I had this overwhelming fear that they were going to separate me and Dad, but they didn't. And everything was just so chaotic that we didn't question the shot.

Both the tiny bump and scar have long since disappeared. Did those things fix them, too?

I look at my hands, and I still have the scars I got before coming here, the pale patch on my palm from the spill Harper and I took at age eight, when we were riding double on a bike that was much too big for us. The white spots on my forearms from scratching them when I contracted chicken pox at age eleven. The jagged scar on my wrist. The other on my forehead, just above my right eyebrow.

But no new ones since coming here.

“I need to think.” I gesture at the door and wait for him to move out of the way.

“Finn, I'm serious,” Dad warns. “We can't have a panic starting in this place.”

“Don't worry,” I grumble. “I won't say anything.”

“Thank you.” The tension on his face and in his shoulders lessens. “Now, was there a reason you were looking for me?”

And then it all rushes back. His face clouds at the look on mine. “What is it?”

“It's nothing.”

“Finn, tell me. I can't help you if you don't tell me.”

I shrug. “I think Jonah might be behind Eddie’s accident.”

And the missing food.

“Why would you say that?”

“Stephen Largent told me he thinks the broken steam pipe was intentionally cut.”

“Why would Jonah do that?”

“Isn't it obvious? He wants to make you look bad, like you've lost control.”

Something flickers in his eyes. “This again? Finn, I keep telling you—”

“They're going to vote soon, Dad. They were going to wait till Eddie— till he died. But if they find out he's getting better, I think it'll be much sooner.”

“It's okay.”

“No, it's not, Dad! Not when it's Jack Resnick trying to replace you!”

“Jack's a good man. You may not believe it, but he is concerned about everyone in here.”

“Really? He has a strange way of showing it. He wants you to open the doors. And Jonah's preparing people to defend themselves. If his dad gets those codes, they're going to take a bunch of people and leave.”

Dad steps back, blinking as if I've struck him. “He wouldn't do that, Finn, not unless he was absolutely sure the Flense was completely gone. Jack may be bullheaded, but he's not stupid.”

“But Jonah is!” My voice is getting louder, yet he doesn't try to quiet me. “He's positive the Wraiths are gone, dead. And how are we even supposed to argue with him? Nobody's seen one on the monitors in months!”

“Absence of evidence of a thing isn't evidence of absence, Finn.”

“Not to you, maybe. Not to reasonable people. But Jonah and Jack don't see it that way!”

“So, maybe it is time to leave.”

“No! It's not, Dad!”

He shakes his head. “Listen to me, Finn. Nobody's sabotaging anything. And maybe learning how to defend yourself isn't such a bad idea. The day will come when we have to leave this place. I don't think it'll be anytime soon, but that's just my opinion.”

“What if he throws us out instead? What if he changes his mind and sends us out?”

“I won't give up those codes until I have every assurance that won't happen, Finn.”

“What if we run out of food?”

“We have enough for two or three more years.”

“No, we don't.”

This makes him pause. “What aren't you telling me?”

I finally describe the shortages I’d found in the storage room downstairs and the messed-up sandbags upstairs, and the whole time the muscles in his cheek throb harder and harder, and his face grows paler.

“Bix and I redid the calculations this morning. Based on past use, there's only enough food left for another year.”

He still hasn't spoken. I wait. I need him to come up with a plan. But he just stands there, like he's blown a gasket. Finally, he blinks and says, “If someone is taking food, then they have to be moving it to some other room inside the complex.”

“I can start looking for it. Dad, did you hear me?”

He suddenly looks tired, gaunt, and I immediately feel guilty for doing it to him, for bringing such bad news at a time when there is so much else to worry about.

“Yes,” he says. “Okay, fine. Start on Level Ten and work your way up.” He glances past me at the door, his mind already miles away. “Skip Level Three. I'll take the private quarters.”

I watch him step out, and I notice how slumped his shoulders are. He turns and says in a quiet voice: “Just you, Finn. Not a word to anyone else about what you're looking for.”

“Fine,” I answer. Then, because he doesn’t move, I give him the assurance he's waiting for. “Mum's the word.”

And I intend to keep my promise. I'll show him I can step up, like he wants. I'll head down to Level Ten and search every square inch of every room I can get into. I'll note the rooms I don't have codes for on a piece of paper, and follow up with him later.

But even as I set off, this feeling of doom settles over me. Something tells me I won't find a single grain of the missing rice, not one can of soup, and not one bag of dried fruit.

Level Ten has always given me the creeps. Not Bren's kind of creeps that keep her from coming down past Level Seven, but the kind that makes me feel like I need a shower after I've been down here for a while.

At the end of a very short hallway is the main chamber, maybe a hundred and twenty feet long and thirty wide. At the bottom, roughly thirty or forty feet down, is a large catchment basin, usually containing a standing pool of oily, smelly, stagnant water, seepage into the dam through the walls and from the bedrock underneath. A half dozen sump pumps automatically remove it.

The chamber is normally unlit to prevent mold growth, and the lights are on sensors which always seem reluctant to turn on, yet are quick to turn off. If you're inside and you don't move for more than thirty seconds, they'll pitch you into total darkness.

About a year after our arrival, one of the Rollins boys happened to figure out the access code, and for a couple days the kids would dare each other to come down and see who could spend the longest amount of time in the dark alone. Bren's father found out soon enough and had a fit, and my dad had to tell everyone that Level Ten was off limits. “It's too dangerous,” he told us. “Someone could get seriously hurt or worse falling off the catwalk and landing on one of the pumps.”

But injury and death weren't the worst things we could imagine. The worst was surviving the fall into that black muck, to be consumed by whatever monster lived in it. The stink was so bad, so organic, that it wasn't hard to imagine that something actually did inhabit the darkness, and that we were smelling its waste and the rotting flesh of the construction workers it had caught but never eaten.

Dad's explanation for the smell was quite a bit more mundane. He suggested that there might be a leak in one of the sewage lines and our waste was being diverted into the pools below. The possibility of touching someone's poop discouraged further antics much more than the threat of injury.

We all knew that it was Bren who had told her father what we were doing down here. She was the one who first started the rumor that something was off about the place. To this day she insists she'd heard the disembodied voices of the rumored dead, pleading to be let free. No one else has ever heard them, or at least is willing to admit it. But once, during an unusually hard rain that was flooding the loading ramp on Level Four, I'd gone down to help my father check on the pumps, and over their hard mechanical rumble I thought I'd heard crying.

Dad humored me by checking around, even opening the small panel of the heavy steel door on the opposite end of the chamber, though he quickly shut it with a gagging cough. The fact that the door required a physical key rather than a code led him to conclude that it was leftover from when the dam was being built. In any case, I was glad he couldn't open it. I didn't want to know what might be on the other side.

“You probably just heard the wind,” he assured me, as we concluded our inspection and were satisfied that the sumps were keeping up with the leakage. “You never know how sound might travel through concrete and rock.”

Mister Abramson posted a sign on the door threatening punishment. It was still attached during that visit, but it's since disappeared.

I key in the code, then open the door, bracing myself with an arm pressed against my nose and mouth. The overhead lights switch silently on, followed a split second later by the lights mounted in the walkway. They illuminate the catwalk but aren't strong enough to penetrate very far into the darkness below.

From the distant rumble, an angry, gravelly sound, I know that at least one of the pumps is running.

The inspection proceeds quicker than I expect it to, though it's still longer than I'd prefer.

On the near side of the chamber, there's a broad platform surrounded by a gated railing that provides access to a ladder down to the pumps. The platform is empty save for a control booth and an empty wooden crate which was left here presumably by someone long since dead. There's no sign that any of the bunker inhabitants has been here in a while.

I've never been down the ladder, and without a flashlight handy, I don't relish the idea. But I swing the gate open and peer out into the darkness until I begin to discern the shapes of the lower ledge and pumps. Moving slowly, passing hand over hand and pausing only long enough to suck in another breath through the thin fabric of my shirt, I descend. Slow enough so that my eyes are able to adjust to the increasing gloom.

Finally, my foot finds the rough cement below and I step gingerly out onto the unprotected ledge. The pumps loom before me in a perfect line. They look like monstrous mechanical incubators. Three are visible from where I stand, but I know there are at least as many more beyond, hidden by a massive concrete column.

I suck in another breath, this time forgetting to use my shirt, and I find the result tolerable, though I know it's only because I'm getting used to the smell. I can feel it coating the back of my throat.

The surface of the ledge is slick, coated by a layer of oily muck, and I'm glad for the shoes I decided to put on before coming down. Carefully, I step out, but my foot immediately slips out from under me and I very nearly fall. If I hadn't still been holding on to the ladder, I would've gone over the edge and into the water.

“This is insane,” I mutter. “Nobody’d hide food down here.”

I'm convinced enough by the absence of marks in the slime other than those from my own feet that I abort the search. I turn back and head up the ladder, scraping my shoes on the rungs as I go.

After confirming there is no food being stashed away on the other end of the upper platform, I pause for a moment at the steel door, as if daring it to make a sound. But other than the distant rumble of the turbines and the intermittent grind of the sump pumps below, there is nothing to hear.

I'm happy when I can lock the door behind me and proceed to Level Nine.

* * *

It's shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon by the time I reach Level Two. My stomach is growling, and hunger is sapping my strength. But I should be able to finish this floor in less than fifteen minutes, as it only consists of a few empty rooms, the main control room, which I can't get into anyway, and the watch room with the monitors.

It's highly unlikely that anyone would stash anything in the watch room, both because it's fairly small and already crowded with unused equipment, but also because it's the one room that nearly everyone in the bunker has daily access to. Only the Largent kids, Sammy and Mia, and the Rollins boys, Jacob and Jareth, are excluded from monitor duty. But though it may be a crappy place to hide anything, I'm obligated to check it, if only because I know my father will question me about my thoroughness. It's just not worth lying about.

But when I reach the room, I see by the schedule on the wall that Bren's inside. Her shift will end in twenty minutes, when my father takes over. I decide to come back then.

Except that the door opens before I can move on.

“Oh.” Bren gives me a sheepish look. “I thought I heard someone out here. I thought it might be your father coming early.”

“I was just checking the schedule,” I tell her, and step away.

“Can you stay and talk for a moment?”

“You're on watch. I don't want to bother you. You know the rules.”

“Please, Finn. Just for a couple minutes. I know you're angry with me, but I can explain about this morning.”

“No need,” I tell her. “Seems pretty clear to me.”

“Finn. It's not what you think.”

Not what I think?

I picture Eddie and the unnatural army of microscopic workers in his blood. I think about the strange way Dad's been acting lately, the inadequacy of his concern about the upcoming vote, and his dismissal of Stephen's suspicions that someone is sabotaging things inside the bunker. I think about the missing food. And suddenly it seems like nothing is what I think anymore.

“Please, Finn.”

“Better keep an eye on those monitors. Wouldn't want you to miss anything.”

She frowns at me. “There's nothing out there, Finn. There never is.”

“Yeah, I know. Jonah keeps reminding us all of that. Looks like he's got you convinced that the Wraiths are all dead and that the Flense is gone and we should all just leave. Does your dad know?”

“I don't want to leave, Finn! But I also don't want to stay here forever. There's a whole world out there. I  I don't think I could bear living in here another three years.”

“Well, you won't have to,” I say, thinking again about our food shortage.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

She puts a hand on my arm and pulls me close. I resist, though not very hard. She has this effect on me, being able to tear down my barriers with a single touch, and for just a moment the irony of that strikes me, how a single touch can be so destructive, yet so irresistible.

“Just for a minute,” she purrs. And she draws me into the watch room where no one can see us.

The door shuts, and even though I know we're breaking the rules, I suddenly don't care. Right now, all I want is her. All I want is to feel the heat of her body on my skin, to smell the scent of her hair. I close my eyes and inhale, and I'm reminded of warm straw in the sunlight, and it summons a distant memory from long ago, of childhood laughter and roasted pumpkin seeds and apple cider.

“Your choice,” she whispers. Her breath burns my cheek, whisks away the memory. “Stay or go.”

I don't answer. I want to stay. She knows how much I want to, wrapped up in her arms like this.

“I'll go wherever you want to go,” she tells me. “Whether it’s here or somewhere else.”

“Your parents may have a thing or two to say about that.”

But I find myself relaxing against her. She lifts her chin and her lips caress mine, sending a shiver through my body, and I open my mouth. My nose fills with her scent, musky and laden with desire. I could so easily forget everything, if only—

My stomach lets out a horrendous gurgle, and the moment is completely blown.

When the laughter finally fades from our bodies, I tell her that I need to share something.

She looks up at me, and blinks those beautiful brown eyes at me and waits.

“Jonah and his dad don't have our best interests at heart, Bren. In fact, I think they may be making things worse . . . on purpose.”

“Jonah wouldn't do that.”

“Stop taking his side!”

“I'm not taking anybody's side! Finn, maybe you don't see it because you . . . .” Her words falter, and it's not hard for me to know exactly what she's thinking.

“Because I prefer to be alone most of the time?” I ask.

She winces, but presses on. “People are getting restless— have been getting restless for a while now. What are we doing here anymore?”

“Well, for one thing, we're surviving. For another, we're trying to learn about the Flense.”

“How, Finn? How can you study something you can't even touch? Tell me, Finn, what have we learned about the Flense in the three years that we've been trapped in here?”

“A lot! We know how the Wraiths act, how they behave.”

“And there aren't any Wraiths out there anymore!”

I push her away and grab my head. My thoughts are too muddled. Thankfully, she doesn't keep pushing. She knows I'll just shut down if she does.

But then I hear voices outside in the hallway, and one of them is my father's. The other one belongs to Seth Abramson.

“Crap,” I say. We've already been warned about being alone together. Bren's dad has made it clear to me he won't tolerate it. And if we're found together here in the watch room, it'll be doubly worse.

“Hide,” Bren whispers.

“What? I can't—”

“I'll think of something. I’ll send them away. Hurry!”

She pushes me behind the table and over to a stack of wooden crates in a dark back corner.

I resist. “Dad's got next watch!”

“Not discussing this right now!” she hisses at me, and forces me against the wall. “Please!”

She steps away and makes it back to the monitors just as the door beeps open.

From the darkness, I hear her greet my father and ask if everything's okay. Her voice quavers a little, but it seems he doesn't notice. My heart pounds against my ribs. “I don't mind doing a second shift, Mister Bolles, if you're busy.”

I hear them exchange a few words, though my father's voice is too soft for me to hear clearly. I think he might be asking about the monitors. Feet shuffle, and the chair's castors rolling over the cement floor are like distant thunder. The cushion squeaks, so I know someone has sat down on it. Then light floods into the watch room as the door opens once more. A moment later, it clicks shut and the darkness returns.

I wait for Bren to tell me it's clear, that my father has left. But the next voice I hear isn't hers. It's his.

I can't see around this damn box. I can't tell who my father's speaking with, though I figure it has to be Bren. I thought she'd left, but apparently not. I press myself against the wall and wait to hear more, but after those first few murmured words, there's nothing but silence. Had he heard me? Does he suspect I'm here?

Several more seconds pass, and I begin to believe that maybe Bren actually has left and that he had just been talking to himself. I hope and pray it's only temporary and that she'll soon return.

I rest my head back against the wall and take in a slow, deep breath. It's been years since I've had an asthma attack — another illness I bet those tiny spider-like things in our blood has fixed — but my chest feels tight enough right now that I can feel the first signs of an attack setting in. The worst part is knowing there's nothing I can do to stop it. Should I just give up and step out? Maybe he won't be that angry.

But I know it's already too late for that. It'll just look worse if I do now.

So I concentrate on shuttling air through my mouth and nose as quietly as I can, ignoring his voice and trying not to think about why he's talking with himself or what he's saying. After a few minutes I feel myself relaxing again.

The hilarity of my situation hits me a few minutes later. I mean, what the hell am I doing hiding from my own father? I'm freaking eighteen years old. Laughter bubbles up inside my chest and threatens to burst through my lips.

“Hello?” Dad suddenly asks very loudly, immediately sobering me up. “Are you there? I can't— I can't hear you.”

Me?

There's a click, and I realize he's on the internal communication handset. Each room has one. But who is he talking to?

Another pause. The chair squeaks, and then his clothes rustle softly as he starts to pace. I squeeze back into the shadows.

“I thought you should know, we had an accident last week,” he says. “Our first. It was bad. Eddie Mancuso. He was burnt pretty badly.”

Who the hell is he talking to? Everyone here already knows about Eddie.

“He's healing. I'm not sure what to make of it. The recovery is unexpected.”

Is he talking about those things in his blood?

“No, that's not all. We've . . . .” He stops, and I can't tell if he's thinking or listening. I can't hear a single thing.

“I think this may be a game-changer.”

Game-changer? How?

I lean forward, curious, and risk a quick glance around the corner, but he's too far out of my line of sight. I crane my neck further, hoping to catch a glimpse, but he suddenly appears again, stepping toward the middle of the room. I jerk back and squeeze my eyes shut.

Did he see me? How could he not have?

But he doesn't act like he has. He doesn't come around the table or demand that I show myself.

“There's something else,” he says. From the sound of his voice, I can tell he's turned around again and is heading back over by the other side of the crate. “I discovered—”

There's a knock, and he immediately stops pacing and speaking. The handset clatters as he sets it gently back onto the mount on the wall. Then I hear him step quickly over to the door, followed by a tiny beep and a soft click as he opens it.

“Abraham? Good. Thought I'd find you in here.”

“Well, I am scheduled for watch, Jack.”

Jonah's father?

“Were you speaking to someone? I thought I heard your voice.”

“No,” Dad answers. He coughs. “Just thinking out loud. What can I do for you?”

Jack Resnick clears his throat. “Asuka told me she saw Finn going through the rooms on Level One earlier today. She also mentioned that she saw him sneaking off downstairs in the middle of the night. What was he up to?”

Missus Fujimura? That nosy little old woman, I think. I want to shout that it wasn't just me, but half the bunker sneaking around. Why didn't she see any of them? Why just me?

“Up to?” Dad asks. “I'm not sure I like what you're implying.”

“I believe Asuka used the word snooping. You know how she can get.” He chuckles. “I'm sure it's just innocent teen stuff.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Linda stopped in on Kaleagh and Seth this morning and noticed Bren wasn't with them. As a father of a teenager myself, I'm sure you can understand my . . . sensitivity in this regard. I'm constantly having to remind Jonah how different things are in here. Everyone knows everyone else's business.”

“What are you saying, Jack?”

“It's just that Bren's still very young.”

Dad doesn't answer.

“They're teenagers, Abe. They have a lot of free time on their hands. And you're a busy single parent of a growing boy. I know how hard it can be, believe me. That's why I keep Jonah on a short leash. I'm just saying that if you're feeling overwhelmed—”

“I am not feeling overwhelmed, Jack.”

There's a long pause. Then Mister Resnick says, “It doesn't have to be like this, Abe, you and me at odds all the time. Let me help you out, give you some time to relax, be a father.”

“I'm doing just fine, thank you.”

“It's just that we're all worried about our children, especially Finn, you know, losing his mother like that and his twin bro—”

“Get out, Jack.”

I can hear the tremble in my father's voice, the barely restrained anger. It matches my own fury. I clench my fists and my body shakes, but I can't let them know I'm here, no matter how badly I want to punch Mister Resnick in the face right now. If I were to step out, I'd just embarrass my father and prove how adolescent I am.

“I'm just looking out for everyone's best interest,” Jack says, his voice infuriatingly glib.

“As am I.”

“It's a tough job. I'll be the first to admit it. And nobody expects anyone to be absolutely right all of the time.”

“I really must ask you to leave, Jack.”

He sighs. “Actually, my real reason for coming here, Abe, is to tell you that, no matter how it goes down tonight, you should know how much I appreciate all you've done for us.”

“Tonight?” Dad says, surprised. “Eddie's not out of the woods yet.”

“We'll just have to proceed without his vote. It's what everyone wants.”

I jerk my head away from the wall so suddenly that I accidentally knock the stack of boxes on my right and a loose bolt rolls off and pings to the floor.

“What was that?”

The shadows from the doorway shift. I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself to be discovered, but I don't get the chance. Right then the motion alarm on the monitors begins to beep.

“Wraith!” my father shouts. The chair in front of the table gets shoved away and bangs up against the boxes. More bolts clatter to the floor, but neither he nor Mister Resnick notices. “Front entrance! It's at the front entrance!”

“Wraith?” Jack cries. “But that's not possib— Wait a second. Look! There!”

The table protests as someone leans over it.

“It's not a Wraith! Look at the way he’s moving, Abe. That's a survivor! Jesus, there's someone alive out there! We need to open up!”

“No!” Dad shouts. “He may be infected.”

But Jack's already moving away. “He's on the loading ramp! Come on!”

There's more shuffling, and the door to the room slams open. A moment later, it clicks shut again, and everything falls silent. All I can hear are my heartbeats and the sound of the turbines far away.

I step out from my hiding place, half expecting to see Dad standing there staring at the screens. But I'm alone. Both he and Jack Resnick have gone, leaving the room unattended. My father's broken his own rule.

I circle the table and scan the bank of monitors before me. All but one show the same view they always have, not a trace of movement. All except the one right in the middle of the desk.

A man is standing beneath the camera at the main entrance to the bunker, the one we raced through three years ago to get inside. Our Welcome Mat. He's wearing clothes that look old and worn out, faded from too many washings. There are dark spots on them, but I can't tell if it's mud or blood.

He steps backward, looks around, then begins to gesture wildly with his arms. He's shouting at the camera, but there's no way to know what he's saying, not from here, anyway. The security cams have no audio capability.

“But there's an intercom at the front door,” I whisper to myself, and I realize that that’s where they've gone.

I fly from the room, no longer worried that someone might notice me. I need to see this for myself.

There are already a dozen people gathered around the front door when I arrive at Level Four, and more are coming up behind me. Apparently word has spread quickly. I can hear my father speaking into the intercom as I skid to a stop on the edge of the crowd. Susan Miller looks up briefly, a mixture of excitement and apprehension in her eyes. She beckons me over to join her.

“What'd I miss?” I ask.

“Open the damn door, Abe!” Jack Resnick shouts.

I see him standing next to my father, leaning against the wall. He slaps his palm against the bare concrete beside him and curses. Dad holds up his hands and pleads with everyone to be quiet.

“Well, other than Jack and your dad arguing, nothing much,” Susan answers. “He says his name is Michael Williams, or Micheal— I couldn't exactly hear. I guess he's not infected.”

There's a buzz of chatter, and it's growing louder by the second. Everyone's pelting my father with questions. Some are ordering him to open the door, or at least give Jack the security code so he can. “Quiet!” he shouts. “Everyone, please. Be quiet. We need to be sure before we do anything rash.”

“This is why one man shouldn't have all of the access codes,” Jack snaps. “One man shouldn't be able to make all the decisions for everyone!”

But the din subsides. Dad turns and presses the button on the intercom. The electrical crackle further quiets the crowded hallway.

It's been months since I've actually made it to this part of the bunker. I used to come on occasion to listen to the wind, the occasional chirp of a bird, hoping and praying I wouldn't see another Wraith or hear their bloodcurdling howl. I know others used to come here, too. We all just want a reminder every once in a while that the world isn't dead, that there are still normal things out there. What I would have given to hear the distant roar of a jet. Or a car.

At some point, we all gave up waiting. It's too depressing.

The door is down some eighty feet of sloped concrete passageway, with walls growing to maybe forty feet high at this end. It's very claustrophobic. Not even the sound of the water gushing down the spillway a few hundred yards away is able to reach us. Nothing but the electric hiss and crackle of static.

That the system still works after all these years is something of a wonder.

“Are you safe?” the man asks.

It seems like a strange thing to say, especially considering he’s the one out there.

“When was the last time you opened your doors?”

Dad frowns. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Have you had any breaches in containment?”

“No.”

Jack stabs the button impatiently. “Have you seen any Wraiths?”

The man looks startled by the question. “Wraiths?”

“Are there any infected out there still?”

“I— I don't know. Listen. It's important that you listen to me. You need to get out of there. Now!”

Several people quietly exclaim their dismay at this.

“What do you mean?”

“It's not safe.”

“It's not safe out there.”

The stranger considers this a moment and nods. “Yes, but at least out here—”

“What do you mean you don't know if there are any infected?” Jack asks.

“I haven't seen any.”

“He's obviously terrified,” Susan Miller interjects. “Look at how jumpy he is. Let him in before he draws them here!”

“There aren't any Wraiths!” Jonah yells.

My father turns to us. Before anyone else can say anything, he raises his hands for silence. “It's too risky,” he declares, shaking his head. “We don't know who he is, or what he might be carrying. We don't know what he wants or why he thinks we're the ones in danger.”

“Just let him in, Abraham!” Danny Delacruz shouts. “He's obviously not infected. You can tell by the eyes. Let him in!”

“My son's right,” Jack says. “The Wraiths are all dead. We have nothing to fear from him.”

“Then why is he acting like he's afraid of something out there?”

“He's afraid of everything! Anyone'd be jumpy. But he hasn't seen any, said so himself. Why would he lie?”

“Why would he tell us we're the ones in danger?” Dad presses.

“Listen,” the stranger says. “ I have vital information! Please, you need to hear me out, before it's too late.”

“Just open the door, Abe. Get him in here so we can question him properly.” Jack turns to us. “Are we going to stand for this, people? Are we going to let one man keep us from learning the truth?”

“I'm not doing—” Dad protests.

“You have!”

“No,” I say, startling myself. I hadn't planned to speak. It just popped out. “That's not what he's doing.”

“Then perhaps you'd like to explain why he won't open the doors? This man is clearly a survivor. He's been out there on his own for who knows how long. He'll have information we desperately need.”

“It's not safe!”

Everyone turns to me, some in puzzlement, some shaking their heads in derision. I can see them already dismissing me. It's not that I'm only eighteen or the son of the man they seem to be losing faith in. It's because they all know my feelings about the outside.

Jack Resnick nods contemptuously, as if his suspicions have been confirmed.

But I press on. “He's a stranger. I don't trust him, and neither should any of you.”

“Like father, like son,” Jonah says, pushing off the wall and stepping over to me. He jabs a finger at my chest. “We all know about your phobia. You'd rather spend the rest of your life inside this place than go out there in the big wide world.”

“My agoraphobia has nothing to do with letting him in.”

“Not talking about that. I'm talking about your xenophobia— fear of the unknown.”

I can feel my face burning. His use of the word is intentional, meant to impress the others. I have to wonder where he picked it up, but when I see the approving look on his father's face, I think I know.

“A fear of the unknown can be a healthy thing,” I growl. “It’s what keeps us alive.”

Jonah smirks.

“Answer this then,” I say, challenging the group. “How did he manage to find us? How did he know we were even here? Why do you think he's so eager to get us out?”

Several people shift uncomfortably.

“Let him in,” Jonah says, “and I'm sure we'll find out.”

“Boys! Enough.” My father turns to the intercom and presses the button. “Mister Williams, we've got a few questions. First, how did you know we were here?”

“I have a map,” the stranger replies, “a rather crude one, drawn from memory. It's not very detailed, but enough so that I could find this place. Several of the bunkers are indicated.”

There's a collective gasp, and people start pressing forward. Nobody was ever told where any of the bunkers were, so we're all curious about them, as well as news about whether there are more survivors.

“Have you been to any of the others?” Dad asks.

“No, this one was the closest. Please, I'm begging you, if there has been no breach, then it's not too late.”

“Not too late for what?”

The man loses his balance and stumbles backward. “I— I'm sorry,” he says, panting. “It’s just that I haven't had much to eat in weeks.”

“For God’s sake, Abe, let him in!”

But I don't like the way his eyes keep shifting back up the ramp. It's like he knows something's there.

“He's lying about the Wraiths,” I say. “He's seen them.”

“Why would he lie about that?” Jonah snaps.

“Are you alone?” my dad asks into the intercom.

“Open the goddamn door, Abe,” Rory Newsom shouts.

“Don't do it,” I counter. “Something's not right.”

Dad waves his hand, shushing me and the others, and repeats the question. “Were you followed? Is someone after you?”

“Please!” Mister Williams says.

Others are starting to have second thoughts now. I can read the alarm in their eyes. Several people mutter that maybe we should wait.

“I've had about enough of this,” Jack Resnick shouts. “Give me the security code, Abraham Bolles! You are no longer in charge.”

“No.”

“Do you see what he's trying to do to us, people?” Jack wades into the crowd, his head sticking up taller than most of the others, and I feel a stab of fright as he draws closer to me.

Over to the side, Jonah smirks, sensing my fear.

“Don't you see what's happened here, people?” Jack asks. “Bunker Eight has become Abraham Bolles's little empire. King Abe! And we're supposed to be his loyal little subjects. You all agreed with me this morning that something needs to change, and soon!”

“Not all of us,” Kari mumbles.

“You were all there. You all agreed that it's time to put someone else in charge!”

“Not everyone,” I snarl.

“No, but enough. I even counted your vote and your father's, not that it made any difference.” He sweeps his gaze over the crowd. “More than half of you voted for me!”

While that may be true, only a couple people are nodding now.

“Oh, I see how it is! You're all chickening out!”

