The Line Between

by Tosca Lee

  “Let the dog stay and chase the cat, if he can find her,” Noah says. “Dinner will be ready when you are.”

  “You’ll want your coats,” Mel says to my surprise. I don’t understand until we follow him—not to the end of the house, as I expected, or even to the basement, but out the back door past a set of cat dishes Buddy is obsessively licking clean.

  “Noah’s known for . . . certain eccentricities,” Mel explains, leading us across the yard.

  “Where are we going?” Chase says, moving in front of me. It’s the same question I have because by all appearances the older man is leading us toward the shed.

  Mel stops. “You’re safe here. I know this may not look like much, but . . . please come with me.” He moves ahead and opens the shed door. Light spills out onto the dark earth the moment he does, from a set of overhead lights. The far wall is stocked with shelves of white plastic buckets, the adjacent one with tubs marked “dental hygiene,” “soap,” “linens,” “towels,” “unguents,” and others.

  I don’t even know what an unguent is.

  “All solar,” Mel says, gesturing to the bank of lights as he goes to a door leading to a side room. When he opens it and flicks on another switch, however, I realize it doesn’t go to a room at all but to a set of illuminated plywood stairs.

  “Where—where does this go?” I ask, not understanding.

  Chase looks nervously behind us.

  “Follow me,” Mel says, and heads down the stairs, the heels of his boots thumping with each step.

  The end of the stairwell leads to a long hallway with motion-sensor lights, a sliding door on each side. I think I see another pair farther on. “You’re the only guests at the moment,” he says, gesturing to the first door. “Please.”

  With a glance at him, I move toward the first door and carefully pull it open. The motion must have set off a sensor, because the inside flickers to life. I catch my breath.

  It’s a rectangular room as long as a hallway, complete with a sitting area of mismatched chairs, a double bed with a thick comforter on it, and an antique-looking dresser. There’s a small sink along the back wall—as well as a pocket door to what I assume is a closet or restroom. The floor has been laid with wood laminate flooring and a sprawling rug, the corrugated wall covered in mismatched art and a long set of bookshelves, but I know what this is . . .

  “This is a shipping container,” Chase says, with no small amount of wonder.

  “Yes,” Mel says.

  And remarkably, it’s warm.

  Well, warmer than it is outside, at least.

  “This heater runs off a lithium pack charged by solar panel,” Mel says, showing us how to adjust it.

  “How many are down here?”

  “Six,” Mel says. “Three on each side. The last two are double-wide, for larger families. So technically it’s eight. Any more and we’d need a longer hall.”

  The shed above doesn’t begin to cover the living space below it. It only disguises the stairwell.

  “I never would have guessed this was down here,” I say.

  “That’s the point,” Mel says. “The two other doors upstairs are bathrooms. There’s a shower as well. The pressure isn’t great and you’ll want to be fast, but it’s better than nothing.”

  We thank him and he leaves, boots thumping up the stairs.

  “Let’s go look at the others,” Chase says. We do, the hallway illuminating as we pass along it. Each room’s different. One filled with kitschy knick-knacks and a retro dinette set. Another with an antique dining table and old traveling trunk filled with toys. The “double-wides” feel practically like homes with two beds and four bunks each.

  Back in our room, I peel off the fleece jacket and carefully set the samples back into the carrier.

  “This place is amazing,” Chase says, looking around us. I sit down on the bed with an exhausted sigh.

  “Did I do the right thing?” I ask, staring at the ceiling. “Telling them?”

  He comes to sit down beside me and blows out a sigh. “My general rule is that you can’t go wrong telling the truth. The hard part is finding the right person to tell it to. I admit, I felt uneasy coming in here. The fences, the patrol—”

  “Me, too,” I murmur. “You have no idea.”

  “But I like him. I really hope he’s one of the good guys.”

  He shakes his head and gets up. The stubble on his cheeks has darkened and I think he must be handsome with a beard. “I don’t know ’bout you, but I’m gonna shower.”

  “They think we’re a couple.”

