Shelter for Now

by Bob Howard

  Light appeared at the small seam of the hatch. Gradually the light got brighter as the door opened.

  We were understandably delighted, but at the same time I could literally feel the fear in the room. The door was open, and the lights were on, but the smell that drifted out through that bright circle was a mixture of rot and decayed flesh.

  ******

  There was no turning back. The railroad tracks were buried under tons of debris, much of which made the cause of the explosion unknown because it was so massive. Whatever blew up, it was enough to hide the main entrance to the Columbus shelter. Then when the large section of the hotel fell off, it freed the infected that were trapped inside. The rats probably got some of them, but too many had been imprisoned in their rooms.

  On the inside of the sub-level of a hotel that was still crawling with the infected, they didn’t have the luxury of finding another entrance. The remaining choice was to go forward into an emergency exit that smelled like it hadn’t saved any lives.

  Captain Miller talked with his men, and they agreed it should be one of his sergeants who went down first. One in particular, Sergeant Marino, enjoyed SCUBA diving into underwater caverns. He was the least claustrophobic person in the world according to his friends, and he was a quick thinker. If there was trouble at the bottom of the narrow escape tunnel, he would take care of it.

  Marino’s name fit him well. He had curly black hair and olive colored Italian features. He flashed a smile at the worried faces surrounding the hatch as he lowered himself through feet first.

  “Don’t worry about me, folks. This is what I came along for. I’m ready to mix it up with some bad guys. Besides, right now the only thing I see wrong with this place is the smell.”

  Marino slid forward into the shaft that was forty to fifty feet long, and a safety line played out behind him. There were small handholds that descended in a neat row, and he was able to move downward quickly. He was wearing his communications headset and checked in to be sure there was a strong signal.

  He said his feet had reached the standing area at the bottom where he could straddle the access hatch, but there would be no need to enter a code on the combination keypad because the door was open.

  That was not a good sign. Someone must have tried to use the escape hatch but didn’t make it. Marino reported that the hatch was hanging into the room below, and it was covered with dark streaks. He also said the smell was much worse.

  “Lowering a lantern,” said Marino.

  The interior of the tunnel had been well lit by the shelter’s power source, and that was at least a minor blessing. It meant the destruction above had buried the location of the main entrance, but it didn’t necessarily mean there were no survivors. The smell, however, was putting a dent in our hopes.

  We all saw the light become brighter as Marino turned it on, but then it dimmed as he lowered it into the darkness below.

  It was like fishing. The groans came for the bait, and Marino said he was having trouble hanging onto the light. He reported that he had attached the lanyard to his belt to keep from losing it, but now he was trying desperately to release it.

  “Captain, I don’t see the lantern. It’s being pulled back around the corner, and I can’t get it unhooked from my belt.”

  Marino sounded like he was being as brave as he could, but there was an edge to his voice. No one wanted to be pulled down a dark hole when there was no doubt what was in there.

  “Can you release your belt, Marino?”

  “Yessir, but my safety line is attached to the back of it.”

  “Do it, Sergeant. That’s an order.”

  In the panic that was happening at the bottom of the shaft, the training that had made Marino a good soldier kicked in at the sound of his Commanding Officer giving an order. He reached down and squeezed the catches that would release the belt. It immediately popped apart and pulled tight from the bottom of the shaft all the way to the top. It took two soldiers to hang onto the line.

  A second safety line was dropped into the tunnel for Marino, and we started talking about a plan for getting people into the room below.

  Like the Mud Island shelter, the hatch was either high on a wall or it had to be accessed by climbing a ladder on the wall. It was obvious that there were infected in the room that couldn’t reach Marino because they couldn’t climb, but that also meant he couldn’t reach them.

  We thought about dropping a flare into his field of vision so he could shoot the infected, but we didn’t know what was below that might burn. In the end, we decided on another lantern with a shorter lanyard attached to the handhold. That way the infected would be within Marino’s kill zone.

  The plan worked as hoped. As soon as the light was lowered into the room, a group of six infected went for it. Marino put in some earplugs and used his Glock to start eliminating them.

  As soon as Marino opened fire, more of the infected came into view. He was surprised at first because he thought they had all arrived for the lights, but the sound of his gun had brought more into the room. That could only mean one thing. The room below wasn’t sealed off from the rest of the shelter.

  From the safety of his vantage point above the infected, Marino shot so many of the infected that we had to lower more ammunition to him. Eventually, there was a long pause, and he reported that it was all over for the moment.

  We considered the possibility that more infected might be working their way toward the sounds of the shots, but the Captain told us they were trained to move in once they established a breach.

  Marino was joined by three more soldiers at the bottom of the tunnel, and as they dropped into the room below, more of them jumped feet first into the shaft.

  Once the room below was under control, Marino reported the room was much larger than expected. It appeared to be some sort of common area, like a cafeteria. That was why the first light had moved so far from his field of vision. The room was open to hallways in several locations, and there were tables and chairs scattered everywhere.

