Page 61 of Fallout

Blake turned his watch so he could see the face illuminated. “Nothing. What’s going on?”

“Dead zone?”

Jasper said, “Or a jammer.” He walked to the front door, unlocked the handle and drew back the dead bolt. He grabbed the handle, but it didn’t move. He tugged on it more. “What the…”

“You can’t get out?” As soon as he shook his head, Samantha went to the back door. “This one is closed now. It won’t open.”

That was how they’d gotten in. He looked out a window. Someone was out there, and they’d hung around to lock them in the house.

“What is going on?” He tried the window latches, but they wouldn’t move.

Jasper holstered his gun and pocketed his phone. He got a chair from by the dining table, gripped the legs, and slammed it against the window. The chair shattered, but the window didn’t. He dropped the broken pieces. “The window is reinforced glass!” He called it out loud enough Blake would hear since he’d gone into the other room.

His friend said, “In here, too. Everything is secured shut.”

“And we have a basement of bodies?” Samantha’s face paled. She took a second to absorb what was happening, then said, “Check every closet and cupboard. What do we have to work with?”

“A sledgehammer would be great.” Jasper tried the hall bathroom. “One that isn’t downstairs.” He didn’t want to look at what was down there if he didn’t have to. Sure, it was part of his job, but there was plenty in his mind already that he’d rather forget.

Blake met him in the hall. “I shone my flashlight around down there. I didn’t see weapons. Just dirt and bodies in different stages of decay. At least six.” His expression did that shift he drew on when it wasbad,turning his features placid. A defense mechanism. He would carry the load of what he’d seen, but he didn’t need everyone to know how he felt about it. “We need to get out of here.”

Jasper said, “Yes, we do.”

“There are no weapons in this house,” Samantha called from the kitchen. “The best I can come up with is to tip the fridge at one of the doors. But who knows how far they went to seal us in. There could be steel bars in the drywall.”

They had to get out of?—

Up high on the walls, white clouds puffed out of the vents. He heard the fan kick on somewhere in the house. What was coming out of the vents couldn’t be good.

He called back, “A fan. An exhaust. Some kind of vent. We might not be able to get out, but maybe we can stretch a phone to get a signal. Call for help.”

The smell of whatever was pumping through the vents in the walls hit his nose, and his body reacted even though he didn’t know what it was. Not good.

“We need firefighters.” Samantha pulled open the partition doors in the hallway. “No washer or dryer.” She crouched. “Looks like the vent has been closed off.”

“I’ll check the other bedroom.” Jasper took two steps, and the world swam around him. He slammed into the wall and stumbled to the floor. Pain sliced through his chest where he’d been hit with that bullet.

His head bounced off the rough carpet, and he passed out.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“Anything?” Destiny would keep asking until she got an answer.

Simon had found no sign of April, and it didn’t seem like Jasper was making progress finding her. After all, he hadn’t texted her back.

Things in the waiting room had shifted. People were talking less and pacing more. Destiny was trying to pray rather than get worried about why it was taking so long for Clare to have her baby.They’re fine, right?She’d been in a nearly continuous conversation with the Lord for the last hour.

“Simon?”

“Huh.” He paused. “Yeah, I’m here.”

Rather than ask again what he’d found out, she asked, “How is the police hunt for April going?”

“That’s what I’m looking at. The Intelligence sergeant requested a unit be dispatched to track down Blake, Jasper, and Samantha. Apparently, they haven’t checked in and aren’t responding to attempts to contact them.”

“That’s not good.” She shifted in her seat to encourage blood flow and to get rid of the itch to get up. “Don’t their vehicles have GPS?”

“Yes, and from what I’m seeing, they’re parked on a residential street on the south side of Benson. Which makes sense, with this…”

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