by Isla Morley
Dobbs opens a drawer of another filing cabinet. “Microfiche. In here are newspapers going back one hundred and twenty years. I’ve got photocopies of other documents. The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Homestead Act, the Test Ban Treaty, you name it.”
“That’s nice.” Now, if we can just get out of this room and go upstairs.
He has me turn around, and I reel backward. On a bookshelf are rows and rows of jars, each one stuffed with some sort of animal. “See why I call this place the Ark? DNA. That’s our ticket to the future.”
He raps on a steel cabinet with a padlock. “We’ll leave insects for another time, but all told, I’ve got DNA samples of two thousand species.”
An adjoining door opens into another wedge-shaped cubicle. He has me face a glass display case of old coins. “These ones are actual gold. Krugerrands. Used to be money had value. Now we’re supposed to be happy with a piece of paper with a string of numbers on it, and sometimes not even that much. You ever been to a bank and asked to see your money?”
Could it be that he has forgotten I’m too young to have a bank account?
Another door, another room. This one he calls the Inner Sanctum. A desk, a chair, and a cot like the one upstairs. Except for the metal shelves full of old books, it looks like a prison cell. He taps on the spines. A New Theory of the Earth by William Whiston, The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Mein Kampf is the one he pulls out.
“You won’t hear anyone admit it, but there are people—people in our government—doing the same thing as Hitler did. You ever heard of eugenics? Back in the thirties, government scientists worked round the clock trying to come up with the human thoroughbred. Back then, you could go to any county fair and there would be half a dozen judges reviewing the genetic panels of entrants like they were blue-ribbon hogs. Fitter Family Contests, they called them. Next thing, the government started rounding up criminals, mental cases, cripples, people with incurable diseases, you name it, and stuck them in camps and started sterilizing them. They want you to believe that’s all in the past, but you’d be surprised what they’re doing behind the scenes. You have any idea what the welfare costs are for a cripple in this country? Back then, they estimated 1.2 million dollars. Quadruple that amount today. Economics is what it boils down to. Keeping people from draining the system, keeping people from sucking off their profits.”
The last room has a steel wall and a steel door with a keypad. He punches a code, and a soft click releases the dead bolt. It is not much bigger than the walk-in closet Daddy built for Mama. As soon as I see the glass cabinet, I step back. “Nothing to be afraid of,” Dobbs says, pushing me in. He closes the door, locks it, then uses a key to unlock the gun safe.
“This here’s a .38 caliber revolver—the perfect weapon for one of the gentler persuasion. No safeties, easy to load, no magazine to lose, and it doesn’t have the heavy muzzle blast you get with magnum cartridges.” He offers it to me.
I clasp my hands together, shake my head.
“Never heard of a country girl afraid of guns.” He puts it back and takes out another gun. “This is a must-have. The 9mm Glock model 17—it’s my preference over the standard-issue Beretta.” He handles it the way you would a small furry pet. “Bolt-action Winchester 69; that one used to be my grandfather’s. It’s fine for hunting small game, and the ammo is cheap. This is a Mosin-Nagant 91-30. It will stop a moose. And this is my father’s 12-gauge Remington 870.”
In a drawer at the bottom of the safe is ammunition, along with gas masks and a gadget that looks like a game console. He calls it a radiation detector. “The government has hoarding laws, if you can believe that. See if they stop me.” Dobbs laughs, and it sounds exactly like something bound up in a garbage disposal.
“Can we go now?”
He locks the cabinets, then the steel door, and we make the circular route around the central pillar, passing from room to room until we are back on the landing of the lower level.
“Saved the best for last.”
More?
He has to pull me down another six stairs to a tube of corrugated iron about fifty feet long with a diameter of about eight feet. It has a false floor that makes me think of a gangplank off a pirate ship. Running at eye level on each side is a slither of thick cables. The utility tunnel, he calls it. At the far end is the door. Even from fifty feet away, it looks ominous. Everything in me says, Don’t take another step. Whatever he says, do not go in there.