  “Sounds like the crew dining area on the Mercy Ship,” said Cassandra, “but the tables were latched in place when we got rough weather. There’s most likely a kitchen somewhere nearby, so tell them to watch out for swinging doors that can be pushed open easily.”

  The word was relayed to the squad below, and they said they would locate the door to the kitchen. A few minutes later they had placed a sentry across from the door to intercept any uninvited guests. The same was done at all of the open corridors, and ceiling lights were gradually illuminated as the soldiers found the reset buttons on the emergency lighting.

  The infected were checked to see if there were any still moving, and the all clear signal was sent up to the rest of the group. Everyone gratefully slid into the shaft. The Chief came in last and pulled the hatch shut behind him, but just before he did, he received a radio report from the pilots confirming that they had returned to the helicopters without incident. The pilot who had climbed aboard the private Sikorsky couldn’t resist thanking the Chief for the coffee.

  When the Chief reached the bottom of the shaft he had to drop to the floor about six or seven feet below. He suggested to Captain Miller that they should place a heavy piece of furniture below the hatch. If they had to make a rapid departure, it would be nice to reach the hatch a little easier.

  There were soldiers at every corridor and the kitchen door, and the Mud Island survivors were spread out with them. No one was going to venture into a dark room on their own. The emergency lighting was doing a good job illuminating the dining hall, but the light didn’t penetrate too far into the darkness.

  Captain Miller came up beside the Chief and quietly whispered, “We don’t know what we’re up against beyond this room, Chief. I’m going to have everyone build up barricades with all these tables. We can block all of the corridors except one. After we explore it we can do a second one.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Has anyone checked the infected for ID?”

&nb
sp; “Yeah, almost every one of them was Secret Service.”

  The Chief was hesitant to ask, but it needed to be out in the open.

  “Were any of the ones without Secret Service credentials familiar faces?”

  “The President wasn’t with them, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Well, hopefully we’ll find him in one of the other rooms or levels. If this was his shelter, you know it has to be big.”

  It only took a few minutes to create tangles of furniture blocking the four corridors and the swinging kitchen doors. A fifth corridor only got a partial barricade, and a squad of men was assembled to begin searching and activating emergency lights. Furniture was placed over most of the opening after they passed through, and guards took up their positions.

  The Mud Island group was ready to go into the halls with them, but they were also ready to defer to the training of their uniformed friends. There was a reason why they were the best in the world, and they had survived this long because they really were that good.

  ******

  The elevator dropped slowly, lurched several times causing everyone to get nervous, but eventually came to a stop. There was no ding from a bell that signaled the end of the ride.

  The lights were still on, and the former flight crew of Executive One was doing what they wanted to do, but a small part of them was screaming not to open the door. Garrett’s hand rested on the lever that would slide it open, and he felt the perspiration practically running down from his fingers to his wrist.

  He made eye contact with each of his former flight crew and received a nod of agreement. It felt like the lever would slide from his hand, but he gripped it tighter and pulled the door open.

  There was light coming from somewhere, but not as much as they would have liked. The door was wide enough for them to all get off together, so they moved forward slowly as if they were one person.

  They found themselves facing a landing that ended at a wall, but one glance to their right showed them there was a lot more to this rabbit hole than a landing and a wall. It was like any train station they had ever seen, except it was smaller. There was plenty of seating along a wall that was level with their landing, but then there were rows of steps that descended toward another landing down below. That landing ended at a subway train that was parked with its doors open and dark.

  The light was coming from a couple of small fixtures that were recessed in the ceiling above the train, and it appeared there were more of them in the distance down a tunnel that was obviously the way the train would travel.

  “At least we won’t have to walk down that tunnel in total darkness,” said Anne.

  As if on cue, one of the light fixtures flickered but stayed on.

  “That must be some kind of good power source for those lights to be on this long,” said Jon. “Too bad the train doesn’t work.”

  “I’m not sure I would want to use that train,” said Sim. “Those streaks on the glass are familiar.”

  They stayed together, but they spread out just a bit. There were obvious signs that things didn’t go so well in this underground railroad.

  “I wonder if they got the President to safety before it went wrong down here,” said Addison. “There aren’t any bodies. You think there were rats?”

  “If I built an underground subway for the President, it would be rat proof,” said Garrett. “I don’t think they had a zombie apocalypse in mind when they built this place, but whatever they thought would happen, they would have sealed it tight against bugs and rats.”

  “So, you think the people who came down here either made it to safety, or they got infected and walked off?” asked Addison.

  “I’ll bet they didn’t check people for bites, and someone infected got down here with them,” said Susan.

  “What makes you think that?” asked Mike.

  “I think she’s right,” said Garrett. “We got the Presidential party out of DC, but Air Force One was packed with reporters and staffers. If they didn’t understand what they were up against, they might not have been checking for bites. In an enclosed place like this, it would only have taken one infected to get it started.”

