by Hunter Shea
Rey nodded, swallowing back the tail end of a cough. “I think I just swallowed funny.”
Their mother said from the other room, “I hope you’re not coming down with something. You just got over that cold last week.”
Buck said, “Well, if he does have a cold, get ready to have it, too. In these close quarters, it’s one for all and all for one in the sickness department.”
Max didn’t care about colds or ham radios. He tossed the book on Rey’s bed.
There had to be something going on up there. It wasn’t like someone had dropped a nuclear bomb on them. He was sure plenty of people had made it through in one piece.
“You wanna arm-wrestle?” he asked Rey.
“Why don’t you do some push-ups or something? Burn off some of your energy.”
Max got to his feet, scattering the crayons as he walked between his brother and sister.
“Hey, cut it out, jerk!” Gabby yelled.
She threw a crayon. It bounced off his back.
“Guys, keep it down,” their father said.
Max went to the end of the bunkhouse and laid his palm against the steel wall. Would he be able to feel the vibration of a passing car or people walking on the lawn?
He should be grateful that he and his family were safe. But he couldn’t stop the tingling in his brain, radiating throughout his entire body. It was a current of nervous energy, the likes of which he’d never felt before. Logically, he knew he was probably in the best place he could be.
Logic worked very hard to hold sway over the claustrophobic sense that it wouldn’t take long for him to lose his mind buried alive in a bunker with board games and warm orange drinks.
31
Buck said he kept track of the days on a pocket calendar.
“How many days do you think we’ll be down here?” Elizabeth asked. She looked tired. They were all tired. Aside from the stress, their biorhythms had been thrown completely off, living without sight of the sun or moon.
“I don’t know. I keep hoping we’ll get something on the radio. The absence of any kind of signal concerns me.”
So far, he’d checked off two days on his calendar. Two days without a single sound from the outside world.
Daniel’s stomach grumbled. He stared at an open box of energy bars.
Alexiana pushed the box across the table toward him. “You can have one if you want.”
Jesus. He couldn’t even hide his hunger pangs down here. He waved her off. “I’m fine. I’ll survive until dinner.”
The military MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) weren’t half-bad. They weren’t half-good, either, but it would quiet his stomach down.
As much as he wanted the energy bar, he had to be disciplined. Sure, it looked like they had more than enough food now, but what if they were trapped in the shelter for weeks, or months? The energy bar he ate now would be one less thing to feed his kids.
He thought of the life that had once been ahead of them, how Gabby wanted to be a nurse like her mom, Miguel a fireman, Rey a database developer, and Max, well, his future profession changed each day. Last time they spoke, he’d said he wanted to be an MMA fighter, and if that didn’t pan out, he’d settle for boxing promoter. Daniel had just sighed at the time.
Now what lay ahead of them?
The scrape of a chair against the concrete floor made him jump.
“I’m gonna get sick,” Dakota announced.
Buck hurriedly found a thick plastic bag. “Use this.”
She ran to the small area designated for the chemical toilet and washbasin. They could all hear her retching.
Miguel crinkled his nose. “Ewwww.”
“Shh!” said Elizabeth.
Rey stood outside the drawn curtain. “You okay?”
She spit several times. “Yeah. I’ll be all right.”
You okay?
Seems they’d been saying that a lot.
Everyone said yes.
And everyone knew it was a lie.
32
On the fourth day, Elizabeth started crying after breakfast. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop.
She felt Daniel’s arm over her heaving shoulders, Alexiana’s hand around hers.
No one said a word. Not even the kids.
Pull yourself together! You’re going to scare the kids.
She opened her eyes and saw Max and Gabby through the blur of tears, crackers in their hands, dread on their faces. Elizabeth couldn’t remember if she’d ever cried in front of the children. Of course, there had been tears of joy, the occasional maudlin movie that hit her the right way, but she’d never broken down like this.
“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Gabby said.
