by B. T. Wright
The men pulled a long steel bolt across the door and latched it on the other side. That was when the lights being on down the stairs beneath Jake registered, and so too did the hum of a generator. Jess was just below him, a smile on her face. She waved him down. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he noticed a door. When it opened, it sounded pressurized. The men who had helped save him up top stepped in with them. The door shut, one of them pressed a button, and the air sucked out of the top of the room at the same time it was filled with more air from the bottom.
“You’re sure he’s been on Beritrix too?”
Jess took Jake’s arm. “I told you he has, but have a look for yourself.” She turned his arm over and showed him Jake’s injection points––something he’d been hiding his entire life so no one mistook him for a junkie.
The man nodded to the other and the second door of the small room opened. The large bald man stepped forward and extended his hand.
“Bryan Hall.”
Jake shook his oversized hand. “Thanks for having my back up there.”
Bryan nodded toward Jess. “Thanks goes to her. She showed us how to get here, even though we trapped her on the interstate.”
Jake understood then that these were the people who stopped his friends on the exit ramp.
Bryan said. “Heard a lot about you. Hell of a thing you did going out there alone. I’m ready to fight these things with you when we’re ready.”
Jake just nodded. He was a little overwhelmed with all that was going on. He first wanted to get his bearings on exactly where, and what it was that he had just entered into. He walked out of the chamber and more than a dozen other people were staring back at him. He realized that someone had absolutely been preparing for what happened that day. And it looked like they’d been preparing for a very long time. A man in a lab coat walked over to him and extended his hand.
“Professor Reed. Call me Charlie. Last time I spoke with Emily she mentioned you’d be coming. Glad to see you made it safely.” The man seemed warm. His salt and pepper beard combined with his black-rimmed glasses screamed professor. Jake imagined there would be a cardigan beneath the lab coat.
“Good to be here. Thanks for letting us in.” Jake shook his hand.
“Your skills really round out our little group here. We have everything from a cook to a nurse. The only thing missing was a military man. Can’t say I had one in my inner circle before the fallout.”
Jake felt as if he were in a movie. And it wasn’t the first time that day he’d felt that way. But to hear they had a cook, a nurse, and to hear the word fallout? It just seemed far too surreal. “I’m assuming you’ve been preparing for this day?”
The group laughed.
“You have no idea,” Reed said.
A man walked up, a wide smile across his ebony face, his hand reaching for Jake. “Randy. Nice to meet a real-life Delta. I’m an American History teacher at a local high school. A bit of a military nut.”
“Nice to meet you too, Randy,” Jake said. Then, he turned back to the professor. “Not that it isn’t great to meet you, all of you, but there are quite a few infected just above us, you know, trying to eat us? But you don’t seem concerned. Should I be worried?”
The professor’s face was serious. “We all should be worried, Jake. Just not about them getting down here. We’ve been preparing for this for some time now. This is a university-funded project, if you can believe it. It took me years to get them behind the idea.”
“University-funded project? For the apocalypse?” Tyler said. “That’s pretty sweet.”
The professor nodded. “More of a project about being prepared. The way I finally sold it to the board was that we would perfect the standard in fallout shelters for anyone out there who is a ‘prepper’, so they can follow our mold. I’ll show you around, but needless to say, we have everything we need to survive for some time down here.”
Jake wanted to say something about our tax dollars and tuition money hard at work, but what could he say? It had literally just saved his and his friend’s lives. “Fantastic. I can’t wait for the tour, but do you have a radio? I need to get in contact with Mount Weather. When was the last time you spoke with Emily?”
“Of course, right this way. We have been working on making contact with them for a little while.” Jake, Tyler, Jess, and Amy followed behind the professor. “I’d say the last time I got a message to her was probably around the last time you spoke with her. That was when we lost cellular capabilities. What do you know about what is going on, Jake?”
As the professor walked them around the basement, Jake noticed it was set up like a school, but it seemed the classrooms had been converted to storage and bedrooms. The large room he walked into from the stairs when he first came down was a common area with couches and other various seating, with what looked like activities or games set up in the back.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said. “But how long have you been preparing this area?”
The professor showed them into a space that was clearly designated as the communication room. Stations were set up with radios, and other computer devices. “Two years. That was when we got permission to move forward. The university stopped using this area down here over five years ago. I’ve been trying since then to get all of this approved. We are incredibly lucky to have it. I don’t have to tell you that most down here would be dead without it. Including the members of the board that we promised beds in order to get this project approved in the first place.”
Now that made some sense to Jake. Some members of the board hedged their bets in case this wacko professor was right about the end possibly coming. Two days ago, Jake would have laughed if he’d heard about this project. Now, he hoped there were a lot more ‘crazy people’ across the world that had done some of the same things.
43
“So, professor, how did you get everyone here in time to survive without getting infected?” Jake said.
