by Sean Platt
“Of course,” Cameron replied with a smile he didn’t entirely feel.
At one point, they passed a winding mountain road, looking around and ducking past at a section without traffic or residences. In the far distance was a roadblock. Piper said there was a tank among the blockade’s mess, but Cameron hadn’t been able to tell and wasn’t about to head in for a closer look.
When the sun was high, they finally found what they were looking for. A small farm tucked back on a spur — an off-jut of a road that was itself a rutted, dirt-covered off-jut. The porch was covered with cats, and the house empty. To Cameron, it felt left rather than raided. There were no signs of intrusion. They themselves had barely found it, tucked behind two hills as it was.
No, whoever had lived here had gone somewhere else — to find Grandma in Utah, to meet up at a bigger farm with lots of supplies, protection, and company. There was no way to tell, and Cameron didn’t care. There was mold-covered bread in the pantry. Boxes of cereal had been split open and littered the kitchen: the work of rodents, who in turn were keeping the porch cats fat and happy.
Anything perishable had long since rotted, but there were plenty of cans, a hand-operated can opener, and even some unaffected dry goods. It was enough food that it hurt to leave, but there was only so much two people could carry. They found a pair of good backpacks and raided the house for anything portable and necessary. They drank from a spigot in the yard and filled their bottles. There was nothing in the way of survival gear, but Cameron counted them lucky, happy to at least not starve for a while.
Once packed, they returned to the barn, where they found three horses and a goat. The goat seemed to have escaped and dragged a bag of feed to almost within the horses’ reach. The horses didn’t need it; the farmer had left them in the pasture with enough grass and water from low spots and puddles. But they’d eaten all they could reach anyway.
Parker helped Cameron saddle two of the horses. They mounted and prepared to ride.
At the door, Cameron, feeling a strange pang of something unarticulated, looked back at the lone horse. They’d opened the gate to let it leave, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
“It’s stupid,” Cameron said to Piper, “but I feel bad taking two of them and leaving that horse all alone.”
Piper shrugged. “He’s got the goat.”
Cameron looked at the goat and then the horse.
“Horses like goats,” Piper explained.
The goat bleated.
“Then I guess this is a win,” Cameron said.
They left the barn and headed true west, checking the position of Route 70 first to reorient themselves before heading out in earnest, double time.
Cameron couldn’t shake the feeling that the clock — now more than ever — was ticking.
And he couldn’t shake the sense that they were being watched by unseen eyes, attached to strange hands with unknown intentions.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Lila watched, feeling tired, while Terrence, Vincent, and Dan moved aside a large freestanding shelf at the far end of the living room and pried at what turned out to be an enormous grate. She hadn’t noticed it before, but that had surely been the intention. Her father was equal parts practical and aesthetically minded. He wore bespoke suits and bought the best things he could afford chiefly because he could afford them. It made sense that, even needing a back door to his bunker, he’d hidden it with grace. The shelf unit did a good job of hiding the vent because they were made of the same shiny silver metal, and the vent simply looked like the unit’s back. But the shelves were barely stocked, so the air flow wasn’t blocked. Form and function, perfectly married.
But with the unit out of the way, the vent came off easily using only Vincent’s fingers. There were no bolts holding the thing in place — presumably because if you needed to flee through the vent, you wouldn’t want to be held up just because you hadn’t thought to grab a screwdriver.
The vent’s interior looked like three-quarters of an oven’s inside. The floor was concrete, probably because the bunker itself was a big concrete shell. The walls, however, were bright, reflective silver metal, like the air ducts in her grandmother’s basement. It was tall enough for Vincent (the group’s tallest) to stand without ducking, and slightly narrower in width.
Christopher was sitting across from Lila. It had seemed okay to sit with him because when she’d first sat, Raj had been at the table too. She’d merely wanted to get some food in her before whatever happened happened. But then Raj had left, and she’d found herself alone with Christopher, their hands almost near enough to touch.
“Should you be helping?”
Christopher shrugged. “They’ve got it.”
Lila looked. Vincent had already sliced a hole in the roof of the thin metal twenty feet or so down the corridor-like vent and was now standing on a stepladder with his head and arms above the ceiling, his top half invisible.
Lila’s eyes ticked toward Raj’s room. It didn’t make sense for him to be in there now, so he’d be coming back out. She was just sitting at the same table where he’d left her, but she couldn’t shake an awkward feeling at the thought of Raj seeing them alone.
“You know,” said Christopher, “I can tell this is making you nervous.”
“Oh?”
“I just want to make you feel better.”
“Thanks,” she said. But truth be told, Lila wasn’t feeling it. Things had been hot and heavy with Christopher for a while there, and the way they’d been broken up had left her hungry for more. For half a day afterward, he’d been tossing her looks that — again — accelerated her heart and constricted her jeans in a way that had nothing to do with a slowly growing belly.
But now she felt conflicted.