  He pauses, considers the duffle on the bed between us. “There’s plenty of rooms down here, Wynter.” He heads upstairs a moment later, fresh clothes in hand.

  It’s quiet. I wish there were a radio—something—as I grab some clothes and head up to the other bathroom.

  It’s spacious if cold, with towels and a loopy carpet. A sign taped to the wall has written instructions for using the composting toilet. Luckily for me, I already know all about it. Most important, it has running water. Doesn’t matter that the sink tap is cold. That the shower spits more than it sprays. I close my eyes and thank God for plumbing and soap.

  I dry off, tug my brush through my hair. Wish I had a hair dryer, but I’m not complaining. I spent fifteen years of my life without such modern marvels. I shove damp legs into black jeans, my arms into an embroidered blouse.

  By the time I get downstairs, Chase is dressed in fresh jeans and a simple gray sweater.

  The table’s set by the time we return to the house. Just three places.

  “Where’s Kestral?” I ask.

  “Tonight was difficult for her, as you might guess,” Noah replies. “She’ll join us in the morning. Please,” he says, bringing a cast-iron skillet to the table.

  It’s filled with buttery biscuits.

  “Do you have a cooler someplace I can put these?” Chase says, holding up the bag of roasts. “I can pack them with snow . . .”

  “The refrigerator is fine,” Noah says, gesturing toward it.

  Chase looks at him quizzically and then goes to open it. To my surprise, the light comes on.

  “Mel and the other man aren’t joining us?” I ask.

  Noah leans toward us and whispers, “They don’t like my cooking.” He chuckles. “I suspect it’s too basic for their tastes. But I like simple.”

  I try to remember if we passed Kestral, Mel, or the other man in the hallway beneath the shed. If I heard the sounds of anyone else. But I’m certain I didn’t. Where have they gone?

  We sit down to a dinner of green beans, baked potatoes, and even butter—as well as some kind of stew, which I politely refuse.

  “Be advised that there’s bacon in the beans . . . if you still want to eat it, knowing what you do,” Noah says, sitting down. “Shall I say grace?”

  It’s the first time I’ve prayed with anyone in months. And it is a holier prayer than I’ve experienced in fifteen years, this one shared by unbelievers and apostates.

  Glancing around the table as Noah asks for mercy, blessing, and the guidance to bless others, I feel gratitude for the first time in days. I think back to my conversations with Chase about signs and secret codes. And I think it’s no coincidence that Julie’s always loved us or that Jaclyn has always been more brave than she knew. No more coincidence than a grill tumbling from a truck or a doomsday prepper named Noah.

  “Do you have family?” Chase asks as we eat. “I mean, there’s so much space in your bunkhouse.”

  “Sure,” Noah says, sucking on a tooth. “I just don’t always know who they are until they show up. But I’m ready for them, whoever they are, when they do.”

  “During a disaster, you mean?”

  He lets out a long sigh. “Hard times have been coming for a long time. Disasters. Cyberattacks . . . disease. I’ve always known something like this would arrive. No one believed me, but that didn’t matter.”

  “You wanted to save them,” I say. />
  “I wanted to save myself.”

  “You built all this . . . for yourself,” I say.

  “No. No building can save a person’s soul.” He crosses his arms across his belly. “When I was in Vietnam, I saw things I wish I hadn’t. I did things in my life I regret. Probably much as you,” he says, nodding at Chase. “Some were necessary. Others I questioned and struggled with. Mr. Peterson was a religious man. I never had been. In some ways, I’m still not. But after taking life, I felt dead. And so I understood what he meant when he said that to live, you have to give life to others. I feel very alive with you here. I felt very alive building this place.”

  “Where do the others stay?” I ask. “I didn’t see them in the bunkhouse.”

  “Ah.” His chuckle is low and mellow and melodic. I think he must have a nice singing voice. “I’ll show you in the morning.”