I back up. Dobbs starts shoving again. I dig in my heels. He puts his shoulder into it and leans against me.
“Please, no farther.”
He pushes me all the way to the end. Off to the side are two small rooms. One is not much bigger than the size of Mama’s pantry. He says it’s the battery room. The one next to it is the generator room. Huge contraptions take up the space. He points to big steel drums and tells me they’re the fuel for making our own electricity when the time comes.
“I’m not saying the end’s going to happen tomorrow. When it does, though, we’ll have no time to react. There are some who think it’ll be biological. Anthrax is easy enough to get your hands on, but it won’t travel well. Smallpox, maybe, if they figure out a way to use it in aerosol form. Can’t be too hard to hack into the grids and shut off the nation’s electricity, but I think it’s those bankers who are going to shut us down. I may be wrong, but whatever it’s going to be, you have to prepare for it all.”
We’re up against the enormous door again. The handle has a thick chain around it with a padlock. I keep my face turned away because I can smell Dobbs sweating with excitement.
“You’re about to see engineering on the level of the pyramids.”
He turns the massive red steering wheel. “Now, we’re already a good sixty feet below the surface, but this baby plummets to a depth of one hundred and seventy-four feet. That’s like an eight-story skyscraper.”
“Please. I don’t want to. I’m afraid of heights.”
For some reason, he finds this incredibly funny.
I can’t imagine how he gets that door open all the way. It’s three times the size of one of those filing cabinets. “Six thousand pounds, right there,” he says.
Even before it has swung all the way open, the pitch dark comes at us like an avalanche. Dobbs’s flashlight is no match for it.
“It can be a little spooky, so you might want to hold on to my arm.”
No, I can’t go in there! He can’t lock me up in there!
“It’s okay, I got you.” Dobbs has a hold of my wrist. I twist, but he won’t let go.
“No!”
“But this is the best part.” His eyes are wide, as skittery as loose marbles.
He pulls me onto some kind of platform. It clangs when we step on it, and a gust of air rushes up through the holes. It’s too deep down here. I don’t even like swimming in deep water. I’m always afraid there are monsters that are going to see that churning water and come all the more quickly. Thrash all you want—the horror is going to reach its tentacles up and grab you by the ankles.
Something creaks. Something sounds like a chain rattling or the strain of a terrible weight that can no longer be borne. He intends to throw me to the darkness. The floor is giving way. We’ve stepped on something else that starts to sway. It’s too much. I scream.
A draft takes my shriek and flings it against some far wall, where it ricochets and returns to us as a cackle.
Dobbs tells me to quit screaming. He tries to get me to step out farther onto the platform, which his flashlight means to assure me is solid, but I won’t be budged.
“There’s a railing.”
“No!” My insides are about to drop out of me. I squeeze my legs together, hold myself down there. Then, my legs give out. Crying’s no use. Pleading’s no use. Nothing’s no use.
“Okay. I guess we’ll have to do this another time.”
By the time he
gets the door closed, it’s too late. Whatever horrors he meant to lock back in place, some of them have escaped.
WHEN WE ARE back on the upper level, Dobbs looks at his watch. “Don’t know about you, but I worked up an appetite.”
He does not solicit my help. Instead, he insists I rest. I stand in the kitchen and watch him open a can of meat and spread it on bread along with something unidentifiable from a packet. He pours the contents of another can into a pot and puts it on the burner. He sets out two place mats, two cups of water, and a milk glass vase with fake daisies. By the time he is done, on the table are two bowls of mystery meat and a platter of sandwiches cut into triangles. He motions for me to sit like we’re at some fancy restaurant.
I’ve listened to his stories and taken the tour and paid attention, all reasonably well. Because he is smiling at me, I take it he agrees.
“Can I go home now?”
He stops chewing, puts his sandwich down.
“I really need to go home.”