“We said it was time for a change, not that it should be this, Jack! This is no better.”

He looks around uncertainly for a moment. Nearly the entire population of the bunker is here by now. Eddie is missing, of course, and Doc Cavanaugh is probably downstairs with him. I see little Mia Largent and her older brother Sam huddling close to their parents. They look frightened.

I also don't see the Fujimuras or Bix or Bren. I wonder if they're keeping Hannah company.

“Jack, just calm down a second,” Dad says. “This is no time—”

“Don't you tell me to calm down! I'm in charge here now, not you! Now open the door!”

“Jack—” Maria Caprio starts, but he cuts her off with a cry of frustration.

“Do you want to stay inside of this prison forever? Is that it?” He turns and glares at each of us in turn. “Well, do you? I know I don't.”

“Maybe Abe's right,” Vincent Caprio chimes in. “Why is that man so eager to get us to open the door?”

I'm tempted to remind him that I was the first one to point that out, not Dad.

“Because he's alone! He wants to come in!”

“That's not what I heard.”

“It's the Wraiths.”

“There are no Wraiths!”

“Then what's the rush?”

“Rush?” Jack screams in frustration? “That's the wrong question. The question we should be asking ourselves is why delay? That's the question Abraham Bolles doesn't want asked because he knows what'll happen once he opens that door. We'll all realize that we no longer need to stay here anymore. We won't need him. And then his kingdom will crumble.”

“There's no kingdom, Jack. I'm only trying to be cautious.”

But Jack Resnick pushes his way back through the crowd and grabs my father's shirt and begins to shake him. Dad's head whips back and forth, coming perilously close to the wall. I step forward in alarm. A voice rings out, shouting, “Dad, wait!”

There's a loud CRACK! And my father's body slumps forward in Jack's hands. For a moment, everyone freezes.

“Abe?” Jack says. He actually manages to looks surprised.

Suddenly, I'm standing next to them, pushing Jack away, grabbing for my dad. His eyes are glazed, and the way his head lolls to one side tells me something is seriously wrong. “What the hell did you do?” I scream.

“It wasn't—” Jack lets him go and starts to back away. “I mean, I didn't—”

I catch my father before he hits the floor. “Get help,” I scream. I cradle his head, and lay him down. When I pull my hand away, it's covered in blood.

“Get the doctor!”

Above me, the intercom crackles and the man demands to know what's going on.

“It's nothing,” my father says, his words slurred. He pushes my hands away, but when he tries to sit up, his body sways for a moment, and he looks like he might collapse.

People press against me. I push them back and ask for room. “Where's Doc Cavanaugh?” I cry. “Someone get her!”

Dominic Green offers to go find her.

“No!” Dad reaches behind his head and hisses in pain. “Leave her. She's busy. And I'm fine. It's just a bump. And I'm barely bleeding anymore.”

“See, he's fine,” Jack says.

“You almost brained him!” Kari shouts.

“He should have listened to me. None of this would have hap—”

“You shut the hell up!” I scream at him, spinning around. “You're totally insane! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“No, I  I don't know what came over me.”

“Bullsh—”

“Finn! Enough!”

“He could've killed you, Dad!”

“But he didn't,” he says. The effort makes him wince, which he tries to mask by getting to his feet. I give him my hand, but he refuses my assistance and comes dangerously close to toppling over again.

“You need to sit down, Dad.”

“It's alright. Just a cut is all. Nothing permanent.”

“It's not alright,” Seth Abramson says, appearing out of nowhere and slipping to my father's other side. I notice Dad accepts his help without hesitation. “Everyone needs to be held accountable for their actions. No one has a right to assault anyone else.” He glares over at my father's attacker. “You need to leave, Jack. Go get control of yourself before you come back.”

Jack backs away, mumbling a weak apology, even as he continues to assert that my father’s fine.

“Hold still,” Mister Abramson tells Dad. “Let me check you out.”

Bren has told me a few times that he was once a medic in the army, long ago before he got married and had children and started doing computer work. He's helped Doc train us how to triage and treat minor injuries, not that there has been much need for those skills here, not until recently anyway.

He carefully inspects my father's eyes, asking him questions to assess his memory and level of awareness. The answers seem to satisfy him enough that he nods and says, “I don't think we have to worry about a concussion, but we should keep an eye on you for a while, just to be safe. I think you should go to your quarters for some peace and quiet. Finn can keep an eye on you.”

Dad nods.

“In the mean time, we still need to address the situation outside.”

“Just open the door,” Jonah mumbles.

But Dad shakes his head. “I'm not opening—”

“Then give my dad the code and I will!”

“I won't transfer those codes until and unless we have unanimous agreement from everyone in the compound.”

“Like that'll ever happen now,” Jonah mutters from his perch against the wall. It's loud enough that everyone can hear, which I think is the point. He shoots daggers at me with his eyes, because he knows I'll never agree to force my father to do something he things is wrong, especially giving the codes to a madman, which Mister Resnick has apparently turned into.

“I'm in total agreement with you, Abe,” Mister Abramson says. “Opening the door without first knowing who that man out there is, or what he wants, would be irresponsible. It could compromise the entire bunker.”

“Thanks, Seth.”

“On the other hand, we have to consider that he might have some valuable information. He's been out in the world. He'll be able to tell us what he's seen. We can't let an opportunity to learn from him slip through our fingers. Especially if . . . .”

Especially if there are still Wraiths out there.

He doesn't have to say it, but now everyone's thinking it. Well, almost everyone.

Dad sighs. He looks like he's struggling to think. Don't, Dad! I want to say. But I can't deny that what Mister Abramson says makes sense. Even if the stranger knows very little about the Flense, any little bit would only add to our own meager knowledge base.

“If you can think of an alternative,” Dad says.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and I look up and see Bren. There's worry in her eyes. “I just got here,” she apologizes. “Heard about your father. How is he?”

“Fine,” I growl, shaking her off of me and stepping off to the side. Like her dad, her timing is impeccable, showing up after the danger has already passed and the damage done. And I'm still pissed at her for bailing on me up in the watch room.

Stop it! I order myself. Stop being so petty.

But that other voice inside me won't go away. It wants to know where she went. Why wasn't she here when Jonah was having fun at my expense, mocking my insecurities? I could've used someone — anyone— to back me up, because it sure as hell wasn't going to be Dad.

Damn it, Finn. Grow a pair. You're an adult now.

I watch Dad make his way back over to the intercom. He's still a little shaky on his feet and has to lean up against the wall. He lifts a hand to his head and presses, and his breath is a sharp whistle. But when he pulls away to check his fingers, there's very little new blood to be seen, just the pale glistening wetness of lymph. The bleeding has stopped. And quickly.

“Hello?” he says into the intercom. “Williams? Can you hear me?”

The man in the monitor spins around. His face is twisted with emotion. “What the hell's going on in there? Why won't you open the door and come out? I'm not infected!”

“Sorry. Listen, we have some concerns. You understand that, don't you? We're going to need some more information before we feel comfortable enough to open this door.”

Bren pulls at me, but I ignore her. I'm trying to see the image on the monitor. I need to see what's happening out there. I'm still deeply suspicious of the stranger. But everyone else is jostling forward again, blocking my view.

I catch a glimpse of Dad resting his head on his elbow against the wall beside the screen. Even from my vantage point, he looks a little green around the gills, and for a moment I think he's going to be sick.

“Finn,” Bren whispers, “I need to talk to you—”

“Not now,” I whisper.

“Please, Finn.”

There's an urgency in her voice that makes me look at her, and in her eyes I can see that she's genuinely upset.

“What?” I snap, a bit sharper than I intend. I'm torn between being worried about my father and being angry with her. The stress of the situation is making it hard for me to control my emotions, much less my actions.

“It's about Hannah.”

But before she can explain, there's another commotion over by the intercom. “Open it up, Abraham!” someone shouts. It's Rory Newsom. “Christ have mercy, just let the man in!”

Is it a Wraith?

I push past Bren and force my way along the opposite wall toward the front door, hoping for a better view. In the past, I would have found it hard to deal with all these bodies so close to me, but right now I barely even notice them. “What's happening?” I ask.

Fran Rollins turns and shakes her head. She calls over to her sons, Jacob and Jareth.

Like typical teenagers, both of the boys have pushed their way in front of everyone else. Jareth turns and says, “He's threatening to leave.”

Fran turns back to me. I'm not sure, but the look on her face seems to suggest that it's time I intervened with my father.

“Yup, definitely going to leave,” Jacob relays over the crowd at us. “Your dad's telling him to be patient, but he's not listening. He's saying that we all need to agree, that it's not just his decision.”

“He's walking away!” Jareth shouts.

“Will he come back?” Fran asks me. “What if he does? What if he tries to break in?”

I don't know why she asks me, but since I'm sure nothing smaller than a bulldozer or an army tank is going to get through, I shake my head and tell her not to worry. Not even the Wraiths, at the peak of their rage, could manage to do anything but shred their own flesh and bones on the rough cement, leaving nothing but blood stains.

“Enough of this!” a voice booms from the other end of the hallway. Everyone turns to look.

Jack Resnick is back. He strides toward the front again, apparently emboldened by my father’s quick recovery. Several people trail him, though they don’t look quite as determined as he does. “Open the goddamn door and let him in now, Abraham!”

Dad ignores him.

“We took a vote! I'm in charge now. You have to give me the codes. You hear me, Abraham Bolles?”

Seth Abramson straightens up. Like Jack, he stands several inches taller than most of the people here. He asks Jack to be reasonable. “We need to do this in a controlled fashion. For everyone's safety.”

“Give me the goddamned security codes, or I'll have you confined to quarters on restricted rations! Both of you!”

“You can't do that!” I shout. I can feel the whole situation getting out of control again.

He spins toward me. “Can't I? We've had just about enough of your father dictating what he thinks is best for this group, boy. He no longer speaks for us. I do.”

Boy? I feel my face getting hot. “You don't speak for me.”

“Oh, that's rich,” Jonah says, stepping up beside his father. “For the past three years, you've been telling everyone to step in line, be good little soldiers. But when it's my fa—”

“Shut it!” Jack snaps, cutting his son off in mid-word. He turns to me and thrusts a finger at my nose. He's a couple inches taller than me, though the way he glares at me makes me feel much shorter. “I'll make this real simple, young man, so you can understand. I am the new leader of this bunker. I make the rules and the decisions. If you don't like it, you can join your father in confinement.”

“You wouldn't.”

“Try me.”

I look over to where Bren is standing. She's watching me, her mouth hung open in surprise. Her eyes flick behind me and I turn. I catch her father staring at her, their gazes locked. He's silently warning her not to get involved.

It's just as I feared, the same out-of-control situation that happened not a half hour ago. This time, however, the outcome will be much worse. I just know it.

“Now, Abraham,” Jack says, forcing his way to my father's side, “why don't you give me those codes?”

“Not until we've all voted,” my father persists. “If everyone—”

“I'm not asking anymore!”

“If everyone votes, then—”

“Enough of this bullshit!”

The profanity doesn't seem to take Dad by surprise, not like it does the rest of us. He shrugs and turns back to the intercom and calmly says into it, “Mister Williams, please, I beg you, don't leave.”

But Jack gestures at Dominic, who looks like the last thing he wants to do right now is follow Jack's order. Seth Abramson tries to intervene, and Jack pushes him away. He stabs the intercom button and says, “Sit tight, Mister Williams. We'll have this door open in a jiffy.”

Dad crosses his arms over his chest. He tells Jack he's making a mistake. Seth Abramson begs for reason. Jack raises his fists and demands the codes. He waits approximately four milliseconds before grabbing my father again, this time by the arm. He instructs Dominic to take him away.

Dad shakes the hands off of him and follows Dom through the crowd.

“You can cool your heels in your quarters. In the meantime, I'll just have to figure out another way to open this door.”

“Are you going to force it?” Fran asks.

I turn and notice Jonah over in a corner, his face pale and alarmed. I know it wasn't him who asked the question, but I can tell he's just as surprised and worried by the thought. His father has always been a bit of a hothead, but even this is a side of him we've never seen before.

“Anyone got something to say?” Jack challenges. His eyes skip over us all.

Jonah opens his mouth, but then he changes his mind. If it weren't for the fact that I dislike him as much as I do, I'd actually feel a little sorry for him that his father's such a prick.

It makes me grateful for the one I have. Well, for about a second, anyway.

“Jack,” Seth quietly says. “You know this isn't how we do things around here.”

“Get with the program, Abramson. This bunker is now under new management, so instead of flapping your gums, why don't you figure out a way to open that door. You were once a computer programmer, right? Or did you forget how?”

“I don't know the first thing about security lockout devices. You need a specialist for that sort of thing.”

“Chip Darby, where are you?” Jack looks around and locates the man standing to one side. “You were once an engineer, right?”

“Electrical.”

“Perfect! I want this door open before dinnertime. If it's not open by then, I'll take a crowbar to it and force it myself.”

Everyone's stunned. Nobody moves.

“Everyone else,” he orders, “back to your quarters before I lock you all up!”

“Finn, just calm down.”

Calm down? I stop my pacing and stare at him. How can he expect me to calm down after what happened out there? After that madman stole control away and locked him up in here?

“Everyone else is in a panic. I don't need you freaking out on me, too.”

I fall into the chair beside my bed, but then pop right back up again. I can't sit still. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you let him take over! You know how I get.”

“Enough excuses, Finn. He hasn't taken over. And did I let him.”

“Jack Resnick is crazy! He's the one who should be locked up.”

Two rows of fluorescent lights in the ceiling illuminate every possible square inch of the room, even with half of the bulbs removed. To conserve them and to cut down on the blinding glare, Dad recommended at the beginning that every other bulb be stowed away. It turned out to be prescient, as the people who prepped the place neglected to include extra bulbs.

We've covered the bare cement floor with flattened bits of cardboard and plastic matting to warm the place up a bit, and I've taped drawings over the military gray walls. Most of them are by the Largents' kids. Sammy is especially fond of dragons, Mia of flowers and boats. They're easily distinguished from my own drawings, which look infantile by comparison.

I thread my way between the beds, makeshift cots thrown together from the slats of disassembled wooden packing crates which had once held food and other supplies. The mattress pads are made from packing foam and other soft materials, including the Army surplus sleeping bags we found stacked in one of the rooms. They're better than the cold, hard floors, but not by much.

The room is maybe a dozen feet on a side, so it only takes a few steps to get to the wall. I turn around and prowl back, quickly covering the distance. As far as pacing goes, it's not very satisfying.

“It would have been easier if you'd just let him in,” I say.

“Once we open those doors, we compromise the seal on this place,” he tells me.

“So Jack's right. You're afraid people will leave.”

“No, Finn. I'm afraid something will come in. Need I remind you that we're alive — have managed to stay alive for three years — because we sealed ourselves away in here?”

“There were Wraiths before. Not anymore.”

He nods and waits, as if I'm missing his point.

“That man's not infected, Dad.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he didn't look like a Wraith. Because he was talking and acting normally. He was out there for a solid hour. He's still out there. Jack managed to convince him to stay.”

Another stare.

“I know what a Wraith looks like, Dad. He’s not it.”

He sighs and asks me to sit down. “I want you to tell me everything you know about the Flense.”

I don't see the point of the exercise, but I humor him. What else am I going to do? “Fine. Nobody knows where it came from or how it started,” I begin. “Nobody knows exactly what it is.”

“Tell me what you know, not what you don't.”

I roll my eyes. “It's spread by skin-to-skin contact, but nobody knows exactly how.” I tell him how the instant someone who's uninfected is touched by a Wraith, the transformation begins and that it's rapid and apparently irreversible. The newly infected victim soon begins to lose some sort of vital aspect of their self, something that makes them human. Their eyes begin to go blank. They lose their ability to speak within ten or fifteen minutes, followed by their self-awareness in half an hour to forty-five minutes. An hour or so after infection, they're completely gone. Dead, yet somehow still alive, just empty shells of flesh and bone filled with disease and driven only by the need to spread it.

Dad nods. “The reason the outbreak spread so quickly and so silently in the beginning was that the infected did not appear threatening to others. An infected person could walk right up to you and all it would take was a fingertip on your skin, the most casual of gestures, a fleeting contact, and then they'd move on. Nobody realized they were spreading death until it was too late. That's why nobody resisted or tried to get away. But once some of us figured it out, once we started to resist . . . .”

He swallows, and the raspy sound of it draws my eyes back to him.

“When we started to resist is when all hell broke loose.”

“It triggers some kind of switch inside of them,” I whisper. “If you try to stop them or try to—”

Run! Run!

No, please don't run.

“If you try to run,” Dad finishes, “they become vicious animals. And they kill you.”

“I was going to say they turn rabid.”

He nods. “Once that switch is flipped, they don't stop coming after you until either they die, or you escape, or something else comes along and draws their attention.”

Run, Harper!

The manufactured memory stirs in my mind, spawned from a hint of truth and nurtured by years of sustained terror and uncertainty. It sears through my thoughts, etching scenes of imagined horror on the backs of my eyeballs. I know where this particular scene comes from. It's the day we arrived here, though it's always Harper and Leah in place of Bix and his father whenever I remember it. And unlike Bix and his dad succeeding in their escape, my siblings never manage to get away. They never make it to the bus.

The driver was supposed to keep going and not stop for anything. “Leave them!” someone shouted. “Go!”

But there were others, myself included, who told him to stop and allow the two to get onto the bus with us. I remember turning around to see who could be so heartless that they would leave people along the side of the road. There was a man, and he was ordering the driver to keep going. I remember the terrified look on the girl's face as she clutched at her father's arm. And I will never forget how she begged him to let the driver stop.

He did. What choice did we have? The van was blocking our way, the engine smoking and flames beginning to leap from beneath the hood. He swung open the doors and started to get out of his seat. But then the Wraiths started coming out of the woods and everything changed.

Each time the memory resurrects itself, the Wraiths are always closer, more numerous. If I allow the mental movie to reach its climax, it always ends with Harper and Leah overwhelmed, always with them fighting. And always the change takes the Wraiths and they kill.

But as terrifying as the nightmare is, my mother's absence from it has always bothered me equally as much. The guilt of that betrayal is as bad as the horror.

I shudder and force the vision away, though the reality that replaces it isn't much of an improvement.

“I've given this presumed virus a lot of thought,” Dad tells me.

“And?”

“All biological entities, viruses included, are driven to propagate, to make more and more copies of itself. Parasites, which is what this is, are obligated to live off the energy of other living organisms, so the very nature of parasitism exacts a cost on the host. It's this cost that maintains the balance between a parasite's success and the host's. If the infective agent is too successful, it weakens the host too much, which threatens the host's ability to survive and propagate, and, by extension, the parasite's. A dead host isn't a very good carrier, is it?”

“No. But some diseases are very good at killing,” I counter. “The plague, Ebola . . . .”

But he shakes his head. “They all have a weakness of some sort, a bottleneck which limits the parasite's ability to spread. But not the Flense. As far as I've been able to tell, this agent is a hundred percent effective at transmitting itself. What happens when it runs out of hosts?”

“It dies out.”

He nods. “Or?”

“I don't know.”

“Or it must adapt.”

“Adapt, how?”

“By becoming less successful. By finding new hosts. By incubating longer inside a carrier. There are many different ways it can change. It has to become less successful in order to survive. It has to be able to hide.”

And now I begin to understand his unwillingness to opening the door. “You think the man outside might be a carrier?”

“I think it's a risk, Finn. He appears uninfected, but how can we know for sure? We know dangerously little about the Flense. But we know even less about the stranger outside our door.”

As I leave our quarters, I give the man sitting just outside my door an angry look so there's no question how I feel about his betrayal.

But Dominic Green just stares fixedly away, refusing to meet my eyes. He slumps in his chair and messes with the metal bar resting across his knees. It forces me to consider whether he'd actually use it against my father if he decided to leave the room in defiance of Jack's orders. Dad's a man of his word, and he told Jack he'd sit tight, so I know wondering is an exercise in futility.

On the opposite side of the hall is Jonah. Talk about an exercise in futility.

I don't bother even looking at him.

“Where are you going?” he asks me, a low, threatening rumble in his voice.

His tone takes me straight back to grade school, not to any bully, but something else. There was this dog a couple blocks away from the house on a street Harper and I always walked home on. It would always bark at us from behind a wooden slat fence as we passed. One day, the gate was left open, and the dog ambushed us when it came flying out from behind a tree. The way it growled right before attacking us is what I remember now.

“None of your business,” I tell Jonah.

“Dad says everyone's to stay in their quarters unless they're on official duties.”

I keep walking, and when he shouts at me, I yell over my shoulder that I'm going to finish counting food. The hair on my neck feels like it's standing on end, and my palms are sweating. “That official enough for you?”

He doesn't answer. But he doesn't come after me, either.

What the hell must be going through his mind? Both he and his father have always been stubborn, opinionated know-it-alls, but I've never seen this side of Jack Resnick before. It's like somebody fed his ego steroids or something. Flipped a switch and made him go crazy.

The look on Jonah's face when Dom was taking my father away was enough to convince me it's a side of Jack that not even his own son has seen before. Or if he has, it's a side that terrifies him.

That day the dog attacked us, Harper never even hesitated. He stepped right in front of me and lashed out with his foot, landing a kick right on the dog's snout. That thing turned tail and ran straight back into its yard, howling all the while. We couldn't have been more than seven or eight, and that dog was no little thing. It continued to bark like mad at us afterward, that deep, throaty, growling bark. But from that day onward, it didn't really scare us anymore.

I think that was the day my love for Harper became a tangible thing, something I held onto and feared I would lose forever if I ever stopped holding it.

But he's not here to protect me now. All I have is me.

I head for the stairs. When I get there, I know I'm out of sight of our door and the two men standing outside of it, but I turn to check anyway, because it feels like I'm being watched. But the hallway behind me is empty. Jonah is apparently not in the mood to pursue and harass me, which is yet another sign that the way things have recently developed has thrown him off his game.

I step into the stairwell and descend, but instead of heading three levels down, I go only two before poking my head out and listening for voices. There are none. Down here, the sound of the turbines is louder, thrumming through the thick rock and concrete walls, seeping through the floor. I stick to the shadows, pressed as close to the wall as possible and creep down the corridor listening carefully. A chill rises from the damp cement, a smell of dust and stone.

Dad had asked me to check in on Doc Cavanaugh in the med bay. I could tell he's worried about Eddie. And I don't mean just curious about his recovery, but concerned about his condition. I can tell those things they found in Eddie's blood has spooked him as much as they have me.

He has to be wondering what potential they might have to do harm.

I place my ear against the doctor's door and listen, but I don't hear a sound. Gently, I rap my knuckles against the painted metal. “Doctor C? It's Finn.”

I immediately hear her chair squeak and the rustle of her feet as she approaches the door. As soon as it opens, I push my way in. She shuts it behind me.

“Did you hear?” I ask.

“About your father?” She nods. “I stopped in to speak with Bren a little while ago, when I took Hannah back up to her quarters to rest. She told me what happened. It's terrible.”

“Oh, Bren,” I say.

“Is there something going on between you two? Because she was near tears. When I asked about you, she completely broke down.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, and it feels like a rock going down, hard and dry and unwilling. I feel bad — of course I feel bad — but I don't have time to think about that right now. “What do you think we should do?” I ask. “About the stranger, I mean.”

Something flickers in her eyes, and she shakes her head. She circles back to her desk and settles into her chair, then motions me toward the other one.

“I'm torn,” she says. “My first instinct is to try and save him, to bring him inside.” She exhales, long and slow, and her face betrays the troubling thoughts in her mind. “Logically, however, I know the risks are too great. He might be dangerous. Or worse. Bren says her father is working on opening the door?”

I nod. “Mister Abramson is also worried about contamination, so he'll probably stall as much as he can. And considering he knows nothing about electronic door locks, and neither does Rory, it shouldn't be too hard.”

Another flicker of something in her eyes, something suggestive of doubt. Or suspicion.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Your father asked Seth to take another look at the microscope, see if there might be some way to enhance the resolution. Of course, we didn't say anything to him about the . . . .”

“Spiders?”

“Nano machines. That's what your father's calling them. I'm not so sure I'm ready to accept that they're tiny manmade robots, but . . . .” She shrugs. “Anyway, Seth thought that, with recent developments being what they are, we should return the security cam to its place.”

I frown. “But that view from that camera is useless.”

“He said not having it makes him feel blind.”

“Well, he's just stressed,” I say. “We all are.”

“I agree, but I would think that learning what we can about these nano machines should trump another exterior view of the complex. At least for the short term."

“So, why not tell him why you need the camera?”

But she shakes her head. “Your father requested that we keep our little discovery to ourselves for the time being, and I agree.”

“Okay.”

“As far as the stranger, his arrival actually provides me with an opportunity to request samples from everyone without raising suspicions.”

“You want to test everyone?”

She nods. “The more we know about these things, the better. We still don't know their connection with the Flense. If it turns out the stranger doesn't have them, then that's information, too. But we need to be discreet about how we go about doing it.”

“Discreet isn't in Jack Resnick's vocabulary,” I say. “He's threatening to force the doors open if Mister Abramson can't override the security lock.”

The doctor frowns as she shakes her head. “That would be simply stupid.”

“He's got enough support to make him think otherwise. Jonah's been pushing everyone hard lately to open the doors. He says it's time for us to leave the bunker.”

“Jonah gets his cues from his father. I doubt it works in the opposite direction.”

I clench my fists. “I just wish I knew what's gotten into them both.”

“Cabin fever,” she suggests. “Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long to happen. Fear of what might be waiting for us outside has kept it in check, but Eddie's accident may have been the breaking point. And since it's been months since the last Wraith sighting, it just emboldens folks to ignore the risks.”

“Speaking of Eddie, how is he?”

“Awake. This morning, he couldn't even speak. I just checked in on him a few minutes before you arrived, and he was talking. He asked for Hannah and, stupidly, I told her. She was very upset when I told her it wasn't a good idea. I relented when it appeared she might cause a fuss.”

“Bren hinted that something was going on with her earlier. Is she with him now?”

The doctor shakes her head. “I sent her back to her quarters with a sedative after her visit.”

“Why?”

She doesn't answer at first. Finally, she shakes her head and stands up. “I wanted to show your father,” she says. “But since he's confined, it'll have to be you.” She gestures toward the door.

Without another word, we make our way down the hall. Once again, I find myself straining my sense of hearing for any indication we're not alone down here. The pitch of the turbines wavers momentarily, and my heart skips. But it resumes its usual tone.

Doctor Cavanaugh leads us toward Eddie's room, a finger to her lips and a glance around us, as if she's also wary of being seen or heard. When we get to his door, she leans in and whispers in my ear, “Brace yourself.”

She keys in the code for the room and the door clicks. Her hand trembles slightly as she pushes it open, and together we step inside.

The plastic sheeting covering the bed flutters from the draft we make by entering. It's translucent and yields only a vague suggestion of a presence on the bed. On the floor in the corner is a loose heap of yellow fabric or plastic.

The door clicks shut behind us, and I realize how chilly and dimly lit the room is. Doctor Cavanaugh notices me looking at the ceiling and she says she removed a couple more of the light bulbs because Eddie had complained about the glare.

“And the temperature?”

She shakes her head. “I blocked the vents to minimize the possibility of infection. He's under blankets.”

“Is he asleep?”

“Sedated.”

“Why?”

She purses her lips, and her eyes scan the plastic tent. “Because I was afraid he'd try to get up and leave.”

“He's able to walk?”

In lieu of further explanation, she steps hesitantly over to the bed and unhooks the plastic sheet from where it dangles from the ceiling. Then, with a deep breath, she begins to pull it off to the other side of the bed.

I don't move from my spot. I'm afraid to get any closer.

The sheet slips over the hump of Eddie's feet first. The weight of it begins to drag it down, and it begins to slide faster over the other side. It clears his knees, then his hips, before getting caught up on his folded hands beneath the blankets. Doctor Cavanaugh pushes at it, once, twice, until it resumes its slide.

I still haven't seen any skin. I'm curious how it will look after being so badly damaged by the steam downstairs.

His chest rises and falls as he breathes.

The doctor circles around the other side of the bed and gives me another look. I nod, once, quickly, and she pulls the plastic fully away.

The gasp is out of me before I realize it. I raise my hands to my mouth, stumble backwards into the door. The hairless, pink thing on the bed barely resembles a human being. The veins, so close to the surface of his new skin, glisten gray and white. He looks like some kind of mutant science experiment gone horribly wrong.

As if sensing our presence, two slits where Eddie's eyes used to be slide open. He turns the thing that is his head toward me, and, in a perfect replica of Eddie's voice, he says,

“Hello, Finn.”

Eddie's chuckle sounds wet and unhealthy, but the amusement in it is crystal clear.

“I'll take it from the shocked look on your face, Finn, that mine looks about as alien to you as these do to me.”

He pulls his hands out from underneath the blankets and holds them up. The skin is a shade between pink and white, and it's as smooth as fresh paint. When he spreads his fingers the light shines through the thin webbing stretched between them. Veins pulse just beneath the surface. I can almost see the blood flowing through them, returning it to his heart and lungs to be reoxygenated.

“What the hell?”

He stretches out his right arm, reaching for me.