  By the time we finish, we’re sated and stupid, practically slumped in our chairs. The iron skillet is empty—as is every plate on the table.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “I should thank you,” Noah says, rising. “For the bravery of what you’re doing. Both of you, Wynter and Chase. Thank you for this service. Rest well tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll get you to Colorado.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  * * *

  It’s late by the time we retreat to our makeshift bunk. We’re silent as we descend the stairs. Buddy, the traitor, refused to leave the cat.

  All the panic, the unease of before has deserted me with the last of my energy, leaving me strangely liberated, at the end of myself.

  I sink down on the bed and Chase comes over to lay his arm around me, careful to broadcast his intention in a way he never has before. I saw the way he glanced at me as I told the story tonight. I didn’t want to share the details of my time alone with Magnus—especially in front of him. It was Kestral who asked for them as outrage, anger, and strange injury played across her face. Now I regret sharing that much.

  “Don’t.”

  He hesitates and starts to let me go. I lay my hand along his thigh. He looks at it and then at me.

  “Don’t what?” he asks softly.

  “Treat me like I’m fragile.”

  He leans toward me, brushes his lips against my neck. “Never,” he whispers.

  I close my eyes.

  I could tilt my head and kiss him, he’s so close.

  When I make no move, he lets me go, rising to retrieve his backpack from the end of the bed. Pausing at the door, he says, “There’s a big difference between fragile and exquisite, Wynter.”

  He sets the lock and leaves, quietly shutting the door behind him. I hear the one across the hall close a few seconds later.

  I lean over and flip off the light. Sit on the edge of the bed, gazing into the darkness. Reliving the warmth of his breath against my hair. Wondering what it would be like to turn my head and meet those lips, taste his mouth at last. Snared in a moment that will haunt me all night.

  Ten seconds later, I’m striding out into the narrow hall to stand before his door.

  I reach for the knob, not sure it will even turn. Not knowing what I’ll say if he says something from inside.

  But it isn’t locked.

  Chase rolls to an elbow in the shaft of dim light filtering in from the hallway.

  “I—I don’t . . .”

  “It’s all right,” he says.

  When I don’t move, he pulls back the edge of the comforter. He’s still dressed beneath it. Neither one of us speaks as I lock the door behind me and blindly cross the room. Just the quiet rustle of bedsheets as he gathers me in his arms.

  • • •

  SOMETIME LATER, A knock sounds at the sliding door. Mel’s voice outside.

  “Yeah?” Chase says, instantly alert, leaning up over me. I turn my face against his shoulder. He smells like warmth and musk and skin.

  “Noah says be ready in half an hour.”

  • • •

  THE HOUSE IS eerily quiet. Dark, except for the fireplace stoked to new life in the living room, and the kerosene lantern glowing on the table. Standing at the small kitchen window as Chase pours a cup of coffee, I can just make out a field of solar panels reflecting the pallid stars. It’s barely 4 a.m. My eyes hurt, I’m so tired, but I’m very, very awake. Hyperaware of Chase, half my mind still back in the bunkhouse, tangled up in last night.

  “Mel went to retrieve the rest of the things from your vehicle,” Noah says, glancing up from the pan he’s stirring on the old gas stove. “I’m sorry to report it’s gone.”

  “That was fast,” I murmur.

  “Nor was there anyone in the truck you dispatched. I think it’s safe to say that whatever possessions you left behind, they have now.”

  “Can you spare a vehicle?” Chase asks.

  “We can. But first, breakfast,” Noah says. A moment later he sets a bowl of scrambled eggs on the table. I stare at them quizzically.

  “I didn’t see a chicken house,” I say. Granted, I’ve yet to see the place in sunlight, but upon arriving at those metal gates, took in everything I could.

  “Ah,” he says with a mysterious smile, gesturing us to help ourselves. “Just because you do not see them doesn’t mean they are not here.”

  I feel as though there’s far more to Noah than he’s told us.

  One thing I do know for sure: I’m going to miss hot meals.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” Chase says as we finish eating. He’s anxious to get moving, I know.

  And despite the wonders of Noah’s bunkhouse, so am I.

