He reached over and grabbed the longer torch and lit it. The fire spread through the rope, first burning blue, and then orange and finally yellow before it spread completely and lit up the room.
“Oh well,” Ellis said. “No time like the present.”
The rope wasn’t going to do him any good, so he tossed it to the ground. He grabbed the rebar ladder and pulled hard again, just to be sure. Then he hoisted his body out over the opening. His foot found purchase on the first step, and he finally put his whole weight onto the ladder. Bouncing just a bit. Still testing. All seemed right.
“Here we go.”
And he went down and into the dark…
~~~
The long descent was going to be a workout, and he knew the climb back up would probably be even worse. But what else could he do? He’d convinced himself he needed to have something to show for all the time he’d spent getting prepared for this little adventure. The showdown on the bridge had him thinking that something needed to change soon. If it were possible, their already tenuous position at the farm was now even sketchier and more exposed than before. His blood pressure had barely leveled out from that exchange. Once he’d realized the PMPs were gone and not coming back immediately, he’d settled the family back into their work and watches, and he’d headed up to Utah to examine the cave, and now the tunnel.
He didn’t know what he could do actually to improve the family’s situation, but not knowing where all his weaknesses were only made making decisions harder, and more important. Who knew where this tunnel might lead, and what dangers might lurk down in the dark of it?
About twelve feet down, he paused from looking down and took a rest on the ladder. As he did, he waited for his eyes to adjust to what had been utter blackness. With his vicinity illuminated now by the burning light of the torch, he noticed there was another tunnel running horizontally from behind the ladder and heading back to the south. He held out the torch into this second tunnel and tried to peer into the inky darkness beyond. This second tunnel was nearly six feet around, and he knew he could stand up in it, so he stepped off the ladder onto the floor of the horizontal shaft.
Which way to go? He looked back down the vertical hole and then turned to examine the tunnel in which he was now standing. Walking on the ground is easier, so I’ll go this way. He wiped sweat from his brow with his forearm, his mind on fire with danger, possibility and excitement. What kind of labyrinth do we have here?
He moved forward cautiously, circumspectly. The tunnel was braced every ten feet or so with heavy, dark beams, and Ellis saw where here and there, the tunnel digger (or was it diggers?) had cemented certain areas of the shaft, probably where the soil or clay had been loose and maybe showed a tendency to crumble and fall, but the tunnel seemed to be relatively dry. Since the whole valley was up on an escarpment, Ellis figured it was maybe one hundred feet or more down to subsurface water, and the humidity was high but not oppressive.
Thirty feet into the horizontal shaft, he saw another tunnel, breaking off to the west. Was that way actually west? He wondered. It was hard to tell down here, but if he’d kept his bearings, he was facing south which would mean the new tunnel headed off to the southwest.
No more breaking off. I need to follow this one until it ends somewhere. The last thing I need is to get confused about where I’m at and then get lost down here. His inner voice was morphing into that of his father, lending credibility and authority to his own thoughts.
He kept walking south, and after another ten paces he saw crates and boxes and barrels stacked against the east wall. He used the torch to illuminate the boxes, but backed off when on some of them he saw the word “explosives” stenciled with spray paint. He sat the torch up against the west wall, far away from any danger of it igniting anything in the boxes, and pulled his headlight out of his pocket, putting it on his head. Flipping on the light, he moved forward and opened one of the wooden crates marked ‘explosives.’
C4. Bricks and bricks of the stable, bomb making material packed in sawdust.
He opened another box. Trigger mechanisms. Maybe blasting caps, detonators, detonation cord. He wasn’t an expert, but he was pretty sure he knew what he was seeing. Another box: Directional mines… what did they call them? Claymores? In a huge plastic crate he found rifles, a dozen AR-15’s, and in still another wooden crate he found metal ammo cans full of .223 ammo. There was even more. .308, 7.62x39, 7.62x54, nine mil. A lot of everything.
After the end of the world, thought Ellis wiping more sweat from his neck, this is what passes for a gold mine!
And then he found the gold. Bricks and bricks of it.
~~~
Chuck, Delores, Patrick, Neil and Marlon were working in the barn, bringing the goats in one at a time to be harnessed with their new Y-shaped yokes. Neil and Patrick had AK-47’s slung to their backs—still ready and on alert from the recent event at the bridge. It was after supper and they were working fast so they could get all of the goats yoked before dark. That is, until Rooster came running into the barn and tackled Marlon to the ground.
Marlon struggled with Rooster, who was cackling loudly, and tried to regain his feet. “Rooster, get off me!”
“You took my mirror!” Rooster yelled, intent but laughing as she tried to wrestle Marlon back to the ground.
Marlon broke free and ran to the back of the barn, near the cabinet that held the spreckle. “I didn’t do it! It was Karl! He takes everything!”
Rooster was advancing on Marlon, cackling like she was going to bust a gut. “Marlon, give me that mirror or I’ll make you sorry you took it!”