When I step away, he chuckles again, then tucks it back beneath the blanket. “Just kidding.”

I'm not amused.

“The good doctor won't let me see a mirror, but the look on your face tells me everything I need to know.”

“What? H-how?” I stammer, turning to her.

“I removed the bandages this morning, and the damaged skin sloughed off,” she says. “It was—”

“It was like coming out of a cocoon,” Eddie finishes.

My eyes flick to the pile on the floor and I realize it isn't plastic, or even fabric, but skin. Lunch rises in my gorge, threatening to gush from my mouth.

“Ever have a really bad sunburn?” Eddie asks me. “Ever have the skin just peel off in sheets?”

“How can you even joke about this?”

“What's the alternative, Finn? My daughter is terrified of me, and—”

“That's why you had to sedate her,” I exclaim, turning back to the doctor.

She nods. “I told you Eddie asked for her. She was here when I began to unravel the first bandages. It was a mistake.”

“It was my mistake for demanding hat you do it,” Eddie says.

I find myself hyperventilating. By habit, I focus on drawing in deeper breaths, metering my inhales and exhales, waiting for the telltale whistle to signal the beginning of the panic attack. But my throat doesn't close off as I expect it to. My chest remains loose and the air passes through it without restriction. If I had had any doubts before, I'm now certain that those things inside of me have cured me of the disease. “Have you told him?”

“About my little mechanical helpers?” he asks, rendering an answer from her unnecessary.

“I had to, Finn. Even he knew this wasn't normal.”

“And it is my body, after all.”

“What does Hannah think?”

“We haven't told her yet.”

“Doc seems to think we've all got them, Finn.”

Not all, I think, but I nod and don't correct him. “The vitamin D shots from the evacuation center. We think that's where it happened.”

“Well, they do appear to be a good thing, don't you think?” Eddie asks. “Our little robot helpers.”

“I'm . . . not sure.”

I'm still in a bit of a daze over everything that's happening. It's scary. And those things I saw under the microscope certainly don't feel right. They may be helping, but they were put into us without our permission and under false pretenses. But worst of all is not knowing if and how they might be connected with the outbreak itself.

“We can't keep this a secret,” I say. “We'll have to tell everyone, and soon. They have a right to know.”

Doctor Cavanaugh clears her throat. “I know. But right now is certainly not the time.”

Eddie laughs, and the sound of it again makes my skin crawl. “She's hoping my current appearance is just an intermediate stage in my full recovery, and that I'll magically end up looking just like my old self in a few days.” He passes a webbed hand over the shiny dome of his head. “She doesn't want the boogey man scaring anyone else.”

“The musculature has already begun to remodel to some degree,” Doc Cavanaugh says, her eyes flashing, and I realize she hasn't yet told him about the stranger. “I've already seen improvement, features taking on more detail, even just since this morning. A couple more days. Patience.”

Eddie nods. I can tell it must be hard for him, being locked up inside here. It's been a week since the accident, and I'm sure he hates that his own daughter is scared of him.

“Bren and Bix have been watching over Hannah,” I tell him. “She never gave up on you. She always believed you'd get better.”

I'm grateful to see some of the tension leave his shoulders. His face — or what has taken the place of his face — also seems to relax.

“She's my angel,” he says.

“I do have to ask you something though, Eddie. About the accident.”

He waits.

“Mister Largent mentioned something about the pipe that burst. He said it looked like someone had messed with it.”

The corners of the opening that is Eddie's mouth turn downward. “What do you mean?”

“He said it looked like it had been intentionally cut.”

He just lays there for several seconds, his dark eyes glistening as he regards me. What is he thinking?

“If it's true,” he finally says, and his voice is tight and sounds like broken glass tumbling on a beach, “you find out who did it. Find them and bring them to me.”

I need to talk to Bren, but as soon as I step out of the stairwell and hurry across the hall to her quarters, Jack Resnick comes around the bend of the hallway. He demands to know why I'm not in my own quarters.

“You should ask your son,” I snap. “I told him where I was going.”

Mister Resnick glares at me for a moment. He glances at the Abramson's door and then back at me again. There's nothing but contempt written all over his face, in the way his eyes flash and the muscles in his jaw throb.

I honestly don't understand why he and Jonah hate us so much, why they hate Bix and his dad.

He takes in a breath and seems to be mulling over what to do with me. Should he allow me to see Bren? I mean, it's obvious that's why I'm standing here in front of her door.

“Get back to your quarters,” he grunts. “Unless you'd like waste duty. I'm sure your little hippie friend would appreciate the break.”

“I have watch coming up.”

“The monitors?” He shakes his head. “As of now I'm relieving you of that duty. I need people I can trust.”

I can feel my face getting hot. Nails bite into my palms as my hands curl into fists. “You may have stolen your position away from my father,” I growl. “You may have tricked or bribed or scared people into voting for you, but you won't keep your power. Not like this.”

But he doesn't appear worried by my warning. “Tell you what, convince your dad to turn over all of the security codes and endorsing me as your new leader, and I'll think about lightening up.”

“Mister Abramson and Rory aren't having any luck then opening the door?” I can't keep the satisfaction from creeping into my voice.

I expect him to get angry, but he just sneers at me with that half smile of his. “Oh, you didn't hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Your father has agreed to a compromise. He's coming up with a proposal to bring the stranger in.”

* * *

“I had no choice, Finn,” my father explains.

He sets the well-worn book he's reading down on the sleeping pad next to him, a book he's finished perhaps a dozen times already, and looks up at me.

“Seth is worried that if Jack forces him to compromise the locking mechanism, we won't be able to seal it again. Then we'd be completely at risk to whatever might still be out there.”

“But I thought you were afraid bringing him in could expose us.”

“I still am, which is why Seth and I have come up with an alternative plan that will prevent exposure. Son, we need to know what's happening out there. If the stranger knows something we don't about the Flense, or the other bunkers, then he needs to tell us.”

“But if he's so determined to get us out,” I say, “why will he tell us anything if we stay inside?”

Dad shrugs. “Something in the way he's acting tells me he's just as desperate for sanctuary as he is of us opening up. It's clear he doesn't trust us. But that's understandable, even to be expected. We don't trust him, either. He says he has information, yet we can offer him safety from whatever he may be frightened of. So we both need to make concessions, which is why I think this solution might work to everyone's benefit. It seems to have appeased Jack enough so that he'll back off a bit.”

“He's an asshole.”

“Finn! While I agree that he can be impulsive and egotistical, his concerns have always been for our welfare.”

“Don't you mean his own?”

Dad's face clouds. “I confess that I am troubled by this recent change in his behavior. His usually moderate attitudes have certainly shifted to the extreme.”

I shake my head. The rage I felt outside in the hallway after speaking with Jack flares up inside again. “You're giving him too much credit,” I spit. “You've always been like that with people, always giving them the benefit of the doubt. Always assuming they'll do the right thing.”

“That's not true.”

“No, you're right,” I say. “It's not. I've always been your one exception.”

He blinks several times but doesn't speak. He looks stunned by the revelation, as if he finds it inexplicable that I could feel this way. In truth, my words pain me as much as they must him, but I'm too angry to stop now.

“If you'd had a choice between me and Harper to be here with you, which would it have been?”

Again, he just blinks, but I can see something new in his eyes, something that suggests he's been expecting the question and dreading it. “Finn . . . .”

“I knew it,” I mutter. I spin around. I can't look at him.

“It wasn't my decision to make, Finn. That's the truth.”

I was just about to walk out the door, let him stew for a while, but this stops me. “Decision?”

“Which of you to save, you or Harper. It was your mother's decision.”

I slowly turn. What the hell is he talking about? Me or Harper? What about Leah?

He stands up and steps toward me, but I thrust out my hand to stop him. I've gotten taller than him in the past three years, but right now the difference in our heights feels greater than I remember it. He seems to have shrunken even more, even since just this morning.

“Tell me the truth.”

There's a weary look in his eyes, one of resignation, a silent plea for forgiveness. He's always telling me you can't manage the past, as if that excuses all our mistakes. But all I can feel is sick to my stomach at what he might tell me next. Already I regret asking, and yet I can't bring myself to make him stop.

“We were part of an organization,” he finally says.

I narrow my eyes. “What, like the Rotary?”

He shakes his head. “An organization of like-minded people who believed that something terrible was going to happen to humanity. Preppers. We were preparing for the end of the world.”

It sounds fatalistic, until I realize they'd been right. “How did you know?”

“It was inevitable. You look at scientific and technological and military advances and you try to extrapolate to where we're headed with them. Artificial intelligence, quantum computing.” He shakes his head. “The internet. We became totally dependent on it all. And then there were the things we had so much less control over — climate change and the global spread of disease and overcrowding, water shortages — and you're forced to accept the conclusion that the day will come when it's all going to come crashing down. Sooner rather than later."

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head.

“We didn't wish for it. We didn't want it. But to ignore the data would have been irresponsible. That's what the deniers do. So, we knew that something was going to give eventually, something was going to get out of our ability to control it. The end was coming, and so we prepared as best as we could to survive it.

“And . . . as it turns out, we were right.”

“You knew about the Flense?”

“No. Like I said, there were so many different ways it could happen, so many possible scenarios. The organization taught us to find and build places where we could go that would be completely unreliant on the outside world, places that would be able to sustain life with minimal intervention, indeed, with no external assistance, for extended periods of time. Your mother and I had a cabin up in the woods outside of town. It included a small underground bunker, which we had stocked with food and water. It could hold the five of us for a year, maybe longer.”

“A year? That's it?”

“Well, of course it didn't take us long to realize that a year would be totally inadequate, and so we began to look elsewhere for something more long term. We joined a more select group that was selling slots in large, durable bunkers, ten total shelters in all, all different, each with its own strengths and challenges— you can never eliminate all risks. Their locations were kept secret, even from the subscribers. All we knew was that they were spread out over a large geographic area. A total of just over one thousand spots were available. They promised us five years of protection.”

“If you knew, if you prepared, then what happened to Mom and the others? Why didn't they meet us at the rendezvous point?”

“They were supposed to be at the airport. That's why we waited, for them to show up.”

“You left without them,” I cry. “How could you leave without them?”

“The pilot couldn't wait any longer. The risk was too great. We had to get on that plane instead.”

My thoughts are swirling, a jumbled mass of information and images and emotions, but they still catch on his last spoken word. “What do you mean? Instead of what?”

He sighs deeply and shakes his head. “The spots were very expensive. We only managed to obtain two. Your mother and I were trying to scrape up enough money to buy three more, but the end came much sooner than we expected.”

I stare at him. There's a roaring noise inside of my head. I can't seem to think.

“I made the first choice, Finn. It was supposed to be Leah. I couldn't bear to think of your little sister exposed to whatever unknown disaster might occur. She was just a little girl, eight at the time. She got the first slot.”

“And the second?” I ask, my voice no more than a whisper. “Who did you pick for the second spot?”

“I told you, it wasn't my choice. I let your mother decide. I realize only now, long after the fact, how terrible it must have been for her to choose between you and your brother. She tortured herself for weeks before finally deciding.”

“Who, Dad?”

“You. She picked you.”

I'm stunned. I open my mouth, but I can't speak. The breath has been stolen away from me. Harper was the perfect son. He was athletic, funny, smart. I was the weaker of us twins, frail, always struggling in school. I wasn't social. What did I have to offer in a post-apocalyptic world?

“She should've picked Harper.”

I can see from the look on his face that he would have. It doesn't surprise me.

“She said she chose you because she calculated that the three of us would've had the best chance to survive on our own.”

And suddenly the world comes crashing down even harder on me. My mother didn't choose to save me; she chose to keep Harper to save them.

And now I understand my father's distance all these past years. Because of me and my bloody nose, he's here instead of Leah.

“I guess I'm always screwing things up.”

Dad's plan for bringing the stranger safely inside while protecting the rest of the bunker requires using the keeper station on Level Six as a sort of air lock. It's a glassed-in monitoring room overlooking the power plant with access from both the catwalk outside and the hallway just beyond the bulk food storage area.

Getting Mister Williams there will require directing him to the helipad between the dam and the power plant. “There's a set of narrow stairs built into the side of the quarry wall,” Dad explains, when Mister Resnick stops by later that evening to finalize the plans.

I lay on my bedroll expecting Jack to force me to leave, but he settles into our only chair with a disdainful smirk, then proceeds to ignore me. He probably relishes the fact that it's burning me up inside knowing he's gotten my father to cave.

To be honest, I couldn't have cared less at that moment. I'm still bitterly angry that I hadn't been told about my parents' prepper plans for me and Leah sooner. I’m mad that we weren’t included in any of the decision-making.

“He'll have to climb over the chain link fence here,” Dad says, “next to this small outbuilding. I believe it's a supply shed of some sort, but I can't be sure. The diagrams Mister Gronbach left me aren't as detailed as I would have liked. But then again, his illness came on quite suddenly.”

Jack grunts and waves his hand impatiently, urging him to continue.

“The fence isn't electrified, but there's razor wire on top, so he'll either need to cut it or throw something over it so he doesn't slice himself up. After that, it's a straight shot to the stairs.”

Dad coughs lightly into his hand and straightens his back. Jack still doesn't speak.

“He'll have clear visibility for several hundred feet around himself until he gets inside the compound. After that, once he's over the fence and making his way to the stairs, there are lots of potential hiding places. And we know the fence has been breached at least once before, we just don't know exactly where.”

“There are no more Wraiths,” Jack asserts.

“Whether that's true or not, he should be aware of the vulnerabilities.”

Jack sighs petulantly.

“The greatest risk comes once he's on these stairs, because there's nowhere to go but up or down. If any infected show up at one end, he'll have no option but to head in the opposite direction. And if he's caught in between—”

“We'll advise him to keep an eye out, though it won't be necessary.”

It's obvious Jack's not thrilled with the arrangement, since he's not getting any of the exterior access codes. He’s got the code to enter the keeper station from the hallway, but only Dad knows the outside one, and he's still refusing to turn it over. But at least Jack isn't pressing the issue. He probably sees the compromise as a step toward that end.

“The stairs end here and extend out to the helipad,” Dad continues, “which is situated in the middle of the catwalk connecting the power plant and the dam.”

“The skyway we use when we check the turbines?” Jack asks.

“The roof of it, yes,” Dad answers. He points to the relevant section of the hand-drawn diagram, smoothing it with the side of his hand. The paper had been rolled up and neglected on one of Dad's shelves in the corner by his bed all these years. “He'll follow the catwalk toward the dam, where I'll leave the outside door open.”

“And that's the spillway where we dumped Gronbach's body?” He doesn't even seem to be paying attention to my father, or even engaged in the briefing.

“Yes, as long as the water's running through the sluice gates, anything thrown over the side will get washed downstream.”

“I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Of course you do, I think to myself. He's been nursing his resentment ever since.

After only a brief pause, Dad presses on. “Once inside the keeper station, we'll be able to talk face to face with Mister Williams. He'll be able to shut the door to protect himself from anything outside, and we'll be protected from him in here. We should stock it with a bedroll and some food and water, which will provide for his comfort and safety until we decide what to do next.”

“What does he do when he needs a toilet?” I ask.

“He can hang it over the railing,” Jack jokes, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.

“We should remove anything inside the room that he can use to shatter the glass,” Dad goes on. “It's reinforced, but not unbreakable. Jack, I want to emphasize that the more he cooperates, the quicker we'll all be able to trust each other and move forward.”

Jack leans back, and the aluminum-framed plastic lawn chair creaks under the strain of his weight. He rubs his chin thoughtfully for a moment. Then he reaches out and sweeps the diagram from the floor and stands.

“I want you by the front door as soon as first light,” he announces. “When our friend shows up again—”

“If he does,” I say. I'm not convinced he will, given how he threatened to leave.

“Once he returns, you'll go over the instructions with him,” Jack says, still ignoring me. “Then we'll go below to wait for him. In the meantime, everyone else is to be restricted to quarters.” He turns to me. “Everyone. No exceptions.”

“But—”

“Not now, Finn,” Dad quietly tells me.

Jack nods once, curtly. “This plan is to remain between us for now. I don't want a circus downstairs.”

“Don't you think Doc Cavanaugh should know?” I ask. I think about what she'd told me earlier about testing his blood. “I'm sure she'll want to examine him.”

“Examine?”

“See if he's infected.”

Jack shakes his head. “First things first, Finn. We bring him in, question him. Then she can have him.”

He turns on his heels, steps over to the door, and places his hand on the knob. But before he leaves, he turns and warns my father that there's no changing his mind now.

“He won't!” I snap, jumping to my feet. “Just worry about keeping your own word.”

A million things are going through my head. At times such as this, when I can't seem to get my thoughts in order or when I just can't sleep, I'll usually go walk the empty hallways. Even, on occasion, going all the way down to Level Nine. But I can't even leave my room.

And I can't get away from my father.

I know he's not sleeping, because he's not snoring. I wish he would, even though it'd probably irritate me if he did, knowing that he could sleep after telling me the truth he'd withheld from me all these years. But it irritates me even more knowing he's lying there awake, not eight feet away from me, as acutely aware of every move I make as I am of his.

Finally, I can't stand it anymore. I ask, “Who would you have chosen, if it had been you deciding between me and Harper?”

After a long while, he shifts in his bed and sighs. The wooden boards beneath him creak. From the vent overhead, warm air whispers in from the boiler room deep below. Water rushes through the spillway, a constant harsh whisper, like an endless winter wind. And the turbines chug away, not so much a sound, but a vibration that reaches my mind through my body's connection with the dam.

I wait for his answer, but it never comes, and so I know without him telling me that he would have saved Harper.

Only then am I finally able to sleep.

* * *

This time, the dream takes me further back, to a point long before we reach the van, yet sometime after our departure from the evacuation center. It's a strange place for the memory to start, but as the dream wends its sinuous way through the dark passageways of my mind just as the bus navigates the winding mountain pass, I begin to understand why my subconscious has brought me here.

“Your arm hurt?” Dad asks.

I look down at my hand. I've been rubbing the ache in it without realizing it. “A little,” I reply. I think about how the vitamin shot wouldn't have bothered Harper a single bit.

“Yeah, me, too,” Dad says. He rubs his own arm, but I know he's faking it for my benefit.

I turn and stare out the window at the night's gathering gloom, and I wonder if we'll stop somewhere for a break. I don't want to stop. I don't ever want to stop running away from the horrors I've witnessed along the road that day. But I also don't want the driver to fall asleep at the wheel and run us off the road. We've been going now for nearly eleven hours, and he must be exhausted.

I also don't want to keep putting more miles between us and Mom and Leah and Harper.

We weren't like typical identical twins. I mean, aside from the physical differences, we didn't cling to each other like you'd expect twins to do.

I envied him, wanted to be like him. Everyone who knew my brother did. But I never resented him, and I doubt anyone else did, either. The resentment would only come much later, after I presumed he was long dead. I hated that he'd left me.

Everyone liked Harper, and he liked everyone. He even liked me. He was the only person, either in my family or out, who treated me no differently than he treated anybody else. Harper didn't see differences in people, not the same way other people did. He noticed them, of course, noticed how those differences made each of us unique. He had a way of pointing them out, as if my uniqueness was my strength. In that way, he made others feel whole and better. That's what made him so beautiful.

How could anyone resent a person like that? It was impossible.

But though I wanted to be like him, I knew I could never be. I was weak. My brain didn't seem to work right. I certainly didn't perform well under pressure like he did. If Harper saw my unique traits as strengths, I knew them only as limitations. If he defined me by metrics inherent to me, I defined me in terms of how I externalized myself to the world. After all, it was on those terms that the world imposed its judgment on me and forced me to function within.

So it is in that moment, inside that bus on some unfamiliar mountain pass going somewhere I've never been to and have no idea where it is and what to expect, that I physically feel the connection between us grow thin. I feel the distance expanding, and it's like my heart is being torn into two.

“We should have waited,” I whisper.

All around us in the packed bus, heads bob on exhausted necks. Someone near the front snores, and every time we go over a bump, it's punctuated by a loud snort and a squeaky fart.

At first, everyone ignored it. We were all tired and scared, and nobody wanted to be seen as petty or demanding. But after a little while, as we began to relax, the noises elicited a few chuckles. Now, after we've all come to take the full measure of our future together, we're all back to being silent.

Dad sighs, and I note a hitch in his breath when he does. “We did wait, Finn. We waited as long as we could.”

I stare out the window, and the darkness seems to sweep toward us in ever deepening waves. What's in those woods, in those trees? Are there more of the things the people around us have started to call ghosts and specters? I frown at my reflection in the glass. They're not ghosts. Ghosts don't eat you.

“I'm sure they're fine,” he goes on. “We had a backup plan, someplace where we would go, if we ever got separated.”

“Where?”

“A place up in the woods, up in the mountains. Someplace remote, hidden.”

“Here?” I ask, optimistically.

He shakes his head. “No, not anywhere near here.”

“And where is here?”

He shrugs and looks out. “I honestly don't know, Finn.”

After that, I drift off. I sleep in my dream, and yet I'm not sleeping. It's more like I'm hovering over my slumbering body, keeping watch. Despite the gnawing hunger in my gut and the discomfort of the ride, and the ache in my arm, exhaustion overtakes me. And the future me keeps watch.

Later, when I open my eyes, the sun is up and the bus is somehow still on the road, still rolling along. Except now we've left the mountains and are on flat, open highway, and the tires buzz along on the scorching cement and a hot, dry wind buffets us. I groan at the terrible crick in my neck.

Seeing me awake, Dad hands me a bottle of water, which I gladly accept. But my throat is parched and feels glued shut, so that the first swallow is painful and goes down the wrong hole. I start to cough, and immediately begin to panic. My hands fly to my jeans for my inhaler. Dad bends me forward to bang on my back. I push him away. I need my medicine.

But already the tightness in my chest is loosening. The release surprises me.

When I'm able to speak again, I tell him that it must be the dry desert air. He nods, but he has that doubtful look in his eyes. Not for the first time, I wonder if he regrets that it's me beside him instead of Harper. With Harper, he wouldn't need to worry about my frailties.

“Ready for something to eat?” He hands me a protein bar and a stale bit of bread. I eagerly gulp them both down, then empty the bottle. Dad carefully stuffs the plastic inside the pack tucked between his feet.

The people at the evac center gave us all coveralls and new shoes, plus first aid kits and a travel pack. There were also some containers loaded into the cargo hold beneath us. I have no idea what might be in them. I guess food, but I'm probably wrong.

With my hunger slaked, I'm finally in a state of mind to consider the other passengers on the bus. I count a total of thirty-six heads, maybe a third of them kids my age or younger. I stare at one, a boy who seems close to my age, and almost as if he senses it, he turns around in his seat, and our eyes connect. He looks as uncertain about our situation as I feel. He nods once, and I nod back, and he smiles before his mother leans over and says something into his ear.

His father, in the seat across the aisle, notices, and he, too, turns and looks back at me. He's a stern-looking man, and his stare makes me uncomfortable. He says something to the boy, and they all turn around and face the front once more.

The oldest-looking person is a woman dressed in khaki. Her skin is tanned and leathery, mottled with liver spots, and her face is wrinkled. But there's a youthfulness in her light blue eyes. She smiles over at me and says not to worry.

Later, I hear her tell my dad her name is Kari Mueller, and that she is — was — a photojournalist for National Geographic. He asks if she's related to the young woman seated behind us, possibly her mother, but Kari shakes her head.

It turns out that the other woman's name is Miller, not Mueller. Susan Miller. She had been a petroleum scientist developing a new extraction technique when the shit hit the fan. She looks ashamed to admit the job, but she doesn't apologize for her language.

Other people have started to talk to those seated around them, but the air is hot and heavy with dust from the road, coating our throats and tongues. The sun is stifling. Few conversations last very long.

By midmorning, we're back in the trees. Then, soon after, the driver announces that we're almost there. Up until then, we hadn't seen any of the afflicted since shortly after leaving the evac center, but as we pass a roadside scenic overlook high atop a gorge, the pullout populated by several cars haphazardly parked, a woman stumbles out from behind one and reaches for us. The emptiness in her eyes sends a chill up my spine.

She starts to walk after us, but we careen around a bend and she's gone, and for the first time it really does seem like the entire world has died and that we're the only ones left still alive and uninfected.

That's when I first begin to believe that Mom and Leah and Harper didn't make it. They missed the meet up at the airport, so they were probably already gone by then. And even if circumstances didn’t prevent them from getting there, it just doesn't seem possible they could have made it up to the woods unharmed.

Dad seems fully confident that they did, but I'm left wondering whether those things that suck out people's souls would have been there to greet them.

Which forces me to consider what might be waiting for us at the end of this road.

The bus goes around another bend and we're suddenly thrown forward in our seats as the brakes squeal. Several people cry out in surprise. I stand up and strain to look out the windshield. Dad tries to pull me back down, but I manage to catch a glimpse of a bright green and purple van ahead blocking our path before my view is obscured by the other passengers.

“Push it out of the way,” someone shouts.

Someone else gasps and cries, “There are people out there! I think— I think he's okay.”

“Don't stop!”

I'm pushing my way up the aisle when I feel a hand on my arm, pulling me back. I look down and see the man who had scowled at me earlier. He tells me to go back to my seat. His son stands up and pushes me forward and follows me, ignoring his parents' protests. I find an empty seat where I can see and slide over to the window.

“It's a man!” I shout, before seeing the boy he's with, and somewhere in my head I'm startled to realize that it's not my brother and sister, as always happens in my dreams, but Bix and his dad. This time, I'm reliving what actually happened, not what my guilt has been tormenting me with.

The driver stands up and urges us to be quiet. There's enough fear in the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes that we all obey. Soon we all see what he has seen: the infected things beginning to come out of the woods. They start ambling up the road, clearly in no hurry to reach us just yet.

Bix and his father haven't noticed them. Mister Blakeley is gesturing at us, then at his burning van. A pile of bags and other objects has been pulled out, including a brown guitar case. Then Bix grabs his father's arm and points.

Run! I want to shout at them. Quick! To us!

But my throat squeezes shut. I don't dare make a sound.

As if sensing my fear, Jonah slips his hand onto my shoulder and whispers, “Don't look.”

Dad's quiet when he rises the next morning, anxious, clearly not in the mood for talking. Well, that's fine, because neither am I. But it doesn't stop me from having my say.

“I think it's a mistake giving Jack what he wants.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “You may be right,” he finally answers. But it's no consolation. My opinion doesn't matter. It never has.

When Jack's knock comes, he stands up and steps over to the door. But before he opens it, he turns. I almost believe he'll tell me he's changed his mind about everything. “Finn,” he says, quietly murmuring over his shoulder, “don't do anything rash while I'm gone.”

I try not to take it personally. I know he's got a lot on his mind and is stressed about the stranger. He's probably picking up on my over-developed sense of self-preservation. But it makes me feel like a child when he says things like that to me. I just wish he'd cut me some slack.

He takes a deep breath and backtracks, perhaps finally recognizing the effect his words have on me. “Just . . . keep an eye on things, okay? I'll be back soon. We'll talk then, I promise.”

He turns now so that I can see his face, can see how the muscles in his jaw throb. I see regret. Or maybe that's just what I want to see. I don't know. I've never been sure what he's really thinking.

He pulls the door open without another word, and there stands Jack in silhouette, and for just the briefest of moments, the way the shadows fall on the man's face, he looks like he could be infected.

“I catch you sleeping?” he asks. But he doesn't wait for Dad to answer. “I just checked the front door cam. Our friend hasn't returned from wherever he spent the night. But I'm sure he will.”

If he didn't run away, I think. Or get infected. Or eaten.

Mister Resnick throws a warning glance at me past my father's shoulder, startling me. It's as if he'd heard my thoughts.

“Is there a problem?” I say, glaring back.

He tenses, but doesn't reply, and I know he's weighing how much it's worth it to further antagonize me. He really wants those codes, and he believes that if he pushes too hard, Dad will go back on his word.

But I know better.

A few minutes after they leave, I crack open the door. I expect to see someone guarding it, maybe even Jonah, but the hallway is empty, at least as far as I can see in either direction.

I slip over to Bix's door, where the faint strains of a plucked guitar reach my ears. The instrument was the only object they managed to save that day, snatched from the road as they ran for the door of the bus. One of the strings was recently broken, but Mister Blakeley has been able to adapt his playing to accommodate the missing string.

I gently tap on the door with a few fingernails and the music stops. There's a brief exchange of words, too muffled for me to understand. Then the door opens an inch and an eye appears. Bix pulls me inside and shuts it behind me.

“Were you seen?” Bix asks. “Did any of Jack's goons follow you here?”

His father smirks as he resumes his playing, though a bit more softly now. I suppose Bix's ultra-paranoid act might be amusing to me, too, if it didn’t hit so damn close to home.

“Jack had them out in force this morning,” he explains. “Patrolling the hallways. And guess who he's got in charge.”

“Jonah.”

“The jerk actually followed me into the bathroom. The bathroom! Wouldn't let me use a stall until I'd answered all his questions.”

“Did he happen to mention anything to you about the stranger at the front door?”