He doesn’t have to shake his head. I can see it in his eyes. My voice rises, as do his hands, like he means to pat everything back into place.
“Settle down, now.”
“Please! Please just take me home! What have I ever done to you? I thought you were my friend! I trusted you!”
“Blythe—”
“No! I don’t want to hear any more of your stories! I just want to go home. You’re sick!”
It’s the wrong thing to have said. I can tell by the way his mouth puckers, like an empty coin purse. Stupid of me. Who’s to say he won’t drag me to the silo? Kill me? Torture me?
He passes me a handkerchief. For a moment, I can’t think why. “Don’t cry. I hate to see you sad.”
I understand now that it is better to know. “Are you going to—?” I can’t say it. He must have the idea.
“Am I going to what?”
“Are you going to . . . Because . . .” I look at my hands. Sex can’t be as terrible as dying or being locked up. And if we get it over with, he can let me go. “Because, I’ll . . . let you.”
He scoots his chair back and marches to the wall where an old calendar hangs. It’s a picture of a red barn near a meadow full of longhorns. You’d think he was staring out a window. “You think I’d ever do anything to hurt you?”
I don’t know what the right answer is anymore. What does it take to please this man?
“You think I’m a monster. I understand why. You will see things differently in time. Everything you need, I’m going to take care of. You’ll see.”
I ball my hands into fists. If I still had fingernails, they’d be slicing open my palms.
He juts out his chin, moistens his rubbery lips. After scanning the ceiling, he locks his eyes on mine. Here it comes—here comes the explanation.
“It’s the hair, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Shaving you—that’s what’s got you so upset.” He goes over to the cubby.
It’s as though some invisible monster has come for me, some beastly slithery thing from the silo that a six-thousand-pound door can’t keep caged. It’s come up behind me, through the gap in the floor. I pivot around, but there is nothing there. Above me, then, because a tentacle dangles down and begins winding itself around my neck. I put my hands to my neck, but there is nothing to yank away. Impossible to take a deep breath.
“I’ll get you a wig. Until then, I have just the thing.” His lips are moving, but the words have trouble catching up. I can’t hear because another tentacle has dropped down and stiffened into a knitting needle, and is poking itself into my ear. My head, skewered.
Dobbs is holding out a basket of scarves to me. “Pick whichever you like,” I think he says.
Another tentacle straps itself around my chest. I start to feel numb. My fingers tingle. I am having a heart attack. “I think—a doctor . . .”
Dobbs is digging around for just the right one. He lifts out a gray scarf with tiny yellow dots. I shake my head and tug at my collar.
“Will you allow me?” He intends to fasten it beneath my chin.
I shake my head. Can’t breathe. Black spots. Camera flashes.
“You’re all right. Just take a few breaths; it’ll pass.”
His face has gone funny.
Have to keep standing. Can’t sit. Can’t listen to him telling me how he’s bought it all for me.
There’s an old gumball machine in Mr. Minta’s store. You have to give it a good hard whack after you put in your quarter if you want a gumball to fall down the chute. It’s like the gumball’s just fallen down. I motion to the rack with the clothes on it.
“Yup, I bought those for you, too.”
I glance at the shoe rack.
“Guilty, Your Honor,” he says. He smiles. He is enjoying himself. “Take a look at the bookshelf.”
Brontë, Austen, Harper Lee, Louisa May Alcott. Not only my favorites but also books that are on next year’s reading list. I turn around. No longer is the room an arrangement of objects in a missile silo. It is some kind of a museum. Around me are relics from the part of my life I have yet to live.
I’m sure I am standing quite still; it’s only the question that keeps revolving.
With the shallowest of breaths, I ask, “How long have you been planning this?”
This is when he’s supposed to say, “Planned what? I haven’t planned anything.” This is when he’s supposed to say, “Don’t be crazy—I’m not going to keep you.”
This is what he says: “The part regarding you, about two years, give or take. All the rest, eighteen years.”
“How long . . .?”
“Well, I just told you.”
