Succinct (Extinct Book 5)

by Ike Hamill

  Lisa allowed Ashley to maneuver the blanket between her sleeping pad and the bag. It helped a little.

  “You know,” Lisa said. “We should probably talk about what we’re going to do after we check out Tim’s cave.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Lisa studied Ashley for a moment. They had their flashlights on the floor, pointed up at the ceiling. It was impossible to see into Ashley’s eyes and guess at how much she had figured out. Ashley was as smart as anyone that Lisa had ever known, but she was so optimistic. That could make a person blind to the obvious.

  “All the fuel we found today is bad.”

  “I know. I have some ideas about how we might convert one of the Diesel engines over to…”

  Lisa put up a hand to stop her. “That’s fine. How long do you think it’s going to take us to get back north to Gladstone?”

  “Months if we stay on foot. Weeks if we use bicycles. Could be a couple of days if we get an engine running.”

  Lisa nodded.

  “And how many bridges will be down? We’ll have to travel through the hills—how many roads will be washed out or blocked by landslides?”

  “So, it might take longer. What are you saying?”

  Lisa took a deep breath and finally put words to what had been bothering her.

  “Before we left, we considered that we might never come back. We didn’t consider what would happen if we came back and everything was gone.”

  It only took a second for Ashley to figure out what Lisa was implying.

  “No, you can’t say that. Just because this place is empty doesn’t mean they’re all gone. They might be fine up in Donnelly. We might get to the cave and find that most of the people of the Outpost are fine too.”

  “Or…”

  “There’s no reason to bother thinking about that. We can’t dwell on all the possible failures.”

  “We can’t ignore them, either. Let’s start thinking about what we do if all signs point to us being alone, okay?”

  “No,” Ashley said, shaking her head. She stood up and started to walk away.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Tim said the shower is working. I’m going to find out.”

  Lisa eased her way down onto her back. She had wanted to introduce the notion to Ashley gently, and instead she had slapped Ashley in the face with it.

  “Should have left it alone,” she whispered to herself.

  But, if she was really honest with herself, it wasn’t Ashley that she had been trying to prepare. All day long, she had been trying to get herself used to the idea that this might be the end. They had survived everything they set out to do and they still failed.

  At the sound of footsteps, she sat up.

  “Is this medieval enough for you?” Tim asked. He was holding up an old oil lamp with a yellow flame dancing behind a smoked globe.

  “Smells like it’s going to fill this place with carbon monoxide,” Lisa said.

  “I found it in the storeroom. The oil still kinda burns.”

  Tim set it down on a counter and opened an access door so he could blow out the flame. The thing was persistent, coming back to life after each attempt. Black smoke billowed when the flame popped back into life. He finally managed to get it out and the smoke curled in the beam of his flashlight.

  Tim cocked his head and then Lisa heard it too.

  “Probably Ashley,” Lisa said. “She went to take a shower.”

  Tim shook his head. “The sound came from the door.”

  When Lisa started to get up, Tim put out a hand and helped her to her feet. Lisa grabbed her light and the two of them trained their beams on the door at the far end of the room. They walked together, moving quietly as they listened to the rhythm of the sound on the other side of the door.

  “An animal?” Lisa whispered.

  “Must be.”

  It sounded like claws, or maybe fingernails, scratching on the outside of the door, but it was such a steady rhythm that Lisa almost had to believe that it was a machine. The door led to a hallway to the entrance. Earlier in the day, they had made a quick search of the building and found nothing. Whatever was inside, it must have come in through the front entrance.

  At the sound of another door opening, the two of them whipped their flashlights around.

  “What?” Ashley asked. She was drying her hair with a towel.

  Lisa put a finger to her lips and directed her flashlight up so that Ashley could see.

  “The back door is locked, right?” Lisa whispered to Tim. He directed his beam toward the other side of the room and then nodded. That only left the door to the bathroom area. There were multiple entrances to the bathroom area. As far as Lisa knew, none of them had locks.

  Ashley joined them near the door.

  “What is it?” she asked. Her eyes were wide as she stared and listened to the scratching sound.

  “No idea,” Lisa whispered. “Should we barricade this door or just make a run through the back?”

  “Whatever it is, there could be more of them outside,” Tim said.

  “It might be nothing,” Ashley said.

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “Tim’s right—the outside is an unknown. I don’t know where we would go anyway. This building seems like the safest place around. We can move the desk in front of this door, and…”

  The problem with the lab was that all the heavy stuff was bolted down. The counters in the middle of the room were mounted to the floor, and the big machines in the corner might as well have been part of the structure. They had one desk they could move, but little else.

  “Those filing cabinets are heavy, but we can probably slide one in front of the door to the lounge,” Tim whispered.

  “It swings out,” Lisa said.

  “Better than nothing though.”

  It was barely better than nothing. Tim was already moving to one end of the desk. Lisa went to the other side and beckoned Ashley to follow. The three of them picked it up and managed to carry it to the door without making too much noise. On the other side, the scratching continued. Lisa didn’t like to be close to it. The longer it went on, the more her imagination ran wild. She was picturing Dianne’s hand from the town hall. Those bones could easily be making the scratching noise.