  “You’ve trusted me with your lives,” Noah says. “And in so doing, with the lives of countless others. Come, I want to show you something.”

  He pulls up his surgical mask and gestures for us to do the same as he leads us out toward the barn. It’s built into the gentle rise of a hill, a closed door large enough to admit oversized farm equipment in the middle. We follow him in through a side entrance past a tractor, some kind of UTV, and an old work truck, past several empty horse stalls that still smell like hay to a wooden door framed into the back. When he opens it, there’s another door beyond it . . . framed in concrete.

  Chase cocks his head as Noah opens it and, as with Mel the night before, leads us down a set of stairs. Except this one descends four back-and-forth flights illuminated by fluorescent fixtures in the wells.

  At the bottom of the last staircase we emerge into what seems like a dimly lit cavern until Noah flips a switch, bringing a spacious, round living room to life. Forget the kitschy antiques; the place is laid out with an L-shaped leather sofa, a pool table, and a television screen, all situated around a funnel-shaped chimney or exhaust system in the middle.

  “What—” I look around, unsure what I’m trying to ask.

  “Is this a missile silo?” Chase asks in obvious amazement.

  “Decommissioned,” Noah says, gesturing us to follow him across the room and into a large tunnel. The other end opens into a second round room lined with shelves and filled with books, a spiral staircase ascending and descending through the middle. Stuffed chairs huddle in twos and threes between two large wooden tables with beautiful live edges. A man sits in one of the oversized chairs, reading to a boy perched on the cushioned arm. Both look up at our arrival, the man smiling pleasantly as the boy peers around him.

  “Noah,” he says, by way of greeting, pushing his glasses farther up his nose. I note he does not rise even as the boy comes over to wrap his arms around Noah’s waist.

  “This is Seth,” Noah says, ruffling the boy’s hair. “And his father Micah. He and his family have been with us for—how long has it been, Micah?”

  “Long enough to have gotten our days and nights turned around.” Micah grins and nods to us. “Welcome.”

  “Hi,” I say, but my gaze is on the boy, his big brown eyes so much like Truly’s.

  “Are you going to live here?” Seth asks.

  “These folks are just passing
through for now,” Noah says, patting the boy’s shoulders before gesturing us toward the spiral staircase where we are met by Kestral.

  She smiles as she puts her arm around me, but she’s quiet as Noah leads us below.

  The place is a multilevel underground of wonders: A dining hall filled with round tables. A kitchen one level below. A hydroponic garden complete with a wooden chicken coop and fenced-in run around the perimeter of the level. A gymnasium with workout equipment. An infirmary. Four entire levels of communal and private living quarters occupied by the thirty-two residents who live here and work to keep it running—several of whom come to greet us.

  “There are three stories of supplies beneath us. The equipment room is above the library, the generator room above that. We run on three wells and as much solar energy as we can. But this is Nebraska.” Noah chuckles.

  “You built all this?” I say.

  “Well, the silo was here. I simply repurposed it. My hope was to turn something built to house destruction into something life-giving and good.”

  “Who are these people?” Chase asks.

  “Refugees.”

  “From . . . Syria?” I ask.

  “From life,” he says, glancing at Kestral, and then tilts his head as though acquiescing. “Rima is from Syria. She’s a widow and our resident nurse.”

  “This is incredible,” Chase says, looking around.

  “Who’s in charge of this place?” I ask. Because I have yet to see a framed picture of Noah or anyone else on these rounded walls. Even fast food restaurants have managers’ pictures in the hallway to the bathroom.

  “No one,” Kestral says.

  “They are,” Noah says. “Though they’ve elected to keep me running things as long as our doors stay open.”

  “What do you mean, ‘stay open’?” I glance at Kestral, but her eyes have clouded.

  “Things have gotten worse in just the last day with the attacks,” she says. “There’ll be panic soon—over clean water, food, and basic supplies.”

  “This silo is self-sufficient,” Noah says. “With a six-month time lock from the inside should things get ugly enough.”