I shake my head. “How long are you going to keep me here?”
He shrugs, looks away.
It must be asked. “Forever?”
The monster sucks me all the way down to the bottom of the silo. It is a long way down, just as Dobbs said, but I still manage to hear every last word. “We are the Remnant, Blythe. After the End, you and I will rise up together. You and me—we will one day seed the new world.”
IV
DOBBS IS THE one who keeps the calendar these days. He claims his timekeeping methods are accurate. I’m not so sure. Going by his records, it’s been almost three and a half years since I last saw Charlie. I look at the dates and entries in this ledger, and very rarely do they make sense. I don’t know what a year feels like. I know what a long time feels like, and a short time. I know they sometimes trade places regarding the exact same event, like Charlie. Charlie was sometimes a long time ago, and sometimes he was right around the corner. I wonder what it seems like for him. Dobbs says he’s probably forgotten he was ever down here. I hope that’s true, and I hope it’s not. I don’t want him to remember me—I wasn’t right in my head back then—but I do want him to miss me. Perhaps at night, before he goes to sleep, he could have a yearning for a particular kind of voice, a certain hand stroking his forehead. Or perhaps he could get up in the morning and go tell his mama about a wonderful lady who visited him in his dreams.
Dobbs and I don’t talk about Charlie anymore, which is just as well. He’ll only remind me how it was him who spared the boy, him who’d whisked Charlie out of here, and in so doing, spared me a lifetime of guilt. Him, the hero. I like to think I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I’d already been standing there half the night when Dobbs came in. But I don’t know. I’ll never know. Because of that, I can’t quite trust myself. There are still parts of me that haven’t quite made up their mind.
I flip the calendar pages back and forth. It would make no difference to me if we undid the binding and rearranged the pages and put the book back together again. July 22, the day I was taken, is six years ago. That is so long ago it almost feels like Never. May 12, three years ago, is the entry for when Dobbs moved down here. That might as well be Always. But just a few months before that, February 4, is my favorite date. Adam was born. That feels like Blink.
&nb
sp; I didn’t keep the pregnancy a secret from Dobbs as I had with the first one. Soon as I was sure, I told him. As it turned out, Adam was conceived when Charlie was with us. “I am going to have a baby, Dobbs,” I told the man. And because he had missed it the first go-around, I spelled it out real clear and slow. “I am going to have a baby. I. Me.” There was to be no “we,” I told him. Adam was born, and Dobbs had to be reminded all over again when he had the ridiculous notion I name the child after him. I’d remembered Mama deciding Theodore would be a good name for my little brother, saying if you couldn’t pick your child’s destiny, putting your faith in him by naming him after a great president wasn’t a bad bet. I’d remembered Daddy’s lady-friend, Bernice, and the baby she named Elijah, hoping her boy would lead her to great things. “His name will be Adam,” I told Dobbs. He gave his approval, saying it was a fitting name, given that he had been formed in the earth, so I had to set him straight on that, too. It was breath that was to define my son, not soil. And I am right. The boy carries within him a breeze, the breath of God. His first breath knocked down concrete walls and let in wide-open spaces. Turns out that breath has also knocked down the barriers I put up, barriers to keep an emotional distance between him and Dobbs. Adam now understands that Dobbs is his father, not merely the Person Who Brings Food, but he still calls him what he was first taught: Mister.
“What are you doing, Mommy?”
My little boy has cat paws. “Oh, Adam! You scared me!”
He giggles. He always finds it funny when I get a fright, so sneaking up on me is his favorite thing to do.
I close the book and put it up high on the shelf. “Why are you down here? You’re supposed to be asleep.” Adam sleeps upstairs, in a space next to my bed that Dobbs has defined using shower curtains. Adam knows he is not allowed to use the stairs without someone helping him, even though he is three and insists that he is a big boy now.
He holds up his fingers. Between them is a brown tooth. He grins and then sticks his tongue in the bloody gap in his gum.