Bix shakes his head. “No. Just the usual harassment. He, Mister Rollins and his two boys — god, were they obnoxious! — and Rory Newsom. Susan Miller was there, too. Inside the freaking bathroom even! Would not let me go in alone. Practically made me piss myself.”

I wonder if he'd be making half the fuss if it had been Gia Cavanaugh instead. But then again, I seriously doubt the doctor would have let Jack boss her around, much less Jonah.

“The jerk was totally getting off on it. I hate him.”

Mister Blakely hits a sour note and stops for a second before retrying the chord.

“Why does he hate me so, Finn? All I have to give is love, pure, sweet love.”

His father snorts.

“I think I've figured out why,” I tell him. “Something I just learned myself yesterday. It's because you two weren't supposed to be on that bus.”

Bix gives me a questioning look. “What bus?”

I tell him about how everyone else paid for their slots in the bunker. “Everyone but you two. The driver had been told not to stop for anything, but your van was stuck right in the middle of the road.”

“Are you serious?”

I shrug. “Near as I can figure it, yeah.”

Mister Blakeley stops playing and gives me a look of incredulity. “So, you believe young Jonah has been harboring some kind of resentment all this time because we never paid to be spared the horror of the Flense?”

When I don't answer, he asks, “Why would he even care about that. I mean, money is a completely meaningless concept anymore. And I'm fairly certain he personally didn't scrimp and save to pay for his own spot himself.”

“He's just mirroring what his father thinks,” I explain. “It's probably been eating at Jack every day for the past three years. Same as it’s killed him that my dad has been the leader.”

“Can you just imagine their dinner conversations?” Bix asks. “ 'There go those Blakeleys, stole their way into the bunker.'  Like buying your way in is any better. Sorry, dude, but that's just infantile.”

I shrug.

“Well, that would explain Jonah's coolness toward you both.”

“That and he's a prick,” Bix says.

“The thing is, though,” I say, chewing the inside of my cheek, “I kinda feel like we deserve some of the blame ourselves for Jonah being—”

“A prick?”

“For being the way he is.”

“You've got to be kidding me.”

I think about that day on the bus, how Jonah had acted then, and I can't help but feel a little guilty.

“You boys haven't exactly been very inclusive,” Mister Blakely offers.

Bix rolls his eyes and chuffs. “Dad would have us singing Kumbaya and sharing life stories.”

“Well, you know my mantra: Hakuna matata.”

“I think you mean motto, Dad.”

“What's a motto?” I reply, mostly out of habit. It's a favorite joke of theirs.

“Notting's a motto,” his father says, slipping seamlessly into his Jamaican persona. “Ev'ryting's ahl right.” And he launches into a jazzy version of Don't Worry, Be Happy. With that raspy voice of his, you totally expect him to be singing country or blues, not reggae. But somehow it works.

“Dad!”

Mister Blakeley laughs, and it's a deep and hearty sound.

Bix pushes me toward the door. “Let's get outta here, get some breakfast.”

I suddenly remember that I haven't had anything to eat since lunch yesterday, but I shake my head. “I thought you said Jonah's goons were—”

“Grab me a couple granola bars and a can of condensed milk while you're up there,” his dad says.

The door's barely closed behind us when Bix asks about the stranger.

“They're bringing him in,” I say, as we turn toward the stairs. I know I'm not supposed to say anything about it, but this is Bix. “Dad and Jack are waiting for him at the front door.”

“I thought he—”

A door behind us opens and Bren sticks her head out. “Oh, it's you,” she says and begins to shut it.

“Hey, little sister! “ Bix says, stopping her. “We were just coming to get you. We're going to get some breakfast. Want to come?”

I glare at him, but he pretends not to notice. Finally, I cave. “Come on.”

Bren disappears for a moment. I can hear her arguing with her mother. Then she reappears with her sweater in her hand. “Let's go.”

“So your dad changed his mind?” Bix asks me.

Bren gives me a puzzled look, and I find myself explaining the plan all over again.

“I wonder why Dad didn't say anything about it to Mom,” she muses.

“Maybe he doesn't know. Jack did say it was supposed to be just the two of them.”

We're almost up to Level One when I stop and turn around and begin to head back down.

“Where are you going?” Bix asks.

Dad's warning to me is blaring loud and clear in my head— not the one about behaving, but the one about keeping an eye on things.

“Level Two,” I say. “The monitors.”

* * *

As I had hoped, no one is attending to the security cams, though I do feel a little disappointed by this fact. It sure didn't take long for people to take advantage of the vacuum in leadership and start slacking off. Even Bren acts a little surprised that no one's here.

The schedule says the current shift belongs to Susan Miller, so that might explain the deficiency.

“Too busy perving around the boy's bathrooms,” Bix grumbles. I have a sneaking suspicion that Susan's no longer invited to his threesome fantasy.

“Just shut the door and be quiet,” I whisper.

I step over to the monitors and am about to sit down when Bix steps in front of me and makes a grand gesture for Bren to take the chair. I want to knock myself upside the head for being so insensitive. I settle for knocking him instead, and he retaliates by giving me a cheesy grin.

When we're settled, I flip the cam on the front door to split screen, giving us a view of both the inside and outside. We normally just skip the former view, since there's really no reason to watch the empty hallway.

There are three men standing there in a huddle. I instantly recognize Jack and Dad. They're all talking. Jack's gesturing and his mouth is going.

“Too bad there's no sound,” Bix says. He starts imitating Jack’s voice, making him sound much stupider than he really is, but Bren tells him to shush.

The third guy is Chip Darby. He points at the number pad for the front door and shrugs. Dad shakes his head and waves his hand furiously in a negating motion. It looks like Jack's still trying to get Chip to override the security code, though I can't understand why.

“Wonder what Jack'll do if the stranger doesn't show up,” Bix says.

My eyes flick over to the other half of the screen. The image is smaller, a little squished side-to-side, but it's clear that the ramp is empty. The sun still hasn’t risen high enough to breach the tops of the walls, and the whole area is cast in shadow.

While we wait, I fill them in on the rest of the details of my father's plan. They both agree that it's worth a try talking with the stranger, as he might have valuable information, though they also concede that we need to be careful not to put ourselves at risk.

Bren doesn't like the idea of bringing him inside at all, but she's especially leery about him coming through the back door. She's not sure the glass is enough of a barrier.

“It's really the only way to make sure of our safety,” Bix reasons, making it sound like it was his plan all along.

I stare at the view of the catwalk over the spillway. There is no split image on that screen, since the security camera for the keeper station has long since been disassembled to make Doc Cavanaugh's ophthalmoscope.

The sun rises on the downstream side of the dam, but eventually it reaches high enough to illuminate half of the loading ramp. And still the stranger doesn't show up. Bix's stomach growling gets so bad that Bren suggests going up to the kitchen to grab us all some food. I can tell Bix is bored and wants to go with her, but she shakes her head. “Just me,” she says. “If I’m alone, Jonah won't give me a hard time.”

It makes sense, but her mention of Jonah in this way irks me nonetheless.

Finally, around midmorning, the stranger appears around the corner at the far end of the ramp. He just stands there for several minutes, peering around him, like he's unsure if he wants to try again. He's clearly very nervous. And when my father hails him from the intercom, he jumps nearly a foot in the air. When he does commit, he sticks to the narrow band of shadow along the left side, scuttling forward with his eyes constantly scanning the tops of the walls and the ramp opening behind him.

Dad leans into the intercom and speaks into it.

“Wish I could tell what he's saying,” Bix complains.

“He's supposed to be telling him about the stairs down to the helipad.”

At first, there seems to be a lot of arguing. The man raises his hands in frustration, but finally nods. Once more my father speaks, and this time the man appears to be listening carefully.

When Jonah appears on the inside camera, his father angrily shoos him away. Bix laughs, but I can tell he's not very amused. We're all very tense.

Then, with a final dismissive wave of his hand at the camera, the stranger turns and slinks back up the loading ramp. A moment later, he's disappeared from our view.

“What now?” Bren asks.

I point to the other screen from the camera outside Level Six, and say, “Now we wait to see if he makes it.”

As we wait, I try to imagine the stranger making his way over the chain link fence, or perhaps finding the gap where the Wraiths once broke through it. How long would it take? Five minutes? Ten? I assume he might have some difficulty at first, but if it were me, I'd want to be quick about it.

Then, in my mind, he's inside the inner complex. He finds the metal staircase, starts to descend. Over to the helipad. I'm imagining in three dimensions the route my dad outlined on paper last night.

But five minutes quickly becomes ten, and ten turns into twenty, yet the man still doesn't show up on the other camera. Did he change his mind? I grow restless, start to fidget.

Bix has to pee, and he asks Bren to go with him. “Not a word outta you,” he warns me, when I open my mouth to tease him, which is fine, because it wouldn't have been much of a joke anyway.

They're gone less than five minutes, and they make it back just in time to see a tiny figure appear at the far end of the metal walkway. “Is it him?” Bren asks, squinting at the low contrast image. For a moment, it's not clear that it is, but the man's purposeful movements soon give him away.

He wastes little time making his way to the door. He sprints across the catwalk and as soon as he gets to the end, reaches for the door handle. Our last view of him comes as he pulls the unlocked door open and enters the keeper station four levels below us.

As soon as that happens, we hurry out of the watch room and make our way over to the stairs.

I'm nervous, fearful. The feelings are reflected in the faces of my two companions, so I know it's not just me. For three years, we've survived in total isolation, away from the rest of the world. Each day we woke with only one simple objective, and that was to keep on surviving till the next. We've been spoiled, not having to think about a single thing beyond that.

But now our little bubble has been breached, our safe little world unsealed.

The door to Level Three slams open just as we tumble toward it, immediately stifling our agitated chatter into silence.

Missus Abramson appears onto the landing, a wild look on her face. “Bren!”

“Mom?”

“I've been looking everywhere for you! Where have you been all this time? And don't tell me you were in the kitchen, because I looked there!”

She throws me and Bix accusing looks as she grabs her daughter's arm. Bren tries to shake it off, but is unsuccessful. “Mom, let go of me!”

“No! You are coming with me back to our quarters, young lady. And I suggest you boys do the same.”

“But we were—”

I jab Bix with my elbow.

Missus Abramson's eyes narrow suspiciously. “You weren't thinking of— You were! I don't care what everyone else is doing, Bren. It's too dangerous! Who knows what that man might bring in?”

“You know about the stranger?” I ask, genuinely surprised.

“Everyone knows! Seth told me hours ago. He heard it from Danny, who heard it from Fran Rollins, and she probably heard it from her sons. Those boys—

She growls. “What was your father thinking, Finn? Going behind everyone's back like that. Risking all of our safety! Everyone needs to stay in their quarters.”

“But it wasn't his idea.”

“I don't want to hear it! This should have been put to a vote.” She tugs on Bren. “I said come with me.”

She drags her daughter back through the stairwell door, leaving Bix and me to stand with our mouths open. Missus Abramson's voice recedes from us as she continues to abrade Bren for lying about where we've been. “Your father is livid!”

Then the door to their quarters slams shut.

“Um, maybe I should go check in with my dad,” Bix finally says. His face is red, like he's just been slapped.

“Yeah.”

“He's probably fine.”

“Uh huh.”

“Or maybe we could go downstairs, you know, to see how Eddie's doing. I haven't checked in with Gia in a while.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

So we head down, and on the way I tease him about being on a first name basis with Doctor Cavanaugh. “Didn't know you two were a thing.”

“It's my general hotness. She can't resist, she just doesn't realize it yet.”

“Yet? So, does this mean we'll be seeing little Gibis running around soon?”

“Gibis?”

“Yeah, you know, like . . . . Never mind.”

He busts out laughing two full flights later.

A clatter of voices greets us when we step out onto Level Five, but it's clear they're coming from Six.

“So much for everyone staying in their quarters,” Bix complains.

Our pretense no longer necessary, we descend to the next level. It seems that more than half of the bunker's population has already gathered there.

One voice booms above everyone else's: Seth Abramson's. He's shouting, but whether it's at Jack and my dad or the rest of the crowd isn't immediately clear.

“Bren's mom was right about her dad being angry,” I say, loud enough for Bix to hear over the din. It's strange, because the man is usually so mild-mannered. “He looks like he's ready to pop an artery.”

A head turns at the sound of my voice, belonging to Jonah. It's strange to see him hanging near the back of a crowd, instead of up close and in the middle of the action with his father. Then I remember the way Jack brushed him off earlier.

“Oh, goody,” Jonah says, sneering at the two of us. “Start the party, because Dumb and Dumber have just arrived.”

“And now our trio is complete,” Bix snaps back.

Jonah isn't ignorant by any stretch of the word. He's certainly not the dumbest of the three of us, as Bix is implying. That would probably be me. So I have no doubt Jonah immediately picks up on Bix's insult. But he just snorts and rolls his eyes. “Come to see the circus?”

“Only because we heard you were the clown act. Glad to see you in your makeup.”

Jonah laughs and turns his back on us. Bix gives me a puzzled look. All I can do is shake my head. This is definitely not typical Jonah behavior.

There are too many people ahead of us ogling and shouting and pushing that it's nearly impossible to see anything clearly. I catch a quick glimpse of my father before he's swallowed up behind the cluster of bodies, though I can hear him begging everyone to be quiet, telling them he won't be able to hear anything the man inside that booth is saying. “Go back to your quarters,” he advises. “Give Mister Williams a chance to get some food in his stomach.”

The crowd hushes, but no one leaves. Neither Dad nor Jack tries to force the issue. Seth is still up there telling people to go home, but it seems pretty clear it's not going to happen.

I find myself pushing forward, too, despite any fear that the stranger might be dangerous. I place my hands on the shoulders of the person in front of me to steady myself as I stand up on tiptoes.

Kari Mueller, the former Nat Geo photographer turns and looks up at me. In the three years we've been inside the bunker, her leathery skin has lightened considerably, and the liver spots have faded. Even her wrinkles have diminished.

I'd never really given much thought to the changes to our bodies, but now I can't help and wonder if they're because of the things inside of us, the things Dad calls nano machines. I suppose Kari's appearance could be simply attributed to the lack of sunlight, but I kind of doubt that now.

So, what other defects have they fixed among our group?

And who put them in us?

Most importantly, why?

But these thoughts vanish a moment later when the man begins to speak. His voice is muffled by the glass, but he talks slowly and loudly, enunciating his words so we can all hear.

The crowd ahead of me shifts, and I catch a glimpse of his face. It seems strange to see. For three years I've seen no other human than the two and a half dozen now so familiar to me. It's so jarring that it doesn't feel real.

And it just emphasizes to me how much he's not one of us.

“My name, as you may already have heard, is Micheal Williams.”

Everyone strains forward.

“First off, I want to thank you for your hospitality.” He chuckles dryly, but no one in the hallway echoes it. “I understand your wariness. In fact, I suppose I'd be worried if you weren't. After the ordeal I've endured these past six weeks, it's actually a bit of a relief to be surrounded by walls again. Can't say the same about this processed food-like material, however.”

Still no one laughs.

“I think before we get much further,” Dad says, “there's a question we're all wondering: Are there still infected out there?”

Mister Williams's forehead crinkles. He looks around at the people before him. “I'll be honest with you,” he says. “I don't know.”

“What do you mean you don't know?” Jack snaps. He steps over, blocking my view. “Did you, or did you not, see any Wraiths?”

“Interesting name for them. We call them Reapers. And, no, I haven't seen any in the six weeks I've been looking for you.”

“What have I been telling you?” Jonah shouts. “If that's not proof enough that they're gone, what is?”

“I didn't say they're gone,” Mister Williams says, straining to find Jonah among us before giving up. “You have to understand, I specifically chose a route to get here that I hoped would minimize my chances of coming into contact with them.”

“And how was that?”

“By river. I came by boat— a hundred and eighty miles, by my best guesstimate. I got sidetracked down a couple different tributaries, lost some time. I wasn't exactly sure which one the dam was on.”

“What's a hundred and eighty miles upriver from us?” Dad asks.

“Bunker Two. It was an old molybdenum mine. The site was powered by a deep shaft thermoelectric generator. We had eighty-seven people.”

“Had? What happened with the rest? Are they still there? Why did you leave?”

“One question at a time,” Dad pleads.

“They were . . . .” Mister Williams shakes his head. “We had a breach in containment. It happened very suddenly, and it led to a complete collapse of the entire bunker's security systems. I was lucky enough to get out alive. Most . . . . Well, I don't think anyone else did.”

A ripple of unease passes through the group. Jack shouts again at everyone to keep quiet. Seth pulls my father aside and whispers into his ear. Dad listens for a moment, then nods.

“Why have you come?” Fran Rollins asks. “You didn't sound like you wanted in yesterday. So why are you here?”

“Because I can’t do this alone.”

“Do what?”

“Find Bunker Twelve.”

There's a murmur of voices before Chip Darby yells out. “There's no Bunker Twelve. There are only ten.”

“That's what we thought, too. But then some information about the people behind the outbreak came to light. It suggested that the cause — and possibly the cure — might be found in a mythical twelfth bunker. We were just starting to look into it when the breach occurred.”

“And where is this bunker?” Seth asks.

“I don't know. That's why I'm here. I was hoping you might know. And also . . . to warn you.”

“About what?”

Silence fills the air, presses down on us, as we wait for him to answer.

The stranger turns to look outside the window for a moment— not inward at us, but outside the dam, as if he's searching for something, waiting. When he turns back, instead of responding, he asks if everyone who entered the bunker three years ago is still alive.

Bren's dad leans over and consults for a moment with my father. He looks troubled, but Dad shrugs and shakes his head.

“One of our two buses never made it from the evacuation center,” Dad says. “And our driver — our first leader — took ill soon after we sealed the doors. He died a couple weeks later.”

But Mister Williams shakes his head. “Nothing more recent?”

“We had an incident about a week or so ago,” Jack says. “One of our men was severely burned in a boiler room accident. What does this have to do with anything?”

“How badly?”

The three men exchange puzzled glances.

“How seriously was he injured?”

“Explain how this is relevant,” Dad counters.

“It was serious, wasn't it? The injuries were serious?”

“Why don't we let Doctor Cavanaugh answer that,” Mister Abramson suggests. “She can speak more authoritatively on the subject. Where is she?”

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.”

Bren scowls at her mother, I'm guessing for not letting her go downstairs with us. “Bix told me she found something in his blood.”

I nod, relieved that word about it has finally gotten out and that I don't have to keep the secret anymore. But I'm worried about the effect it's having on everyone. It seems that we're standing on the very edge of the precipice that Dad and Doc Cavanaugh had warned me about. But what madness lies in wait for us?

They shined the flashlight in your eyes.

“You think it's the Flense?” Bren asks.

“No! I don't know what it is, or even if it's good or bad. This thing in Eddie's blood seems to have helped him heal, so that's a good thing. But the way that guy in the keeper station freaked out doesn't give me a very good feeling. He knows something and isn't telling us, something about what happened in his own bunker. He said there was a breach in containment.”

“Yeah, and he's also saying we should all leave this one and go find another one that doesn't even exist, Finn.” She shakes her head. “It doesn't make sense. Personally, Dad thinks he might be crazy. I don't trust him, either.”

“But what if he's right to be scared of Eddie? What if he's . . . dangerous?”

“Finn! Hannah's already been through the wringer,” she hisses at me. “Her father isn't dangerous.”

I frown and look around, realizing she isn't here. “Where is she, anyway?”

“Um, probably down in the med bay with her dad.” Her voice rises in frustration.

“Bren?” Missus Abramson cocks a disproving eyebrow at us. “Why don't you come over and sit with us for a while.”

“In a sec, Mom.” She turns back to me. “Look, Finn, just stop this.”

“What am I doing?”

“Scaring people, making things worse than they have to be. Seeing conspiracies where none exists.”

This last accusation is obviously in response to the way I've been treating her since Jonah’s training session downstairs.

“Eddie may not be himself,” I whisper.

She studies my face for a moment. “How hard did you hit your head?”

I open my mouth to speak, but I can see it's going to take more to convince her. She refuses to accept what I'm telling her.

“Okay, fine, Bren. I get it. But maybe you'll believe me if you see for yourself. Come on.”

“Now?” She glances over at her mother, who's still got her eye on us. “I can't just leave. Mom won't let me.”

“Your mom won't let you?” I sputter. “Damn it, Bren, you're seventeen! You're an adult.”

I press my hand against my forehead in frustration, only to be reminded again of the thick knot there. I am so sick of the older people treating us like kids, like we haven't aged a day since we arrived here. It irritates me so much that, for the first time, I'm practically ready to walk out the front door. It wouldn't take much at this point to convince me to do it. “We're both adults!”

“Then act like one, Finnian!”

Missus Abramson gets up out of her chair and starts walking toward us.

“Okay!” I cry. “Then bring your mom. We'll all go down and you can see for yourself what I mean.”

* * *

“Level Six?” Missus Abramson says to me, as soon as I explain why we need to go downstairs. She shakes her head. “Seth doesn't want anyone wandering around.”

“Please, I need you to talk with Doctor Cavanaugh.”

“We are not just going to leave all these people here.”

The way she snaps at me, I keep expecting her to call me young man, like my great grandmother used to say when I was a little kid. She was in her nineties by then, and about as wrinkled as a prune, but she had the energy of someone half her age and the opinions of someone half again as old.

I grab a flashlight and turn toward the door.

Missus Abramson stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “I will not have you making any more trouble.”

“You need to hear it from her,” I say and pull out from under her hand.

Missus Abramson hisses in frustration, but she finally relents and tells me we'll see if she's in her office. The three of us follow the pale beam of my flashlight down the hall.

Five minutes later, the stairwell door clicks shut behind us as we enter Level Five, echoing hollowly against the unlit walls, as if announcing our arrival. The metal grates creak slightly beneath our feet. As we come around the horizon of the hallway's curvature, I see the door to Eddie's room near the end of the hall is cracked open, the impenetrable darkness spilling out like ink from the mouth of a cavern.

"Eddie?" I call.

No one answers.

"Why's his door open?"

When we pull level with Doc Cavanaugh's office, Missus Abramson's foot slips and she lets out a slight squeal. Instinctively, I reach out and grab her arm with my free hand.

“Floor's wet here,” she says, staring up into the murkiness above our heads, as if she thinks the wetness might be dripping from a leaky pipe.

“And the doorknob's sticky,” Bren adds. “Finn?”

But my eyes are on the concrete surface beneath our feet, at the dark streaks that shouldn't be there.

“F-finn?”

The alarm in Bren's voice pulls me back. I turn toward her, swinging the light up. She's staring at her hands, rubbing her fingers together. And she's breathing funny, sort of fast and shallow.

“It's— Oh my god!”

My first thought is that it's oil. There's a lot of it in a place like this. Jonah's hands and clothes are constantly covered in it. So why would it be on the doctor's doorknob?

Oil doesn't normally have a deep red sheen to it. And it’s not sticky.

With my heart pounding in my throat, I shove the door open and swing the light in. The laboratory is completely destroyed. The microscope has been hurled to the ground and the pieces smashed and broken.

I grab Bren's wrist and pull her away.

“What happened?” Missus Abramson cries.

A half second later I hear them running after me as I make my way back to the stairs. “Finn? Where are you going?”

But I don't answer. I fear for Doctor Cavanaugh one floor down. Something tells me the blood is hers.

The flashlight fails just as Bren reaches the apex of her scream, but the encroaching shadows cannot make us unsee what has happened. There's too much light coming in from outside. It glues me to the spot, glues my eyes to the unspeakable horror before us.

Thick puddles of blood are pooled before the shattered window. It drips off the jagged sill in thick, clotted ropes. Giant swaths of it cover the walls. Crimson dots speckle the ceiling inside the keeper's station.

What looks like a severed hand, stripped of skin and most of the muscle, yet, incredibly, still held together by silvery pink tendons, has been flung — or perhaps dropped — to the floor a few feet inside the room. I can't tell if it's been eaten. The ragged tears look like bite marks. But they could just as well have been made by forcibly ripping the hand from the arm.

There's a single, bare, bloody footprint at the base of a counter. And a chunk of Doctor Cavanaugh's scalp, her long brown hair still attached to it, sits like a stuffed rat to one side, looking like it's ready to pounce on anything that might enter.

I push Bren, still screaming, back away from the room, back deeper into the hallway. I shout at them not to touch anything. But even as I'm doing this, I already know it's too late for Bren. She's touched the blood on the door upstairs. She's already been—
infected

—contaminated.

My mind won't accept it. It can't be true, not Bren. Not a Wraith.

She's still screaming. I can hear her mother sobbing. I think I might be screaming, too. And I find myself stumbling away.

I slam into the wall beside the door to the food storage. The blood trail extends beyond me, back toward the stairs.

I don't know how long I stand there, staring, not comprehending. Trying to force the scene into some sort of logical framework. The usual buzz inside my head is a roar, threatening to crowd everything else out. I push it away. I need silence to think.

What the hell happened here?

The stranger's gone. But to where? Was he eaten, too?

It was Eddie, had to be.

finn?

Those things in his blood. In all of our blood.

Were they dormant?

Eddie killed the doctor. He went after the stranger.

Finn!

I'm only vaguely aware of the voice, of the other voices joining in, calling me, screaming. I feel myself jostled, hands pummeling me, pulling, people shouting in my ears.

“Finn!”

Someone pulls me around, shakes me, shouts my name. A face appears. It's Jack Resnick.

He slaps me, hard, and I blink and the roar of my shock pops into silence.

“What the hell happened here?” he screams.

I don't answer.

“What— what did you do, Finn?”

“I— No! It wasn't me!”

“I asked you, what did you do?”

I pull away from him, tearing my arm out of his grip. His fingers are like steel, and his nails shred my skin.

“Bren?” I call, scanning the hallway before me. It's filling with people.

Mister Resnick wrenches me back, forcing me to look at him. He drags me over to the keeper's station. “What happened here?” he roars.

I lash out with both hands, striking him across the chest. He stumbles back, pinwheeling his arms. He grabs the window frame and screams in pain as his hand slices open.

I turn and start to run.

“Bren! BREN! Oh God! Nooo!”

“Stop him!” Jack yells at my back. “Stop Finnian Bolles!”

I'm grabbed and wrestled to the ground. My chin hits the cement hard, and there's a flash of pain. I try to cry out, but someone's arm circles my throat, cutting off my air supply.

“I knew you were trouble from the very start,” Mister Resnick growls into my ear. He wrenches my head back. “I told my son to stay away from you, but how can you do that in this place? It's practically impossible to avoid anyone.”

Darkness crowds around me, shrinking my vision. The last thing I see is the terrified look on Bren's face as Mister and Missus Caprio lead her and her mother away. The last thing I hear before the blackness takes me is Harry Rollins terrified shriek:

“Oh God! What is it? It's . . . . No, stop! Eddieeeeee!”

* * *

“Stop the bus!” I shout.

The engine rumbles louder as we accelerate toward the burning van. “Brace yourselves!” the driver shouts, and revs the engine even higher to ram it. The cliff on our left blurs by us. Faster and faster!

Behind us, ahead of us, the infected haven't turned vicious yet, but they will. They're still closing in, slithering along in that way that makes me think of snakes and lizards and fake Halloween smoke drifting through tombstones.

Then, just like that, the change sweeps through them, a physical thing, like an unexpected wind bending a field of grass. They break their silence, and their mute advance becomes one of anguish and longing. Their terrible howls crystallize in my mind, freeze it until my sanity might shatter. The ice steals into my soul.

The passengers on the entire bus are screaming now.

I look through the windshield just in time to see the boy and his father flash past us on our right. The infected are on their heels.

Somehow, the boy manages to grab the handrail and leap inside. “Dad!” he screams. “Dad!”

An object hurtles past him into the bus, striking the driver before bouncing into the aisle. He doesn't react. His eyes are on the van in the middle of the road, guiding us straight toward it.

I see a palm strike the window two seats behind the door — the father is running — and the son is standing on the step, yelling: “Run, Dad! Hurry!”

“Close the damn door! Close the goddamn door!” someone shrieks.

The man's hand appears again, one window closer to the front. The boy is leaning out, reaching, grabbing for his father. But he's not going to make it! The infected are almost upon him!

The driver reaches for the handle. His fingers curl around it. He shouts at the boy: “In or out!”

“Hurry!” I shout.

And then the two strangers are inside, a jumbled heap on the stairs, and the door is slamming shut, trying to shut, unable to shut. The man screams that his leg is caught. Someone hurtles past me up the aisle. He reaches down and pulls both father and son up the stairs.

“Jonah!” the man behind me screams. “Get back here!”

Then we hit.

Jonah is slammed against the windshield. He collapses onto the floor. The van crumples, twists, smashes against the granite wall beside us and explodes into flames.

We swerve to the right, aiming directly for the guardrail. There's nothing beyond but sheer cliff and a raging river a hundred feet below us. We strike the metal, and the protective cables snap, tearing out the posts and whipping at the side of the bus, shattering windows, threatening to flatten tires. The bus tips to the right as the wheels on the left lose contact.

I tumble out of my seat, fall into the aisle. Bags and objects fly through the air, ejected from the overhead shelves.

But the road arcs in our favor, and the driver maintains the line, bringing the tires back down. I'm thrown back into the seat right before we sideswipe the cliff on the left. The windows on that side explode in. Glass and rock and bits of foliage strike us, pelt my face and arms.

