“Do you always want to live with that kind of fear? To always be told what to do? Dependent on someone else to feed you? That’s what’ll happen if you stay here. Come with us. We’ll all start over together.”
“And where is this place you’re talking about? How will we survive? How will I be able to provide for my family?”
“I don’t have all the answers. You remember Master Gant. We talked to him. He found a place to start over and so can we. We’ll help you get your family out of here.”
James appeared to be softening, but then he shook his head. “There’s too much danger in the wasteland. I can’t risk putting my family through that.”
“Are you talking about the Raiders? They’re actually helping us.”
James eyes widened with surprise. “But they’re one of the main reasons we stay behind these walls.”
“They’re not the threat we thought they were. Just open the gate,” urged Jason. “The sooner we get in, the sooner we can all put this place behind us, you and your family included.” He paused a moment for it to sink in. “You’ll see. We can survive and even thrive out there as long as we do it together, helping each other. And you’ll have your freedom. And you’ll never have to live in fear of Davis or Damon again.”
“Shoot him!” a voice yelled over the loudspeaker. Jason had heard that voice before, frequently. It was Damon.
James looked back, trying to see Damon, who he knew must be watching. He didn’t want to shoot anyone. Very few of the Guard did, accepting recruitment only for the benefits, hoping the situation would never come up. And now was no exception, he had no intention of shooting anyone. What would the point be anyway? It wasn’t like Jason posed a threat. Those inside the gate were safe, until someone opened it.
“Shoot him!” Damon repeated. “Or I’ll have you shot, and your family.”
Damon had unwittingly done more with those words to convince James to open the gate than Jason had. He had gone too far when he threatened James’ family. He calmly walked over to the gate and unlocked it. Jason helped James slide the gate wide open. Jason didn’t waste any time in waving for the others to come. In a matter of seconds they were galloping through the gate.
Damon let loose with a barrage of threats in a rant over the speakers.
Jason turned to James. “You better go and get to your family as quickly as possible,” urged Jason. “And thank you.” They exchanged smiles, but James still looked concerned.
“You did the right thing. You’ll see,” reassured Jason. “We’ll meet you outside the gates.”
James nodded to Jason and then took off in a dead run. He followed the other guards who had dismounted and were also running toward the main doors. James was afraid and anxious, looking forward to the chance to leave this place, but at the same time concerned for his family’s safety. And that wouldn’t change until they were gone from that place.
Word traveled like wildfire through the remaining Guard in the prison. The Guard members who had left just a few days earlier were back and they were taking their families away. Something had happened. Without knowing exactly what it was, many took the opportunity to join in, running to the living quarters to gather their families too. Jason was pleased to encounter only minimal resistance on entering the building, just as they had hoped.
Knowing they were coming, Damon had ordered Peck to place guards at both entrances to the living quarters to prevent access. He chose single men who he considered to be loyal to the governor and who appeared to lack sentimentality, an undesirable weakness.
When Jason reached the double doors leading to the living quarters in cell block C, he found James and the others up against the wall, protected by the door frame. The double doors were closed with one of the small wire-reinforced windows partially shattered with a bullet hole through it. The doors had been locked from the other side. Normally, and by design, the doors had electric locking mechanisms, but without power the manually operated secondary system was used.
Jason crouched down and worked his way up to James, reaching him as another shot rang out and another hole appeared in the window.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“The doors are locked and someone is shooting at us,” answered James.
“Obviously, some of the Guard have chosen to side with the governor. This has to be Damon’s idea, to keep us from getting to our families.”
“I tried talking to them,” explained James, “but they don’t seem to be willing to listen.”
“Let me try,” said Jason. “Do you know who the guards are that are shooting at us?”
James shook his head.
Jason traded places with James. “You men, this is Jason.” Another shot rang out. “We just want to take our families and go. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Another shot rang out with no indication of where the bullet struck.
“See?” said James. “What are we going to do now?”
They were at a stalemate until they could get past the door and the men ahead. Lined up behind Jason, the former guards pressed against the wall, waiting impatiently to get to their families. Concerned over their safety and knowing Damon’s temper, they felt helpless.
Jason’s mind flashed back to the Raider’s camp. If he had just watched Peck closer, they would have had the element of surprise and wouldn’t be having to deal with his treachery now.
***
Gant, John, and the two boys watched from a distance until they saw Jason helping to open the gate. With a nod from their dad, Aaron and Adam took up the lead to the backside of the compound. The boys stopped after entering a small grove of trees and dismounted. John and Gant looked at each other, confused and curious, but followed suit. They hadn’t seen any signs of the Guard, either on patrol or in the corner towers, probably pulled to the front gate area or as reinforcements to protect the governor. There was another possibility, the one they hoped was taking place, that the members of the Guard who had been left at the compound had also abandoned their duties and were in the process of leaving with the others.
“So, what now?” Gant asked his boys.