“I didn’t take it!” Marlon squealed. Now he was laughing, too. “It was Karl!” As he said it, he started running, trying to get away from Rooster who was about to pounce, but he tripped and tumbled to the ground.
“What the—?” he mumbled, as he looked back at whatever had made him trip.
Rooster saw it too, and then they all did. The floor was rising, pivoting, and hay was sliding off it as it did.
“The ground’s alive!” Rooster screamed, and she ran out of the barn and toward the house. She didn’t stop or look back. She wasn’t there to see Ellis rise up out of the floor and stand before them.
He smiled.
Their mouths were open, gaping.
“You’re not going to believe this!” exclaimed Ellis.
Chapter 16
The Man in Black pushed aside the warped door. He stepped across the threshold of the old saloon, leaving behind the sand-covered and grit-blasted FEMA trucks that had been abandoned five years ago on the small main street outside.
The wind howled through the old place and the thing known as Mayhem liked that. It liked that very much.
He could tell that someone, someones, were coming to the town to do trade. He’d seen the messages written in chalk and old paint on the sides of frail houses as he made his way to the center. To the historic district. To the old “tyme-y-time” saloon as he liked to think of it.
“Good,” he muttered melodiously. “I’ll need some warm bodies to make my mischief.”
He was glad the mule had died of thirst. Her incessant honking had begun to wear on his volatile nerves. She wasn’t family.
“She was just a mule!” he shrieked.
“Time to settle down now,” he said to himself, listening to the rising wind pitch and howl as it rambled through dry shutters and blown out rooms. “I think I’ll set up shop here and make myself into a man to be reckoned with. Ah,” he gravel-sighed to himself. “That might be real nice.”
He went over to the old bar. There was broken glass everywhere and he swept it aside with his huge gloved hand. There were scratchings in the bartop, worn smooth by hands and time. Pulling out an Old Timer pocket knife, he carved his own message.
Mayheminhere.com
Walter added the .com as a joke, really. A sick joke about the death of technology, and the dependence that came with it. But then again… back in the days of
the world wide interconnectedness of all things, you never knew exactly what you’d find if you searched stuff out.
He produced the old plastic Jack bottle and slammed it down on the warped bar.
“I elect me… mayor of Casperville.”
He found a cracked and jagged shot glass that would do for now, then poured it full until the amber liquor overran its broken edges and spilled onto the gray thirsty wood.
“All in favor?”
He raised the glass, then nodded.
“Motion carried.”
He drank and laughed and wheezed one after the other and then threw the broken shot glass against a far wall.
“Eighty-eight bottles of beer on the wall!” he sang, and then broke into a fit of giggles and sputters.
“Time to make some more mischief,” he roared and choked, sputtering on his own insane laughter and rage. “Time to make us some fun.”
The End of Episode Two…
Texocalypse Now
Episode Three
A Whole New World
Chapter 17
Make friends with the dark, thought Ellis, his eyes staring into the black, headlight off. Hands stretched out to each side, palms down, he felt the blackness. Received it.
Make friends with it. It changed your world. It took everything from you. Maybe it’s time for the dark to give something back. That’s what he constantly told himself. That was his new mantra as he worked in the cool deep.
He felt his mind drift back into concerns about family and farm and he didn’t want to lose his mental contact with the tunnel, so he turned off his headlight and allowed the darkness to flow over him and through him. He allowed it to baptize him again. Only when his mind was centered and focused, embracing the down deep, did he flip his headlight back on and proceed, checking the tunnel carefully as he walked. Looking for weaknesses or anything else he might need to know. Learning the down deep.
Ellis was getting used to the new world of underground. The strange smells of dirt and wet and time. The stale air. The inexplicable chills or strange breezes that would circulate through the tunnels, almost as if the chambers and passages were some kind of respiratory system for the earth itself.
Most Americans—most Texans—had no concept of the subterranean. Ease, comfort, affluence… these first world realities had conspired to make westerners almost uniformly up-toppers. Groundlings. But Ellis was starting to learn that there were people, unique people, who were comfortable living and operating below the surface. People like that had built these tunnels.
Maybe he was one of those people. Maybe he could make friends with the dark. Striking hands with an enemy you might say. Despite all that had happened, it was hard for him to think of the dark as corporeal, as having motive and malevolent intent. But then there was the day of blindness. That day was a hard argument for this darkness being evil.
The dark almost certainly killed his dad at the Beginning and probably stole his brother’s life too. And his mother? Hard to care what happened to her. But that thought was for another day, so he put it away. Who knows, or could ever know, what had really happened to anyone he ever known or loved from the Before. He’d never really known his brother Kevin, ten years his senior, who’d left with his mother when Ellis was still in diapers. Ellis knew his dad, though. Knew him and still loved him and missed him dearly. His father, who’d been flying a plane to Kansas City when the darkness took the world. Who’d been his only real friend. Who’d raised him after his mom left, taking Kevin and whatever family life they’d ever had with them.