Somehow, we manage to stay on the road.

By the time we've descended the hill, the driver has regained control of the bus. The dam is just ahead. The infected things are far behind, a quarter mile, maybe. But they're still coming, running, galloping. It's been a thousand millennia since humans moved like that. They stop for nothing and will reach us in another minute and a half. Then they will be upon us. Our only hope is to keep going.

The boy, Jonah, picks himself up. He's bleeding from cuts on his head and arms. His mother is frantic, shrieking at him to get back into his seat. His father is roaring, cursing the driver, cursing the two people we just rescued. But nobody is listening to him. Nobody is listening to anything but their own screams.

The driver lays onto the horn. He angles the bus toward a chain link fence.

Ahead, I see a figure sprint from a guard shack and pull open a gate just as we careen through, catching the edge of it and wrenching it from its track. The guard flies through the air, slams to the cement and skids fifty feet. He doesn't move. The bus screams to a stop. The doors open.

A man with a rifle in his hands shouts at us from the door. “Everyone off! Grab what you can! Hurry!” He points to a cement ramp sixty feet away. “Down there! Go! Go! GO!”

We run. Most of us are carrying something, anything, just whatever was within reach as we leapt out of the seats, leapt down the aisle. We leap off the bus and tear for the bunker.

The van driver is at the head of the pack, sprinting, his son's hand in his own, the guitar he saved in the other. For a moment I hate the man, thinking how stupid it is to care about such a thing as a goddamn guitar at a time like this. How many times over the next three years will I be glad he did?

I spin around as soon as I'm off the bus. I need to find my dad. But he's not there. I pull away from someone grabbing at me and lurch toward the back of the bus, where I see him through a shattered window.

He's still inside, helping people who were hurt. Up the aisle, the man who was sitting behind me, the father of that kid who pulled the two inside, is blocking everyone's way as he tries to dislodge a bag wedged into the overhead compartment. I can hear him screaming that he needs it, he needs his laptop computer.

I hear gunfire then. The infected have come into view, a hundred feet from the gate. One falls in a spray a blood. It's coming so fast that its momentum carries it another twenty feet before rolling to a tangled heap on the tarmac, half its skin abraded through to the raw muscle by the rough cement.

Others are hit by the rounds; red pock marks blossom on their bodies, chests and faces and necks, spraying more blood, and yet they keep coming. They reach the fence and begin to climb over it.

The man on the bus is still fighting for his bag.

The backdoor explodes open. My father is first to jump out. He lifts a girl down, then a small boy, then another boy. Then come the adults. “Run, Finn!” he cries, his eyes locking on mine. “Get out of here!”

He jumps back onto the bus.

My chest feels like it's being squeezed in a vise. My throat is a straw, then a swizzle stick. My vision has narrowed to a pinpoint, yet somehow I run.

I'm barely aware of the security doors slamming shut behind me as I throw myself into the unlit hallway. I glance up in time to see the last of us slip through. The man who needed his computer is there, his face red.

But the driver is missing. And so are several other passengers, including my dad.

I don't know where I am. I don't know how I got here. It's dark, that's all I know, at least for the eternity it takes me to release the air in my lungs and suck in another breath.

I'm lying on my back. It's dark and the air is still. I smell . . . blood.

I hear nothing but my own blood moving inside of me.

The first thing I do is stretch my fingers out on the floor beside me. It's some sort of rough material, a thin, plastic woven mat. Then I remember the scene down on Level Six, and I realize I'm still in the bunker, although which floor, which room, I can't tell.

The turbines still aren't on. There is no light.

Slowly, painfully, I get to my feet. My ankle won't hold my weight, and I fall down again, crack my knee on the cement. Something drips into my eyes, and when I touch my forehead, the pain is immediate and intense. I've reinjured the wound I received falling down the stairs.

Today? Yesterday?

“Hello?” My throat hurts. “Anyone there?”

A rustle of sound, just on the limits of my senses. I freeze.

“Who's there?”

Nothing. Just my imagination.

Where the hell am I? How did I get here?

I reach out, feel a wall. Fingers spread, I slowly sweep my hand over the surface, searching for the door. I'm totally blind. A paper dislodges, flutters to the floor.

Where is everyone?

I hiss as I step. My ankle twists, and I drop, instinctively rolling to protect my knee. “Damn it!”

And then someone is grabbing me, grabbing my shirt, yanking me upright again. I feel my feet leave the floor. For a second I'm treading air. I shout out in alarm. “Let go of me!”

Then I'm standing again, leaning against the wall, supported by it, and the hands are off of me. I wave my arms around, but no one's there.

“Mister Resnick? Dad?”

I can't tell which way is up, which way is out. The darkness is utterly disorienting. I try to scramble away and don't even realize I'm falling until my shoulder hits and the air is knocked out of me.

“Help!”

Once more, I'm jerked upright. On my cheek, the humidity of an exhale. I lash out, but my fist meets nothing.

“Jack?” I say. My voice is shaking like mad. “J-jonah?”

I feel like I'm going to be sick. “Who's there?”

Pressure builds inside my head. I wince at the pain and cough. “What do you want?”

Something moves somewhere inside the room, the sound of skin against skin, the slap of a naked foot on the floor.

“Eddie?”

“You're safe, Finn. I won't hurt you.”

Hearing him speak I almost lose control of my bladder.

“W where are you?”

“To your right.” His voice is soft, no hint of insanity or rage or the damage the steam did to him.

I turn my head a bit, though I still can't locate him. Either the hit to my head has screwed up my ears, or the walls of the room are warping his voice.

“No, not quite that much,” he tells me.

I turn a little to the left.

“Don't try to move. You'll hurt yourself.”

How can he tell where I'm looking? I can't even see an inch in front of my face. To prove it, I wave a hand. I can feel the air moving across my cheeks, but I'm completely blind. How can he see me?

“My eyes,” he says, answering my thoughts. “I can see in the dark.”

I suck in a sharp breath.

“Well, it's not totally dark. There's the slightest phosphorescence, some kind of mold on the walls. It's enough for me to see by.”

My heart is beating a million times a minute. What has happened to him? Is it because of the things inside his body?

“Can you read minds, too?”

He chuckles, and the sound sends a shiver up my spine. “No, I can't do that.”

“How then?”

“My senses have become so much sharper than they've ever been. Eyesight, hearing. even my sense of smell is sharper. I'm . . . . I'm just better.”

Better? I'm not so sure about that. After the horror I saw on Level Six, better isn't the word I'd use.

“What do you want with me?” I ask.

I start edging my way to the left, away from where he says he is, even though to my ears he sounds like he could be anywhere, everywhere.

“There's no reason to be frightened. As I said, I won't hurt you.”

“No? Then what about Doc Cavanaugh? Why did you take me from Level Six?”

“You were in danger, Finn. Jack Resnick has lost it. He was choking you.”

“He thought I killed the doctor.”

“He was wrong.”

Because it was you!

“He won't bother you anymore.”

“What does that mean? What did you do to him?”

Eddie doesn't answer.

“Did you kill him? Did you kill the doctor?”

“No.”

He's lying.

“Then you have to come back.”

“They won't understand, Finn. They fear what I've become. Our visitor, too. I heard what he said. But he's wrong.”

“What have you become?”

“Better. I told you.”

I scramble to my feet, my heart gripped in sudden terror. I reach out and my fingers find the door jamb. The knob.

“Listen to me, Finn. I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've come to a conclusion. This place isn't safe.”

I hear a soft flutter, the barest whisper of air moving, and then he's standing right beside me. I fear I may scream.

“Not until whoever is responsible for this is dead.”

I jerk my head to the left, sweep out a hand. Nothing. Neither is there to the right. Where the hell is he?

A cool breath of air caresses my cheek.

Then there's voices, someone calling my name out in the hallway, and the hard patter of running feet. Without another thought, I yank the door open.

But the knob is torn from my grip, and the door slams shut again with such force that I stagger backwards into the room. My feet tangle and I fall, landing hard on some kind of thin padding. And that's when I figure out where I am. Eddie has brought me home.

“Please,” I beg him. “Make it quick.”

An eternity later, I realize he's already left me.

When the lights come back on, the first thing I see is the crayon drawing of flowers Mia Largent did two springs ago. I'd stuck it to the ceiling over my bedroll, so it'd be the first thing I see in the morning, to remind me that I'm safe whenever I wake from the dreams. I love that picture, even though the petals are too geometric, and the colors are muted and gray. It's as if Mia's memory of the real thing has been distorted by our residence within these walls.

I'd always meant to ask her if they are supposed to be the flowers from her garden at home.

Several minutes later, the door opens.

“Finn!” Dad says. “Jesus, there you are! I found him!”

He bends down and grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Eddie?”

“We're still looking for him.”

I frown at the jumbled memory. Why did Eddie bring me here? Why did he stop Jack?

I say, “Mister Resnick thought—”

“You don’t have to worry about him. He’s been taken care of.”

“How?”

“Confined to quarters for now until we can figure this out.”

I shake my head and struggle to sit up. “He thought I  I killed . . . .”

I can't finish.

“It wasn't you, of course. It was Eddie.”

But was it?

“He brought me here. Eddie. He told me no one would understand what he's become.”

Dad sweeps the hair away from my forehead and presses a thumb against the knot, causing me to jerk back. “You've had quite the knock. You need to rest.”

“No, I want to help.” My voice is hoarse and my head feels two sizes too big. I'm really beginning to tire of the abuse my body is taking. “We need to find him. Eddie's here somewhere.”

“I agree,” another voice says.

I look over and see Mister Abramson standing in the doorway. He looks pale, haggard. “Bren has been asking after you,” he says. “I told her I'd check and let her know as soon as you were found. Are you okay?”

I nod. “She's okay? The blood she touched on the door—”

“Not infected. No worries there. We were lucky.”

I frown. How can he be so sure? It took Eddie days to change.

“Doctor Cavanaugh's lab?” My voice trails off as I remember the destruction. “Why would Eddie do that?”

“Until we find him, we can only guess.”

I lay back again. “I'm glad Bren's okay.”

He steps in, a flash of anger in his eyes. “Kaleagh told me you refused to stay put upstairs. Why would you endanger them?” But his shoulders slump and he dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. “Never mind. I'm just glad to know you're safe.”

“Is anyone else hurt?” I ask.

“We're still trying to track down a few people,” Dad says. “We're organizing more thorough search parties.”

Mister Abramson's face pinches. “Except Levels Five and Six. I think it'd be better if we sealed them off. The blood . . . .”

Dad nods. He looks drained, and yet there's a new intensity in his eyes. His nerves are shot. It's been a rough few days for him, too.

“The stranger,” he asks me. “Did you see what happened to him? He's gone.”

Mister Abramson leans forward, curious to know, too.

I shake my head. The bones in my neck grind painfully against each other, a memento from Jack Resnick's attack.

Finally, Mister Abramson stands up. “We'll track Eddie down and when we do, we’ll end this.”

The lines in my father's face grow deeper. He leans back on his haunches and looks troubled.

“I'll start organizing the search groups, Abe. We'll cover the entire bunker from basement to ceiling. The sooner we start, the better.”

“I'll take a team, start on Level One,” Dad says. “We'll work our way down.”

“I want to help.” I push myself off the floor and get to my feet. “Dad, please.”

He shakes his head at me. “No, Finn. Absolutely not. You've been through too much as it is.”

Mister Abramson stands up and offers a hand, pulling Dad to his feet. “I'll start in the dungeons,” he says. “It's likely he went below.”

“Dad, I'm fine. Please. I want to help.”

For a moment, he looks like he might cave. He glances over at Bren's dad, who just stands there and waits without any expression on his face. Then Dad's gaze sweeps the tiny room that has been our home before settling on me.

“Lock the door after us,” he quietly says, and he leaves.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm not a kid anymore,” I say. “My father will never accept that. He's blind to the fact that I've grown.”

Mister Abramson sighs and nods. “It's not an easy thing for a parent to reconcile, Finn. One never ceases to be a father. Or a mother. I hope one day you'll have the privilege of knowing this truth for yourself.”

He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder, and for the first time I feel like we've really connected, like something has passed between us. I feel like he's finally okay with me and Bren being together.

“Your father may not be happy with me for accepting your offer,” he tells me with a wink, “but between you and me, I'm glad to have you on my side.”

There are five more in our search party: Harry Rollins, Bix and his father, Susan Miller, and another last minute addition in Jonah. Bix complains bitterly about his inclusion, tells him it's because of his father that we're in this mess to begin with. I know he's not happy Susan's there, either.

Jonah presses his lips tight against each other, shoves one of the makeshift weapons he's brought with him into Bix's hands, and reminds him of our purpose with a snarl. “My father didn't turn Eddie into a monster.”

When Jonah gets to me, he pauses and looks like he's going to say something. But he doesn't. He hands me a large metal pipe wrench. When I grab it, he doesn't release it right away. He just stands there and stares at me, as if he's challenging me to wrest it from his grip.

I avoid his gaze and try not to appear as furious with him as I feel. I'm not thrilled about him coming either, and yet I'm also grateful that he does. He seems interested in getting this whole incident behind us as well.

Once armed, we follow Bren's dad down flight after flight of stairs, weapons held at the ready.

“I shoulda peed before we left,” Bix whispers.

“You shoulda stayed home,” Jonah says.

I feel Mister Blakeley stiffen beside me, but he doesn't speak.

The bickering continues for two more flights before Mister Abramson stops and tells them to knock it off.

Finally, we reach the bottom, Level Ten.

The door giving access to the sump pumps is made of heavy metal, riveted like the door on a warship. There's even a portal set in the middle of it, though it's square. And instead of a wheel to open the door, there's another keypad on the wall, just beneath a small niche for the facility phone.

Mister Abramson presses the keys and the light turns green.

“Harrison,” he says, turning to face us before opening the door. “I need you and your son to stand guard inside the stairwell. Make sure nothing comes down those stairs and gets inside. Lock this door behind us. Susan, you and Harry stand guard just inside the room and make sure nothing gets past us going out. Jonah and Finn, you're with me.”

Everyone nods. I tighten the grip on the wrench and raise it to chest height. It's heavy, maybe five or six pounds, but the weight feels good in my hand. It feels potent.

Mister Abramson pulls the latch to the side and the door swings open.

“Stay close, boys,” he says, and he steps out into the gloom.

Jonah gives me a nudge in the back. “Wake up, Bolles.”

It's not much of a push, but it catches me off guard and I stumble in. “I'm going!”

“Then go already.”

Mister Abramson is already ten feet ahead, just stepping out onto the catwalk. I hurry to catch up, and the room opens up beneath my feet. The surface of the narrow walk is made of metal mesh, but the pools below are too dark to see through it. Nevertheless, I catch myself staring down, peering through the gaps, straining for any hint that Eddie might be dangling underneath like some kind of bat creature.

Mister Abramson strides across the walk, jostling it. He's either unaware of Eddie's newly acquired strength and sensory powers, or he doesn't believe Eddie could be laying in wait. His eyes are glued to the opposite end of the walk, to the door on the other side, as if that's his goal.

Does he think Eddie's on the other side? How would he have gotten through?

Dad once told me that it goes inside the mountain, but he never told me why he thinks that. Maybe he learned it from our first leader, Mister Gronbach.

Water seeps through the concrete ceiling and drips invisibly through the air, sometimes hitting our cheeks or smacking on the catwalk, but mostly just slapping the surface of the water far below with a hollow plunk!

I keep expecting the pumps to turn on, yet when one finally does, the sudden rattle of the motor startles me.

“Keep up, boys.”

Jonah hisses behind me. I think he's angry at me for lagging, but I hear him mutter grumpily under his breath, “We're not boys.”

For some reason, it makes me think of Bix saying he should've gone to the bathroom. A moment ago, I'd needed to go, but the urge has completely vanished. Every muscle in my body feels wound as tight as a drum right now.

The unsettling buzz of the sump pumps seems to impel Mister Abramson. He picks up the pace, and the distance between us grows— four feet, six, ten.

I keep expecting Jonah to push me harder. I almost wish he would. Then I'd have a reason to turn around and slug him. I need to vent some of this anger boiling inside of me.

“Finn,” Jonah says. It's so low I almost don't hear it at first. I brace myself for the poke in the back. “Listen, Finn. I just want to say I'm sorry about what happened.”

I stop and turn, made somehow angrier by this unwanted display of humility. “It's your father who needs to apologize.”

He stares at me for a moment, the darkness in his eyes like the emptiness in the faces of the infected.

“Fine,” I say, turning back and resuming my steady march over the murky abyss. “Apology accepted. Whatever.”

“Yeah, whatever. Jerk.”

I stop again, but don't turn. My fingers curl around the rail and squeeze, and the bones in my hands shift as the muscles and tendons tighten till they feel like they may snap. I can almost feel the steel deforming beneath my grip.

The walkway beneath us shakes slightly, and the distance between us and Mister Abramson grows by two more feet with each heavy step. He's now three-quarters of the way across.

Jonah places a hand on my shoulder and tries to get me to turn. I shrug it off, though I turn anyway.

“I never wanted it to be like this, Finn.”

“Funny. Because it sure seems like I've been saying the same thing to you for the past three years. Both me and Bix.”

The muscles in his cheek ripple as he clenches his jaw.

Up ahead of us, Mister Abramson has finally realized we're not right on his heels. “Boys!” he calls.

The word ricochets off the walls, off the surface of the black pool below us, off the ceiling close overhead.

“We're not boys!” Jonah screams.

The metal rings with the force of his voice.

He brushes angrily past me, shoving me up against the railing. “I don't know why I bother,” he hisses at me. “This is such a waste of time.”

I volunteer to climb down the ladder to check below, partially because I already know what sort of evidence to look for in the slime coating the platform, but also because I don't want anyone seeing the marks I left a few days before and misinterpreting them.

As expected, I find no evidence that Eddie's been there, so unless he's suddenly developed the ability to scale smooth cement walls and has grown gills he's not hiding down here, either in the water or between the sump pumps.

We rejoin the others and head up a flight to Level Nine, where we meet Missus Abramson on her way down. Mister Abramson looks surprised to see her, and he chastises her for being alone.

I ask about Bren.

“Sleeping,” she answers. Her voice quavers, and her hands shake as she goes to her husband. It's clear that she's still not fully recovered from the brutality we witnessed on Levels Five and Six. After a moment, she pushes herself out of Seth's embrace and says, “I left her and Hannah with Fran and the boys.”

“You shouldn't have come down, honey.”

“I couldn't just sit there knowing a killer is hiding somewhere inside the bunker. I feel better by your side.”

Bix rolls his eyes and whispers, “Gag me.” But despite his making light of their intimacy, it troubles me that they're okay leaving Bren alone.

As before, we leave Bix and his father outside in the stairwell to Level Nine, Susan and Harry just inside the door in the hallway. The rest of us, now four, search each of the accessible rooms.

On that level, there are two rooms full of spare parts for the boiler room at the end of the hall, as well as an assortment of machined parts and tools carefully arranged on metal shelves or hanging off of a pegboard. Each tool has its designated spot, as indicated by a painted white outline. There are several empty spaces, including one clearly meant for the wrench in my hand. I no longer have to wonder where Jonah got the items he turned into weapons.

The third room holds drums of machine oil and a small hand truck. The smell triggers a memory of Eddie, but he's not here. Just to be sure, Jonah checks the loose cover in the corner of the wall near the ceiling, even though it's much too small for a full-grown man to crawl into.

The oil containers appear to have been recently opened, and there's a small spill near the door. Jonah doesn't remark on it, and when I do, he sniffs and says, "Probably your dad or one of the others needing to lube something."

The fourth room is empty, whereas the fifth and final room at this end of the hallway is another control station. This one is for the adjacent boiler room, and it modulates the function of the main ventilation and humidity control systems. The station is rarely used, since once the ranges are set, they essentially run on autopilot. Pretty much like everything else in this place.

In a typical hydroelectric facility, the safety overrides would have shut power production down within weeks, if not days, of the outbreak, as electrical demand fluctuated. Power consumption would have been erratic at first, but then would drop through the floor, eliminating the load on the turbines and causing them to shut down.

But every process in this facility was designed with meticulous care to continue operating in an adaptive fashion for extended periods of time without human intervention. Each function is linked into a complex feedback monitoring system — the main brain of the facility — which is located upstairs on Level Two. That computer, which is not networked with the outside world, so as to avoid terrorist hacking, adjusts everything from water flow through the turbines and the bypass systems via the sluice gates, clears blockages, monitors electrical demand, and meters power into the facility and outward to the grid.

Because it's not a typical plant, we weren't forced to leave it when Mister Gronbach died and left us with essentially no idea how to run it. Fortunately, that was not the case, and it was probably the main reason it was chosen to be a bunker. Nevertheless, Dad has taught himself as much as he possibly can about the place, which hasn't been easy without the benefit of manuals. For the past three years, he has been personally checking every single system to make sure each is running within normal limits.

Given their vulnerability, the control rooms are only accessible by a very short list of people, including my father, Mister Abramson, Mister Resnick, and Susan Miller.

Mister Abramson keys in the number, then he instructs me and Jonah not to touch any of the controls. “Be quick about it. Kaleagh and I will head over to the boiler room.”

He doesn’t look worried that we'll do any harm. Knowing our mutual distrust, he probably figures Jonah and I will keep an eye on each other.

Jonah steps inside first and immediately begins to circle the room in a clockwise direction. He pokes his length of pipe ahead of him into the kneehole under the control bench, banging it against the thin metal. A large console, painted olive green and populated with dozens of dials, switches, and lights, sits on top. Dust covers everything, a testament to the fact that nobody's been in here in a while, including my father.

In no mood to talk, I turn in the opposite direction.

We meet in the back behind the bench, pass each other, then circle around to the door again. He bangs once on the vent above our heads. Then, convinced we've cleared the room, he gives me a single nod. “Not like Eddie was going to be in here anyway,” he grumbles, then steps out into the hall.

We make sure the door latches shut before turning toward the boiler room. The Abramsons have already gone in.

Jonah raises his hand, but instead of knocking to be let in, he keys in the access code. As if sensing my surprise, he gives me a nonchalant shrug. “Dad and I helped Stephen and Danny with the repair the other day,” he says.

The memory of the accident comes back to me, the scene where Eddie runs in without first checking that it's safe. I still feel like I could've stopped him. I'd had this foreboding feeling that something was wrong, yet I hadn't acted on it.

Could Eddie be inside right now, waiting for us?

Jonah starts to turn the handle. And suddenly I have this fear that he really is in there and that he's already killed Bren's parents. I can almost feel his presence, and I slap Jonah's hand off the knob.

“What the hell, Bolles?”

But the door still opens, and I step back with a gasp, cringing. Mister Abramson sticks his head out. “Took you two long enough,” he says.

The humidity slaps me across the face, fills my chest and makes it hurt. Jonah rolls his eyes and shakes his head at me.

The room is quite large, about thirty feet wide and twice as long. The front is well lit, but the lighting is poorer behind the main furnace, which sits right in the middle of the floor just ten feet in from the door.

A series of pipes rises from the top and extends both forward and aft, some disappearing into the walls, others turning to other destinations. Several large ones run the length of the room on either side.

Behind the boiler is a series of man-sized breaker boxes, each with its own pressure and temperature gauges. Dad once tried to explain it all to me once, but I never bothered to commit any of it to memory.

“Finn and I will check on this side,” Kaleagh Abramson shouts above the low roar of the furnace. I pull my eyes away from the pipe which burst, and find her standing on the opposite side of the room, her back against the wall.

Mister Abramson reluctantly agrees, perhaps wary of the tension between me and Jonah. He volunteers to take the other side alone, instructing Jonah to stand guard by the door.

“Sure, no prob, Mister A,” he says. “I got this.” But I'm sure I see a flicker of apprehension in his eyes. He's always bragging that nothing scares him. It’s clearly just an act.

A blink later, however, and there's no evidence of anything on his face except boredom.

Missus Abramson gives me a grim smile as I join her. I respect her willingness to come down and help with the search, but it's still bothering me that she left Bren upstairs with the Rollinses.

“You know, I can do this alone,” I tell her as she joins me.

“Let's just find the bastard,” she whispers. “The sooner everything can get back to the way it was, the better.”

I silently confess that I'm wishing for the same thing.

We edge our way forward, carefully checking beneath, behind, and above the thick pipes. She doesn't argue when I do the chivalrous thing and take the lead.

The further back we go, the more everything is covered in dust. The fact that it's also undisturbed does little to soothe my frayed nerves. I keep expecting something to happen, for Eddie to appear, for Mister Abramson or Jonah to scream. With each step we take toward the back of the boiler room, the more I'm sure it'll happen.

I can feel it in the way the air smells, the way it feels, as if it holds the essence of an unnatural presence, a staticky sort of feel that comes from the existence of something that doesn't belong. I feel as if I can actually see the path Eddie took through the air, a shimmering aura without color, not a visual thing but rather a psychic one.

There's a loud clang from the opposite side of the room, followed by a clatter of metal on metal, and we both straighten up and spin around.

“Seth?” Kaleagh calls out.

“Just me,” he replies. His voice sounds far away. “I dropped something.”

I lower my gaze to my feet, to the metal grate below us. The walkways on either side run the length of the room, maybe fifty feet long and four wide. There are channels running underneath, meant to drain leakage or excess condensation from the many pipes that crisscross the room. The space is dark, maybe even large enough to hold a man, but the grates, each roughly four feet on edge, probably weigh a hundred pounds and are bolted down.

“Come on,” Missus Abramson says. She gives my shirt a tug.

We reach the end a moment before Mister Abramson appears. He shakes his head once as he passes us to indicate that he's seen nothing. He doesn't look as relieved as I feel. I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to walk the length of the room by myself.

We switch sides and head back up toward the front, this time moving more swiftly. When we arrive, we find Jonah pacing near the door. He looks like he can't wait to leave.

Mister Abramson sweeps his eyes over the room one last time, and his gaze comes to a stop at a spot on the floor beneath the repaired pipe. Stepping over, he pulls a screwdriver out of his pocket, kneels down, and begins to remove the floor panel.

Jonah helps lift the grate up, straining against the weight. As soon as they've levered it up, Mister Abramson reaches in and pulls something out.

“What is it?” Kaleagh asks.

He shrugs. “Just a piece of wire. I thought it was something else.” He holds it up for everyone to see, then discards it into the corner by the door.

I'm the last to leave, and as I do I retrieve the wire from the floor, wrap it into a loop around my hand and stuff it into my pocket. The others may not have recognized it, but I do. And its presence there beneath the floor is the proof I need that Stephen Largent was right.

The pipe break wasn't an accident.

We finish our search late that evening, meeting my father's group on Level Seven in the middle of the long skyway separating the main dam structure and the power plant. It had taken us so long to finish up our search of the turbines that they worried we'd met with trouble. When Dad sees us, he gives me an unhappy look, but doesn't say a word.

“Anything?” he asks Mister Abramson.

It turns out that no one has found any sign of Eddie anywhere, no forced doors, no blood trail, nothing.

While they're conferring, I notice Jack Resnick standing with the other group, and my blood immediately boils. Dad must see it in my eyes, because he warns me to let it go. “We needed the manpower,” he simply explains. But I wonder if he wanted Jack close by so he could keep an eye on him.

Jonah and his dad also exchange dark looks, but neither makes any attempt to speak to the other.

As we trudge wearily back upstairs, Bix hangs back to walk beside me. “The plot thickens,” he whispers dramatically, trying hard for humor.

It falls flat. Nobody feels like joking, not after Doc Cavanaugh's brutal murder, and it surprises me that he would even think it's okay to crack a joke. But maybe he just can't turn it off.

I'm so full of pain and fear and anger that I've grown numb. All I keep thinking is that none of this had to happen. I can't understand why any of it did.

“Yo, earth to Finn.”

My fingers worry the looped wire in my pocket. I run my thumbnail over the fine ridges used to slice through the metal pipe.

“Dude, why the cold shoulder?”

Why? I wonder. Why would anyone want to hurt anyone else? And if injury wasn't intended, then why make life difficult for us inside the bunker?

I watch Jack Resnick walking near the front, his cut hand bandaged and hanging limply by his side. He looks like a man broken. What did Dad say to him?

I could totally see Jack doing it, messing with the lights, cutting the pipe. After all, he was the one who wanted out of the bunker in the first place. But the evidence in my pocket tells me he didn't do it.

“Yo, Finn. Finnnnn finnfinnfinnfinn.”

Dad is talking to Mister Blakeley and Seth Abramson. They're trying to work out our next move. I hear Dad say something about the cameras, and that he thinks they might hold some clues to what happened. “I meant to check them earlier, but never got the chance.”

This piques my curiosity, but when I hasten my pace to catch up to them, Bix holds me back.

“Dude, did you even hear me?”

I turn and blink at him, and when he reaches for me again, I shrink away. I don't want him touching me. I don't want anyone touching me.

“Finn?”

“Not right now,” I mumble.

He frowns, but doesn't push. After three years, he knows my moods. He knows when to shut up. He knows when to leave me alone.

