The corridor was more of a tunnel with a ceiling that hung just above my head, giving me a jolt of claustrophobia. Sounds carried in a place like this, but that was a two-way street. I didn’t want to alert anyone who might be down here, so I signaled Natty to keep quiet.

A low yellow light came from the end of the corridor. I took each step like I was walking on rice paper. I was nervous, but knew the answers I needed were somewhere ahead of me.

I marveled at the construction and realized it was extraordinarily well built. What the hell was a bunker doing here? How did they build it without the town talking about it? Unless it was already here and someone just spruced it up. Maybe it had something to do with the resort or even a bomb shelter from the fifties.

As soon as we stepped inside, I could feel nominal heat. Low-level lighting cast shadows on the walls. I found myself swallowing hard. As I moved forward, Natty was right behind me. He didn’t care if he showed his fear. I could see a small room up ahead with a cot and some stacked supplies.

My heart pounded in my chest.

As we approached the room, Natty bumped an electrical box built into the wall of the bunker. That’s when we heard a man’s voice. He was somewhere lost in the shadows of the supply room. In the stillness his words startled me like an air horn. He said, “What was Becker worried about? Nothing, as usual?”

Then I saw him. Sitting on a stool, writing in a ledger. A man in his mid-forties, as bald as the old Mr. Clean from the commercials. He was built like him, too.

Natty and I just stared at him until he looked up. I started to bring my gun up as the man burst off the stool and barreled into us, knocking us onto the ground. Poor Natty acted as a cushion and was trapped beneath the man and me.

The man punched me in the side of the head. I returned an elbow, but at this close range, it had little effect. Natty yelped beneath us.

This was going to be a real fight.

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

The bald man was incredibly strong and moved like a cat. He had shoved two full-grown armed men off their feet without using a weapon. The impact and punch had knocked me senseless for a moment, and I’d lost track of my gun, which was somewhere on the hard, roughly finished rock floor.