by Ike Hamill
Chapter 83: Corinna
Corinna slowed when the winding road became gravel. Out in the middle of nowhere, she was terrified of losing traction and sliding off into a ditch. It didn’t take long before she found the other vehicles. At the Outpost, people drove some strange trucks and vans. It seemed like every one of them was equipped with weird antennas sticking out at odd angles. One of the vans even had a satellite dish on the top. They were all parked in a narrow strip at the end of the road. There was a house beyond the last truck, but it had been reclaimed by the woods.
Corinna pulled up and switched off the motorcycle. The quiet was unsettling. She kept listening for the sound of lumbering, bloody monsters. They couldn’t have followed her all the way from the town hall, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more of them here.
Before she dismounted, Corinna yelled, “Hello!”
After her call echoed away, silence returned.
“Shit,” she whispered with a sigh.
The cave entrance was just ahead, at the end of a path. She saw moss-covered stumps on either side. Someone had been keeping this path clear for years.
At some point, a set of iron bars had been cemented over the entrance. She saw the rusted ends still protruding from above. The gate itself had been cast to the side. It almost looked like something had forced its way out from underground.
Gathering her nerve, she called again.
“Hello!”
She could hear her call echo back from the dark.
Corinna took another half step toward the shadows and glanced up at the looming mountain. She cupped her hands around her mouth and paced her words deliberately, so they wouldn’t be muddled by the echoes.
“I just came to tell you that the people of Donnelly are sheltering underground as well. You probably already know this, but it’s not safe to be on the surface. We don’t know why.”
Corinna stepped back. That was it—she had done her duty. Robby had asked her to bring the message down to the Outpost, and she had gone above and beyond to try to do just that. She backed up, keeping her eye on the place where the light was swallowed by the darkness. Until she was a good ten paces away, she didn’t turn. Even then, she checked over her shoulder several times before she finally picked up her pace and rushed back to the motorcycle.
Swinging her leg over the motorcycle, she felt pretty good.
It was done.
Starting up the motorcycle and feeling the comforting rumble of its power, she sighed again, silently.
“Shit,” she whispered, shutting off the bike.
She dug around in her saddlebag, finding a pen and paper.
“I’ll leave a note,” she said to herself as she uncapped the pen and scribbled to try to get the ink flowing. “I’ll leave a note on that truck and one under a rock near the entrance. Then, I’ll be done.”
She started writing.
The note got longer and longer as she went. Corinna explained about the water and the choking. She didn’t know how much Robby had been able to communicate with the Outpost before the communications link had gone down. Her hand was cramped by the time she finished, and then she copied the whole thing down again for the second note.
Corinna walked up and put a note under the windshield wiper of the truck, thought about it, and then moved it to the seat. With that done, she approached the cave again. It didn’t seem as scary this time.
“I’m just leaving a note,” she called.
Nobody responded.
She couldn’t leave the thing out, in case it rained. There was no telling how long it would take for someone to come along and notice it. Corinna rolled her eyes and took another step forward.
“It’s just because of the town hall,” she told herself.
She cupped her hands around her mouth again.
“You guys know about Dianne, right? Damn it, what if they don’t?”
It would be terrible if someone at the Outpost wandered into that situation and didn’t get as lucky as Corinna had. What if the Dianne-monster managed to get its hands, or worse its teeth, on someone because they hadn’t been warned?
She turned back, looking at her motorcycle.
“I should put that on the note,” she said.
Turning back to the cave, she saw something she hadn’t seen before. There was a little shelf on the left wall. On it, there were flashlights and helmets hanging below.
A little sign had a picture of a stick figure with a helmet on.
“Always wear head protection in entrance! For safety!”
The little stick figure had a smile scratched into his black head.
Corinna smiled back.
She thought about the long trip back to Donnelly, where she would have to track down where everyone had gone. There was no guarantee that they were still okay.
“Shit,” she whispered again. “A lot of people talk to themselves. I wonder how many just say, ‘shit,’ as much as I do.”
She took the helmet from the hook and looked at it. There were no cobwebs or dirt on it. Someone had put it there recently, or at least wiped it down.
Shaking her head, she put the thing on.
“Just a couple of steps,” she whispered. “Just looking for signs of intelligent life.”
Glancing back, she saw that the entrance was now just a tiny circle of light behind her. She had been saying, “Just a couple of steps,” for quite a while.
But there had been positive signs, leading her on. She saw a couple of dollies—the kind with fat tires—that had been used until the floor below had become too rocky for such things.
She saw another sign on the wall. This one said, “Caution! Stairs!” The stick figure guy, comically flailing down the stairs with his arms and legs up, had a smile scratched onto his face.
“Hello!”
Her own voice bouncing back was the only reply from the dark. Corinna pointed her light all around. The rocks near her cast big shadows. The cavern was opening up. Just over the edge, she could see the stairs that someone had cut into the rock. They were old scars. Maybe these stairs had been cut by the people who used to live in the house.