  The small train station was the perfect place to run into an infected dead that was hanging out in the shadows. The lights didn’t reach every corner, and the inside of the subway train was totally dark.

  “We’ve come this far,” said Garrett. “We might as well go where everyone else did.”

  Garrett walked past the train and dropped over the edge of the landing onto the tracks. The others didn’t move immediately and stood frozen as if uncertain about what to do.

  Garrett walked toward the tunnel, keeping his eyes fixed on the darkness ahead of him, but he said in a loud enough voice, “Of course you could always go back to the airport.”

  That was enough to get all of them moving, and one by one they walked over to the edge of the landing and jumped off.

  They walked for several hours, stopping only twice to rest and eat some of their rations. During the first stop they speculated about what there might be up ahead. There had been general agreement all along that the President had a bunker somewhere, and this was a likely place. The speculation ended when Addison asked if anyone thought they would let them in.

  Now they walked in silence, and when they stopped for their second break, everyone just sat and quietly ate their rations. Speculation only led to one thing. The President and his staff had abandoned them before, and they would probably do it again.

  The light was just a little brighter ahead, and they all noticed it at the same time. They didn’t know how many miles they had walked, but if they had to guess, they were somewhere under the city of Columbus by now. They couldn’t help but hope this was the end of the line.

  The tunnel curved slightly to the right, and when it straightened out again, there was a platform similar to the first one. The tracks ended, but a new set of tracks went into another tunnel. It was obvious that this was just a way station, and a second train had been used to go from here to the next stop.

  Whatever this was, it had a little more light than the tunnel, and everyone was glad to climb up onto the platform just to be out of the darkness.

  This way station left little doubt about the outcome of at least some of the passengers. The smears of blood across the platform were far too obvious. It appeared almost as if someone was dragged from where the first train would have stopped all the way to where the next train would have been parked.

  “I think we all know what’s up ahead,” said Garrett. “If anyone wants to go back, you can. At least you know it’s safe all of the way back to the airport.”

  Everyone was resigned to their fate, so no one voted to go back. They suspected something bad had happened up ahead, but it was also the way to the place where the President had been taken to safety.

  One by one they got up and started down the last tunnel and began walking toward the main entrance of the Columbus, Ohio Presidential shelter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THERE DIDN’T FEEL like much reason to expect anyone to be alive in the Presidential shelter, but according to Bus, it was the biggest one of them all. It spread out under the city of Columbus and was virtually a suburb of the city above. Some of the people who worked in the shelter were even regular citizens of the many suburbs that surrounded the city.

  Galloway, Dublin, Bexley, and Grove City all had neighborhoods that secretly supported the shelter, and so did most of the other suburbs. It was even a private joke within the nation’s capitol, among the few people who knew of the shelters, that the people living in the Columbus area kept secrets better than the CIA. No one ever leaked the existence of the shelter.

  There was, however, a mad rush to reach the shelter as the infection spread across the country. The people who had been so discreet for so long found themselves unable to open the access points they had used for years. Doors in remote places that hid security checkpoints wouldn’t open. Elevators that ha
d previously descended to unmarked basements and sub-levels using special keys no longer went anywhere but up.

  What the surface-citizens, as they were called by the full-time staff of the shelter, didn’t know was that they were trusted with the secret, but not with access if the shelter was ever needed. The government planners knew that every surface-citizen would show up with their families, friends, neighbors, and even strangers who they wanted to save. The sad reality was that they weren’t wrong.

  On the day the infection first hit the airwaves, people who worked in the shelter but lived above ground began sharing what they knew about the shelter. It would be safe, it had plenty of room for everyone. There was so much food that they could stay in there forever. Those things made believers out of anyone who had seen a television broadcast.

  Parents packed bags with everything from family photo albums to souvenirs bought during family vacations. They loaded their Sport Utility Vehicles with clothes for a long trip. They squeezed in the children and the family pets and headed for the mystery shelter their neighbor suddenly revealed to them, and along the way they stopped at a mother’s house, a brother’s house, a boyfriend or girlfriend’s house and told them about the shelter, too.

  The planners knew it would happen, so precisely one minute after the coded message went out that POTUS was in danger, all entrances to the shelter except the main entrance were sealed from the inside. A communications technician toggled a switch that sent out a signal that the Columbus shelter was online. Emergency escape mechanisms were remotely locked, and exit codes were activated. Since surface-citizens were never shown the main entrance or the escape hatches, there was no concern that they would be breached.

  At over fifty locations around Columbus, parking lots near secret entrances filled quickly. As workers tried to flee the city, they were blocked by desperate people trying to reach the hidden entrances. What they found were doors that no longer unlocked using the special keys their neighbors or relatives claimed were their keys to safety. Thousands of people carrying their possessions and holding their children watched expectantly as key after key failed to open doors to the supposed super-shelter.