Contact

by Johnny B. Truant

  Lila stared at Heather, her features firm. “They have guns, Mom.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Then I guess they just came to say hi? And all they have with them are gift baskets?”

  “You don’t have any goddamned idea what’s really going on, Lila! Shooting first and asking questions later is the kind of thing that — ”

  “ — that saves your ass in Las Vegas?” She pointed a finger toward Piper, and Piper felt the jab as if it had struck an open wound. “That saves all of our asses, as long as someone is willing to step up and not be a pussy?”

  “Watch your mouth, Delilah,” Heather said.

  “This from the Obscene Queen? How’s that mouth that made you famous, Mom?”

  “Look,” Raj said, interrupting.

  Lila stopped. Turned. Looked where Raj was pointing. Piper followed the same finger. Raj had pulled up some sort of diagnostic panel while Lila had been sparring with her mother. Piper saw a readout of some sort: white text on a black screen.

  “It says, ‘secondary locks engaged,’” Lila read.

  “We can read,” said Heather, eyeing her daughter before turning to the screen.

  A rocket went off in Piper’s mind. It felt like salvation.

  “Yes!” she said. “I remember! If someone tries to force the door, it locks with these giant deadbolts! There’s no way to get at them from the outside! There’s no way in! There’s no way to — ”

  The drill ceased, surprising Piper into quiet. A new noise grew in the silence. Faint. Like the dragging of metal on metal.

  Trevor’s head cocked. He stood and left the control room.

  Lila threw a final glance at her mother and followed. Piper brought up the rear, leaving Raj behind. In the corner of Piper’s eye as she turned, Raj returned to the camera screens, flicking idly, wasting power.

  Trevor crossed the large living room, his head still cocked, following the sound toward an interior door opposite the control room, mostly hidden from all but the kitchen side. Now that the drill had either finished or surrendered, the room seemed strangely quiet. The new dragging noise was comparatively loud.

  “What is that?” Lila asked.

  “Shh,” Trevor answered, cocking his head, triangulating.

  The noise had become brisk, in an on-off-on pattern, over and over. It wasn’t constant. It had the rhythm of someone sweeping a floor or moving a broom back and forth. Leaving a pause at the end of each stroke.

  Trevor reached the door. It looked like any interior door, but it had subtle rubber seals along all of its edges. It was heavier and thicker, the hinges larger, the kind of door intended to keep something out. The kind of door that means serious business.

  “It’s the generator,” said Heather.

  “It’s not the generator,” Trevor answered.

  Raj’s voice came from the control room. “Guys?”

  Trevor ignored him. He put his hand on the doorknob and pushed. The generator was in the utility room’s center, squatting on the bare concrete floor. Behind it to one side was the backup array: shelf after shelf of what looked like ordinary car batteries strung together with wires.

  The metallic dragging stopped. There was a pinging sound, then more rattling, this time less metallic. A gurgling sound followed, echoing in the space.

  Raj again: “Guys!”

  Lila turned suddenly white. She grabbed her brother’s wrist.

  “Close the door, Trevor.”

  “Is something dripping?” Trevor was looking at a small pool of liquid beneath the exhaust pipe’s ninety-degree bend. He leaned forward, sniffing. A harsh smell assaulted Piper’s nostrils.

  “Close it, Trevor. Close the door.”

  Piper looked at Lila, then at the puddle. Her mind found a match for the earlier sounds — the ones that had come after the drill’s riot had ceased.

  A back-and-forth metallic dragging, like a saw.

  The gurgling, and now a forming puddle of gasoline.

  All at once, Piper understood.

  She shouldered Trevor aside. Slammed the door. Raj came sprinting from the control room, his dark skin blushed and eyes wide.

  “There’s another guy by the side of the house!” he stammered. “In a little hole they dug by the foundation! And I think he’s — ”

  Raj’s report was severed by the soft fwump of fire, followed by an explosion.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Heather, behind her children, shouldered her way forward, obeying an impulse she didn’t entirely understand. But a place deep within her did. Something was about to happen.