By the time I've caught up with the head of the pack we've emerged onto Level Three. Jack has regained some of his lost confidence. He starts trying to tell people what to do. Like Bix, he just can't help it. I hear him telling Dad what he thinks needs to be done next. The man has no shame.

I glare at him as I pass, but he ignores me. I hear him tell the others that we need to station a couple people at the stairs, in the event that Eddie tries to come back. It's actually a reasonable request, and Stephen Largent adds that we should keep the lift locked on our level with the doors propped open so it can't be called.

“At least until someone checks the shaft,” he says, “we can't be certain Eddie's not in there. In fact, given that we've ruled everywhere else out, my money says that's where he is.”

But nobody volunteers to check. The risk is too great. So we end up stationing two people outside the lift and one just inside the stairs. Jack struts around, acting as if these decisions validate his authority.

I search for my father. I need to speak to him about the wire. But he's disappeared. And I'm certainly not in any mood to talk to anyone else, so I head for our quarters to wait. I'm too agitated to sit or lie down.

Bix's signature shave-and-a-haircut knock comes a minute later, and he enters before I can tell him to go away. He holds up a couple cans someone brought down from the larder and asks if I prefer the cold wienies or the congealed Spaghetti-Os. “Your choice.”

I'd been holding the wire in my hand. As soon as he sees it, he frowns. “Why do you have that?”

“Oh, you recognize it?”

“Of course I do. It's a guitar string.”

“We found it in the boiler room.”

He doesn't speak.

“Beneath the floor, right beneath the broken pipe. Mister Abramson found it, actually.”

Bix's face pales.

“Your father said it was broken. He lied.”

“He didn't lie.” Bix reaches for it, but I pull it away and shove it back into my pocket.

“Your dad cut the pipe.”

“What? Don't be ridiculous, Finn. He didn't. And neither did I.”

Just then, Dad comes in. Bren's father is with him and they're talking about the security cameras. They're both surprised to see us, as if they hadn't expected me to be in my own quarters. Dad suggests that I go over to the Abramson's room to get something to eat, but then he sees the cans in Bix's hand and he nods. The four of us stand there in awkward silence for several seconds before Dad asks us what's going on.

“Nothing,” Bix and I both reply.

“I'll be in my quarters,” Mister Abramson tells my father. He nods once and excuses himself.

I pull the string out and begin to tell Dad where we found it. Bix attempts to interrupt me a couple times, but I press on until I've finished.

“You think Harrison Blakeley cut the pipe?” Dad takes the string from my hand and studies it for a moment. “What possible reason would he have?”

“I don't know! Maybe they've been planning this all along. I mean, why would their van be stopped right in the middle of the road like that? We weren't even supposed to stop!”

“You think we planned our van exploding when it did?” Bix cries. “You’re crazy!”

Dad shushes us both. He wraps one end of the string around his fist, then repeats with the other end around his other hand until he's got about a twelve-inch length between his thumbs. Then he points to the wrench I'd thrown onto the chair and tells us both to hold it up, one on either end.

“Hold it steady,” he instructs, and he begins to saw away at it. Thirty seconds later, the string breaks. All he's managed to do is leave a shiny silver mark on the wrench on top of the orange paint. “No way this thing cut through a pipe, Finn.”

“But—”

“Finn, Bix is your best friend. You know him better than anyone else here. You know that neither he nor his father had anything to do with Eddie's accident.”

“Besides,” Bix says, taking a piece from him and holding it up, “this is the A. It's flat wound.” He scrapes his nail over the surface. “If I wanted to use a string to cut with, I'd have chosen the E. It's round wound, thicker, and is a lot rougher.” He stops and shakes his head. “Not that I would've cut that pipe.”

“Then why was this down there?”

Bix stares at me. “Isn't it obvious? Jonah had all the time in the world to plant it there. You know how much he hates me and my father. You told me yourself it's because we didn't pay to be here.”

Dad gives me a disappointed look. "I told you that in confidence."

Bix slaps the string back into my hand. “You want to know who cut that pipe, you need to ask him.”

He spins around and flings the door open. But before he steps out, he grabs one of the cans of food from the chair.

“Just for that,” he says, “I’m taking the wieners.”

“It always comes back to the Resnicks.”

“Not always,” Dad says. He sounds even more tired than earlier. “I fear it's not as simple as you want it to be.”

I ask him what he means.

“I don't believe Eddie murdered Doctor Cavanaugh.”

“But the blood, the . . . the massacre. The absence of a body. Who else could've done it? And why?”

“I think it was staged to appear like an attack by someone infected.”

“Jack Resnick?”

He shakes his head. “Both he and Jonah have been trying for months to convince us the infected are gone. Making it look like such an attack wouldn't be consistent with that message. Besides, Jack and Jonah were with Dominic when the turbines went down. Someone else tripped the breaker on the master control panel upstairs.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I presume to cause a panic, confusion. We were in the middle of questioning Mister Williams. That, or whoever did it needed an opportunity to isolate the doctor to kill her.”

“Is there any way Williams could’ve been involved?” I ask.

“Seth and I just returned from Level Six. I think we can rule him out. Most of the broken glass is on the floor inside the room, which means the window was shattered from the hallway.”

“Rory Newsom was there with Doc Cavanaugh. Did you ask him if he saw anything?”

“Rory's dead.”

“What? How?”

Dad sinks into the chair. “Whoever murdered Gia also killed Rory and dumped him over the railing outside. We found a lot of blood, but only one body— his. Since the sluice gates were shut, all the water went to bypass, and it got caught up on the rocks. No sign of the stranger's body, so I assume he fled.”

“If he's still alive, he might know something.”

“I agree, which is why I proposed sending another search party out to look for him in the morning. It's too late now. Seth's understandably reluctant to break containment even further, as am I. And if I were Williams, I'd be long gone by now, but I can't assume to know what's in his mind.”

He purses his lips. “We'll go in the morning. And, Finn, this time I really need you to stay put. Whoever is doing this, they're still among us. They may try to kill again while we're gone.”

“You think I'm in danger?”

“I think we all are.”

He places a weary hand on my shoulder. “You're the only one I can trust, son.”

Trust? Suddenly, I don't feel very trustworthy at all. I defied him today by going with Mister Abramson. I betrayed my promise of confidentiality by telling Bix about how we all paid to be in here and he didn't. And I haven't been much of a friend to him or Bren.

“I'll stay,” I tell him.

He nods.

“I still think Jack Resnick is somehow involved.”

A knock comes at the door, and Dad quickly takes the wire back from me, rolls it, and tucks it into his pocket. He places a finger to his lips, then steps over to the door.

My thoughts are all a jumble. Nothing seems to fit together. How could the cut pipe and the outages be related? How are they tied into the missing food? And why was Doc Cavanaugh killed? Was it because of what she found in Eddie's blood?

Who among us could do such a heinous thing as kill her like that? Her and Rory Newsom.

Dad opens the door and, almost as if I've conjured him from the air just by evoking his name, there stands Jack Resnick. “Ready?” he asks.

“I was expecting Seth.”

“Said he needed to be with Bren and Kaleagh.” His eyes flick to me. “He asked me to take his place.”

Dad frowns, but he nods and says okay. “Let's go.”

“Where?” I ask. Alarm bells are jangling in my head.

“The security cam footage is on a twenty-four-hour loop,” Dad says. “We need to review it all before we lose it. I'm hoping we get lucky and see something. I'd meant to check it earlier, but with everything else going on—”

“No one's blaming you, Abe,” Jack says impatiently. “Can't think of everything.” He turns to leave.

Dad steps back in. He leans over and says, “Do me a favor, Finn.”

“Don't go anywhere?”

“Not alone. But, no, that's not it. I need you to go talk to Hannah. She's in her quarters. I think she may know where her father went.”

I wince, remembering that I haven't even bothered to see how she's doing. Another reason I'm just a loser.

“Finn,” he says, and there's an urgency in his voice. “Ask her about the missing food.”

* * *

I feel really bad about Hannah. But it's Bren I need to see first.

As soon as I step out into the hallway, I'm met by Sato and Asuka Fujimura. They're the oldest people in our group, easily in their seventies, though it's hard to tell exactly how old they are because it seems like they never age.

Sato was an investment banker in Hong Kong before all this happened, though his English is nearly perfect. His wife's accent is more pronounced, and it gets even stronger whenever she gets riled up, which, nine-times-out-of-ten, is when Sato's winning one of their Hanafuda card games. For all of her four feet two inches and eighty pounds, the woman is a bit of a dynamo.

Asuka slaps a palm against my chest. She has to reach above her head to do it. “Where you go, young Finnian?” she asks.

“Just to see Bren, Missus Fujimura.”

“You sure?” she asks, a gleam in her eye that tells me she thinks there's more meaning to my words than there is. “She might not want see you.”

Mister Sato hobbles closer, leaning on his cane. I've seen him walking without it, so I know it's more for show. The dude can move when he wants to, especially when Kari Mueller is on dinner duty. That woman can do magic with only four ingredients and a handful of bone-dry spices.

“Asuka-chan,” he rumbles. “Leave the boy be.”

“Thank you, Mister Fujimura,” I say, quickly stepping past his wife while she's distracted. He wishes me good luck.

Almost immediately, Asuka starts going at him. I recognize a few Japanese curses, but they're drowned out by his dry chuckles. Both sounds dissipate as the couple disappears from view, leaving me with only the hollow tap tap tap of the tip of his cane on the floor.

Sometimes I wonder how nice it would be to simply live as oblivious as they seem to be. Other times I'm convinced they know a lot more than they let on.

I knock on Bren's door, aware of Danny Delacroix's eyes on my back. He's standing against the wall by the elevator doors, his arms crossed. Dominic is inside trying to figure out a way to block the access panel in the ceiling.

“Looking for Bren?” Dom asks. “I think she's down the other end of the hall keeping an eye on Eddie's girl.”

Keeping an eye on her?

But I don't ask what he means. I just head back the other way, and I'm grateful when I find the hallway empty. The Fujimuras have returned to their quarters.

It's Bren who answers my knock. She looks surprised to see me, but before I can say anything, she throws herself at me and squeezes me tight. I can't do anything but hold her and feel awkward while her mother and Hannah look on.

After she releases me, she pulls me into the room. Hannah eyes me warily. I'm partially to blame for everyone believing her father is the killer, a raving animal whose body has turned into something unnatural. I feel like I should say something to her to make things right. But what?

“Finn?” Missus Abramson asks. “What is it?”

I shrug uncertainly and clear my throat. “My father, uh, he said I should talk to Hannah.”

But will she be willing to talk in front of other people?

“About what?”

“The missing food.”

Missus Abramson looks puzzled. “You mentioned something about it the other day,” Bren says. “But you never explained what you meant.”

“I didn't mention it,” I correct her. “Bix did.” Being reminded of that scene down on Level Seven drops the temperature between us to somewhere just north of freezing.

Hannah gives me a guilty look, so it's obvious she knows what I'm talking about. She takes in a deep breath and says, “It was me.”

She reaches into her pocket and draws something out, and when she unfolds her fingers, I see that she's holding a key. It's long and heavy, with square rather than jagged teeth. There's only one door in the entire facility that I know for sure requires a physical key.

“Level Ten?”

Hannah nods.

“There are seven people,” she says. “Six adults and a baby. There used to be eleven, but half of them died.”

“People?” Bren asks. “I don't understand. What are you talking about?”

“Hiding inside the mountain,” she says.

“Behind the locked door at the back of the sump room on Level Ten,” I explain, immediately making the connection.

Missus Abramson gasps, and her hands fly to her face. “A baby?” Shock saps the strength from her voice.

“I've been caring for all of them since the very beginning,” Hannah says. “Well, except for the baby. He's almost a year old. Dad never knew. He wouldn't have . . . understood.”

“He would have known how dangerous it was,” I say.

“For a long time, nobody else knew. But it just got to be too hard for me, and I had to tell someone.”

“Who?”

She looks away.

“How long has my father known?”

“Just a few days. He followed me down to the food room. He saw me taking some.”

“Our food?” Missus Abramson asks.

Hannah nods.

“That's why you volunteered to help Jonah out,” I say.

Another nod. “So I could sneak some of the food out. But he was starting to get suspicious, so that's when I started to help you, too. It was easy getting the access code from you. You weren't very . . . careful.”

I feel my face grow red.

“I never believed it would be discovered. I always thought we’d be out of here before we got down to the bottom.”

“You said you needed help. Whose?” I ask.

The shocked look on Bren’s face already confirms it for me that it wasn’t her.

Hannah swallows and looks like she's already beginning to regret confessing this. But the cat is already out of the bag.

“Jonah,” she whispers.

“Jonah?” I say, and my head spins in disbelief. “Our Jonah?”

As if there could be any other.

“He's not the bad person you think he is, Finn.” The words tumble from Hannah's mouth in a rush. “He— He's kind and compassionate.”

I feel like a fish gulping air. I keep opening my mouth and then closing it, and yet nothing passes through my lips. Jonah kind? Compassionate? It doesn't make sense.

I turn to Bren and her mother for help, but they're apparently as stunned as I am by the revelation.

I spin back to Hannah with a new thought. “Can they get inside the bunker? Have you ever brought them inside the bunker?”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Mister Gronbach told me never to let them in.

“Never?” I can't believe anyone who might be stuck outside wouldn’t try to get in. Surely six adults could easily overpower a small girl like Hannah. Or try to convince her to open the door. “Not even once?”

“No! Of course not!”

“Don't say of course not! Of course not is when you do things the right way, by following the rules! Not by exposing us to the outside!”

“I'm not!”

“Yes, you are!” I roar.

“Finn!” Bren says, alarmed.

“Of course not is obeying the rules, Hannah!”

“Finn, stop it!”

The room is spinning even worse, and it won't stop. “Are you sure they didn't— that they can't come in?”

“Yes! They don't have a key. Only I have the key. And I never opened the door for them, only the little panel so I can give them the food. That's how Mister Gronbach told me to do it. He made me promise. Even when they get angry or beg, I don't open the door.”

This makes me pause. “Mister Gronbach gave you the key?”

“That's how he and your dad came in after they got stuck outside, the day we arrived.”

I remember how terrified I'd been that day when I realized my father hadn’t made it in. But then they showed up, as if by magic — not all of the missing survivors, just Dad and Mister Gronbach — and I'd always thought that they'd somehow slipped in before the doors were locked, and that I'd just missed seeing them.

“He was very sick and knew he was going to die, so he told me about the door and the tunnel behind it leading outside. He said there were going to be people hiding there and that I should give them food and water. He said it was okay because the second bus never came, so there was extra.”

Missus Abramson seems to be recovering her senses. She stands up, the shock on her face turning to horror. “You had no right,” she whispers. “You had no right to take our food!”

“Please don't be mad. Those people were starving. I couldn't just let them die!”

“Have you taken my father to see them? Has he been down to see them?”

Bren steps between me and Hannah. She tries to calm me down again. There are tears on her face, tears which I can't tell are from sympathy or anger. She pulls me to her and whispers that it's okay, that it's all going to be okay. Her breath is hot on my cheeks, yet it somehow cools me down.

“Yes,” Hannah says, replying to my question about my father. “He was angry at first, too. But then he saw how much they needed our help. He saw the baby. He said I could still give them food, but only what little we could spare. And the leftovers from our meals we were just going to throw away anyway.”

I know she's trying to make it sound better than it is, because there’s very rarely anything left from our meals. After all this time preparing the same courses for each other, day after day, week in and month out, we've gotten quite good at estimating exactly how much food we'll need at each sitting so there's no waste. And when we err, it's almost always on the side of there being too little. Nobody's starving or malnourished, but neither are we overfed.

Although, now that I think about it, the portions have seemed slightly smaller lately, while the rate we're going through our larder supplies hasn't changed.

“How long has Jonah known? How long has been helping you, Hannah?

And why? Was it only to curry her favor? Was he trying to take advantage of her?

A sickening feeling fills my gut.

Bren must be thinking the same thing, because she grabs Hannah and twists her around. “Did Jonah ever force you to do anything in exchange for his keeping your secret? Has he threatened you? Touched you?”

“What? No! He's not like that! I keep telling you!”

“Would you say if he had?”

Hannah scowls and pushes her away. “You're wrong about him!”

“Am I?”

But another question has been nagging at me. “Has Jonah been through the door? Has he been outside?”

Hannah starts blinking like her eyes sting. I can see the tears welling up. “I told him not to go, but he said he had to. He said he'd tell on me and then nobody would get any food unless I let him go outside.”

Now that sounds like Jonah.

“That explains why he's so sure the Wraiths are gone,” Bren says, pulling me aside and whispering. “He's been out there.”

I stare at Hannah over Bren's shoulder. This may solve the mystery of the missing food, but it doesn't change what's happening to us right now. Why is someone trying to destroy the bunker? Why did they kill Doc Cavanaugh and Rory?

“Hannah, did you take your father to the tunnel? Is that why we can't find him?”

For a moment, she doesn't move. She tries to keep her emotions in check. I can see the struggle inside of her, the strain on her face, the way her chin starts to tremble. And then she can't hold it in any longer. She falls to her knees, bows her head, and starts to sob into her hands.

“He didn't do it! He didn't kill anybody! He wanted me to come with him, but I couldn't. Who's going to help those people if I go?”

“No one's leaving, Hannah,” I tell her. “And we'll figure out what to do about those people.”

I kneel down beside her and gently pull her hands away from her face. “But, Hannah, listen to me. We need to find your dad. If he didn't kill Doctor Cavanaugh, then it's quite possible he knows who did.”

“I asked him,” she sobs. “He said he didn't see anything. He escaped when he smelled the blood and heard Mister Newsom scream.”

“Smelled the blood?” Bren asks.

“He's changed,” I say. “I already told you this.” My eyes flick accusingly to Missus Abramson, who stares warily at me. “The accident, the burns left him changed. He can see and hear things better. He told me he can smell better, too.”

“He's still my father,” Hannah says.

“If I could just talk with him—”

“Enough of this nonsense!” Missus Abramson cries. Her eyes flash with fear. “Nobody is going anywhere right now, certainly not you kids! And certainly not down into the dungeons to meet someone who could very well kill us all. I'm sorry, Hannah, but I'm not convinced of his innocence, and I won't risk anyone's safety on some whim. You shouldn't, either, Finn. Not while there's a killer loose. And those people in the tunnel could very well be carrying the Flense.”

“They're not carrying—”

“Let the senior members of this community sort this out.”

She stands up and announces that it's late and that I need to go back to my own quarters.

“And what about Hannah?” I ask.

Missus Abramson's mouth pinches. There's a hard glint in her eyes, a mask which inadequately hides the turmoil I know that's inside of her. But before she can provide an answer, there's shouting from the hallway, frightened shouting. The kind of shouting that even if you can't understand the words, you know something terrible is happening.

“The killer?” Bren says.

Then someone is pummeling the door, and the girls shrink back.

“It's happened again,” Fran Rollins screams from the hallway. “There's been another killing.”

I fling the door open, and Fran's jaw drops when she sees me. “Oh, Finn,” she cries. “I'm so sorry.”

Nobody stops me as I hurtle down the hallway, slamming into bodies, walls. I hear them calling my name, telling me to stop, but I knock their outstretched hands aside. Nobody tells me where it happened, but I know. I know.

And I know it was Jack who did it.

But my suspicions are obliterated the moment I reach the watch room and see them both inside, their bodies as broken as the security monitors and disk drives smashed on the table.

Stephen Largent is there in the hallway, and he struggles to hold me back. But I manage to force my way through the door. Harry Rollins is there, too, his palm pressed against my father's neck. Dad's lying on his back in a pool of blood, streams of it spurting between Harry's fingers, and I realize he's still alive.

Jack Resnick is not.

I slap the hands away from me, slap away the buzzing words from my ears telling me it's too late. Because it's not too late. My father is still breathing. His heart is still beating. Those things inside his body will make him better. They'll fix him. He just has to hold on.

The gash in Mister Resnick's throat is, however, beyond repair.

Were they both attacked by the same person? Or were the injuries inflicted by each other?

I crash to the floor beside Harry and reach over to try and stanch the flow, but the blood squeezes through my fingers, too. “Dad,” I wail. “Dad!”

His eyes flutter open, but they're glazed, unfocused. A red bubble forms on his lips, and when it bursts, it sends a rivulet of thick, black blood coursing down his cheek.

“Dad!”

I realize it's not my voice this time, but Jonah's. He must have followed me in. But I'm too wrapped up in my own horror to care, not until he starts to yell and people run in and try to drag him away.

“You bastard!” he screams, kicking and hitting at the men holding him. He breaks free and slides to his father's side. “You did this! This is all your fault! You and your arrogance, you sonofabitch! You arrogant goddamn sonofabitch!”

“Jonah!” the men yell, and they try to immobilize his flailing arms. “Jonah, stop this!”

“You stupid, stubborn bastard! You made me do it! You made me! You made me!”

It takes several people to pull him away from Jack Resnick's body. They drag him out into the hallway, away from the room, away from everyone until his screams of fury are just echoes from the stairwell. And then they're gone altogether, just echoes in my ears.

My father's face is cold. I press my palm against it, and it feels like a memory from a lost time, the air in late winter, stiff and lifeless like the ground frozen through. If there is warmth beneath the surface, it is hidden under the permafrost of his impending death, too deep to find. His whiskers scratch my hand. My tears thin the blood on his skin, but no matter how many fall, they can't erase it.

Harry slips away from me, leaves me to be alone with my dying father. I'm vaguely aware that he was the only one brave enough to touch the blood, to try and stop it from escaping. But I also know that not even a dozen people pressing a dozen hands could have stopped it.

The pulse grows weaker. Less of my father bleeds out. Less of him remains inside to fix him. He's leaving me.

I feel so alone.

And now there are other feelings. Pain— a mixed sort, full of loss and regret, of bitterness and betrayal. I was his biggest disappointment, just another shade of gray eclipsed within my brother's umbra. Pain and anger. Anger at both of my parents. Neither tried very hard to hide their sensitivity to our differences, to his strengths and my weaknesses. They saw no wrong in treating Harper like the god he was and me as a mere mortal.

Dad's eyelids flutter open again. For a moment, all I can see are the whites, but then they roll forward and I can tell he's trying to focus, to see my face one last time. His lips part and he exhales. “Hhhhh . . . .” And for just a moment I am terrified that he might say my brother's name. He coughs, gurgling blood.

“I'm here, Dad,” I say. “Hold on. Please, hold on. I— I need you. Don't go.”

Finally, the eyes focus. They wander over my face until they lock onto my own. “Fffffiiiinnnn . . . .”

“Dad, hold on. They're looking for Mister Abramson. He can help you. He'll know what to do.”

A shudder passes through his body. He swallows, and it’s a wet noise. He sounds like he's drowning. “No. Lisssssssen.”

I bend down and turn my head until my ear is next to his mouth.

“Fffiii . . . nd . . . mmmm . . . .”

“Find what? Dad? Dad!”

I realize he's gripping my arm only when his fingers start to slip away. His whole body jerks, like he's waking from a bad dream, and he cries out weakly. A tear slips down his cheek.

“Yyyyour . . . muh . . . mom.”

“Find mom? But she’s—”

He squeezes my arm. “Woods,” he whispers.

I close my eyes and choke back the tears. Wherever my father is going, he's slipped beyond a boundary I cannot cross, into a land from which he'll never return. He's in his own dying head now. The lack of blood and oxygen is consuming his mind. Mom is dead. Leah is dead. Harper is dead.

And now so is he.

“Find . . . mom,” he whispers.

There's shouting at the door. I hear Mister Abramson, yelling, demanding someone tell him what happened, demanding to be let in. But they won't let him, the people in the hall. They know, just as I do, that it's too late. “Leave them be,” they tell him.

Dad's eyes roll toward the sound. They're no longer focused. “K-k-killll . . . her.”

My heart freezes. How could he be thinking of Mom, thinking about her that way?

“Kill . . . .” He starts to choke.

“Shhh,” I tell him, and his eyes roll back toward me. “Dad, it's okay. It's okay. You can rest now. I'm okay. We'll be okay.”

I'm babbling now, I know it. I know I should just shut up, but I don't want to hear the things he's saying. I just want him to close his eyes and go to sleep. “It's okay. I'm not angry. I'm not mad anymore.”

The bleeding has stopped.

“Please, Dad, just close your eyes. Shhhh.”

But he doesn't. His face relaxes, but his eyes remain open. The tension that was always there in his forehead and cheeks dissipates. His fingers uncurl. His arm drops.

“Dad!”

I feel the backs of his fingers brush my cheek.

“You must,” he whispers, the words so clear that I can't be sure I'm not just imagining them. “Save themmmm . . . .”

And then his eyes finally close, and he's gone.

I wake with a start, gasping for air, forcing it into my lungs like a man given the briefest of reprieves from a vicious sea determined to claim him. Like a man who expects to be sucked back beneath the smothering waves at any moment. I draw the air in and let it out, and suck it back in again, waiting for the darkness to engulf me. My head spins from the pressure of knowing that my father is gone forever. From knowing that I am the only one of my family left alive on this earth.

My face and fingertips grow numb as the shock returns. But sleep doesn't come.

Eventually, my breathing grows shallow, slows to its resting rhythm and depth. The only sound to my ears is the soft rush of it through my nose and the distant chug of the machines far away, churning, churning, churning water into electricity that is no longer needed.

Light from the hallway slips in beneath the door, casting a sooty haze over my world. Floating above my head, Mia Largent's polygonal flowers wink down at me, muted shades of gray in an even grayer gloom. The clock on the wall says it's just past one in the morning. Which day it is no longer matters. Three years have passed, or six. A hundred. I don't know.

I am alone.

Everything that happened after my father exhaled his last breath is a jumble. It feels like months have passed, but I can't remember taking any meals. I'm not hungry. I have no urges but one, not to rise, or eat, or even to live. Only to die.

Yet as badly as I desire the end, my body refuses to succumb to my grief. My heart continues to pump with relentless dependability.

It was Bix who came and got me. I remember that now, Bix who lifted me from my father's body and guided me away. A clatter of noise surrounded me— yelling, crying, wailing. None of the voices mine. Numb, I let him lead me from one place to another, while the group swirled around me, a hazy coalescence of bodies and sounds trying desperately to regain a sense of control in a world where there is no sense and even less control.

I remember sitting in the meal room upstairs, Level One, though I don't remember climbing the steps to get there. I remember it was crowded, and there was a lot of shouting. Bren whispering in my ear, holding me, weeping. I struggle to recall what was said. My mind fills with an image of Seth Abramson standing in front, trying to calm everyone. Someone has to be in charge, and he is the obvious choice.

I hear him tell us that the killer has been caught. “Jonah Resnick has been locked away,” he announces. “He has confessed to everything. We can all rest easy now. We need to move forward with the business of surviving.”

I remember someone saying we should banish Jonah. Someone else suggests we throw him from the catwalk into the rapids below the bypass gates. “If he lives, he lives. Let him deal with the world out there on his own if he does.”

Of course, everyone knows that no one could survive that fall, not into those churning waters. Not onto those rocks.

His fate soon becomes a moot point. He will die, alone and starving, in the dark. A sentence befitting the crimes he committed.

Later, Bix tells me that Seth Abramson has moved to seal all the usual access points to Levels Five and Six, mobilizing every able-bodied adult to assist. They're relocating the remaining food stock into rooms only he has access to. The keeper station is locked up, the broken window boarded over and the outside door welded shut. The door from the stairwell has been bolted closed. Wood from spare crates has been nailed over the elevator door.

“I suppose if someone really wanted to, they could climb down from Level Four,” Bix says.” But who would want to go down there? Those levels are haunted now. Just being inside the same building with them gives me the creeps.”

Haunted.

The word makes me think of Level Ten. Bren always said she thought she heard voices down there, crying. It so totally spooked her that she refused chores requiring her to go there. But there were no ghosts. The voices and crying were from the living, not the dead. I know that now.

But Levels Five and Six are haunted. This whole place is. And I will never be able to unhear their voices.

“Jonah Resnick can rot in his cell, for all I care,” Bix says, sitting beside me in my quarters at some point in time between then and now. Weeks later? Days? Hours? I don't know.

His words parrot the speech Mister Abramson gave right after the murders upstairs. I remember how, delirious with grief, his face streaked with tears and splattered with the blood of the deceased, Seth blamed Jonah's incredible selfishness for nearly tearing the group apart. “An evil boy,” he wailed.

His verdict was delivered with uncharacteristic swiftness, bitterly critical for a man who was usually so mild mannered. “I lost two good friends today. We lost two good friends. And so soon after losing our doctor and Rory Newsom, as well. All at the hands of this . . . this madman, this child of evil!”

Hannah's words refuse to leave me. They trouble my mind endlessly: You don't know him. He's not like that. He's kind. Compassionate.

So blind. How could we be so blind? How could I?

“He's not caring.” That's what I'd told her. He only knows how to hate.

You're wrong, Finn. He's just confused. I know he doesn't hate you.

Our blindness has been our downfall.

“Jonah Resnick confessed.” These are Mister Abramson's final words that night, before he sends Jonah to be locked away in a room on Level Nine. And so the dungeon really has become its namesake. “You all heard him. He admitted to it. He confessed to everything.”

The meeting ended shortly after that. I don't remember leaving.

