by Ike Hamill
Jackson shook his head.
“It’s the same with you and me, Jackson. It would be wrong of me to expect you to change. You are who you are. I can’t keep hitting my head against the same wall over and over and be mad at you about it. Eventually, I got mad at myself. That’s when I knew that I couldn’t live with you anymore. And we’ve had this conversation before. You don’t understand it, so you won’t remember it.”
Jackson tried to remember—was she right? He couldn’t remember those exact words coming from her mouth, but he could certainly remember a cold pit just above his stomach. Maybe she had told him before. Maybe she was right.
If that was all true, then he had probably tried to talk her out of it, too. This time, he wasn’t going to try to talk her out of it—he was going to show her that he could be different. If they were both in the same bunker, she wouldn’t be able to move far away from him. She would have to see that he had changed.
“I’m sorry,” he said when it was clear that she had finished.
“Don’t be.”
He shifted his position and grunted as the bones in his arm jostled. The throbbing started again.
Amy Lynne saw the pain in his face.
“I wish you’d go get that looked at. I can wait here with the dog.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not going until Merle is safe.”
That earned him a little nod. She understood.
Their boy dropped to the pavement and rolled just to the right of the door. He must have jumped from the hill above.
Amy Lynne sucked in a surprised breath and put a hand to her chest. “What the hell are you doing? You could have hurt yourself.”
Merle dusted himself off.
“I’m fine. I couldn’t get in over there and then the truck conked out. I had to walk back.”
She shook her head. Jackson started the process of getting to his feet.
“Get in here,” Amy Lynne said to Merle.
“Let me move your truck first,” he said.
“Always something.”
They watched Merle and then Jackson looked back to the sky. At first, Jackson thought that there were birds overhead. Then he realized that he was seeing the stars. They were flickering into view and then disappearing again. He cocked his head as he watched them.
“You seeing that?”
He glanced at Amy Lynne. She was still watching Merle in the truck. She flinched as he spun the tires.
“Amy Lynne—up there,” Jackson said, pointing.
“Merle!” she shouted. “Leave that truck. We’re going in.”
Jackson waved his arm.
For once, Merle did what his parents asked him to do. He left the truck where it was and ran toward them. The ducked inside the bunker and let the door close as the sky outside went dark.
Chapter 73: Brad
From a toolbox, someone produced zip ties. Brad sat down, bound his own ankles, and then pulled a zip tie around his wrists with his teeth. Everyone’s face was lit up from the glow of their sticks.
“This is completely unnecessary, Brad,” Romie said. “I could overpower you if I needed to.”
“Just humor me for a few minutes,” he said.
“Is that blood? Brad, what did you do?”
“Nothing,” he shook his head. “Nothing yet.”
He explained to them the waves of emotion that had passed through him on his journey to the roof. He stopped short of telling them precisely what he had found, only that several people had been hurt.
Romie seemed to understand.
“Who was hurt, Brad?”
“Kevin, Mandy, and George,” he said. “I didn’t see Pam.”
“And you think that the emotion that you felt could make someone…” Romie didn’t finish the question.
“Yeah,” Brad said. “Unfortunately, yeah.”
“You seem okay.”
“I think I am, now. I didn’t hurt anyone, but maybe it’s only because I was alone,” he said. “I hate to think what could have happened if I hadn’t been.”
“Pam…” Romie said.
Brad nodded and looked down at his hands. He tried to wipe them clean on his pants.
“Shouldn’t we go help her?” someone asked.
“I think it’s too dangerous. I’m hoping that we’re protected down here. The feelings were much stronger up under the sky. It could be some kind of radiation or something. I don’t know. I only know that the deeper I got into the building, the safer I felt.”
Romie nodded.
“Then we don’t take any chances. No more trips up until we decide that it’s safe. Everyone agree?”
The adults and even some of the kids agreed.
Romie bent over and moved closer to him.
“Did you see that thing again?” she asked in a low voice, just for him.
He shook his head. “I’m not sure that it was real. It could have been a hallucination caused by the feeling of dread.”
“But we both saw it,” she said.
“What exactly did you see?”
“It was a figure, like a man with a giant head. He was hairy. Maybe it was supposed to be a bear,” she said.
“What I saw didn’t have much of a defined shape,” he said. “It was a shadow.”
“Huh,” she said. She put her hand against the wall and lowered herself to the floor next to him. The circle of adults around the children began to lose its shape. The people were beginning to spread out.
“Don’t get too close,” Brad said. “If you knew how I was feeling a few minutes ago, you wouldn’t want to be close.”
“You’re fine. You flatter yourself if you think that you could hurt me with your hands and feet tied like that.” Romie leaned in to whisper to him. “The others are dead?”
Brad nodded.
Romie squeezed the glow stick in her hands. The color became brighter for a second and then faded again.
People gasped and their eyes shot up when the lights came on. A few people clapped.
“Nobody go anywhere,” Romie ordered. “This is good news, but not necessarily the end to all the problems.”
A lot of people nodded in agreement, but there was also some grumbling. Brad understood—they wanted the news to be unequivocally good. People wanted the crisis to be over.