Hearing the pained concern in her daughter’s voice only made it worse. She had to bury her face in Daniel’s chest, hoping to muffle her weeping.
She cried until her throat hurt, until her eyes were sore, until she could no longer breathe out of her nose.
When the wave passed and she looked up, everyone but Daniel was gone. She’d clung to him as if he were a life preserver.
He wiped her tears with the cuff of his sleeves.
“Feel a little better?” he said.
“Not really. Just tired now.”
“With the way things are, that’ll qualify as better. You want to lie down for a bit? I’ll set a game up for the kids.”
“Only if you stay with me.”
He kissed her lips. “We’re not going to be down here forever. Just think, we could pop up and see that everything’s back to normal.”
“But what about the radio? How come no one is on the air?”
“Maybe the radio is broken. It’s technology. It’s not perfect. Maybe it wasn’t hardened correctly for an EM pulse and it’s fried. Anything’s possible at this point.”
She pushed her hair back, tying it in a ponytail. “If everything is all right, will you take us to Rosita’s for dinner?” She smiled, but not without effort.
Daniel helped her up. “I’ll even let the kids order their own appetizers. And double orders of fried ice cream.”
“You know that’ll make Miguel sick all night. How about Roma’s for pizza instead?”
“And wine for the chaperones?” Daniel asked.
“Of course wine for the chaperones. I need a table by the window. I have to see the sky,” Elizabeth said.
He walked her to the crowded bunkhouse.
“We’ll get outta your way, Lizzie,” Buck said. “Everyone needs a little time to themselves. In fact, maybe we should work out shifts.”
“Probably a good idea,” Daniel said.
33
Buck had accounted for everything except the boredom.
Keeping nine people from going stir-crazy while searching for any sign that it was safe to go out was no easy task. After they’d gotten over the initial shock and came to grips with the fact that they were going to have to coexist in the shelter for who knew how long, finding ways to fill up the days—days in a theoretical sense, since the clock was their only proof when it was morning or afternoon—was the biggest challenge of all.
The kids were getting snippy with one another. Even the adults had their moments. The utter lack of privacy, sleep deprivation (because everyone’s circadian rhythm was smashed to bits), and omnipresent fear of the unknown above had put everyone on edge. Simple bodily functions could lead to sharp words and cutting glances if one forgot to excuse themselves after a burp.
Tense. Yep, that described the mood. Tense as a small condom on a porn star’s prick.
Buck sipped on a juice box, watching Miguel color the last picture in the last coloring book. Good thing he had plenty of blank paper and notebooks. Miguel would draw his own pictures and color them when he was done.
“Can you please pass me the headphones?” Buck asked Alexiana. She walked listlessly into the bunkhouse and handed him the white Sony headphones. He plugged them into the radio. Maybe with the headphones, he could discern something amid the stati
c.
Aside from Miguel, the rest of the Padillas were in the bunkhouse. He could hear Max grunting as he did sit-ups. The kid reminded him of a poodle he’d had when he was first married. The dog had enough energy to send a rocket to Saturn. They eventually had to give him to a couple he knew from work because they had more space for the crazy dog to run around.
Dakota leaned on the table next to Buck, staring at Miguel with a wan smile.
“Wish me luck,” he said.
She gave him a thumbs-up, but there was little hope in her eyes.
He gave the radio’s crank a dozen turns, charging it up. The moment he flipped the On switch, he was greeted by static. Turning the knob slowly with his thumb and forefinger, he went up the AM band, searching for even the tiniest snippet of a human voice.
By the time he scrolled past 1010, the home of the legendary New York news station, he felt defeat settle into his gut.
Maybe I should just go outside and check tomorrow. If anything, it will give us some answers. This not knowing is what’s going to drive us all crazy.
Even though he had plenty of water and cleaning supplies, he was sure they were all getting a little ripe. The chemical toilet was working overtime, as well, and there were bags of solid waste that he’d love to get out of the shelter.