  When the cold nose touched her hand, she nearly screamed.

  Penny had woken up when they moved the desk. She went to Tim after Lisa jerked back from the touch of her nose.

  Tim pointed and he and Ashley moved to the closest file cabinet. She pulled open a middle drawer and they tried to lift it. The best they could do was slide it along the floor. Lisa cringed at the noise. She stayed close to the desk to monitor the scratching sound. It paused for a moment, maybe in response to the scraping, and then resumed scratching once more.

  With one cabinet in place, Tim and Ashley moved to get a second one.

  “Wait!” Lisa whispered, rushing toward them.

  They watched her bouncing flashlight as she crossed the room.

  “I have to use the bathroom first.”

  “Is that the best idea?” Ashley asked. Lisa’s impatience flared for a moment. A minute before, Ashley had said that the sound could be nothing and now she didn’t want Lisa to use the bathroom?

  Before Lisa could say anything, Tim said, “I do too. Let’s make it quick.”

  They squeezed by the file cabinet and Tim held the door open for the dog. Ashley positioned herself near the door to the hall and pressed her ear against it. There were two shower stalls over near an eyewash station and then two restrooms. Lisa took one and Tim the other. As the door swung shut, Lisa heard Ashley whispering to Penny.

  The bathroom was tiny—just enough space for the toilet and sink. Lisa had grown unaccustomed to the luxury of sitting down on a clean toilet. Even at the observatory they had been forced to take care of business outside. Lisa regretted that she hadn’t taken a shower earlier. She had intended to have one in the morning. Now, that seemed like an impossibility. If th
ey managed to stay in the building until dawn, she imagined that they would run out of there at first light.

  A breeze startled her just as she was finishing up.

  Lisa looked up and saw that the window, high above the toilet like a transom, was open a crack. She shut off her light and waited until her eyes adjusted to the dim starlight. Then, she climbed up on the seat and got her fingers up on the dusty ledge. She could barely get her eyes high enough to see, but she eventually got a look at the field next to the lab building. In the distance, she saw the shadow of the main house. Closer, a much smaller shadow was moving.

  Lisa’s foot slipped as she was climbing back down and her hand came down on the flush lever.

  Lisa washed her hands quickly in water that was almost too hot, and then went back out to the shower area where Tim and Ashley were already whispering.

  “I don’t hear anything from this door,” Ashley said as Lisa joined them. “I was just saying that maybe I can get a look at what’s scratching at the other door.”

  Lisa shook her head. “Too risky. We don’t know how strong or fast it is. Why would we draw attention to a door that we can’t barricade or lock?”

  Ashley chewed her lip as she considered that.

  “One of you needs to look through the bathroom window. There’s something out there.”

  They both went. Ashley went into one stall and Tim the other. They both climbed on toilet seats while Lisa waited for their reports.

  Tim returned first.

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  Ashley whispered, “I saw something, but it moved too close to the wall below. I don’t know where it went.”

  “We’re sure the other door to the lab is locked?” Lisa asked.

  Tim nodded.

  Rationally, Lisa knew that their best bet was to return to the lab and finish barricading themselves in. The room had three exits, no windows, and solid walls that would stand up to almost anything.

  “Come on,” Tim said, moving back toward the door to the lab.

  Ashley herded the dog in that direction. Lisa felt like her feet were frozen to the floor.

  “Aunt Lisa,” Ashley said. “Come on.”

  Lisa shook her head. The thought of the walls was too much. They shouldn’t be going into the lab—the place was like a vault. They needed to be able to run. They needed open space to see.

  Lisa still felt helpless to move, even while Ashley approached. She knew what the girl was going to do, but she still couldn’t muster enough will to get her feet moving. Lisa thought back across the years, to all the strange crises that she and the others had endured.

  Ashley took her arm by the elbow and pulled her toward the lab.

  “No,” Lisa whispered, unable to resist.

  “We’ll be safe, I promise.”

  “No,” Lisa whispered. There was no way to promise that. Safety was a forgotten, useless concept that had gone away a long time before Ashley had even been born. The community had tried to forget. They had tried to raise the children with the idea that they could achieve some kind of normalcy, but it was a lie. Kids were shielded from the dangers of the world so that their young minds would grow strong enough to eventually cope with reality.

  Ashley pulled her through the gap between the filing cabinets at the door. She was put to the side while Tim and Ashley worked to rock the second filing cabinet in place.

  Lisa’s attention turned to the back door. It was locked, but not barricaded. Penny, ears forward with curiosity, was inching closer to that door. When the scratching started there, Lisa slapped a hand over her own mouth so she wouldn’t scream. Now, they really were trapped. Whatever was outside, it would soon find its way into the shower area. Lisa wondered how long it would take the scratching claws to realize that the shower door would pull open. She wondered how long it would take for the thing that made that noise to realize that it could climb over the cabinets.

  “There are boxes in this cabinet,” Ashley said. She had pulled open the doors until she had found something useful. “Pile them on top?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Tim said.