A couple of people let out little yelps of fear when the furnace kicked on. When it ignited, a puff of ash burst out from the wood-burning side. Brad would have shut the metal door, but his limbs were bound.
“Someone shut that off,” Romie said.
“Why?” a man asked.
Romie didn’t have to answer. Someone else told him, “That’s only for the hot water, and we don’t need it. Better to be safe.”
Romie nodded.
Dave stepped over Brad’s legs and went to the far side of the boiler to throw the switch. A moment later, the thing shut off.
Brad looked up at the lights. They were a good sign—maybe the electrical disturbance was moving away, and maybe that would take the emotional disturbance with it. The lights also made him feel exposed somehow, like they were inviting trouble by advertising their position.
He leaned over to Romie. “Maybe we should set up guards to watch for Pam. I never found her, and I don’t know what state she’s in.”
“You think she might try to hurt us?”
“I really don’t know,” Brad said.
Before Romie could move, they heard feet on the stairs.
The kids were rounded up against the far wall. Romie and Dave moved toward the bottom of the stairs to face whatever was coming down. Brad regretted binding his wrists and ankles—he should have known that nothing was going to happen. Now he was disabled and couldn’t help the others.
The lights were on in the store room, but the stairs were dark. Dave’s hand went to the wall and he flipped the switch. An instant later, Romie and Dave’s hands flew up. Brad thought they were warding off an attack, but they were reaching to grab the person who was falling.<
br />
It was Pam. She slipped though Dave’s arms. Romie managed to catch her by the elbow and softened her descent toward the ground.
The woman was covered with blood.
Dave backed up a step, recoiling from the blood smears on his hands and arms. Romie leaned over Pam.
The words came to his lips, but Brad was too terrified to voice them. He wanted to tell Romie to get away before she was attacked. He wanted to warn Romie that Pam was dangerous.
He was too late.
Pam’s hand shot up and grabbed at Romie’s face and throat.
That’s when the others finally took action. Dave was first, pushing Pam’s hands down to the floor. Other people came to help as well. A woman, Gerry, took a post at the bottom of the stairs, looking up to warn if anyone else came down. The others worked to restrain Pam. They bound her in the same way that Brad had bound himself. Soon, she was next to him—her wrists and ankles secured with tie wraps.
Brad inched away from her, wary of her bloody face and teeth.
Pam’s eyes were closed.
“Can someone cut these?” Brad asked. “I’m fine.”
“Wait a second,” Dave said.
Someone fetched a towel and a bottle of water. Romie was moving the group to the other side of the storeroom and they were having a quiet conversation while Dave and Romie cleaned the blood from themselves with the towel. Brad kept a close eye on Pam. Her eyes were still closed and her chest heaved up and down with fast breathing. Every few seconds, her upper lip twitched and Brad saw red inside her mouth. He wondered about the wounds he had seen on Kevin and wondered how many of them had been made by teeth.
Brad inched farther away, trying not to make any noise to draw her attention.
As he slid, his shoe scraped on the floor.
One of Pam’s eyes opened, rolled around, and then locked on him.
“Hey!” Brad called. “I need some help here.”
Her other eye opened. Her hands, bound at the wrist, reached for him. It wasn’t just blood staining her fingers. Brad could see bits of muscle and organ meat under her fingernails. The tendons stood out on the back of her hands. She was clenching and unclenching her fingers so hard that it looked like her bones were ready to burst through her skin.
Brad shrank back and then kicked his legs, trying to inchworm back from her.
She fell over on her side and began to wiggle toward him. Her teeth clacked together as her jaw opened and slammed back shut.
“Help!” Brad called.
People rushed to him, pulling him away from Pam. Dave tried to circle her, to pull her back toward the corner, but she whipped around and turned on him, nearly grabbing his leg in her clenching fingers.
He danced away.
“Thank you,” Brad said, looking up at Romie. “She’s dangerous.”
Romie didn’t answer.
“Can you cut these off?” he asked, raising his hands.
“We don’t know,” Romie said. “We want to wait a bit.”
“For what? You see what she’s like. You can tell that I’m nothing like that. I put these restraints on myself. That’s what I was worried about, but as you can see, nothing like that has happened to me.”
“Yet,” Romie said. “Listen, Brad, you understand. We have to be careful. The lights are on, but Pam is clearly still affected by whatever happened up there. We can’t take the risk and assume that you weren’t affected by the same thing.”
“Okay,” Brad said, taking his time to breathe deeply. There had to be a way to convince them. “Okay. Fine. Listen, can you at least separate me far away from her. I don’t have any way to defend myself.”
“You’re fine, Brad,” Romie said. “We all have eyes on her. Nothing is going to happen to you, I promise.”
Brad looked over at Pam. They had pulled him away somewhat, but she was still within ten feet of him. If she rolled over and figured out how to work within her constraints, she could crawl to him pretty quickly. The others were already moving toward the other side of the storeroom again. They understood the dangers of Pam, but they weren’t taking her seriously enough to help him get out of danger.
Brad looked up at Romie.