The professor looked solemn. “Call me Charlie. And a lot didn’t make it. Most, actually. I always thought we would have more warning. We were set up to hold a hundred. Only fifteen made it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jess said.
“Me too. The only reason as many of them made it here as they did was because of the radio transmission I intercepted two days ago. I felt it meant something, so I told everyone to be ready. But I had no idea it would lead to this.”
“Radio transmission?” Jake asked. “Is that the one Emily mentioned? Said you claimed to have heard an alien conversation or something?”
Jake didn’t realize it at first, but he was smiling when he said it. Even after the day he’d had, the words alien conversation still sounded ridiculous.
“I know it seems outrageous, Jake. But is it really . . . after all you’ve seen out there?”
Jake’s mind flashed to the trap the infected had set in front of the bridge, to the conversation about Tyler’s theories they’d had in the RV, to the house where the infected had coordinated an attack, and to just moments ago when they’d caught him in the rope like he was an animal running from hunters. Did it really sound outrageous after all of that?
“Alien conversation?” Tyler stepped forward. Then he looked at Jake. “I told you, man. You too, Jess. I knew there was more to this!”
Then Jake thought about the moment in the kitchen of that house. When the infected man was reaching through the window then, plain as day, he said Amy’s name.
“No,” Jake said. “It doesn’t sound outrageous at all. But do you really think that’s what these things are? Aliens?”
“I don’t know, but I know what I heard on the transmission is a conversation between two intelligent beings. I don’t have any idea what was said, but if you listened to it, you would see what I’m saying. The cadence, the back and forth—”
“Couldn’t it just be a college prank?” Jake interrupted. “I mean, surely students knew about this little project of yours down here. Sounds like something I mi
ght have done. Play a prank on the paranoid professor? You don’t think that could be it?”
“Maybe, Jake. Maybe before the pandemic today that crossed my mind. But not after what happened to those people that chased you into this building. After more than eighty of the people who’d been chosen for this project turned into whatever that is up there, I knew the transmission wasn’t a fake. And when you hear it, you’ll know it too.”
“Well what are we waiting for?” Tyler said. “I believe you, professor—Charlie––and I want to hear it.”
Charlie looked at Jake. “Matthew is in the back still working on finding Mount Weather’s frequency. There is nothing else for us to do while we wait for him to connect with them, so we might as well hear the transmission now.”
With the look of getting a new puppy draped over Tyler’s face, how could Jake say no? He knew it was silly. And he knew it wasn’t going to mean anything to him, but if all of them were going to fight what was going on above them, Jake knew they were going to need to sift through every piece of information they could find. No matter how wild it seemed.
“Let’s hear it,” Jake said. “I wouldn’t want Tyler to have an aneurysm waiting for his dreams to come true.”
Charlie nodded, then walked over to a computer. He hit some buttons, and as he did, Jake, Tyler, Jess, and Amy gathered around them.
“There will be some fuzz at first, then you’ll hear what I’m talking about. Don’t expect to learn anything, except that maybe something bigger is going on out there.”
Jake tried to remain neutral as Charlie hit play, but he couldn’t deny the feeling that this was completely nuts.
Charlie pointed at the screen. “This is a sound-level meter that was recording this particular frequency from a satellite. You’ll see the measurements jump when the conversations starts.”
At first there was some fuzz, kind of like when you are tuning an old radio, or when you hear the break between speaking into a handheld walkie-talkie. The meter jumped once at a sound, then just like Charlie said, two distinct sounds were going opposite each other. You could definitely hear the difference in each ‘voice’. It didn’t sound like any language from planet Earth, more like computerized gibberish, but with sounds instead of words. It could have been a lot of different things, but Jake could see where Charlie, especially since he was looking for something like this, could say it was a conversation. But beyond that, it didn’t mean a thing to Jake. And jumping to the conclusion that it was aliens talking? That was borderline laughable in his mind.
“They are talking to each other. This is amazing!” Tyler on the other hand bought in hook, line, and sinker. But this had always been Tyler’s dream––ever since he watched E.T. The mind hears what it wants to hear when there is room for shades of gray.
Jess interrupted Tyler’s fantasy. “Amy . . . Amy are you okay?”
Jake turned in time to watch Amy’s eyes roll back into her head as she stood behind them listening.
“Amy!” Jess got behind her to make sure she didn’t fall.
“What’s wrong with her?” Jake said.
“This happened in the RV. Her eyes did the same thing. Then she passed out.”
The professor kneeled down in front of her, looking into her all-white eyes. He glanced up at Jess. “When you first got here, you said she wasn’t infected, and you also said she wasn’t on Beritrix, right?”
“Right, you almost didn’t let us in.”
“That’s because you mentioned she had been with her infected parents all day. Then she was out in the open with you all night. Both are sure-fire ways to become infected, so obviously I was a bit leary. But you’ve seen her do this? Where her eyes rolled back into her head?”