She shivered. It was much cooler in the cave than it had been out in the sun.
Corinna jumped when her light landed on something that looked like a fat black snake.
She took a deep breath and traced the path of it. The thing was a thick cable, coming down from another branch of the cave. The cable wasn’t old, like the stairs. It looked shiny and new. The Outpost people must have installed it.
The note was still in her hand.
“A couple of steps,” she whispered.
Corinna began the descent. A drip from above nearly made her panic. Corinna spun, ready to run up the stairs and sprint for the exit. She barely kept her balance, putting a hand out to brace herself against the wall. There was a crevice next to the stairs where the rock she was on didn’t meet the wall. It got narrower as it fell away. There were dangers in the cave, regardless of the smiling faces on the signs. She had to stay aware of that.
With a deep breath, she pointed her light up and saw the source of the drip. Directly above her, a stalactite was growing, drip by drip. It was a good sign. This cave had probably been around since before there were people walking around above.
Below, the passage and stairs curved to the left. The dangling cable had been secured to the wall with metal rings, tapped into the rock.
Corinna kept going.
At the bottom of the stairs, she found a bowl of a room that was big enough to hold a dinner party. The smooth sides looked like they had been eroded by swirling water, spinning down a drain, but there was no hole. Aside from the stairs, the only exit was a crack at the far side, where the thick cable disappeared. It looked big enough to walk through. At that moment, Corinna had no desire to test that theory.
“Hello?” she asked. Her voice was more timid this time. She wasn’t really eager to hear a response from the crack.
She was about to turn back to the sta
irs when she heard a muffled response. It was followed by a hissing sound.
“If there’s someone down here, I just want you to know that the town hall isn’t safe.”
She heard a rustling, more hissing, and then some muttering, followed by a single, clear word.
“…chance.”
Corinna waited with every muscle tensed. She was ready to bolt up the stairs when she saw a flicker of light from the crack. Her heartbeat sped up and she felt lightheaded from the rush of adrenaline as she watched the light get closer and closer. When the hand emerged, holding the flashlight, she nearly bolted.
The voice stopped her.
“I told you,” the woman said. “It’s Corinna.”
She recognized the voice—it was Gloria. Back in Donnelly, they had gardened together before Gloria had decided to join the Outpost. Gloria pointed her own light up at her face.
“We thought you might be one of the crazies,” Gloria said. “You frightened us. Are you okay?”
Corinna finally exhaled.
“Yeah. I came to deliver a message from Donnelly.”
They came out from deeper in the cave and greeted her in the bowl. Warren, Beth, and Sam joined them. While she shook hands with them, Veronica and Erin came through the crack, flashlights in hand. Corinna knew everyone, but was surprised at the faces she didn’t see. Tim had gone into the jungle, Corinna found out.
“But where is Cirie?”
“You didn’t see her?” Gloria asked.
Corinna shook her head.
“When the first few people went bad, we restrained them. It appeared to be some kind of spontaneous mental illness, but it didn’t seem to be infectious. There wasn’t a rhyme or reason that would help us predict who would come down with it. Restraining them was impossible to do without causing them tremendous injury. They would fight against any bonds and tear themselves apart like animals caught in a trap.”
Corinna swallowed and looked down.
“But they wanted to be indoors,” Warren said.
Gloria nodded and took back the narrative. “Exactly—we found out that if we put them inside a place, they would stay put. That’s why we used the town hall. It was far enough away from other buildings that we could keep an eye on them and we could be reasonably sure that they wouldn’t come after us.”
Corinna looked around. “Why are you here then?”
“Same reason Donnelly went underground, probably. We surmised that the issue was linked to exposure. We don’t know if it’s solar radiation or something else, but exposure to open air seems to be connected with the illness.”
“That’s a theory,” Warren said. “It seems to be panning out, so far, but it’s just a theory.”
They all nodded.
“Since we’ve come down here, none of us have developed the sickness,” Gloria said.
“The problem is that we don’t know how long we’re going to have to stay in order to be safe,” Warren said. “We don’t have much in the way of supplies.”
“We never really planned for an extended retreat to this location,” Beth said.
“What’s the word from Donnelly? Is there an estimate on how long this will last?”
Corinna could only shake her head. She told them the few things that Robby had told her. The main point of the trip was to communicate with the Outpost about their status. There wasn’t any real information to share.
“What’s our next step?” Gloria asked the rest of her group.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” Warren said. “We know it’s not safe up there, so we have to stay down here.”
“Impossible,” Beth said, shaking her head. “At the very least, we’re going to have to execute resupply missions. The storage in the granary will need to be tapped.”
“With no data on the cause of the illness, or how it spreads, it’s unsafe to go up,” Warren said.
“So, we’re going to starve down here?” Beth asked.
“We have water and power,” Warren said. “We can stretch out the rations.”