The boys tied up their horses and then went to the fence, pacing off a distance back toward their dad and John, stopping at the edge of the trees. Both dropped down to their hands and knees and began to scrape away the leaves and dirt with their hands. Soon, a round metal lid was exposed, just below the surface of the ground, approximately three feet in diameter. The boys looked up at their dad and John and smiled. Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring of keys. Swinging the latch cover aside, he inserted one of the keys and turned it ninety degrees, resulting in a click from inside the latch.
Aaron and Adam each grabbed an inset handle on opposite sides of the lid and swung it up, a metal arm locking it in position. John and Gant looked inside. There was a metal ladder attached to one side of a vertical corrugated metal shaft, descending into total darkness.
“Are you sure this will take us inside to the lower level?” asked Gant.
“We’re sure,” answered Adam. He held up his index finger as he ran back to the horses. “Hold on just a minute.” He pulled something from his saddlebag. When he came back, he handed each of them a candle.
“And these are for you,” said Gant as he handed each son a pistol. There was no need for an explanation. There was always the possibility they would have to defend themselves. They had been well trained by their dad.
***
“Did you hear that?” Levi, with his face against the bars, asked Ryder in the adjacent cell. It was a rhetorical question. He was sure his brother had heard the same thing he had. The bars of the cells faced the corridor with solid concrete walls between each cell, preventing them from seeing each other.
Ryder had been lying on his small bunk with his eyes closed, but had jumped up and rushed to the bars to investigate the sound.
“Yeah, I did. Sounded like gun shots.” He listened intently for a few moments wi
thout the sound of further shots fired. “Guard!” he yelled. The corridor remained silent. “Guard!” he shouted again. There was no sound of voices, no more shots, not even footsteps, nothing. “I think we’re alone.”
“What do you think it means?” asked Levi.
“I’m not sure, but I can think of a couple possibilities. Perhaps someone is trying to rescue us, or Damon just had someone shot.”
Levi didn’t like the sound of the second one especially. “What are we going to do?”
“I can’t see there is anything we can do except to wait and see what happens next.”
Two more shots were heard. With his face against the bars, Levi strained to see down the corridor. Still, no one came.
***
The small group lit each of the candles before entering the vertical shaft. Aaron went first, followed by Adam, their dad, and then John. They descended approximately twenty feet to the bottom where they stood before a horizontal passageway eight feet in diameter with boxes of supplies stacked along the walls.
“Come on,” directed Aaron, waving them forward.
“I didn’t even know this was here,” admitted Gant.
“I’ll bet neither Damon nor the governor know about it either,” said Adam.
“That’s what we’re counting on,” said Gant.
Aaron led them through a maze of passages, past boxes of dry goods, medical supplies, clothing and miscellaneous items stacked to the ceiling everywhere they went.
“Did you boys do all this?” Gant asked his sons.
“A lot of it,” said Adam, shrugging it off as no big deal.
“It’s how we found the tunnel leading out,” continued Aaron. “We ran out of space in the main room.”
When the first wave of major quakes hit the region, the resulting devastation had forced the people to leave their homes and communities. And at the same time, Davis, the future warden, had leaped at the opportunity to take over the prison compound, portions still under renovation, with the hope of turning it into a safe haven for the survivors. He had heard about a man, Charles Grayson, who was offering to help establish aid centers for earthquake victims. After contact was made by short-wave radio and an initial visit was made, Chief Governor Grayson helped by delivering supplies. Grayson then helped to let people of the region know about the safe haven by dropping flyers over the area communities. Even with Grayson providing supplies, the open invitation would bring more people than they would be able to feed.
Given the title of Governor Davis, one of his first acts had been to recruit candidates for his Guard and then to send out teams to collect anything and everything that could be used to help survive. Without any form of law enforcement to stop them, they took, without discretion, anything they needed or wanted. At first by going to surrounding towns and scavenging through demolished stores and homes. Then, when the pickings became scarce, the Guard, under the governor’s authority, sought out survivor camps and took their possessions too. Everything that was collected was brought back to the prison compound, sorted, and stored in its lower level.
Initially, Davis had good intentions, but in a relatively short time, his newly acquired power had gone to his head, becoming a dictator, refusing to distribute more than a fraction of what Governor Grayson delivered or what his Guard had collected
When Aaron and Adam came of age, and with pull from their dad, they were given divided duties, both in the wood and metal shops, under the supervision of a kind man. Amos taught them skills in the shops and how to organize the goods below. Unfortunately, Amos was hauled off when he reached his fortieth birthday, leaving the entire process in the hands of the boys. Amos wasn’t heard of again.
The boys, curious by nature and left alone much of the time when not in the shops, took the unsupervised opportunity to explore everywhere in the lower level, becoming extremely familiar with every room and every passage. With much difficulty the boys discovered concealed points of access or escape, based on one’s point of view. They had been installed for emergency situations, such as riots or hostage situations, concealed for obvious reasons. The boys didn’t know whether Governor Davis or Damon were aware of their existence.