What did you do to us?
He wasn’t sure who the you was, but he’d give his right leg to know whom he needed to channel his hate against.
Maybe tomorrow.
The dial hit the end of the AM band. He switched it to FM and worked his way down.
34
While his family played another game of Crazy Eights, Rey slipped into a top bunk, pulling the blanket up to his chin. Gabby was accusing Max of cheating. His mother made a halfhearted attempt to settle her down. Max told Gabby to stick her head in the toilet.
To conserve the generator, Buck had shut off the two lights. A battery-operated lantern hung on one of the bunk posts, bathing the bunkhouse in cold, blue light.
“You skipping out on us?” Max asked, a crazy grin on his face, satisfied that he’d pissed Gabby off.
“I think I’ve played enough Crazy Eights to last two lifetimes,” Rey said.
“We can play something else,” his mother said.
“No, you guys play. I think I’m going to take a nap.”
In a way, Rey was grateful for the light restriction. Under the strange lantern light, his parents couldn’t see how pale his skin had become overnight. He’d seen it for himself in the mirror by the toilet, just before Buck went into power-saving mode.
He shivered under the blanket. His lungs hitched, desperate to cough, but he held it in. The last thing he needed to do was to start spewing his germs everywhere. If he was lucky, a nice long nap would leave him feeling better.
Doubling the pillow under his head, he could see Dakota sitting at the head of the table in the other room. She was reading an old paperback. He couldn’t see what was on the cover. Buck had a couple dozen books that weren’t survival guides. None of them had appealed to Rey. There were dark circles under her eyes and pin drops of sweat dotted the sides of her face. She coughed softly into her hand, turned the page, and brought the book closer to her face.
Dakota had spent the better part of the last day reading. She’d barely spoken to anyone. He couldn’t tell if she was depressed or angry or if this was just how she always was when she wasn’t a secretary at the race office. What he knew about teen girls he could fit in a thimble. That towered in comparison to what he knew about women.
Funny, he’d been no farther than ten feet from her for a week now, and he still found it difficult to summon up the courage to talk to her.
Rey felt another cough coming on and held his breath. His body shook with exertion, but no sound came out.
He needed air. Fresh, clean air. Everything down here seemed stale, reused, recycled, reconstituted until all the good stuff had been stripped away. He’d seen movies where people survived the apocalypse by securing themselves in bomb shelters. At the time, it looked awesome. To outlive Armageddon by hunkering down in a fully stocked bunker and emerge to start a new civilization was the stuff of fantasies.
This was no fantasy. This was a horror movie, one of those flicks from the seventies where there was no happy ending.
Because even if they made it out of Buck’s shelter in one piece, what was out there waiting for them?
You may be the last man on earth even close to Dakota’s age and you still can’t untie your tongue, he thought.
Between the fever he knew was raging in his system, his swirling brain, and his whirling hormones, he didn’t think he’d be able to actually sleep.
Sometime during his sister’s pronouncement that she was the winner and Max could go stick his head in the toilet, the darkness overtook him.
35
“How is she doing?”
Alexiana shook the thermometer down. “Her fever is just under a hundred and three.”
Daniel watched Elizabeth press a cold washcloth to Dakota’s forehead. She took a pained sip of orange drink and lay back on the bed.
“Rey was around the same,” he said.
Buck opened one of the medical boxes he’d mounted to the walls and pulled out an amber bottle. “Here, give them each a couple of these and some Tylenol,” he said to Alexiana.
“Those different antibiotics?” Daniel asked.
“Yep. I ordered three hundred of them from a Canadian company over the Internet. In fact, most of the pills I have are from Canada. It was either there or Cuba. They should take the fever down and knock out whatever’s in them.”
Miguel nudged his way onto Daniel’s lap. “Is Rey going to have to go to the hospital?”
Daniel hugged him close. “No, he’ll be fine. He just needs medicine.”
