Salamander
Page 9
Chapter 9
Rig took us through the narrow halls of his bunker, the one he’d been living in for these past five years. It had the exact same layout as ours, except it was much emptier. There was no noise, no conversations, no yelling and talking, just them.
“And this is where I relax.” he opened the doors to the Mess Hall. It was just like The Cross except all the tables were moved out and replaced with bookshelves and comfortable chairs. “I come in here to read, and take my mind off of everything.”
“Wow, I like what you’ve done with the place.” Tim said.
“Its home I guess. It used to be filled with more people.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Disagreement.” He said, somberly looking at the ground. “The rest of my group wanted to branch out and I wanted to stay here, they all decided to go out looking for supplies. They did that every day for a week, and on the last day they just never came back.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Dardian said, trying to console Rig.
“Its fine, it happened years ago. I’m used to it now.” He sat down in one of the recliners, waving us to take a seat. “So, what did you come all this way for?”
“We need explosives.” Dardian said.
“Good, right to the point.” Rig said, leaning forward in his seat. “I can provide them, with two conditions.”
After a small pause, and the curiosity building inside of me, I asked. “Okay, what are they?”
“One, you tell me what they’re for.”
Tim and Dardian both looked at me. I wondered if we should lie to him or tell him the truth. We didn’t even know if the explosives would work, it was just a shot in the dark. He might not want to waste them, but he seemed like a man who didn’t like liars.
“Well, were gonna kill the Giant..” I said.
“Best answer you could’ve given me.” He responded, flashing us a smile. “Now for the second condition. I want you to take me back with you, to your group.
“I’ve been locked up in the place by myself for the better part of four years and I can’t do it anymore. To be honest, I’ve spent many nights holding a gun to my head, wondering if it was worth it anymore.” He said, staring at his folded hands.
“Of course, if that’s all you want we’d be happy to bring you back to our group.” I said, flashing him a smile. I hoped we’d given this man hope, that we maybe even saved a life today. That was extremely hard to do in this world.
“Good, we can leave tonight then; I have to get everything packed up first. Y’all should know where the weapons room is, you can grab the explosives and anything else you want to take and we can leave.” Rig said, getting up from his chair and heading to his room.
We all sat in our chairs, staying silent for the next few moments until he left the room. Once the doors closed behind him, Tim ended the silence. “He seems nice.”
“I feel bad for him.” I said.
“I don’t know, I kind of like him. That patch he had on his jacket looked like it was from Vietnam. My dad was in Vietnam.” Tim said, pulling out a cigarette.
“He’s nice, but is he predictable? That’s what we need to be worried about.” Dardian said.
“What do you mean? He’s a perfectly decent guy. He just seems lonely is all.” I replied.
“He’s spent the last four years of his life down here. He’s forgotten how to deal with people, he’s unpredictable.” Dardian said. “I say we just grab the explosives and hightail it out of here.”
“I don’t know about that. I’m gonna have to agree with Karia on this one.” Tim said, lighting his cigarette.
“We are not stealing from this man! He is more than willing to cooperate with us, and if you don’t agree with it then I’ll just stay here with him, because I’m done doing evil shit.” I said, furious with Dardian. He’d become someone totally different in the past few days, it was like he held no morals from the society that we knew before.
He didn’t respond right away, he just folded his arms and stared at me. “Fine.” He said eventually.
I stood up from my seat and started towards the weapons room with Tim and Dardian on my tail. We weaved in and out of the narrow hallways; it felt just like the Cross. We reached the weapons room and I flipped on the light switch.
The fluorescent bulbs illuminated the room, revealing racks full of guns and C4 explosives. Our shelves back home were bare, with maybe a few extra guns, all of the others being issued to people. This one was packed to the brim with maybe two missing. There was at least a backpack full of C4 and thirty assault rifles with countless numbers of pistols and handguns. We stood in awe, staring at the room full of weapons.
“Is that gonna be enough?” Rig said, popping up behind us with a backpack slung on his shoulder.
“Yeah Rig. It’s more than enough.” I said, flashing him a smile.