They came to the end of the passage with it opening into a room where their candlelight only revealed stacks and stacks of boxes. John stepped into an aisle, unable to see the other end. He imagined the room had to be huge since the light of his candle didn’t reach the opposite wall.
“Hold this,” Aaron said, as he handed his candle to his brother. He then removed a lantern from a hanger on the wall and lit it. He leaned over and blew out the candle he’d given his brother. He held the lantern high and stepped into the room. The brighter illumination revealed the true size of the massive room.
“No one else comes down here?” asked John.
“I don’t know about now, it depends on whether they replaced us. But there really wasn’t any need to before. We had the place pretty well organized,” answered Aaron, “and hardly anything was ever taken out, except for the governor’s use.”
“We hadn’t had any visitors from the time Amos was taken away to when we left,” continued Adam. “That was about two months. If something was needed, we were just told to retrieve it. Early on it was a pretty busy place with new acquisitions being brought in daily, but as collections dwindled, the governor stopped sending out teams as often and the activity down here came essentially to a halt.”
“Okay, where do we go now?” asked their father. “We want to get Ryder and Levi and get out of here as quickly and quietly as possible.”
“Have any idea where they’re being held?” asked Aaron.
“No, not for certain, but I’d guess cell block A. That’s where we’d place offenders when I was here,” said Gant.
“This way then,” directed Aaron, as he walked away, the lantern held high. The others followed with their candles still lit for the extra light.
At one corner of the massive room Aaron and Adam led them into a narrow hallway. Aaron slid another of the keys into the lock of a door with “MAINTENANCE SUPERVISOR” in bold letters across it. Instead of an office, they found a small space that looked more like a utility room with control panels and cabinets on all the walls. In the confines of the room, the light from the lantern and candles easily lit the entire space, revealing nothing else. Gant glanced at John, who shrugged. Aaron and Adam saw the exchange and smiled to each other. Aaron grabbed the edge of one of the huge panels and tugged, swinging it outward.
“This should take us to another utility room inside cell block A,” explained Adam.
Astonished, their dad asked, “How did you find out about this?”
“Just came across it, I guess,” said Aaron, with a sly grin.
“No, really?” asked John.
The boys exchanged another smile. It was obvious they were enjoying themselves at their dad’s and John’s expense. Adam nodded to his brother. Aaron walked over to a metal cabinet and opened it, removing a set of blueprints. “We found these.”
“You boys know how to read plans?” their dad asked.
“It wasn’t that hard,” said Adam. “You just have to read the notes and follow the drawings.”
Aaron unrolled the plans to a specific page. “Here we are and,” he opened the plans to another page, “and this is where we’ll come out, inside cell block A. The passage was installed as an emergency exit according to the plans.”
Gant was impressed with his sons for making the discovery and it showed as he smiled with pride. He swung the panel all the way open and peered inside. The opening was small, looking to be about four foot in diameter, and pitch black inside.
“We’ll have to crawl to where it comes out,” announced Aaron. He usually took the lead of the two brothers, being five minutes older than his brother.
“You’re not going any further,” said their dad. “You and Adam are going to stay right here until John and I return. You did a great job getting us this far, but I’m not g
oing to risk your safety anymore.”
“But, we…,” started Aaron.
“You’re father’s right,” agreed John. “If we have to make a quick getaway, it’ll be faster moving through this tunnel with just the two of us.” He thought they might be less likely to argue if he appealed to their common sense, rather than going along with their dad’s reasoning to keep them safe.
And it worked. They could see the logic in it even though they didn’t like being left out. “Okay,” said Aaron, “we’ll stay here, but if you need our help, just yell. We should be able to hear you from one end of the tunnel to the other.”
Gant agreed, not seeing any reason why he would need to call them for help. Aaron handed him the lantern. John watched as the father and his two sons exchanged looks without words, attempting to avoid letting the situation become emotional. In an instant Gant grabbed both boys in an unexpected bear hug. He just as quickly let them go. With a smile and a nod, Gant turned and entered the corrugated metal tube on his hands and knees, awkwardly crawling and carrying the lantern in one hand.
John started to follow immediately behind his friend, but withdrew and faced the boys. “If we run into trouble up there, we’ll let you know, if we can. And if so, do not come after us, but get out of here. There’s no sense in all of us … It’s what your dad would want, and your mother will need you.” He didn’t need to say anymore. They were old enough and smart enough to know what could happen. “Okay?”
Both Aaron and Adam agreed, but he knew deep down they wouldn’t desert their father if he was in trouble.
“Are you coming?” a hollow and distant voice came from the tunnel.
With a deep breath, John climbed in behind Gant, crawling through the dark to catch up, the dim glow of the lantern ahead guiding his way. The ridges of the tube were hard on his knees, every step a painful one.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever, John’s knees becoming raw. Even though they knew in general where they were going according to the plans, they hadn’t taken the time to scale the distance off the plans to determine how far it was to the exit in cell block A.
Exodus (Aftershock Series Book 2) Page 12