Between Vincent and Terrence’s explaining and implementing their plan, Lila had lain on the couch, and Raj had brought her two pillows: one for her head and another to prop between her legs if she chose to lie on her side. It was the simplest, nothing kind of gesture, but his offer and delivery had been somehow touching. For once, he hadn’t struck her as self-pitying. The way he’d slunk away had seemed defeated instead, and it dawned on her all at once that she’d been as big of a bitch as he’d been an asshole. She’d called him back, and he’d sat on the floor in front of her, guilt churning her gut as she’d run her hands through his dark, coarse hair, like she used to do when the world had been different.
“Can I get you anything?” Christopher asked.
“No. Thank you.”
“Anything to drink?”
“I’m good.”
He watched her for a second, his green eyes magnetic and smile charming. There was an innocence in his gaze that was hard to turn from. He’d done nothing wrong. Lila had. And the worst part was she kind wanted to do it again. More than kind of.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Your … ” He nodded toward her stomach. “You know. How’s your … how’s he or she doing?”
“You know?”
But then really, how could he not know? Her mother knew; Trevor knew; Piper had known. Trevor must have said something. They were all buddy-buddy, so that seemed logical. Still, Lila felt violated. She wasn’t showing much yet, and it should be her choice to tell others matters of her own body not her brother’s. Especially when the person in question had already explored some of her body, and she’d spent time in the shower imagining him exploring the rest.
“Yeah. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” she lied.
“So?”
“Fine, I guess.”
“Because you seem tired.”
“Tired how?”
Christopher shrugged. “Just tired.”
“Bad tired?”
“No, no.” He smiled. “Beautiful tired.”
Lila tried to smile back.
“Look,” she said. “About the other day.”
Christopher smiled wider. “What about it?�
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Lila wanted to say that it wasn’t a good idea but couldn’t. If she said it, he’d probably stop trying to get into her pants. She hadn’t wanted Raj in her pants lately, despite the four-month package he’d deposited there, and sometimes that felt like a stubborn shortcoming, especially when thinking about Christopher. But they were all trapped here together, and it was probably a bad idea to mix business and pleasure, if that’s what it was. On the flip side: Was it really her fault that aliens had come and forced her and her boyfriend to live together? She might have dumped him by now, and could play with Christopher all she wanted. It wasn’t fair.
“Nothing,” she said.
Lila remembered the way Raj had brought her the pillows. The sad way he’d slunk off. The way she’d called him back. The feel of his hair between her fingers. The girlish dreams she’d had a lifetime ago, of how they’d live happily ever after with their accidental child, and damn her father’s judgments.
“You okay?” His eyes flicked toward where Raj had vanished, then dared to lift Lila’s chin and meet her eyes. Another check of the room, and then he let her chin drop.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Jesus, Chris, do you really think I’m this fragile?” she snapped.
Christopher blinked.
“I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t. Lila was Meyer Dempsey’s daughter. She was strong. She didn’t need boys — any boys — to hold her upright and keep her from fainting. Or possibly swooning.
“It’s totally fine. No worries.”
Dan passed, walking toward the vent with an armful of cloth. He looked over, nodded to his burden, and said, “Rags and shit. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Why would I mind?” Lila pulled away from Christopher. She registered a small hurt look; he’d been reaching for her hand, and she’d yanked it away. She hadn’t broken anything off with him, if there was anything to break off, but Christopher wasn’t stupid. He’d seen her moment with Raj. He couldn’t be this bad at reading emotion.
He knew what she was thinking. And as unfair as it seemed in the moment, Lila felt another layer of guilt descend upon her.
“They’re your rags and shit,” said Dan.
“I don’t mind.”
“There’s also some wood we want to use. Happens to be a broken stretcher from a painting. I rolled the painting up and left it in the storage room. I assume that’s okay too?”
“What was the painting of?”
“Landscape.”
Lila shrugged. She didn’t care. Why her father had stocked his bunker with paintings in the first place was a mystery. But that was Daddy again: form always married to function. If he was going to have a place to spend the end times, it would have to be posh.
“But the frame thing is already broken.”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re asking me if I care about a pile of wood shards.”
“Yeah.”
Lila waited to see if Dan was kidding. He kept watching her.
“I don’t care.”
“Thanks,” he said, heading for the vent.
Christopher rose. He did a fair job of making the motion look casual, but Lila could tell he’d grown uncomfortable.
“I should go help.”
“Sure,” Lila said.
Watching him go, Lila realized she still had no idea if she wanted to be with him or break it off. Regardless, she couldn’t stifle concern.
Christopher was going up with the others while she stayed down here, and for some strange reason, Lila couldn’t shake the feeling that after he went through the door into the house above, she’d never see him again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Christopher snugged his backpack straps and nodded up to Vincent standing at the top of the spiral staircase, his hand on the manual latch Terrence had installed after they’d drilled through the door’s original defenses.
After getting the fire going with a splash of generator gas (stored away from the room they’d burned coming in; Meyer Dempsey thought of everything), Dan had laid a few of the dampened rags in the flames, being careful not to smother it. That had smoked like crazy. It smelled like old laundry … because, Christopher supposed, that’s exactly what it was.
