by Lynda Engler
The subterranean fortress consisted of five bedrooms around a central great room, a kitchen, laundry, bathroom, library and a huge hydroponics garden. The well that brought their fresh water dove over a thousand feet into the earth, four times deeper than the average water supply for a suburban home. The shelter had also been stocked with at least a ten year supply of dried goods and toiletries.
Grandfather stopped and took a deep breath, then continued. “With the Earth poisoned, even finding food was difficult. Very few babies were born and most of those that were had terrible mutations. Within one year, life as we knew it was over.”
Their grandmother sighed and closed her eyes, holding back tears. She usually tried to put on a brave face for the kids, but every once in a while her resolve broke and the children got a glimpse of the emotional pain their grandparents lived with.
Isabella’s mind was filled with images from her grandmother’s tale: streets clogged with cars that had gone out of control as their drivers died; survivors searching the dead for their friends; people in their houses waiting for family members who never came home. She pictured houses suddenly without power, and the people cut off from the rest of the world. With their technology ripped from them, they had no way of knowing what was going on. She imagined the panic they must have felt and a cold fist squeezed her own heart with such force it was all she could do to retreat to her bedroom when the storytelling was done.
* * *
Malcolm tucked his daughter into her sleeping bag and kissed her on the forehead. He pushed her red hair away from her eyes and said, “Goodnight Sweet Pea. Papa loves you very much.” Shia smiled and closed her eyes.
Malcolm crawled out of the tent and sat on the ground outside alone. It was a warm night, but summer would soon end and the long winter would arrive. He would need to lead his people to shelter before then. Malcolm thought back to the city they had just left. In Ewr they had walls to keep the cold out and wood stoves to keep warm. But out here in the ’burbs, it was a jungle. Without people to hunt animals and cut down trees, wildlife and greenery had flourished since the wars ended.
Malcolm absentmindedly whittled at a stick with his knife blade. Almost nine billion people had died at the end of the Final War – 999 out of every 1000 all over the world. The enemy had hidden trucks with small nuclear bombs in over 30 cities and when they set them off, they disabled all the communications technology for a few horrifying days. Small bombs destroyed power plants in nations all over the world, taking out power grids on a global level. During that time, several major cities, including Washington DC, were hit with thermonuclear bombs, leaving nothing but a gigantic crater where the seat of their government had been. They also destroyed Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle, taking out many of the largest cities across the country. How they coordinated such a massive assault and carried it out with such precision was still unknown.
Some of the bombs used in other cities, including New York City, were “dirty” bombs, which meant they were conventional but carried in them radioactive material. Destruction was minimal but they left those regions completely uninhabitable by humans.
The horrific attacks were completed when the terrorists unleashed wide-reaching chemical and biological weapons on what was left of the world. Over the years the poisons seeped into the water and soil causing illness and creating mutations in children born of contaminated parents.
Malcolm recalled sitting around the stove in the ruins of the high-rise apartment building in Ewr where he and his family lived. He was just a few years older than Shia was now, when his father began teaching him this story, recanting the history that was passed down from one tribal leader to the next. As leader he was expected to know things that would help them survive. The handed-down teachings of tribal leaders included knowledge of genetics and mutations and how to match people to breed the least mutated children.
In the almost five generations of his people since the Final War, the alterations in the human body were getting much less severe. In another fifty years his people would have a relatively clean world again. He wouldn’t live to see it, nor would Shia, but her children’s children might. The government, when it still existed, had said that in only a hundred years the world would be free of the poisons. Malcolm wasn’t sure how the government had known that, or if it was even true. Perhaps they had projected a hundred years because it was more hopeful than a thousand.
A hundred years was such a long time! For now Malcolm’s main concern was to find a permanent shelter for his tribe. He tossed the stick he had been idly whittling into the trees and walked to the camp fire to join the rest of his people.
Two
“Get up Izz!” Abigail shouted in Isabella’s ear. “It’s your turn to make breakfast.”
Isabella hated morning. The room she shared with Abigail just wasn’t big enough for the two of them. It could have been a hundred feet long and there wouldn’t have been enough room. You would think with five bedrooms and only ten people there could be a better arrangement. But who else would she share with? Her two cousin-brothers were boys, so of course they shared a room. The largest bedroom belonged to her grandparents, who had occupied it since they moved into the shelter fifty years ago. Isabella’s mother and Aunt Mari shared another room, her other two aunts the fifth. One toilet for ten people didn’t make mornings any better either.
Forcing herself out of bed in her usual morning fog, Isabella stumbled to her dresser for clothing and sneakers. Operating on autopilot, she walked down the hall to the bathroom to pee and then brush her teeth.
But this morning as Isabella passed the solarium on her way to the kitchen, a movement in the corner of her eye made her turn to look through the entranceway. Something – someone – was in the pool. Legs! Two human legs were kicking and splashing as they swam. Then another pair of legs jumped into the water.
“Papa! Papa! Come see! There are people in your pool,” yelled Isabella.