“Like I said, she did it back in the RV.”
Amy started to tremor.
Jake cut in, saying, “One of them said her name.”
Everyone turned their head to look at Jake.
“What?” Tyler said.
“Yeah, in the house earlier. One of the infected looked me dead in the eye and said Amy.”
Charlie stood from his crouch, his mouth was agape. “You heard an infected speak?”
“Yes. For the second time today. But this time, the thing said Amy. Plain as day.”
“What? That has to be connected!” Tyler was excited.
The professor clarified, “So she has never had Beritrix, isn’t infected, and one of those things said her name?”
Before Jake could answer, Amy stopped shaking and her eyes returned to normal. But her facial expression changed––she was absolutely terrified. She turned and buried her face in Jess’s shirt and began to sob.
“It’s okay, Amy.” Jess rubbed her back. “You’re okay, sweetheart. You just went somewhere for a second. But everything’s fine.”
“What was it? What did you see?” Charlie pulled at Amy’s shoulder, trying to turn her around.
Jake swatted his arm away, then shoved him a couple of feet back. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t put your hands on her.”
“What did she see? It was something! Look at her!”
Charlie was adamant. He didn’t even acknowledge Jake’s shove.
“You need to give us some space. Right now!” Jake demanded.
“No, I need to know what just happened to her.” He looked past Jake to Amy. “Amy, what was it. Did you hear something?”
Jake stepped toward Charlie. He was going to get Amy her space one way or another. Just as he began pushing him back, Amy spoke up, but none of them could make out what she said.
Jake stopped and turned toward her.
Jess let go and Amy pulled away, drying her eyes.
“What was that, honey?” Jess said. “You don’t have to—”
Amy cleared her throat.
“I said . . . I understood them. I understood everything they were saying.”
44
Jake knew everyone in the room felt the same spine-tingling sensation that he did. The same feeling he got earlier in the night when the infected man in the window said Amy’s name. They were all stunned into silence at Amy’s words. She understood them?
“I knew it! I knew it was a conversation!” Charlie shouted.
Jake kept him from running at Amy, and held him back with a hand to his chest.
“Calm down,” Jake said. “Everyone just relax. It’s been a long day. Jess, maybe we should take Amy somewhere to lie down. She’s clearly just exhausted.”
The words Jake said to everyone came out as if he were on autopilot. He wanted nothing more than to hear what Amy claimed to have heard, but he never expected to hear himself trying to defuse the situation. The weight of the moment was throwing him off his game.
“No,” Amy said. “I’m okay. But we’re not.”
Charlie shoved Jake’s hand aside as Jake was trying to process, then rushed forward, crouching to Amy’s level and getting right in her face. “What was it? What did you hear?” He was frantic.
Jake pulled him up by the collar of his white coat. “Stay out of her face.”
“This isn’t a game!” Charlie yanked his coat free. “This is history for God’s sake. I need to know what she heard!”
Jake saw a chair behind Professor Reed, grabbed him by the lapel, and sat him down in it. “You will give Amy her space. You hear me?”
“Stop fighting each other!” Amy shouted.
Everyone turned toward her.
“It’s what they want!”
They.
The room was completely still. Everyone, including the three other men working the radios, all stopped what they were doing and tuned in on Amy. Jake felt paralyzed when he heard the word they. He hoped she meant something other than what his worst fears were telling him. Something other than what the professor and Tyler were telling everyone this was. And something other than what his instincts had been telling him after watching the infected evolve as quickly as they had. But he knew. Deep down Jake knew what she meant, and that
was why he and everyone else in the room couldn’t summon words as they stood staring at Amy. Waiting for her to speak.
Amy looked at Charlie. “You were right. That was a conversation.”
Amy looked over to Jake. Her blue eyes were swimming in tears. “This wasn’t a disease or an infection that did this to my parents, and all of those other people.”
Jake finally managed words. “Then what was it?”
“An infiltration.”
The words stunned Jake, and apparently everyone else as well. There wasn’t a sound in the small room.
Jess walked around so she could face Amy. “Infiltration? You mean another country has done this? Like an act of war?”
Amy shook her head. “It’s a war, all right, but not another country. They are from somewhere else.”
Just as Charlie began to speak, the radio at the back of the room squawked. Then they heard a man’s voice. “This is the United States Army. We are looking for survivors on this frequency. We heard a transmission from here just a moment ago. If anyone can hear us, please respond.”
The man at the radio turned toward the professor for guidance. The transmission was horrible timing, because the only thing any of them in that room wanted to hear was what Amy had to say. But there was no way they could miss this communication with the Army. They had no choice but to respond.
“Professor?” the man at the radio prompted.
The radio sounded again. “I repeat, this is the United States Army. We are looking for survivors on this frequency. We heard a transmission from here just a moment ago. If anyone can hear us, please respond.”