“I hope he doesn’t get me sick,” Max said.
“Don’t be such a creep,” Gabby said.
“Chill out, guys,” Daniel said. “Rey and Dakota need their rest. Just keep it down.”
Tears streaked down Miguel’s cheeks. “I don’t want Rey to be sick.”
“Oh, come on, Miguel. Stop being a baby,” Max said.
Daniel shot his son a warning look. He silently approved when Gabby backhanded her older brother’s chest. Max had become quite the tormentor over the past week, to the point where Daniel wanted to treat him like a little kid and spank him in front of everyone. The humiliation might do wonders.
Buck said, “I’ll change the air filter. Don’t want the same old germs circulating, you know.”
“Any luck with the radio today?” Daniel asked, rocking Miguel on his lap.
“Same as every other day,” Buck sighed.
“I think it’s time we at least took a peek.”
Buck fiddled with the brim of his cowboy hat. “I’m not so much worried about what’s outside the door as I am about what can make its way inside the shelter.”
“Don’t you have a way of checking?”
“Not from in here. I can give everyone potassium iodide tablets to take. It’ll protect from low-level radiation, should there even be any.”
Daniel said, “What if you and I got out quick? A few seconds with the door open shouldn’t be dangerous.”
“If you go, I want to go,” Max said.
“Not a chance,” Daniel quickly replied.
“Look, I know you’re worried about Rey. I have all the meds he’d get from a doctor. We don’t have to act rashly,” Buck said.
Daniel had to fight the sudden impulse to punch his neighbor in the face hard enough to knock the stupid cowboy hat off his head.
Where the hell did that come from?
In the blink of an eye, Buck had gone from an incredible friend who had saved his family to a smug jailer who refused to let them go free. Daniel knew the thought was completely irrational.
So why after taking a few deep breaths did he still want to hit the man?
36
It hurt lik
e hell to swallow the antibiotic capsule. Dakota felt the pill stick to the back of her throat and panicked. Sitting up as fast as she could, she brought the water glass to her lips with a trembling hand and swallowed hard.
Mercifully, the pill went with the downward tide.
“Sorry,” she said. “I thought I was going to choke.”
Elizabeth took the glass before she spilled the rest all over herself. “You scared me for a second there.”
“That makes two of us,” she said, smiling weakly. It had been a long time since she’d had someone wait on her. She had to admit it was kind of nice, being mothered by Elizabeth, even though the woman was closer to being an older sister. What wasn’t nice was the way she’d been feeling. The medication didn’t seem to be working. Her fever had yet to break, and there was a fluid rattle in her lungs when she breathed or coughed. Worst was the cramps. She hurt all over. It was as if she’d been tossed from a speeding car.
“How’s Rey?” Dakota asked.
Elizabeth cast a quick glance at his cot. The lantern was on low, making it difficult for Dakota to see for herself. Her teenage savior had gone through a ferocious coughing fit an hour earlier. He’d been silent ever since.
“Sleeping, which is what you should probably do.”
At first, it had been difficult, sleeping amid perfect strangers who were never more than a few feet away. Now she was so bone-tired, all she needed to do was close her eyes and she was out.
“Still with the fever?” Dakota said.
Elizabeth craned her head back, loosening the muscles in her neck. She closed her eyes and took a moment to answer. “Yes, but it’s a little lower today. I keep waiting for the other kids to come down with it. I worry about Miguel. With his asthma . . .” She let the words trail off.
Dakota reached out and wrapped her hand around Elizabeth’s wrist. The woman’s skin felt cool and soothing compared to her own burning palm. “I don’t think he can catch what we have.”
“What do you mean?”
“I keep thinking back to when Rey and I ran from the track and through the reservoir. Something was burning, but we couldn’t see any flames. At one point, we ran into this low cloud of smoke. It smelled strange, like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. I keep wondering, what was in that smoke?”