  She’d seen it in a dream.

  She’s walking with Meyer. Somewhere ancient, somewhere uniquely shamanistic. It’s a thing Heather has no interest in, and Meyer normally wouldn’t either. But she’s with him, even now, after he’s vanished, because this place — this place of dream walking — is timeless. And Meyer says …

  But he doesn’t say it, because they’re in another place now, a dark place. A sleepy hum buzzes like high-tension wires. The air smells like ozone. Meyer is here too, oblivious to where they just were and what he almost said. Now feels like a second chance. But the space is too small, like a concrete cell. Meyer has his hand on some sort of an engine, and inside what seems to be a steel box is more fuel for the engine. Meyer looks at it and says, “I put it in a fireproof box in case it spills. Because fire would use all our oxygen.”

  In the dream, Heather wants to ask Meyer where he went after he vanished. Where he’s been. If he’s alive and safe. Meyer smiles and laughs — laughs and smiles being more natural to Meyer in here, in dreams.

  “It’s you we have to worry about,” he says.

  But the dream never finishes. The fire begins even inside the dream as it begins to peel back into real things. She watches him burn, and …

  The second explosive clap hurled Heather back to reality, blinking, catching sight of Lila beside her. She felt divided, her mind in two places at once. Heather hadn’t merely been daydreaming. It was something else.

  Something is about to happen. You’ve seen this in a dream.

  The heavy door kept whatever had blown inside the room, but the seals around it were already melting. The edges bubbled with heat. Then she saw nothing because—

  And now the power goes out.

  — because at that moment lights died as fire consumed the backup power source inside the room, melting the wires, perhaps cracking the batteries. Soon the door itself would give way. Heather knew it would happen. She’d seen it. And Meyer had explained it — not with words, but with some sort of mind-speak in her persistent dreams:

  They built the door to withstand force, Heather — even fire. But the man outside, he dropped a cherry bomb down the pipe. Then the fire has all the oxygen it needs to burn, flowing from the outside like a supply line.

  And oxygen —

  And fire —

  Heather pushed against the two soft lumps she found behind her in the dark, her children, driving them across the room, shoving their protesting forms into what she suspected was the corner behind the couch. It was impossible to be sure where they were or even that she was shepherding Trevor and Lila instead of Piper and Raj. Then she heard voices, and the first of the emergency lights ticked back on. The room became a carnival of hard, contrasting edges: the light’s bright-white knife lines of black shadow. She saw her children below her, could sense Piper somewhere behind, maybe above.

  “Mom … ”

  “Fire, Lila. It’s burning.”

  “Mom!”

  Heather rolled and looked over her shoulder to where her daughter was staring with terrified eyes. There was a monster crawling along the ceiling, its body made of churning, boiling black smoke.

  “Gas masks! Piper! You said there are gas masks!”

  “Will gas masks help with smoke?”

  “Stay on the floor, Trevor. We’re in some serious shit right now.”

  Heather bounded up, knowing she’d d
isplayed terrible bedside manner but not remotely caring. The generator room door had buckled and was spilling smoke around its edges. It had been built to keep the machinery in and the people safely out. It was meant to withstand some sort of internal failure — maybe even a fire that could kill their last power supply. But it should only need to hold for a few scorching minutes because nobody — not even Meyer — had anticipated this. But Heather knew from her dreams.

  They’d cut the generator’s exhaust pipe with a hacksaw.

  They’d stuck a funnel in its top, then filled it with gas.

  There had been an old but effective firecracker.

  And a match.

  With the ruptured exhaust pipe feeding from outside, the fire had plenty of what it needed to burn.

  Fuel.

  Oxygen.

  Meyer, his voice as clear as if he was standing beside her: I put the gasoline in a fireproof box in case it spills. Because fire would use all our oxygen.