He saw it in her eyes—she wasn’t just being careful or humoring the fears of the others—she was really wary of him. A few minutes before, she had talked about how she would be able to restrain him by herself if necessary. Now that she had seen the gore all over Pam, and understood what had really happened on the roof, Romie was actually becoming frightened.
“Listen, Romie, you guys have to at least attach her to something. She’s younger and more nimble than I am. You can’t leave me defenseless.”
“Nobody is leaving you at all,” Romie said. “Frankly, your objections aren’t helping you any, Brad. You’re fine.”
Brad opened his mouth to make another plea, but he didn’t get the chance.
The lights went out.
Chapter 74: Robby
Robby was exhausted by the time he got to the cafeteria. Ty was sitting at one of the tables. He had a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other. Robby took a chair.
“What are you doing up?” Robby asked.
“I’m on the night shift. Doc and I decided to break things up a little. It’s quiet right now, but I’m expecting to get the worst of it tomorrow night,” Ty said, setting his book down on the table. It was propped open to save his page. Robby smiled at the cover. Ty loved to read apocalyptic books, even though they had already suffered through far worse than any of the books wanted to portray.
“What are you doing up?” Ty asked.
“I wanted to get the surveillance set up. Mike and Liam are keeping tabs on what’s going on outside. I have to hunt up some more volunteers to take the next shift. You think you could do double duty?”
Ty shook his head. “Maybe next time, but for tonight everyone expects me to be in this cafeteria. Can’t make them hunt for me.”
Robby nodded.
They both turned as Mike came through the arch from the passage.
“Hey, Robby, we have an incident.”
Robby was on his feet in a heartbeat. Adrenaline overpowered his exhaustion.
“What’s up?”
“Sorry—it’s not a crisis or anything,” Mike said, putting his hands up with a smile. “Didn’t mean to freak you out. We’ve got Merle trying to get in the small entrance and Jackson and Amy Lynne waiting at the loading doors. I hate to say it, but those alerts didn’t work. I thought they were working, but we didn’t get any notification about the newcomers. We only noticed Merle by complete accident.”
Robby sighed and nodded. The system was a nightmare of complexity, but he thought they had figured it out.
“Okay—you want to go let them in or work on the system?” Robby asked.
“I’ll let them in. I need a walk anyway. As for the system, let’s not worry about it tonight, okay? Liam has eyes on the exterior cameras now. He’s a machine. He can stare at those things endlessly. You need to get some sleep—you look dead on your feet.”
“Thanks, but…”
“And Sariah needs rest too,” Mike said.
Robby had nearly forgotten that he had left Sariah watching his kids. She wasn’t the type of person who could sleep while she was babysitting. She was panicked that something would happen when she closed her eyes. At the moment, she was probably torturing herself to stay awake as the kids snored.
“Okay. You have a point,” Robby said. “But you need to take a minute and find the next volunteers to watch, okay?”
“I’m fine—really. First thing I did after unpacking was take a nap. Liam’s the one who needs a break.”
“Carrie was wandering around before,” Ty said. “She would know if there are any night owls looking for a task. I think she was headed to the utility room.”
“I’ll track her down before I go to bed,” Robby said.
Mike and Robby left together, headed the same direction.
&n
bsp; “Thanks so much,” Robby whispered to Sariah.
She patted his shoulder and mouthed, “No problem.”
With a big smile, she left him. Robby moved the boot that he had propped in the doorway and let it close. There was probably a way to configure the door on his control panel in the bathroom. That was something that he could leave until he had gotten some rest. The kids would probably be up in a couple of hours. The best thing he could do was get a nap in and then, hopefully, talk someone into setting up some kind of daycare in one of the cafeterias.
He kicked off his shoes and settled down on top of the covers. Jim was on the right side of the bed. Janelle had taken over the foot, laying crosswise. She always found the strangest ways to use a bed. The only place left for him was the upper half of the left side. It could have been worse. He lowered himself to the bed and folded his legs into the space.
As Robby pulled a blanket over himself, the light on the bedside table began to dim automatically. Only the light behind the artwork was still on. It cast a dim blue glow from its wintery scene. Robby’s brow furrowed. They hadn’t yet figured out all the sensors that the bunker was equipped with. It was spooky to have his every move watched over by a machine. The thing had already demonstrated that it couldn’t be completely trusted. There was the malfunction of the pantry door, as well as Liam’s report about the door of his room keeping him in.
Robby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He did something that he hadn’t done in a long, long time. He counted. Robby managed to get to sixty before he opened his eyes to make sure that the artwork was still illuminated. Before closing them again, he let his eyes dart around, checking the corners for anything out of the ordinary. In a few days, they would have figured out all the peculiarities of the place and none of this would be so menacing anymore. For the moment, Robby was going to have to count.
This time, he made it to seventy-two before he checked the room again.
The third time, he got to one-hundred and decided not to open his eyes.
Robby’s eyes flew open. His brain reconstructed what had happened—he had heard a click.
Pushing up to one elbow, Robby noticed that the glow from the artwork had changed. It was now emitting a green light. He blinked, trying to bring it into focus. It looked like the image had changed to a summer scene, glowing with green light coming through the leaves.