“People are weak already,” Beth said, pointing toward the crack. “It’s cold and we don’t have enough nutrition to keep our immune systems healthy…”
The argument continued as Gloria took Corinna’s arm and turned her away.
“This keeps happening. We can’t come to a consensus about the way forward and nobody is willing to concede to the majority opinion. We have too many strong wills here and no agreement.”
Corinna nodded. In the past, when she had disagreed with the community, Corinna had gone her own way. There were concessions that she wasn’t willing to make. It was a lot easier to be a rebel topside, where food was pretty easy to come by.
“Beth,” Corinna said, “I’ll go with you. We can get supplies.”
Warren shook his head. “No, it’s too risky. The two of you won’t be able to return with enough to justify the risk.”
“It’s our risk to take,” Corinna said.
Beth nodded.
“We can’t ask you to do that,” Gloria said.
“You didn’t ask,” Corinna said. She waved to Beth, eager to get going before another debate could break out. “Come on.”
“One second,” Beth said. Before Corinna could object, Beth had disappeared into the crack again.
Warren stepped up to Gloria. “We can’t let them do this. We have to vote.”
“What are we going to do, imprison them for wanting to help?”
“It’s not about wanting to help. Everybody wants to help…”
Before they could decide on whether or not they would restrain her, Corinna decided to make her exit. She waved to the others—Sam waved back—and she started climbing the stairs. Everything felt better as soon as she spotted the little dot of light at the end of the cave. The people down in the rocks were clinging to safety. To Corinna, being out in the sun was the safest place to be. They had already said that the people who had gone weird like to stay indoors.
As the light grew brighter, Corinna found it difficult not to rush. She passed the dolly and then retreated a couple of steps to bring it with her. Just those few steps back toward the underground settlement felt a little dangerous. When she heard footsteps behind her and saw the lights dancing on the walls and ceiling, Corinna rushed for the exit. She was breathing hard as she emerged from the cave, dragging the dolly.
Corinna wandered about halfway to her motorcycle and stopped, waiting to see who would come after her.
Beth came out of the cave. She was followed by an older guy. Corinna stood on her toes to see who it was. His hair had gone gray, but everyone still called him Red. Corinna raised her hand and gave them a cautious smile when the waved back.
“Everything cool?”
“Yeah,” Beth said. “They talked about not wanting us to go out. In the end, they weren’t willing to try to stop us.”
“Yet,” Corinna said.
“How’s that?” Red asked.
“You guys just want to be careful. Until you guys figure this thing out, you’re going to have to keep doing these supply runs. In my experience, you think that people will object less once they see you return safely, but you’ll be wrong.”
Beth broke eye contact with Corinna and looked over to where the vehicles were parked.
“We’re in the green truck,” she said.
“I’ll follow you,” Corinna said.
“There’s plenty of room,” Beth said.
“I’ll follow. You have any spare gas?”
Chapter 84: Lisa
Lisa walked down the stairs to the cold lobby of the building. The walls were granite and seemed to suck the heat from her as she passed. Photographs hung on either side alternated between shots of the construction of the building and pictures of celestial bodies that had been photographed at the observatory.
She found Tim and Penny through the front door of the place. They were sitting on the steps and watching the shadows march up the hills as the sun set behind them.
“Hey,” Lisa said.
Tim raised a hand.
“She has a presentation in an hour,” Lisa said, lowering herself to the step next to Tim.
“A presentation?”
“Yeah, about what she has found out.”
“Are we going to understand it?”
Lisa laughed. “Probably not. I can barely even pre-remember it.”
“Neither can I,” Tim said.
“It’s more for her than us, I imagine. By laying everything out and then explaining it to the common folk, she’ll be able to solidify everything in her brain.”
“Then we leave?” Tim asked.
“I suppose.”
They were silent for a few minutes. Penny stood up and wandered a few feet away from the bottom of the stairs. Her nose was lifted to the air.
“One good thing about this trip,” Tim said. “She looks about five years younger. It’s all the different sights and smells, I guess.”
“And exercise,” Lisa said. “I feel younger myself. The day to day routines really grind the bones after a while. I don’t think we realize how much.”
“Monoculture,” Tim said.
“Huh?”
“You rotate everything, right?”
“You mean in my garden? Of course. I rotate, fertilize, and plant cover crops to fix nitrogen into the soil.”
“Yeah,” Tim said. “I’ve been thinking about that and wondering if it’s the same thing with us.”
Lisa thought about that for a minute.
Tim leaned back and closed his eyes before he continued his idea. “Ty was convinced that we would all be dead before we were sixty. There were so many pathogens and dangers out in the world, and we barely had a tenth of the medicine to tackle everything. And that was back when the medicine on the shelves was still good. The way Ty would talk, one good wave of smallpox was going take us all out.”
Lisa nodded.
“I remember that with Robby’s kids. Everyone was paranoid that without vaccinations, they were going to get sick and die.”
“I’m sure they would have in the old world,” Tim said.
Lisa looked at him, wondering what he meant.