Not only her grandfather, but everyone in the shelter came running. Luke gawked in disbelief at all the legs. Isabella’s mother and grandmother simultaneously gave a startled gasp, and the rest just stood dumbfounded at the extraordinary sight. They were all surprised to see people in the pool, except her grandfather, whose expression wasn’t surprise. His face grew ashen, his arms blossomed with goose bumps and his eyes took on a haunted look.
Isabella saw at least six people – mutants by the looks of them. One had too many fingers, another had no toes and a third had one arm much shorter than the other. It was weird looking up through the ceiling at people swimming above her. The pool was specifically designed to let light in, not out and the occupants of the pool couldn’t see her even if they pressed their faces to the bottom.
Isabella hadn’t seen another human, except her family, since the annual shelter re-supply truck had come eight months ago. Visitors to their shelter were very rare. Once every few years a group of mutants would wander through the property, never knowing how close they were to other humans. But none ever stayed. But you couldn’t really consider mutants human. Her grandmother had given a basic knowledge of genetics to her four daughters and her four grandchildren. So she and her sibs knew that mutants, while they shared a common genetic background with true humans, weren’t really people. But Isabella wasn’t convinced. They looked human. Different, strange, but still human. She watched them for a long time – long after the other family members got bored and left to do other things. The mutants were an interesting diversion, but if they were just passing through, as Grandfather was certain, then they were of no real consequence to the Shelter Folk.
For the next four days, Isabella found excuses to go to the solarium to see if the strange mutant swimmers were in the pool. She ditched chores and snuck out of her room when she was supposed to be studying. Most of the time the pool was empty, but every once in a while, the mutants were there, swimming or bathing in the pool that looked like a natural pond from above.
The mutants were fasci
nating! There were even little kids – three of them from what she could tell. And since they swam naked, she could tell a lot. Isabella guessed the two little boys were about six or seven years old, and the girl with the bright red hair was a bit younger. The others all seemed to be teenagers. She didn’t see any actual adults and there were no extraordinarily old people like her grandparents. How did this group of teens and children come to be alone Outside? Were they alone, or were there adults who just never swam in the pool? No, if there were adults, they would want to use the pool to get clean, even if they didn’t swim. There couldn’t be adults. Why were these children wandering the dangerous, poisonous lands above alone?
One mutant, an older teenage boy, especially captured her attention. He had a mismatched number of fingers on his hands, and the oddest skin she had ever seen. It was ebony black, like the midnight sky she gazed at through the pool at night. His head was crowned with straw-colored, close-cropped hair. He had huge muscles, rippled and rugged. Watching him swim naked made her tingle inside and her chest get tight. She wondered what it would feel like to run her hands over those muscles and feel the sinuous ripples under the dark skin.
She had only glimpsed his face a few times, yet it dominated her every thought. She wished desperately that she could see his eyes, but he kept them closed when he dove under the water. He spent a lot of time in the water, often with the little girl. The child had milk chocolate skin and shockingly red hair. One of her legs was significantly shorter than the other and she had only one ear. What an odd little girl! The two little boys had white skin like her own, but unlike her own pale skin, these boys had been tanned by the sun’s strong rays. One boy’s hair was brown, the other was red.
Isabella wanted to sit and admire these strange creatures all day but she couldn’t stay away from her chores and studies forever without bringing down the wrath of her grandmother. Granmama had been at University studying to be a teacher when the Final War occurred and she was unrelenting in the education of her family. Isabella already had read half the books in the compound’s extensive underground library. Books about adventure and travel were her favorites.
She barged into the solarium, hoping to get another glimpse of the striking young man, and Luke was already there, getting his required daily dose of sunshine. She relaxed into her favorite reclining chair and her thoughts drifted back to the interesting dark mutant boy. But the only mutants swimming above them were the two young boys.
It wasn’t too long before Luke announced, “Come on, Izz, we need to get back to our studies. I’ve had enough of this mutant-watching. I’m bored.” He curled the paperback book in his lap into a tube and put it to his mouth. “Earth to Isabella,” he bellowed through the makeshift megaphone. “Let’s go!”
“How can they bore you? They are the most interesting thing I’ve seen in my life! Don’t you just want to watch them all day?” she grinned wickedly, but Luke didn’t take her bait.
“Please?” she continued to prod him. “Let’s just hang out here a little while longer. Granmama won’t know we weren’t studying.” Was he actually going to go study on purpose? That was not like him.
But he only shook his head. “They don’t do anything interesting. They can swim, so what? Big deal.” Luke was already out of his chair and heading toward the door when he turned back to Isabella and said, “Even my math book is more interesting than this.”
* * *
That evening the eldest members of the tribe gathered under the monstrous canopy created by the elephant ear trees. Malcolm sat on a warm stone near the fire, which had burned down to coals. He shoved the half-burned logs around the edges into the coals with a heavy stick.
Guy was eighteen, as was his mate, Milora. Other than webbed fingers and toes, their five-year old son Elias was almost completely free of mutations. Malcolm was proud of that child. His own father had matched Guy and Milora before he died. It was the most successful genetic pairing to date. Three other elders completed the group: Macy, Garith, and Kaedo.