I don't remember coming back to my quarters.

Just flashes of things afterward: Bix sitting with me for a while. Bren, too. Even Hannah, once. All of them talking to me, whispering, mourning. But mostly I slept and didn't listen. I dreamed. And each time I did, it was my father and me who can't escape the Wraiths on the road, trying to get the bus to stop.

I lie here and wonder how long have I been drowning in the tasteless, odorless, soundless numbness of shock? How long has it been smothering me, leaving me hanging onto life in a place that was never meant for the living?

Too long.

But a new numbness infuses me now. This one has a different flavor and feel. A different texture. It tastes like the numbness of understanding.

It tastes of resolution.

I know now what needs to be done.

So, at long last, after years compressed into moments, and mere seconds expanded into an eternity of pain, I rise from my bedroll. I get dressed.

My eyes catch for a moment on my father's pad, still rumpled from the last time he lay down on it. How long has it been?

I pull on a faded tee shirt that feels a size too small. I've grown out of all the clothes I came with. This is a hand-me-down from my father. He'll no longer need it.

I am calm. I feel nothing because of my calmness.

I slip out into the hallway, the heavy wrench in my hand. So powerful. So potent. And I make my way down to the dungeons. I must finish this.

Because there's no worse curse than being alone.

It doesn't take me long to find the room, and though I expect the steel door to be unguarded — why go through the trouble if he can't escape and nobody will let him free? — I am surprised and disappointed to find that Linda Resnick couldn't even be bothered to be with her son. I understand that she's mourning the death of her husband at her son's hand, but what kind of mother leaves her child to rot alone in a dank, dark, barren cell, even if he's an accused murderer?

It makes me pause. Does her absence mean something? The woman would know her son better than anyone else. She would know his true nature.

Or perhaps not. She never felt to me like a person who spent much time contemplating others and their needs. I always just assumed it was because she was always oppressed in the shadow of the two men in her life, but now I wonder.

I'm torn as I make my way down the darkened hallway accompanied only by silence — save the ever-present rumble of the turbines, whose sound has become as invisible to me as the beating of my own heart — silence which empties my darkened mind and permits Hannah's voice to fill it. What am I to make of her plea to look deeper than I really want to?

He's not the person you think he is.

But then again, who really is?

Not me.

So I press on. I find Jonah's cell, and I put all doubt to rest.

* * *

Two hours later, and it's after three o'clock when I finally leave Level Nine. My hands are black and sticky, coated with thick unspeakable grime, and my arms and back ache from swinging the wrench so hard and so many times that, for a while, I had lost feeling in my whole body. My clothes are destroyed. They will never come clean. They're rags anyway.

I stop briefly in the seldom-used washroom on Level Four, risking the chance that someone will be there and see me, but the hallway is empty, and my footsteps go unheeded by anyone except me.

I clean up as best as I can, then I head to my quarters where I change, discarding the tattered shorts I have worn out and outgrown. I don a threadbare pair of jeans that had belonged to my father and boots whose treads have long since been sacrificed to innumerable steps within these walls. They are thin and hard and they rub my feet in places I am not used to them being rubbed.

I pack up the few meager objects I cannot bear to leave behind. I know that, as soon as I am gone, the scavengers will descend to pick through them. Let them.

Finally, I move the chair across the room to the side that has been my space for the past three years. It wobbles precariously and sags as I step onto it and gingerly remove the flower drawing from the ceiling. This I fold in half once, twice, thrice, then tuck into the pocket of my shirt.

I leave the pages from the book with all the security codes on the seat. I don't need them. I keep the rest with me. Those people I leave behind will need the codes, if they ever decide to go. After today, after what will transpire in the next few hours, I wonder if anyone will want to stay.

Maybe the Fujimuras. I have a feeling they came here fully cognizant that Bunker Eight might be their final resting place. What a monument it will be, a testament to futility, denial, and lies.

A few more stops, a few more rooms to visit. Another hour passes. Then I have a some time to kill before dawn, so I return to Level Four and wait by the front door for the sky to lighten, watching for the first telltales signs of color to tinge the tiny black and white screen on the wall.

How strong our minds must be to imagine something that isn't there. How resilient our will to conjure up a false truth when there is absolutely no evidence of it. Or even when there is proof to the contrary.

He's not the person you think he is.

No, none of us is.

By the time I return upstairs, word has spread that I've called a meeting. Several pairs of eyes turn when I exit the stairwell, all of them filled with expectation and puzzlement and not a small amount of anxiety. What am I up to, now that I have been freed from the prison of my grief?

Bix meets me first, stepping quickly over and grabbing my arm. “Everything's ready,” he tells me. “I'm in. So's Dad.”

“And the others?”

“Everyone you said to tell except Bren. I tried, but I couldn't get to her. Her parents . . . .”

I consider this for a moment. Then I shrug. I'll just have to wait and see what happens, trust her to act according to her heart and her sense of reason. Naturally, I hope for one outcome in particular, but I know it's a long shot.

“There's something else, Finn.” His eyes grow dark and his face is grim. “Missus Resnick . . . .” He shakes his head.

It takes me a moment to parse the look on his face, to understand its meaning. “How?” I ask.

“She hung herself.”

I suppose it doesn't surprise me. I only hope it wasn't Bix who found her.

The door to the Abramson's quarters opens, and Seth steps out. I see Bren and her mother behind him. Their faces are closed at first, stoic, except for a flash of sorrow in Bren's eyes. Emotions are vulnerabilities, and right now few of us are comfortable showing them.

But then relief fills Mister Abramson's eyes. “I'm so glad to see you up again, Finn.” He steps over to me, reaching out with both arms, but he stops when I step back. “Of course. I understand. You need time and space.”

The hallway is filling up as the rest of the group congregate around us. There are twenty-four of us left, though not quite that many currently in attendance. I catch a glimpse of the Fujimuras hanging near the back. The bodies push in close enough to hear, closer than I would have felt comfortable with in the past. But now . . . . Now, none of it bothers me anymore.

“Bix said you have an announcement to make,” Mister Abramson says. He folds his hands together in front of him and waits.

I swallow and nod. “First, I want to say how grateful I am to everyone for all of your support. The past couple of weeks have been hard on all of us— not that the past three years has been especially easy. The terrible things we've been forced to witness, no person should ever have to.” I shrug. “Sometimes we just have to accept what is and move on.”

“Move on? This sounds suspiciously like a farewell speech,” Mister Abramson says, an anxious smile curling one corner of his mouth. He looks around, perhaps expecting a few relieved chuckles to break the otherwise palpable tension that hangs over us. But nobody's laughing. He ends his sweep by looking pointedly at my empty hands. I certainly don't look like I'm leaving, and that's exactly my intention.

“Leaving would be suicide,” I say, echoing my own oft-repeated warning.

“Yes. Exactly, Finn.”

“But so is staying.”

He frowns.

I take a deep breath and try to calm my nerves. Suddenly, I'm not so sure of this. I mean, I'm committed, just not sure doing it like this was the best idea. But then I remember Jonah's words to me this morning as he begged my forgiveness, and I know it has to be done.

“The people we've lost here the past few days didn't have to die,” I start. My voice grows stronger as I continue. “Doc Cavanaugh and Rory, my father, Jack Resnick, Eddie. We can't let their losses be for nothing. We may be the last individuals of our species. Even if we're not, every life needs to have meaning. Every death should, too.”

I turn and step over to the elevator, and I press the button. The doors open almost immediately. “I want to show you something.”

I gesture for everyone to get on. It's a big lift, and we can all fit inside comfortably. They all begin to file in, each of them giving my face a good stare. But I keep my feelings behind a mask.

Bren steps in after everyone else, her mother fiercely gripping her hand. I press the button for Level Ten.

“The dungeon?” she says, a flicker of fear in her eyes.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” I assure her.

The doors shut and the elevator lurches a moment before descending. I watch as the light above my head shifts from 3 to 4, then upward through the numbers as we descend deeper into the dam. When the doors rattle wide again, a humid waft of cold air envelops us, smelling musty and oily. The rumble of the power plant travels to our ears, through our feet as much as through the air.

There's too little space in the hallway, certainly not enough to hold two dozen people, so I quickly step over to the heavy steel door to the sump pump station, key in the security access code, and open it. There's a broad landing just inside, deep enough and wide enough to accommodate us all.

When we're all in, I shut the door behind me.

The group waits expectantly. Missus Abramson's hand is a claw on Bren's shoulder, clutching it as if she's afraid Bren might fly away if she were to let go. Right next to them, Mister Abramson doesn't seem very concerned at all, just curious.

I see Bix near the back, his arms crossed over his chest as he blocks access to the catwalk. His father leans languidly against the near wall and stares out into the shadows to the far side.

I clear my throat, drawing their attention. I'm as nervous as I remember being at my first piano recital at age seven — my first and last — yet Mister Blakeley is as calm as Harper was at his, despite everything I confessed to him doing last night. Despite his knowing what I have planned for now.

“What's this about, Finn?” Stephen Largent asks.

Little Mia is tucked beneath his arm, while Sammy is with his mother. Both are straining to see over the railing, their backs turned to me. I don't think they've been down to this level since it was banned.

I suspect the Rollins boys have, though. They look too comfortable, planted on their butts on the railing at each of the far corners of the platform. They hook their toes on the crossbars and lean back over the abyss in the manner typical of teenagers. Fran Rollins slaps at Jacob, tells them both to stop it and pay attention.

“I want to talk about why we're in here,” I say. “Why we're in this bunker.”

“The Flense,” Dominic Green says. “We're in here because the Wraiths are out there.”

I nod, shrug. “So how do we know when the Wraiths are gone? Do we believe a stranger who suddenly shows up on our doorstep?”

“Maybe,” Dominic Green says.

“Do I need to remind everyone that he never actually said there weren't any?” Susan Miller counters. “He said he didn't see any, but that may be because he came by boat on the river.”

Dozens of feet shift and I hear a lot of murmuring, but no one offers any sort of challenge.

“What if I told you I believe him?” I ask.

“You?” Seth asks. He looks puzzled, and understandably so. Of all the people in the bunker, I've been the most skeptical that outside is safe. “You have proof?”

I shake my head. “Me personally? No.”

“You personally? What does that mean?”

But I'm not ready to tell him about Jonah's forays outside. Not quite yet. There is something else I need to address first.

“I suppose we could just stay in here until the food runs out, ” I muse. “Or when the power finally fails for good. But I suppose containment might fail before then. It already has, hasn't it?”

“Jonah was responsible for the power fluctuations, Finn. What are you getting at?”

“I know about that,” I say. “I spoke with him last night. He admitted to messing with the lights. Both he and his father. It was Jack's idea, all of it. He wanted to push us toward leaving.”

“Then good riddance to them,” Julia Largent spits. “I never liked any of them.”

Several people nod, including many who voted for Jack to take over being the leader from my dad. I push the anger rising inside of me back down. Now is not the time to revisit that. And they're not the only ones who made mistakes. We all have.

“Jack was afraid we'd gotten too complacent inside here. He knew it would take something big to shake us up, open our eyes and minds. For Dad to open those doors. None of us is exactly happy about being here, not even me, but who among us was willing to take the chance and be the first to go outside?”

No one answers. They're all still trying to figure out my change in attitude.

“I'm not justifying what they did. I think the way they went about it was wrong and stupid and arrogant. But what was even stupider was not planning our departure from this place sooner. And for that I blame my father. Part of the blame is also mine. Everyone knows why.”

“So, you've had a change of heart? You always feared the Wraiths.”

“Jack had proof they were gone. And I'm not talking about the stranger saying so.”

“Proof? There's no proof!” Mister Abramson shakes his head and gives me a stern look. “Finn, I don't think you're thinking straight. You're still in shock. We all are. Just a few days ago you were begging your father not to open the door to anyone, including this stranger you now seem inclined to believe wholeheartedly.”

“I don't believe the stranger. I don't know what he wanted or what he knew. I don't know why he left. I'm talking about what we knew before he even arrived. Jack was so adamant about opening the doors because he knew the Wraiths were gone.”

“How could he possibly know?”

“Because I told him,” a voice calls out from the opposite end of the chamber. Two dozen heads turn in unison as Jonah steps out from behind the control booth on the other end of the catwalk.

There's a gasp, and Mister Abramson cries out in surprise and anger. “How did you get out of that room? I locked the door! Who let you out? Who broke your chains?”

He tries to push his way through to the catwalk, but he barely makes it a couple steps before Bix's dad is there, twisting his arm behind his back to stop him. “What the hell are you doing, Harrison?” Seth cries. “Let go of me!”

“Let the young man speak,” Mister Blakeley quietly says.

“That boy is a murderer! He confessed! We all heard him!”

“No, he isn't,” Hannah says, appearing beside Jonah from behind the control booth. “He never killed anyone.”

“Hannah!” Fran Rollins shouts. “You're wrong, young lady. Get away from him. That man is dangerous. He tried to kill your father!”

“No!” I yell. “Neither Jonah nor Jack cut the pipe. They had no reason to hurt Eddie, but someone else did.”

“Jonah is the killer,” Dominic Green says. “He's violent! Why else would he be teaching people how to kill? Why would he force me to learn?”

“I never forced anyone!”

“Bren Abramson!” Dom says, spinning around to address her. “You know. You were there, too.”

“Bren?” her mother cries out in surprise.

“The boy's unstable!” Dominic screams. “Listen to me!”

“Hannah's telling the truth,” I say. “Jonah isn't a murderer. Sure, he messed with the lights, but only to scare us, as I said. But you're wrong about the rest. He was trying to teach people how to defend themselves once we left the bunker, not from the Wraiths, but from whatever else might be out there. He didn't kill anyone. He didn't kill my father. And neither did Jack.”

“Finn?” Bren says, breaking away from her mother. She takes a single step closer before stopping just out of my reach. I hate the way she's looking at me, a combination of fear and pity. “Your dad—”

“Died. I know. Because of what he knew. Same as Doctor Cavanaugh. The murderer tried to silence her; he didn't realize that my father knew, too. Or that I did. It wasn't until Dad checked the monitors in the watch room that the murderer had to strike again. The identity of the killer was on those cameras.”

“That's ridiculous,” Mister Abramson spits. He struggles against Mister Blakeley's hold on him, but there's little he can do as long as his arm is twisted behind his back. “You shame your father by denying the truth of what happened! By denying the real killer. Shame on you! How can you refuse to accept the truth? Everyone knows there was no love lost between your father and Jack. Bren! Honey, get away from Finn.”

“You believe Jack killed my father?”

Mister Abramson sputters. “Yes, Jack. Because he hated your dad.”

“Then who killed Jack? It couldn't have been my father because there was no weapon inside that room.”

“It was Jonah! He killed the others, including his own father. He admitted to it!”

“He said the words, 'I killed them'?”

“Well, no.”

“Why would Jonah kill his own father?”

“Because.”

Mister Abramson finally wrestles free of Bix's dad and steps toward me. For a moment he looks like he's going to push Bren away, but he just steps between us.

I hold a hand up to stay Bix's dad.

Mister Abramson places a hand gently on my shoulder. “That whole family was sick. Jonah hated his dad, feared him. Everyone knew that.”

“Not enough to kill him.”

“Yes, enough to kill him. Because he was deathly afraid that Jack would discover the truth about him.” He throws his head back and shouts over his shoulder so everyone can hear his next words. “Isn't that true, Jonah? You have a secret your father could never know?”

The question is met with stone cold silence.

“What truth about Jonah?” Bren whispers.

“That boy did everything to curry his father's favor,” Mister Abramson replies, not to his daughter, but to me. “We all know that. We've all seen it, been repulsed by it. But who are we to judge? Jack Resnick wasn't a horrible role model: intelligent, assertive, driven. In this world, those attributes can be useful, essential. Your father recognized that, Finn. Most importantly of all, Jack Resnick was fiercely protective of his own.”

Now he turns to Bren. “A trait I fully understand and endorse myself.”

He steps away from us then, makes his way back to the railing, though he steers clear of the catwalk. “But by the same token, Jack Resnick was an incredibly oppressive man, wasn't he, son? And it was this trait that made him the worst kind of father there could ever be. He just couldn't accept anything that didn't fit exactly into his world view. Am I not right?”

Still Jonah refuses to speak, whether to defend his father, to deny the claim, or to agree.

“If something didn't fit into Jack Resnick's world view, he rejected it!” Mister Abramson shouts, emphasizing each word with a slap of his hand on the railing. The harsh sounds peal through the chamber. “That's what Jonah was so afraid of, of being rejected. He was so scared of his father discovering the truth about him that he would rather kill the man than be rejected by him.”

“That's a lie!” Jonah roars, and he starts to run across the catwalk. Hannah tries to grab him, but misses.

“What truth?” Bren asks. “Daddy?”

“The truth about Jonah Resnick.”

“No!” Jonah yells. “Don't!” But he's too far away to stop him, and he knows it. He collapses onto the catwalk and sobs. “Please.”

Seth Abramson turns and glares at me. There's a wicked gleefulness in his eyes that makes me shiver, but it's his next words which chill me to the bone: “People are seldom who you think they are, aren't they, Jonah?”

“Okay, okay,” Jonah pleads. “I won't go.”

The grin on Seth's face widens. “Now you're talking sensibly. Why don't we all return upstairs?”

“Jonah?” I ask.

But he shakes his head. “It's over. I  I can't.”

Seth Abramson takes advantage of the confusion to push his way past Bix. By the time I can react, he's halfway up the catwalk to Jonah.

“Get up, killer,” he growls, pulling him up by the shirt. He starts to drag him back toward the group. Jonah's taller, probably stronger, but he doesn't resist.

“You can't!” Hannah screams. “He didn't do anything! Stop him!”

“Four people are dead because of him,” Seth declares. “Maybe more.”

“Liar!” I run after him and try to block his way.

“It's over, Finn. Move.”

“Let him go.”

“You heard Jonah. It's over.”

“It's not. You say he killed those people? I don't believe it for a moment, but let's say for the sake of argument I give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Finn, no!” Hannah cries.

I ignore her. “Explain to me why he would kill Doctor Cavanaugh. Why would he or Jack want her dead?”

Impatience flickers across the man's face. “I don't know! And I don't really care! His mind is sick.”

“You talk about secrets, Mister Abramson, but you're the one hiding the truth.” I point a finger at his face. “Before this, I didn't know who the real killer was. I just knew it wasn't Jonah. But now—”

“Get out of my way!”

“What did she know?” I demand. “What did Doc Cavanaugh find out about those things in Eddie's blood that you had to kill her to keep it secret?”

“Dad?” Bren says, her voice shaking. But her father ignores her, and keeps his gaze locked onto mine.

“What are you hiding?” I demand.

“Daddy? Is this true?”

Finally, the mask begins to crumble. His eyes flick to the crowd behind him, revealing panic. I sense the disquiet spreading among everyone as the truth sinks in.

I had hoped and prayed that it wouldn't be him. Oh god, how I wanted it not to be. Just the possibility that it might be almost stopped me from acting, because I knew how much it would shatter Bren's world, her soul. But I had to know. I had to find out who and why for Dad.

And this charade of laying the blame on Jonah? How long did he think it would hold? Or threatening to expose some other secret, would it somehow keep his own guilt from coming to light?

Whatever it is that Jonah's hiding, it can't be worse than this. Can it?

“What did she find,” Fran Rollins asks. “What was in Eddie's blood? What's in ours?”

I turn to him, but his face is stone, hard and etched by years of pretense. His eyes glint with ice. It's become clear to him that he can't hide anymore. He releases Jonah and shoves him toward me. Then he steps backward over him, putting Jonah between us.

Hannah's behind him, about twenty feet away, and now I fear for her vulnerability. Three or four long strides and he'd have her in his clasp. As if sensing this, she grips the handrails even harder.

“You want to know the truth? Fine. It's not like it matters anymore. Before the outbreak,” Mister Abramson says, his voice low and menacing, “I worked for a company that developed medical tools, surgical instruments, implants. We were focused on tissue healing, cellular repair and remodeling, regeneration.”

“Dad?” Bren's face is white. So is her mother's. “I thought you did computer programming?”

“I did, honey. I couldn't tell you the whole truth because it was a top secret project, layers upon layers deep within organizations nested within other organizations. The potential for good was huge. Other parties, however, were interested in other . . . applications. We had to be very careful in choosing our partners. And what we shared with them. But even then, we couldn't control everything, and there was the inevitable leak.”

“Seth,” his wife pleads. “Stop.”

I almost believe she's going to cover her ears, but she doesn't.

“I was the lead firmware programmer in charge of cybernetic interfacing.”

“What does that mean?”

“Specifically, Finn, it means that I wrote the code that controls those things inside Eddie’s body. Nanites. Tiny little computerized robots.”

“No!” Bren wails.

“The tech entered limited clinical trials in Asia a decade ago. Top secret and all. Everything looked really good and the government here decided that we could move forward testing them out on a much broader scale.”

“How broad?”

“General distribution. The entire population.”

“What?” Kari shrieks. “I never agreed— How dare you?”

“The tech was for the good of us all.”

“Good? How can any of this possibly be good?”

“Oh, spare me your false indignation, Kari. Without them inside his body, without my intervention, Eddie Mancuso would have died within days. Our nanites saved his life! My program saved his life! If I hadn’t been here to activate—”

He stops abruptly, as if realizing he's already said too much.

“Those things turned him into something he wasn't before,” I tell him. “I've seen Eddie. He's changed.”

Mister Abramson shrugs. “Changed is such an imprecise term, Finn. I would have said improved.”

“If they're so good, then why did you have to kill Doctor Cavanaugh? Why keep it a secret?”

“The technology was stolen, then corrupted. We don’t know by whom. That’s what we’ve been trying to ascertain.” He raises his hands to plead with us. “It wasn’t our fault. We were trying to stop it!”

And then it comes to me, what he's not been saying, why he would go to such lengths to keep us from finding out the truth.

“It's the Flense, isn't it? These things in our blood, they're the Flense.”

Mister Abramson turns his gaze onto me, and I can tell by the look in his eye that I'm right, or at least partially so.

“Smart boy,” he says. “You get the prize for almost figuring it out.”

Behind me, Missus Abramson gasps. She's not the only one.

“Almost?” I say. But of course it can't be the whole truth. If the things inside of us are responsible for the Flense, then why haven't we turned into Wraiths?

He nods, sensing that I've recognized the conundrum, and a humorless grin that doesn't reach his eyes taints his lips. “So close, yet still miles away from the answer. Light years away, in fact. I told you, we were trying to stop it.”

“Why are we even in here?” Kari asks. “Why lock us up inside this bunker?”

“For your protection, of course.”

“That's a lie. How can these walls protect us when we've brought the very thing we're hiding from in with us?”

He shakes his head. “There's so much you don't know.”

“Then educate us.”

“No, I don't think I can do that.”

“The injections at the evacuation center,” I whisper. “What were they? If we already had them inside our bodies, then what were the injections? They certainly weren't vitamin D.”

“Ah, and yet another connection made! Brilliant boy.” Mister Abramson's eyes pierce the gloom, and everyone waits. “A fix, that's all you need to know.”

Then he shakes his head, and I realize that he won't ever tell us the whole truth. Not because keeping secrets has become a habit he can't break, but because the knowledge he holds is his only leverage against us now, against us casting him into the rapids for the heinous acts he committed.

“It doesn't matter,” I say. “We're leaving. We don't need to know. We'll figure it out for ourselves.”

“That would be the worst thing you could do.” He turns to the others. “It would mean the end of all of you.”

They shuffle their feet uncertainly.

“Now, why don't we all just return upstairs? We'll talk about this in more comfortable surroundings, get something to eat. I'll tell you what to expect moving forward.”

He turns around and gestures for Hannah to join the main group. “You, too, young lady.”

“No,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Suit yourself. Stay down here, but you will, eventually, have to return. Get up, Resnick.”

“No,” I shout, echoing Hannah's refusal. “I told you we're leaving.”

I turn to the rest of the group and say, “He believes it's suicide to leave. Well, so is staying here with this murderer.”

Their wariness of him is growing. I can see it in more people’s eyes. But the look of doubt others give me is even stronger.

“Stay if you want, I won't force anyone to leave. But if you do stay, I advise you to lock him up.”

I focus my gaze on Bren, and my heart shatters. She looks like she's in shock. But the way she's clutching to her mother, and the way her mother is holding onto her, and neither of them is moving, tells me all I need to know.

Bix and his father step out onto the catwalk. When he reaches Jonah, Bix offers him a hand, then pulls him up when he accepts it. I'm surprised when Mister Abramson lets them pass.

“Anyone else?” I ask.

“Where?” asks Kari. “How?”

“Through that door,” I say. “We're going to find Bunker Twelve.”

I pull the key from my pocket, the one I'd made Hannah give to me out of a secret fear that she and Jonah would leave without me. “There's a tunnel that leads through the mountain and goes outside. Jonah's been through it several times. It's how he knows the Wraiths are gone.”

Seth Abramson sneers at us. “They aren't gone. You're a fool if you believe that.”

“Finn?” Bren says. Her voice is so tiny, so fragile, and yet it tugs at me with such force that I very nearly stumble.

Kari steps forward and joins us. But she's the only one of the group. All the others shuffle back, as if they might be sucked out with us when I unlock the door at the opposite end of the room.

I can't blame them for choosing to stay, despite the killer in their midst. Three years of the same, ostensibly safe, routine is a hard rut to break out of. I know. I feel for them, but I also have to trust that they'll figure out how to deal with what Mister Abramson has done. Maybe they're even able to rationalize it in some strange, twisted way.

And maybe someday he'll tell them the whole story. I doubt it though. Why arm them with information they could use against him? Why give them excuses to leave him?

They'll stay until the food runs out. Or the facility breaks down on its own. Whatever happens, I don't know. I don't care.

Except for Bren.

Can't think about that now. She's made her choice.

I look at her one last time, but she can't even meet my eyes. She won't fight for me. Or for herself. And her words to me just a few days ago echo hollowly in my mind: I’ll go wherever you are.

Let her stay then. She deserves whatever happens to her.

No, she doesn't.

But I won't force her. I can't.

I turn away and begin to cross the catwalk. I expect Mister Abramson to grab me as I pass. Our shoulders rub, and the sensation makes my skin crawl. But he lets me go. It's not until my hand cramps that I realize I'm gripping the handrail as if it's a rope I'm climbing, up and out of some dark terrible pit.

One step after the other. And when I get to the other end and turn, he still hasn't moved. I see the pile of our meager belongings Bix and Hannah brought down earlier. It sits in the darkness beside the locked door.

It's now or never, Finn-meister, Bix's voice tells me in my mind.

I ask Hannah if she's spoken to the people on the other side of the door, and she says yes. “They'll come with us.”

I nod. There's no reason for them to stay hidden in the dark anymore, not if their source of food is gone. And I know they won't want to join the others we leave behind in the bunker. They've been free to come and go as they please, tied here for reasons which no longer bear any relevance.

“And your father?”

“He's waiting in there, too,” she says, and gives me a smile. I glance down and notice that she's holding Bix's hand. He wears an awkward grin, but there's a fierceness in his eyes that dares me to say something. I don’t. I'm glad to see it.

I give Hannah the key. Then I turn back one last time. Mister Abramson is still just standing there, still as a statue. It worries me that he doesn't try to stop us. It worries me that he doesn't even seem all that concerned that we're leaving. In fact, he's still got that relentless little smirk on his face.

“Finn?” Hannah says.

Damn you, Seth Abramson, I silently curse. Damn you to hell for what you've done to me, to Bren. To us all.

And still he just stands there like he's won. It's infuriating, but I refuse to let my anger show.

“Finn, I can't.”

“Can't what, Hannah? Your dad's waiting for us. Hurry up. It's time to go.”

“No, I mean I can't put the key in. Someone's blocked up the hole.”

“Honey?”

We all spin around at the sound of Eddie's voice. When Hannah opens the panel, his eyes peer out of the darkness on the other side, reflecting the pale light from the caged lantern over the door.

“Honey, what’s the matter? What’s taking so long?”

The rest of his hairless head is in silhouette, backlit by a single naked bulb deep down what appears to be a passageway rough-hewn through naked rock. His scalp is covered in oily soot, and a dank, earthy smell wafts out on a cool breeze. It smells of tamped dirt, but also of filth and human waste and unwashed bodies, and for the first time I realize that this is the primary source of the smell down here, not the stagnant water down below.

What horrible conditions must the handful of survivors on the other side of that door be enduring? No climate control. No facilities. Just a little light inside a cave.

“Unlock the door, sweetie.”

“I can't, Daddy.”

“Pass me the key. I'll try it from this side.”

A laugh echoes through the large chamber, sending shards of ice through my veins. “You didn't really think I'd just let you leave, did you? I'm doing you all a favor. The world out there is a killing field. None of you would last more than a few hours in it. Stay in here where you'll be safe.”

“Safe? Liar!” I scream. Rage courses through me, and before I know what I'm doing, I'm charging down the catwalk at him. “Murderer!”

There's a flicker of fear in his eyes, but he smothers it almost immediately. The smirk, along with that steely cold glint to his eyes, returns with the ease of a man who is comfortable masking his true self. “Don't be a fool, Finnian,” he says, planting his feet and leaning forward to brace himself against my charge.