Despite all that, in the week since he’d found the tunnel, he’d grown accustomed to spending time underground. He’d come to embrace the absolute darkness and the cool unknown. He’d even developed some kind of uneasy peace with his own horrific memories of the day of blindness. Détente maybe, if not peace. The deep dark had meant doom to him over the last five years, but now, slowly, that was changing. He even looked forward to those moments when he’d just sit in the darkness, turn off his headlight and make himself breathe it all in. Become one with it. He’d sit in the darkness just like on the day of blindness and connect his thoughts with that day. He could feel himself healing and expanding. Growing outward until he felt like his consciousness filled every nook and cranny and passageway of the down deep.
Then he’d turn on his light and get back to work. Like he did now.
He’d spent most of the last week exploring the beginnings of the tunnels by himself. He wasn’t completely convinced that the network was safe, and he didn’t want to risk the farm and any possible defense of it by taking a crew with him to find out what the down deep offered. So during the day he’d work alone. In the evenings, he’d bring family members in—two or three at a time—to show them what he’d found during the day. That way they were part of things.
But they grumbled at him for being privileged enough to be down there alone.
Especially Delores.
Delores had made it known that she wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. So now he had to sneak off to continue his explorations, because he wanted to keep them safe for as long as he could. They were his responsibility and he wanted to know… more. Just more.
Now his mind was drifting up top again. He shook his head to clear it and focus on what he was doing, and where he was doing it.
Who could know if the tunnels were a blessing or just another curse from the darkness? How could he even know who’d built them?
The what-ifs were many. Too many.
What if whoever gave so many years—decades probably—to such a monumental task… what if they were still around down here somewhere, he wondered.
What if these tunnels are primed to collapse?
What if they’re booby trapped?
What if some gang is using them to get around and hide out from the hordes and the PMPs up top?
These things were constantly on Ellis’s mind as he went farther and deeper into the dark tunnels.
What if… everything went wrong?
The gear they’d found—the guns, gold, and explosives—had been in the tunnels for decades. Thankfully they’d been stored properly, greased up when necessary and the boxes were loaded with moisture absorbing packets. Thank God for that. The explosives were stable plastic explosives and not dangerous crates full of dynamite or some other primitive material that would degrade and become more dangerous with every passing day.
But none of that stopped Ellis from obsessing over the dangers. And now here he was, considering the ramifications once again, the possibilities, just as he did every day. As he explored the passageways he rolled the probabilities over and over in his mind, trying to see every problem from every conceivable angle.
The tunnel he was in now he’d named, “The Pillbox Express,” because it headed southwest from the main northward tunnel (where they’d found the explosives) and terminated in the forest not far behind the pillbox. As he walked, he passed a tunnel that headed back directly due east. That tunnel came up in the root cellar under the farmhouse, another exciting find that had fired imaginations in the family.
He kept walking and another hundred yards down located the tunnel entrance that broke off to the southeast. That was a tunnel he’d not explored before. From the angle of it, it looked like it cut south and eastward, generally in the direction of the Scraps.
Not all of the tunnels ran at the same depth. In order to access some of them, you had to climb or descend a ladder. And some of the tunnels themselves went up or down, sometimes at sharp trajectories. Sometimes he’d find stone formations or other impediments the diggers had chosen to bypass rather than blast through using brute force or explosives.
Most of the tunnels he’d found either terminated in a room of some sort or circled back around to another location. But this off-shoot tunnel jutted away at an angle that seemed like it might eventually exit the high valley completely. It dropped at a steep grade, which made Ellis feel like the diggers had intended it to pa
ss under the limestone cliffs, and the direction it headed seemed to be toward the “Nowheres,” the barren lands where the salvage graveyard known as the Scraps could be found.
Who knows where this leads? Ellis stopped and thought. I don’t have time yet to run this tunnel to its end. Maybe it ends at the cliffs, but maybe it doesn’t.
He made a mental note to come back with some of the Claymore mines. He’d set up a booby-trap just in case that tunnel opened up somewhere off the property. If somebody were to find the entrance, he didn’t want a horde or maybe a gang of PMPs using the tunnel to invade the valley.
He turned and continued down the Pillbox Express, heading southwest. His plan right now was to surface in the forest not far from the pillbox. He’d check again to make sure the tunnel entrance was well hidden, then he’d trek through the forest farther to the southwest until he’d come upon another tunnel entrance, almost on the edge of the impenetrable thicket that barred passage from the south into the raised valley.
That tunnel, the one with the entrance near the thicket, ran due north from there, almost skimming the limestone walls of the Solekeep. Ellis called this tunnel the “North/South Pike.” It ran about twenty-five feet under the peak where the boys would haul water up from the Solekeep, and continued on until it made a hard right near the main road to the north. From that turn, it headed straight east almost three football fields or more before it “teed” into the main tunnel that ran north from the farm and terminated in the “big drop” (that’s what the family now called the 150 ft. drop from the entrance hidden within the rocks of Utah down to the portion of the tunnel that led northward from there.)
Walking these tunnels allowed Ellis to memorize them, to check them for safety again, and to make sure he wasn’t missing some weakness, some entrance that could be gained from off the property.
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