Malcolm addressed the group in his peculiar mutant dialect. “Our pickings are imperfect. We can keep looking for another city and hope we find one not as contaminated as Ewr. But why hassle? We know all the cities were poisoned during the war. We should stay here and build a right shelter. What’s the vote? Who votes to leave and keep looking?”
Milora flung her long blond hair away from her face and raised her hand. Two others joined her.
“You don’t want to stay here?” Malcolm asked Milora.
“Not really,” she replied. “There isn’t anything here! Maybe if we keep looking, we’ll find a place with some people, people like us, and we can make a better place. A place that’s not just wilderness!”
After an hour of arguing, the vote was three for staying, three for going. They decided to discuss their situation with the almost-adults – the three tribe members who were no longer children but weren’t adults either: Maxi, who was ten, and Clay and Kalla, both eleven. They would vote again tomorrow.
* * *
Three more days had passed and to Isabella’s disbelief, the group was still there. Later that day while working in hydroponics with her grandfather, Isabella broke the silence and blurted out, “Maybe they aren’t leaving, Granpapa.”
“The mutants must leave, my Bella. If they stay, even with their limited intellect, they will eventually discover the entrance to our shelter and then who knows what will happen? At the very least, they’ll try to take our food. More likely they’ll kill us all!” Isabella sometimes thought her grandfather worried to a point that bordered on paranoia. However, if it wasn’t for that mindset and his actions fifty years earlier, neither the shelter nor any of them would be around today.
Isabella heard her grandfather’s words, but they just didn’t make sense. Up until now she had always believed him unquestioningly. Grandfather had told them of other mutant groups that had come through their property over the last fifty years. She didn’t know if they had been aggressive or not but this group of mutants certainly seemed peaceful. She didn’t see how her family could be in any danger. The creatures outside were almost like her and they were just kids. Besides, the air lock door was quite secure. Barbaric mutants could never figure out how to open it.
Isabella lay in bed that night thinking about the visitors. Her desire to know more was mounting daily and she knew one morning she would wake up and they would be gone. She would never know where they came from, how they survived, or why they were alone without adults. She knew mutants were short lived, so that explained why there weren’t any really old ones. But still, this was just a bunch of kids. There had to be an adult leading them. She had so many questions about them! Were the teenagers Outside that different than she was, than her own siblings? It would be just amazing to meet new people. Her own family was fine, but after 16 years with only them, she was understandably going a bit stir crazy. A lot stir crazy! She lay there thinking about the mutants and of the old cities outside.
Nine days had passed since their arrival and Isabella’s curiosity was getting the best of her. She had to know! And she had to know before they disappeared from her life forever. Before he was gone forever.
It was 2 am and Isabella still couldn’t fall asleep. All she could think about was the mutants. It was killing her! Finally, she crawled out of bed and crept down the hall, her bare feet soundless on the wooden floor. She crossed the threshold of the airlock and closed the door silently behind her. Her grandfather’s chem-rad suit hung on the hook. Could she do this?
Her grandfather had never, ever, allowed anyone to put that suit on. Going outside was just too dangerous. He had said so a million times.
Isabella twirled a lock of her hair between her fingers as she often did when contemplating things deeply. Maybe just this once? It might not be that dangerous. Granpapa may have exaggerated, as he tends to. I’ll be very careful and very quick. I’ll be back before anyone notices.
She removed the suit from the
hook. It was lighter than she expected. She stepped into the chem-rad suit and pulled it up, thrusting her arms into the holes. It was too big on her and the face mask was uncomfortable but she took her time to put it on right. Her hand trembled as she reached for the handle and willed herself to walk through the inner door of the airlock. She took a deep breath and walked through the door. She paused, looking at the airlock door. Finally she closed it behind her.
Isabella examined the control panel and found it was extremely simple to operate. She pressed the “start” button and for a moment she heard a whirring noise and wondered if she had been found out. Someone was coming! But it was just the mechanical lock completing its cycle. A green indicator lit and the outer hatchway opened into a small basement. She unlocked the metal hatch doors above her head and lifted the left side until it stood upright.
Moments later, Isabella was actually standing Outside for the first time in her life. She consciously slowed her breathing, trying to control her anxiety. She had wanted to see the Outside all her life! Now here she stood, glued to the ground, too scared to move her feet.
Isabella gazed upwards to the sky, turning her chin up to get the best view through the restrictive faceplate. The moon was full, thankfully, because she hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she began to make out the mutants camp. There were three tents in the tall grass and they were surprisingly close to where she had emerged from the airlock’s outer door. Her heart beating fast at the thought of being discovered, Isabella snuck around the pool and hid behind a group of trees that stood nearest a blue tent where she heard voices. A boy had been speaking but Isabella was unable to make out his words. Then a girl with an argumentative voice like her sister Abigail replied, “I still deem we go on. We’ll freeze here in winter! There must be another city somewhere Guy.”