  But he hadn’t fireproofed the gas poured through a funnel, through the cut-off pipe — a new air source opened wide with a cherry bomb.

  Fire would use all our oxygen.

  The door wouldn’t last forever. And although there was oxygen in the generator room, there was much more in the bunker. And with the electricity dead, fans wouldn’t do the job of bringing new air in, or clearing out the smoke.

  Something hit Heather in the chest: three gas masks, one for each. The person above her, who’d thrown the masks, was already wearing one. Raj, wearing it like a nightmare.

  But the things were merely masks without tanks. How would these help them breathe?

  Heather had no idea. Meyer had babbled on and on about his survivalist bullshit, and that’s exactly how Heather had taken it when they’d lain on warm sheets in post-coital haze: as bullshit. Did you have to turn a gas mask on? Did it somehow feed you air? Or did it clean the air? Heather had no idea.

  She only knew her heart was hammering like a drum. And that the bunker, which had always felt plenty large, suddenly felt much too small.

  They would suffocate and die.

  Raj handed her something else. This he didn’t throw. A blue steel handgun. He held one of his own in his other hand.

  “Guns? Now?”

  “Put those masks on!”

  Did Raj know something she didn’t? Heather had been making merciless fun of her daughter’s baby-daddy the entire time they’d been shut in together. He pouted, he complained, he fiddled with that stupid fucking watch. The phones had been out for six weeks. Did he really think he could reach home on his secret agent wrist communicator?

  But here he was now, crouched while she was prone, masked while she was bare-faced, armed while she tried to refuse the weapon. Maybe he’d be breathing after she’d choked and died. Or maybe he was clueless and had only ensured that he’d die looking like an idiot.

  A gushing sound came from the mostly closed generator room.

  The sprinklers had kicked on. Was that even a good idea? Couldn’t fire burn on top of water? It’s not like the room was filled with wood. There should really be—

  The halon system, Heather. When it happens — when the fire breaks out — the halon system will do the job faster than the sprinklers.

  Piper ran past. She was keeping low; black gasoline smoke was filling the upside-down pool of the ceiling from the top down. The air felt heavy and hot. The living room sprinklers would go off soon too, once it was hot enough to melt the wax plugs. If they went off too early, as a false alarm, everything would be ruined. It’s not like they could run to Walmart for more supplies, which was why Meyer had installed the—

  Halons

  —the halon system in the first place. Halons, not water sprinklers. But it had to be manually activated. Pulled like a school fire alarm. The switch to activate them, he’d shown her, was accessible in three places: the foot of the stairs, the master bedroom, and—

  “Hang on!” Piper yelled. She was headed for the—

  —the control room, where she could pull the red lever and smother the fire, disrupting combustion at the molecular level without suffocating them. It was the perfect fire suppression system. It had to be activated manually because the system’s designers assumed a fire bad enough to warrant full-home suppression was the kind you’d want to run from, particularly if you were trapped in an underground bunker, and hence you’d—

  “When it happens,” Meyer had told her in her seemingly prescient dream, “use the sprinklers and the extinguishers on the walls, but don’t touch the—”

  Heather bolted to her feet, making her children's still-unmasked, prone bodies jump in surprise below her.

  “Piper, don’t activate the—!” Heather began.

  But she was too late. The air filled with hissing halon gas. The crackling fire sounds in the generator room abated.

  And then from above — from the door at the top of the stairs — something clanked as the secondary locks disengaged, leaving only the drilled-through primary locks between their bunker and the outside.

  The sound of a door slamming open.

  Rushing feet on metal stairs.

  Heather gripped her gun, suddenly glad for its cold comfort.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Trevor glanced at the gas mask in his lap, completely ignoring it. He turned to Lila, who looked absolutely terrified. He felt it was his responsibility to worry about her (she was his sister, after all), but right now he needed to take action. He’d been useless and stir-crazy so far, but shit was hitting the fan. He finally had a chance to prove he was the man his father had been — and still was, somewhere.