  Lisa wanted to tell them that it certainly would hurt. If they thought that they could barricade themselves in the room with boxes on top of the filing cabinets, it would give them a false sense of security. Then, they would stay put instead of running. That certainly would hurt their chances of survival.

  “You okay?” Ashley asked.

  Lisa squinted as the young woman pointed a flashlight in her face.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Lisa said. “We’re going to die.”

  “Everyone dies,” Tim said.

  Lisa looked to him. The comment must have been meant dismissively, but it actually made Lisa feel a little better. They were stuck. There was no use in fighting any longer. She might as well tuck away her urge to run and her desire to be out in the open—neither was going to happen. They were stuck inside the room and there were scratching bones on the other sides of the doors. The room had been a good choice with multiple escape routes if something happened. The only problem was that they had stayed put instead of running when the threat came. Now, they were trapped.

  Lisa let out a sigh.

  “Let’s see if we can get some sleep,” Ashley said.

  Lisa nearly laughed.

  Sweating through her nightshirt, Lisa kept having the same dreams. She was stuck in the thorny vines, waiting for the ball of light to absorb her consciousness into some facsimile of heaven meant to mollify her while it digested her.

  She woke up to a scrape and realized that the scratching things had finally managed to get inside. Scrambling to her feet, she nearly pitched over, grabbing the counter for balance. Bright light was streaming in from the door to the shower area.

  Lisa saw that Tim and Ashley had moved the filing cabinet out of the way.

  All she could think was they had been hypnotized by the scratching and were doing the bidding of the bones.

  “Stop,” she tried to yell. It came out as a scratchy groan. Her voice wasn’t working yet. It worked anyway. Ashley heard the sound and returned for her.

  “It’s morning, Aunt Lisa. We’re going out.”

  “Is it safe?” she asked, after clearing her throat.

  Ashley nodded and Lisa dismissed it. She didn’t know. How could she? Lisa pushed her way past Ashley and rushed on cold legs to catch Tim. If anyone should take the risk of going out first, it should be her.

  “Wait,” she said to Tim, pulling beyond him. “You two wait.”

  She pulled open the door and blinked at the long, yellow light coming through the far door. There was no sign of any of the scratchers. She slipped through and closed the door behind her, swiveling her head. Paranoia flooded through her with each beat of her heart. Her feet rasped like sandpaper on the floor. The far door showed no mark from all the scratching. The sound had tortured her all night and then haunted her dreams, but there was no physical sign of it. At the end of the hall, she saw that the outer door was still open a crack. Pulling it open, Lisa flinched back from the blinding sun.

  “Anything?” Ashley asked. She and Tim were right behind her. The dog was squeezing between Lisa’s legs to find her way outside.

  “I told you to stay back.”

  “It’s so beautiful,” Tim said.

  Then, they were both slipping around her, out into the morning air. The lab was up the hill from several of the buildings. The sun hitting the roofs was burning off the dew and tendrils of mist curled. Even without residents to inhabit it, the settlement was waking up around them. The place felt more alive than anywhere that Lisa had seen in a long time.

  “Hey, Tim, who has bikes? We should get some bikes ready for the trip,” Ashley said. She was standing out on the sidewalk with her shoulders back, taking in the cool air.

  “I know there are some parked in the gym,” he said. “There’s one with a trailer that I used for Penny when her leg wa
s hurt, too. She won’t have to run the whole way.”

  Lisa leaned against the doorframe and watched them gather their energy and make their plans. It almost seemed unfair how easily they were casting off the terror of the night. Neither had learned anything from the fear. Casually, they were leaving the worry for Lisa to bear alone. She slipped back inside and began to shuffle back toward the far door. They would need to pack their tents and scrounge enough food for breakfast.

  As she passed the door to the lab, she stopped and looked at it again. There were no scratches. All that worry and concern, and there was nothing to show for it. The notion turned in her head as she put herself back in motion. The air in the lab was stale, so she propped open the door to the shower area and opened the back door while she packed things up. She took her time. It felt good to be left alone for once. Lisa realized that she had been missing her alone time. It wasn’t just the digging and weeding that she missed about her garden back in Gladstone, it was the time alone with her thoughts. It wasn’t as if she considered herself a deep thinker, coming up with profound insights, but that didn’t mean that her time spent contemplating wasn’t important.

  She was almost finished when Ashley appeared in the rectangle of light at the back door.

  “Tim found eggs. We’re going to cook eggs on the stove at the school. He says that the propane is still working.”

  She was practically levitating with eager energy.

  “Help me with these bags?” Lisa asked.

  “Sure thing.”

  Lisa shouldered her own pack and Ashley grabbed the others. They hiked across the wet grass toward the schoolhouse.

  “We haven’t found any tracks or anything,” Ashley said. “I figured that it was probably raccoons or coyotes, you know? There must have been some kind of scavengers that were drawn to the smell of our food or something, but we haven’t found anything.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lisa said.

  “Huh?”

  “It doesn’t matter what the sound was. This is not our mystery to figure out, Ashley.”

  When they reached the school, Ashley propped up their bags outside in the sun. The smell of the stove was unmistakable. Lisa hadn’t realized that it was a thing that she missed.