I launch my body from ten feet away, but he deftly steps to the side, swinging his hand down like a hammer onto my back, driving me to the floor. My shoulder hits the metal grating, shredding through the thin material of my shirt and tearing the flesh of my arm. Half sliding, half tumbling, I come to a stop past him, wedged between the rails. By the time I've extracted myself, Mister Abramson is already striding away from me toward the small band gathered around the locked door.

“No one is leaving until I say so.”

“Seth,” Eddie says. The door rattles, but doesn't open. Whatever Mister Abramson has done to it, it can't be unlocked. “Be reasonable, man. Just let us go.”

Jonah steps forward to block him, but Mister Abramson's fist is a blur as it smashes into his gut. The sucker punch is totally unexpected, and it launches Jonah back against Bix, knocking them both to the ground. A second fist lands on Mister Blakely's temple. He falls like a tree against Kari.

People are shouting now, crying out in surprise and dismay, ordering him to stop. I feel hands on my arms, slipping underneath my back to help me to my feet. Bren cries out. Her mother calls Seth's name. They're both sobbing.

Mister Abramson wrenches Hannah away from the door with one hand, nearly yanking her off her feet, and he slams the metal panel on the door shut with the other. “And you can tell your friends over there that there will be no more food!” he shouts over his shoulder.

Eddie slams against the other side of the door. The sound booms across the chamber, ricocheting off the walls. Bam! BAM! His voice is muffled as he yells for his daughter. BAM! BAM! BAM!

Mister Abramson shoves Hannah before him, and she screams in pain as her hip hits the railing. She tumbles to the catwalk, sobbing, calling for her father.

“HANNAAAHHHH!”

BAM! BAM!

“Get up, you little bitch! Move it!” He gives her a kick, eliciting another wail.

BAM! BAM!

BAM-CRUNCH!

Mister Abramson spins around in alarm. Eddie slams again, and there's another crunch, then a ping as a bolt breaks free from the cement and arcs to the floor. It tumbles off the walkway and plunks into the water below a couple seconds later.

Everything seems to stop, everything but Eddie's pounding and his anguished cries.

The stone crumbles around the top corner of the door, turns to rubble and powder.

This gets Mister Abramson moving again. He reaches down and grabs Hannah by the hair and wrenches her to her feet. “Get up! Get the hell up!”

Her shriek of pain rends the air. She tries to fight him as he drags her away from her father. The look in his eyes is insane. This is the man who killed four people in cold blood, including my father, just to keep a secret. He needs to be stopped. I yell at him to let Hannah go, but there is no more reason in the man.

“Move it, Bolles!” he rages.

I become acutely aware of my vulnerability out here on the catwalk. He could easily flip me over the side, sending my body to shatter on the pumps below.

With one last massive BAM! the door at the far end of the room flies off its hinges and crashes heavily to the floor, barely missing Jonah and Kari.

Mister Abramson drops Hannah. He turns, but when he sees Eddie step out in to the light, he spins around again and begins to run toward me. Now the screams behind me are of horror.

Eddie's a terrifying sight to behold— pale gray skin, smooth and hairless and etched with dark veins. His face is twisted in fury, writhing with emotion, contorting like some fluid-filled thing. His eyes are two limpid pools, oily and glistening, glowing as if they are producing their own light. The skin on his knuckles is riven from his assault on the steel door. Blood covers his fists and shoulders, courses down his arms. He truly is a monster.

Mister Abramson pounds toward me, the sharp sounds of his shoes on the metal pinging against the cement walls. But Eddie moves like a cat. He leaps over Hannah and reaches the man before I can even react. He sweeps him up with a roar, lifting him over his head.

“No!” I shout. “Stop!”

It would kill Bren if I allowed it to happen. It would kill her and that would kill me. I spared his life to spare hers. I spared it to save me from suffering his death every day of the rest of my life.

Eddie's body shudders from feet to hands. His arms twitch with strength he never possessed before. He extends them to their full length, preparing to hurl the man over the side.

“Eddie, stop!” I yell again. “You're not a killer.”

He turns his face toward me, and those eyes seem to pierce my soul.

Hannah's there now, reaching for her father. There's a cut on her cheek, and another line of blood trickles down her forehead. “Daddy, please.”

“We're better than this, “I tell him.

I sense someone standing behind me, and I turn to see Bren there. I can't tell what the look is on her face, whether it's disappointment or disgust or something else. Maybe it's both of those things. “Don't do this, Eddie,” she whispers. “Please. He's my father.”

“He's a murderer, Bren,” Eddie tells her. “And it's likely he may have done worse.”

His eyes flick past her and over to her mother. “And what about you? What's your role in all this?”

“She had nothing to do with any of it,” Seth says, his voice little more than a tight whisper.

The muscles in Eddie's face ripple, not from the exertion of holding up the large man, but from the struggle inside his head.

I turn once more to the group and ask again who wants to come with us. This time, the Rollins and their two boys step forward, as does Susan Miller and Danny Delacroix. Julia Largent tries, but Stephen stops her with his arm. Mia and Sammy look scared. The Fujimuras, the Caprios, Dominic Green, and Chip Darby also remain behind.

“You heard the boy,” Mister Abramson says. His voice is shaking. “Put me down, Mancuso.”

Eddie glances at me again, and I give him a slight nod. Slowly, he lowers the man until he's standing on the catwalk. Sweat glistens on Seth's forehead, drips down his face. Once more, the smug grin is back.

“Jonah—” he begins.

But my fist catches him square under the chin, and his body folds over the railing. If Eddie hadn't still been holding him, he would've gone over the side. I guide his limp body down to the walkway.

I turn one last time. “Sorry,” I whisper to Bren. “But we can't stay.”

For a moment, I see something in her eyes, a desire, a longing for something better. And I give her one last chance to come with us.

She looks past me and over to Hannah, to Bix and Jonah. Mister Blakeley is getting groggily to his feet. Then she returns her gaze to me and she says, “I  I can't go.”

I nod. ”Lock him up.”

And then I'm gone, before anything else can stop me, including the blinding tears threatening to burst from my eyes.

“Dude, you want to explain to me what happened back there?” Bix asks me as we scramble up the tunnel. His voice sounds hollow, empty, like the walls are somehow soaking it up. And yet at the same time our footsteps are loud, scratching at my ears. Perhaps I'm just hyper-aware of them, afraid we're being followed.

The passageway narrows, forcing Bix to walk behind me, giving me an excuse not to answer him.

We had begun to climb not twenty feet into the tunnel. It slopes steadily upward in a twisting path, so that we can't see more than a dozen feet in either direction. Steps have been chiseled out of the rock in some places, but for the most part, the floor, walls, and ceiling are uneven, the tunnel narrowing and widening without reason, so we have to pay attention not to trip or hit our heads.

The lighting is just as inconsistent. Half of the bulbs strung along the ceiling are dark or missing; they're heavily draped with old cobwebs and littered with the ancient corpses of insects. We race from one puddle of light to the next, and each time we leave another and the darkness shrinks toward us, I fear something is going to reach out and grab me.

“That was some crazy-ass shit back there, Finn,” Bix tries again. “Like, insane in the membrane crazy. I thought for sure we were all dead.”

His father doesn't comment on the profanity, though he does ask Bix to be quiet.

I'm grateful for the reprieve. I don't want to talk about what happened, about how much my heart hurts right now. Besides, the stink is so bad that it makes my eyes water, and it's only growing worse the farther we get. The last thing I want to do is open my mouth to speak.

Not Bix, though. He gags and says, “What the hell is that obnoxious smell?”

“Human excrement, body odor,” his father answers, shushing him again.

Up ahead in the lead, Eddie points to a door on the left, the first we've passed since entering. “They use this one for a toilet.”

We hold our breath, cupping our hands over our mouths and noses as we pass. The stink is so thick that I can feel it coating my skin, my throat, seeping into my hair and clothes.

But once the door falls behind us, the fetid odor quickly dissipates. A breeze from above blows it downward. It's a wonder Level Ten didn't smell worse.

“I can't believe you let that bastard live,” Bix starts up again. “If it was me—”

“Enough already!” I snap. “It wasn't you, Bix, so shut up!”

I'm a little irritated that he didn't jump in and help when the situation went south. But I'm even more irritated that he might be right, that I made the wrong decision allowing Seth Abramson to live. I hope I don't regret it. I hope the ones we left behind heed my warning and lock him up.

“Okay, dude. I get it.”

“Naw, man. I'm sorry,” I apologize, softening my tone. “Thing is, it wasn't your father. Okay? And it wasn't your girlfriend, either. I mean, what was I supposed to do with Bren standing right there? I couldn't let her watch her father die.”

“It's cool, Finn. Really. You did what you had to do. It was the right thing, and I respect that. In fact, I'm—”

“Bixby Michael Blakely,” his father quietly says. “No more talking, please.”

I hate the way my resentment feels inside of me, hot and greasy, weighing a million pounds, like a big, hot, greasy million-pound ball of burning lard sitting on my soul. I hate that I let my feelings for Bren get in the way; hate even more that I won't let my feelings for her keep me from doing the one thing I've been dreading most the past three years: leaving.

Leaving without her.

Then I think about the horrifying things her father did to Doc Cavanaugh, how he tore her body to pieces to mask his crime. The coldblooded way he murdered Rory and Dad and Jack. The heartless way he'd tried to destroy Jonah.

What is his secret? What could be so bad that Jonah would willingly stay behind?

I tell myself I don’t care, but I know it's a lie. I want to know. I need to know.

Jonah's silence eats at me. I feel like he's judging me, too, wishing I'd not intervened when Eddie was going to throw Mister Abramson over the side.

Hannah touches my elbow. “You did the right thing, Finn,” she assures me. “You're not a murderer.”

“Maybe.”

But if I'm wrong about this, then I could be sentencing us to death by taking us out of the bunker. On the other hand, am I committing the others to death by not forcing them to come with us?

They know the risks.

So, what are the risks to us?

What if the Wraiths aren't really gone? What if they're still out there despite Jonah's claim to the contrary? And what about the Flense?

I should've tried harder to get Mister Abramson to talk.

I clench my jaw and keep walking. No way am I crawling back there. I'm done with that place.

I stumble into Jonah's back, not noticing that everyone else has stopped. He grunts and steps to the side without a word, opening a gap that shows me we've entered some kind of chamber carved out of the mountain. It's lit only by stray light from the corridor. His face is slack as he turns to look at me, his eyes devoid of emotion. I'm about to ask him if he's okay and why he stopped when shapes begin to emerge out of the shadows.

Bix gasps. I think most of us do.

They are little more than skeletons, their skin pale and draped over their bones. Their eyes are sunken.

A baby's soft burble draws my attention to a woman standing near the back. Her arms are withered sticks, her fingers knotted and scarred twigs. The pale bleached bark of her skin is withered. Her white hair is thin, scraggly, and oily. She steps forward, more into the light.

For my fifteenth birthday, my sister Leah had bought me a Walking Dead tee shirt, the one with Carl eating a gallon tub of chocolate pudding and the hashtag #loveatfirstbite. I'd had it on the day we left home and, after wearing it for five straight days, had gladly exchanged it for the jumpsuit they gave me at the evac center. The woman is wearing that tee shirt now. She must have scavenged it out of my abandoned bag from the bus.

“Hannah,” I whisper. I pull off my rucksack and hand it to her while holding my gaze on the woman. I can't take my eyes off of her and the tiny bundle in her arms. “Open a couple cans of stew. Feed the new people first. Let's take a few moments to figure out what we're going to do next.”

“What are we going to do?” Kari asks. She sounds like she may already be second-guessing her decision to follow us out. The others I hadn't already prepped early this morning nod as well.

I had had a plan. We were going to find the stranger's mythical Bunker Twelve. We'd all agreed to it — Bix and his dad, Jonah, Hannah — though we had no clear idea how we were going to do it, other than to retrace our steps back to the evacuation center. Jonah had assured me he could remember the entire route we took, but now I'm not so confident. He's utterly withdrawn inside of himself.

I just hope he was telling the truth that the bus he'd been working on for the past couple of weeks is as close to running as he said it was.

The sight of these people, however, forces me to rethink my strategy. I hadn't expected them to be so emaciated.

“Well, first, we need to make sure we're strong enough to move,” I say, and I settle down on my haunches while they eat.

A man steps forward. He's as gaunt as the woman is, and his eyes are haunted by an animal-like wariness, but his jaw is set in a determined line. I notice a patch on his shoulder and realize that he's one of the guards who protected us when we first arrived. I don't recognize him. I doubt I would, even if I'd known him before.

“We're strong,” he asserts, coughing into his fist. It's an alarming rattling sound. “We won't slow you down.”

I’m not so sure.

* * *

There are six of them, three men, two women, and the baby, a year old according to Hannah but it seems too small. They tell us how they defended the complex as long as they could after our arrival, pushing the initial wave of Wraiths back, killing them when they got too close. According to their orders, they were supposed to wait for the second bus to arrive, though it never did, of course.

The Wraiths kept coming, and in desperation the band took their refuge inside the mountain.

“There were originally more of us here,” the man, whose name is John, tells us. John Nash. “We lost three a couple days later. The other half of our crew, seven more, got cut off from us and ran for the petrol station on the other end of the dam.”

“What happened to them? Did they survive?”

“After a couple days had passed, we were growing frantic for supplies. We had no food or water, so we sent three men over to scout. They never came back. Meantime, Alli over there—” He points at the other woman. “She got lucky, went down below and managed to catch the attention of someone inside the bunker.”

“The driver of the bus that brought you all in,” I say. “Mister Gronbach.”

John nods, and coughs again. “Alli had camped out at the door hoping someone would come by. She kept tapping on it at regular intervals.”

“I don't understand,” I say. “There was more than enough room inside for all of you, enough water and food to spare. Why didn't he just let you in?”

“Allison begged him to, but he was insistent that we'd be safer hidden away in the tunnel. He kept saying we'd die inside the bunker.” A wet, wheezing rasp rises from his chest, and I realize he's laughing. It's a chilling sound, without humor. “He promised to bring us food and water, and he did. At least for a few days.”

“Safer?” Bix asks. “Safe from what?”

The woman with the baby clears her throat. “He tell us there is man inside, mean man. He will try to find out who it is.” She has a thick Latino accent, and her words are barely more than a whisper. “But he never did.”

John nods. “Allison's boyfriend, Tommy, went down to beg him to let us in. He was at the door, banging and shouting, when suddenly the panel popped open. He was stabbed in the eye, barely made it back up to us. He said the attacker asked him if he was alone and threatened to come and kill everyone else. We were terrified, of course. But he never came. A couple days later, more food and water showed up.”

“That first man gone. Only little girl bring us food.”

“Hannah,” I say.

“Yes, our little savior. She was clearly terrified of us, of doing something wrong. She told us we had to stay quiet or it would get worse. She said if she got caught, she wouldn’t be able to bring food, so we hid and were as quiet as we could be.”

The child cries out, and the woman stands and begins to rock.

John sees me looking at her. “Three months old.”

I frown and glance over at Hannah at the discrepancy.

“We had another, born just over a year ago. But she became sick and died.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper.

“What did the man who stabbed Thomas look like?” Mister Blakeley asks.

The others exchange glances. One shrugs. “We don't know. Poor Tom fell unconscious soon after we found him. He bled to death before he could say anything else.”

A terrible thought enters my head. Could this be the secret Jonah has been keeping? Could it have been him or Jack who stabbed Tom?

But no. Hannah insisted Jonah hadn't known about the people until recently. Still . . . .

“Do you know what happened to the other members of your team?” Kari asks. “The ones you send out to scout.”

One of the other men stands up. His skin is slightly darker than the others, and his eyes are Asian. The patch on his chest says NAMI, though I can't tell if it's his first or last name or the organization he worked for.

“About six weeks after we'd been holed up in here,” he says, “Kevin and I volunteered to go out and check. We had just made it to the filling station and seen what had happened when those things started coming after us again, slipping out of the trees and from holes in the mountain.” He shivers visibly. “They moved like smoke and were just as quiet. They were nearly on us before we knew it.”

“I started shooting,” the guard named Kevin says. “Big mistake. As soon as I did, they did that thing where they change from being quiet to being insane. They charged us. Nami and I barely made it back. I twisted my ankle and fell. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have survived.”

Nami shrugs. “The windows of the petrol station had been shattered, the door was completely destroyed. There was blood everywhere, corpses. Most of the flesh was pecked away by carrion birds or torn by wolves. We think they shot themselves to avoid being infected.”

“I'll never forget that scene,” Kevin says, shivering.

“We pretty much locked ourselves inside here after that. We figured as long as the food showed up, it meant it wasn't safe for us to leave, so we didn't. We've been basically just surviving from one meal to the next, keeping guard at the tunnel gate. It's the only way we know how much time has passed.”

I wince. What a horrible way to live, completely dependent on people who refuse to help you beyond providing basic sustenance, and that only in secret.

What the hell would it have mattered if they'd been brought into the bunker?

“When was the last time you were outside?” I ask.

“Three weeks ago,” Kevin answers. He nods toward Jonah. “After he started showing up insisting those things you call Wraiths were gone.”

“How far from the bunker have you explored?” I ask.

“Not very. There's nothing for miles. We've instead been focused on getting the bus fixed and running again.”

“How close is it?”

Kevin waits, but Jonah just sits there and stares at the chambers walls.

“The worst was the oil pan. During the gun battle, the day you arrived, a bullet pierced it and drained the oil out. We managed to remove the pan. Jonah took it in to have it patched.”

I give Jonah a jostle, and he blinks at me several times before his face tenses with awareness.

“Is the bus fixed?” I ask him.

He reaches into his bedroll and extracts the repaired oil pan. “Oil?” he asks, looking over at Kevin. His voice is barely a whisper.

Kevin nods and walks over to one corner of the room where he picks a bottle up off the floor. In the dim light, I recognize the dark golden hue of the oil Jonah must have been siphoning out of the barrels on Level Nine for the past several weeks. It explains the stains on his hands I'd noticed on several occasions. “Almost twenty liters.”

Eddie abruptly slaps his knees. His face is shiny, smooth. It's not so frightening to look at, now that I’ve gotten used to it. “Then we had better be moving,” he announces. “I fear the threat behind us is much more immediate than the one ahead.”

Danny Delacroix and Kevin agree to accompany Jonah while he reattaches the repaired oil pan and replaces the oil. Kevin dons a hip holster and hands another to Danny. “Don't shoot, if you don't have to,” he warns.

“How many bullets do we have?”

“Three each. But that's not why. Shooting triggers the change.”

Jonah shakes his head. “They're gone,” he insists. “You won't need the guns.”

Now that he's moving again and has something to do, he seems to be back to his old self, and in that regard, he reminds me of his father. Well, almost his old self. He doesn't make a snide remark when Bix offers to help, or when Mister Blakeley tells Bix no.

While they're gone, the rest of us prepare what little there is to take: a few more pistols, all of them edged in rust, a couple bags filled with clothes, also recently rescued from out of the bus.

My eyes slide back over to the mother — Jasmina — and to my old tee shirt. The irony of how we used to joke about the apocalypse isn't lost on me. She looks up and sees me staring, and I quickly turn away, blushing. I hadn't realized she was breastfeeding.

I'd actually been wondering what it would be like to wear clothes that fit, clean clothes that don't have any holes in them. Then I feel a pang of guilt for being even the slightest bit jealous of these people. What they've suffered here in the dark for so long is so much worse than what we've had to endure inside the bunker.

Once more, it forces me to ask myself if leaving is the wisest thing we can do. Maybe it might be better to go back. Surely between us all, we could eliminate the threat that is Mister Abramson. And it would give us more time to prepare.

But then I look at the others, and they all seem eager to get away from here, even the new people. They move slowly, deliberately, like they're brittle and might break if they're not careful. I suppose they are. But there's something else coming off of them, a sense of excitement. For them, this is an even greater release; their imprisonment has been so much harder than ours.

Hannah has been eying the baby. As have been the rest of my group. I'm sure most are wondering how we're going to survive out there with a child. Who knows what challenges await us?

But Hannah's look is different. There is only concern in her eyes for the child, and it swells my heart to know how she's kept it a secret from everyone else for all these years. She truly represents the best in us all.

I wander over when I'm sure Jasmina is finished feeding and I ask her the baby's name. She tells me it's Jorge. “Chorge,” she enunciates, attempting to give the English equivalent. She pulls aside the fabric so I can see his face. He's surprisingly healthy-looking. I want to ask what happened to the first one, but I suppose that might be too much prying so soon.

Danny returns and tells us that Jonah's managed to get the pan back on the bus. “They're filling it with oil now.” He looks around and asks if we're ready.

He sees my hesitation and tells me there’s nothing to worry about. “No sign of Wraiths. And Jonah's pretty sure the bus will start.”

But to me, no sign and pretty sure aren’t the absolute assurances I crave.

They all turn to me, waiting for my cue. But putting aside three years of dread and complacency isn't that easy. It recalls to me every single day of my life before the outbreak, and makes me wonder if this is what I'll have to look forward to for the rest of my life, this fear of the wide open world and all its uncertainties.

Bix comes over and places a hand on my back. “We can do this, buddy. Together.”

I nod and say, “Let's go.”

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

THANK YOU FOR READING

CONTAIN (a BUNKER 12 novel)

To be notified of new titles, please subscribe:

https://tinyletter.com/SWTanpepper

Sharing is caring.

* * THIS BOOK MAY BE LENDABLE * *

If so, please share so others may also enjoy it.

* * WRITE A REVIEW * *

Your feedback is invaluable!

Add your voice to the discussion.

[Review me on Smashwords]

[Review me on Goodreads]

Contact me: authorsaultanpepper@gmail.com

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

THE FLENSE

(companion series to BUNKER 12)

SERIES DESCRIPTION

Hundreds die in a fiery train crash in northern China. A cargo ship smuggling refugees is lost to calm seas off Libya. Entire villages in Ghana are abandoned overnight.

Contracted by a prepper group to investigate a series of seemingly disconnected global tragedies, a young freelance reporter, Angelique d'Enfantine, uncovers a disturbing pattern: each event is preceded by the sudden spread of a mysterious ailment and is followed by the appearance of a man dressed in silver and black who witnesses claim is the devil himself.

Each event is more grisly than the last. As the risk to her life grows, Angel begins to doubt that the tragedies are harbingers of an impending biblical catastrophe, but are rather practice runs conducted by a fanatical organization bent on global annihilation. Could her sponsors be using her to advance their own paranoid agenda?

THE FLENSE consists of 12 installments scheduled for limited release beginning July 2015, but you can subscribe here to get advance access to the entire first installment absolutely free:

Tanpepper Tidings Newsletter

EXCERPT

The exact moment Jamie Peters first suspected the world was ending — not just this remote part of it she currently occupied, but the whole wretched thing — wasn’t when the train she was on crashed in a fiery explosion, scattering incinerated limbs and hair and shards of bone across acres of barren Mongolian permafrost.

It wasn’t moments earlier when the train rocketed past her stop, accelerating instead of slowing, the startled look of the stationmaster flashing past beneath the platform's sole spotlight and a surprised "Oh!" stuck in Jamie's throat.

Nor had she even suspected in the preceding ten or so minutes during which she observed the sickness spreading through the car, slipping from one passenger to the next as each, in turn, reached out to transfer the germ to their neighbor.

Of course, she didn't recognize it as a sickness right then. Her first thought was that it was some sort of strange custom among the locals. Or, less likely though still possible, a flash-mob type thing. Whatever it was, it appeared to be some sort of affirmation of their human interconnectedness.

She might have been amused, but it irked her to witness it because she worried it would reach her and she'd not know what to do.

There was something darkly fascinating about the way their faces changed, the light in their eyes. It was — well, seemed — as if the touch imparted upon the recipient an instant of pure serenity. Their skin would shine as the tension rose and peaked. Then it quickly lost its luster as their muscles relaxed.

The moment was so fleeting, gone almost as soon as it arrived, that it felt almost sexual in nature. Arousal followed by release.

The cycle repeated as the recipient turned to brush a fingertip across the cheek or wrist of the next person, host becoming donor. And so on, person to person, edging closer down the length of the car, which rocked them along on the uneven tracks.

The performance had apparently started at the other end of the car, but had only caught her attention when the ceaseless chatter around her had already diminished significantly. Disinterest turned to curiosity turned to panic as she fumbled to check her phone for messages.

But other than the daily updates her boss in the States sent her, the only new texts in her folder were from her host family's matron. The old woman spoiled her worse than if she was one of her own.

Jamie tucked the phone back in her pocket. There was nothing to be done but to watch and wait in anticipation for it to reach her.

Finally, the elderly gentleman seated beside her received his touch. Jamie could actually feel the tension leave his body. Her heart raced as he turned and reached up toward her face. She didn’t shy away. His hand, wrinkled from years of toil working the unforgiving soil before its recent reassignment to the new factory in Wenbai, rose to within an inch of her nose. Jamie smiled and leaned into it.

But the hand abruptly swerved to the side, as if it had a mind of its own, and grazed the chin of the young boy standing in front of her instead. The old man had skipped her!

She felt as if she’d been slapped. In the six months that she'd lived here in this arctic wasteland, she'd worked tirelessly to immerse herself completely into their lives, to gain their trust and acceptance. And she thought she had. All those years in college devoted to learning their language, even hiring a private tutor to teach her the many tricky dialectical differences she would need not to embarrass herself. She was still an outsider.

Not for the first time, she wondered what the hell she was doing here.

The moment of self-pity was quickly swept away when the train roared through her station. She opened her mouth to protest, but the "Oh!" caught up in her throat as she realized not a single other passenger on the train seemed in the least bit upset. And that was certainly strange, since theirs was the final stop, the last outpost. There was nothing between here and the seaport fifty miles further.

But the young man standing at the doors just kept staring out into the darkness. The bent-over woman across the aisle simply sat there.

Jamie recognized her. She was the district's local cat lady. What was her name? Zhou. Or Xiao. She couldn't remember it.

They all just sat or stood there with their blank, black eyes and their pale, serene faces. All of them. Not a single concern.

The performance was finished. There was no more touching. And all talk had ceased.

That was when the first inkling that something was wrong entered her mind. Perhaps if she'd been looking out her window and seen the train ahead coming directly toward them around a bend on the very same track, then she might have guessed the fuller truth of her fate. But she didn't.

What followed was a nightmare of pain and darkness and blood and fire. She found herself lying in a frozen field, the bitter biting wind driving across the tundra and scorching her burnt skin, searing her wounds. Somehow, she was still alive. But the pain . . . .

The pain was as immense as the fireball rising up into the night sky.

She managed to extricate her torn body from the wreckage, pulling twisted bits of metal and plastic and bone that were not her own from the flesh of her arms and thighs. Miraculously, nothing was broken. Her ankle was badly sprained, and it felt as if she’d dislocated her shoulder. But she had remained, for the most part, intact.

There appeared to be no other survivors. The absence of their cries suggested to her that she was completely alone. So when she saw him striding toward her, stepping through the rubble and the wind-whipped flames as casually as if he were making his way down Fifth Avenue in New York, she staggered to a halt and stared at him in awe.

He was a tall silhouette against the roaring inferno. In an instant that defied reason, he crossed the distance between them and was beside her, extending his hand in a gesture of pure selflessness. She noted the coolness of his skin when she took it.

"I am the man in silver and black," he told her. "I am your savior."

What she heard in her mind was, I am the devil, and this is the end.

That was when she finally knew.

‡ ‡ ‡

Subscribe here to get advance access to the entire first installment absolutely free:

Tanpepper Tidings Newsletter

If you like post-apocalyptic and dystopian worlds, check out S.W. Tanpepper's epic cyberpunk series GAMELAND:

http://www.tanpepperwrites.com/gameland

Books 1 and 2 are free!

Golgotha (prequel)

The Series:

Episode One: Deep Into the Game

Episode Two: Failsafe

Episode Three: Deadman’s Switch

Episode Four: Sunder the Hollow Ones

Episode Five: Prometheus Wept

Episode Six: Kingdom of Players

Episode Seven: Tag, You’re Dead

Episode Eight: Jacker’s Code

Velveteen

Infected: Hacked Files from the GAMELAND Archive

Signs of Life (Jessie’s Game Book One)

A Dark and Sure Descent

Dead Reckoning (Jessie’s Game Book Two)

AVAILABLE IN DIGITAL AND PRINT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to the devoted staff of Brinestone Press, who helped put this book together and get it out to you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Saul Tanpepper is a writer of speculative fiction for teens and adults. A former molecular geneticist originally from Upstate New York, he now calls Northern California home.

If you enjoyed Contain (Book 1 of the BUNKER 12 series), then you'll want to check out the companion series, THE FLENSE, which follows the events leading up to the outbreak. You can read an excerpt here. You may also enjoy the GAMELAND series, an epic cyberpunk adventure through a post-apocalyptic world in which zombies are used as avatars in a live action game for the rich and privileged. You can find out more about all of Saul's titles at his:

Website

Facebook page

Twitter page

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Table of Contents

- CONTAIN
- THE FLENSE
- Care to share?
- Copyright Notice
- Acknowledg ments
- About the Author