  Trevor stood and plucked the pistol from his mother’s shaking hands.

  “Hey!”

  “I got it, Mom.”

  “Give me—!”

  Everything was happening too fast. His mother was in plain sight, an ideal target for the men whose boots were now tromping down the spiral staircase. Trevor blocked her body with his. She protested again, but he’d be damned if he’d lie down and cry. People were breaking into their home? He’d live or die on his feet.

  Piper, disoriented, peeked out of the control room. She’d gone in to activate the fire extinguishers. Suddenly, the place was under siege, and Piper didn’t seem to be following whatever had happened. Her huge blue eyes were wide with shock. She was unarmed, as big a target as his mother.

  “Get back in there!” Trevor shouted.

  Piper retreated, thankfully obeying.

  Maybe ten seconds had passed. Trevor had felt the world’s shortest burst of adrenaline. He still felt keyed up and ready to kick ass, but realized now just how far his heart had climbed into his throat. His breath was quick and too shallow; he felt as if the fire had done its job and robbed the room of air. He couldn’t focus. He could barely see Raj across the room, wearing that stupid fucking gas mask, holding a gun with the safety clearly still on.

  “Raj!”

  Feet rushed down the stairs. Trevor raised his weapon and, realizing the safety gaffe himself, flicked a small lever on the gun’s side. A red dot appeared beneath the lever, and Trevor remembered something his father had taught him: Red means dead.

  He ducked, realizing too late that despite being low he was still entirely exposed to the boots now halfway down the staircase. His only chance was to get the first shot and take them by surprise. A bullet through the ankle of the lead man would do plenty. One would be hobbled, and the others would tumble down over him, making for a mix of target practice and Twister.

  He raised the gun and sighted. Tried and failed to calm his breath. Blinked. And fired.

  The bullet struck the concrete ceiling a full six feet from the staircase. Dust sifted down.

  “Gun!” yelled one of the intruders.

  “Vincent, get your ass down there!” another shouted.

  Trevor swallowed, feeling his large, shocked eyes unable to close. He looked at the gun in his hands, confused by its betrayal. He didn’t have to cock i
t to fire again, did he? No, the slide ejected the empty and chambered a new round, cocking the pistol at the same time. His father had taught him that, too.

  He raised the weapon again, but one of the men on the stairs ducked low and bared his own firearm first. The shooter’s black, muscle-covered arms were as steady as granite. A half-second beat, then the man fired.

  For a second, Trevor thought he might be dead, but the man had merely shot out the emergency light across the room and plunged them in shadow.

  Light spilled from the other rooms, but the main area had become a confused gray. Trevor wanted to run, but his feet — like his gun — betrayed him. The men came forward, rushing with a sureness Trevor had to envy, spreading in a precision assault, each barely seen shadow seeming to know exactly where to go. They ran from room to room, and more lights went out. At one point, Trevor felt the gun plucked from his hand, his body unceremoniously cuffed to the ground.

  “Clear!” one of the men shouted.

  “Clear!” another echoed.

  “Clear!”

  The room quieted. Trevor didn’t dare move. He was under the distinct impression that although he could see little, the invaders could see everything.

  Night vision goggles, his mind told him.

  But who wore night vision goggles? Who brought generators and powered drills to an apocalypse bunker, scavenging for scraps?

  Military maybe? A special-ops team gone rogue?

  It was as if the group had come here specifically to take the bunker. As if they’d known exactly what would be required … and, curiously, how to take over without killing a soul. Not a shot had been fired after the first man, squatting low, had killed the lights.

  A new set of footsteps paced casually down from above then moved to the middle of the now-quiet room.

  “Get a light.”

  The voice chilled Trevor’s spine. The newcomer who’d said those words spoke like someone giving a lecture, not someone who’d spent less than a minute masterminding a flawless raid. The man had a slight accent, but rather than it making him sound distinguished to Trevor’s ears, it made him sound somehow broken.