The fire had been going for fifteen minutes. It had only taken ten for the smoke to build to epic proportions on the surveillance screens — enough to catch the eye of the first weirdo up top and get him shouting to the others. Terrence had been right that some people had set their wacky shanties around the shed, but they all seemed to gather on the lawn with the others during the days. What they all did to pass the time while waiting for the second coming of E.T. Jesus, Christopher couldn’t imagine. Sing “Kumbaya,” probably. Shake maracas. Bang tambourines. Wear tie-dye headbands. Shit like that.
Once the hippies had seen the smoke, the crowds had moved off the lawn and toward the rising column.
At that point, Terrence had removed the metal flap covering the hole Vincent had cut in the vent’s ceiling, allowing a line of smoke to plume inside the home. They’d watched that happen onscreen, too. Watching on the monitors had felt to Christopher like watching a practical joke in process: knowing the hammer was on its way before the victim fell into the trap.
Alarms screamed. People in the house looked up, saw the smoke, and ran. In the bunker, they’d laughed at the topsiders’ comic flight. Now that the house was empty and the commune had moved out to watch the shed fake-burn (and what they’d think of the lack of flame, Christopher could only wonder), phase one was green-light-go. Time for phase two.
He caught Lila’s eye. She gave him a little smile. Then Christopher caught Raj’s eye, and got a flash of stink-eye. Raj hadn’t trusted any of them from the start. Or rather, he just hadn’t liked them. Maybe because Raj had once fancied himself the man of the house — although really, that was hard to believe. Piper had been the man of the house. In her absence, Heather was probably the leader, or maybe Trevor. Not Raj. Christopher knew his type. He was the kind of guy with lots of opinions and no action.
Raj sure hadn’t “acted” when Christopher fondled his girlfriend’s tits.
That wasn’t exactly fair. Raj didn’t know he was a cuckold. Nor was he to blame. The kid was who he was, just as Christopher was who he was. Just like Lila was who she was. It was hard to fault Raj for falling apart in a crisis or for having his doubts.
At the same time, it was hard to fault Lila for the conflict she seemed to feel about their budding relationship. Because really, Christopher thought, if Lila didn’t have doubts and conflict, he wouldn’t want to be with her. She wasn’t a skank. Lila was trying to do the right thing, especially considering the jilted party was her baby’s father. Christopher couldn’t blame Lila — or resent the way she’d seemed to lean on the issue a moment ago, hurtful as the moment had felt.
She’d come around in time.
“Let’s go,” Vincent said. Then, without waiting, he pushed the door open.
Feeling the home’s open air after their time underground was strange. It made Christopher feel sort of buoyant despite the phase two task at hand. He could only imagine what it would be like for Lila, Trevor, Heather, and Raj, who’d been in that hole for nearly four months. Probably feel damned near euphoric. Trevor, for one, had practically begged for a mission. He couldn’t come up just yet, but that was why they were here — to pave the way for Trevor and the others later — after phase two was finished.
Christopher slipped the pistol from behind his back and held it at his side. Not pointed but ready.
“No gunfire.” Vincent didn’t whisper because the smoke alarm was too loud.
“I’m just keeping it ready,” Christopher said.
Vincent looked at Terrence then nodded. The two of them didn’t have to go over any of this. They’d worked together for years and had a quasi-psychic thing going on. Maybe a bit of a gay thing going on, Christopher sometimes thought. Regardless, they both seemed to feel the ne
ed to tell Christopher things that the others took for granted. Same with Dan, and Cameron when he’d been around. Only Christopher got extra instructions, extra warnings, extra reminders of things everyone else was assumed to get without being told. It was a little annoying. But again: They’d been together when he’d met them, so it made sense even if it was obnoxious. They knew he hadn’t really been a full-on member of Morgan’s gang, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d found him with Morgan. Their interpersonal cues simply weren’t as developed yet.
“Okay,” Vincent said. “But remember, the idea is to stay invisible. Reconnaissance and setting up, that’s all. Any of us discharges a weapon, we’ll draw attention, and that changes everything. It makes it harder to get back inside. People who hear it will be on edge — not just now, but from here on out. And we all know that would be a problem. Cool?”
Again: Cool? on the end. Without the “cool,” it was merely a mission reminder. The reminder would have been for Terrence as well — but the little “cool?” addendum had been Vincent checking in one more time. Making sure Christopher wouldn’t screw up.
But had he screwed up yet? No, of course not. Not once.
“Cool,” Christopher agreed.
Vincent left the kitchen, moving onto the porch, staying low. It was a calculated risk to surface in daylight, but one Christopher had agreed with from the moment the four of them had started planning, and something about which he’d toed the company line in the public version recited to the family. Without daylight, it would be easier to hide … but without daylight, the smoke would be invisible. No distraction, no mission. So daylight it was.
There were a few idiot looky-loos from inside the house who’d gone out to watch the house “burn” instead of moving to the shed. Christopher and the others moved around to the home’s rear, then sneaked away and were at the tree line seconds later.