by D. J. Molles
He still proceeded with caution.
He wasn’t sure at what point he had drawn it, but realized that on reflex he had un- holstered the MK23. He held it in a relaxed grip and kept it tucked close to his body. Moving quickly, he scooted through the door frame and sidestepped to the left. Out of habit, he avoided the center of the tunnel, but didn’t hug the wall. He moved heel-to-toe down the cement corridor. The heavy fabric of the MOPP suit swish-swashed with each step and Lee could have sworn the sound was echoing down the tunnel. The concept of stealth was cancelled out when wearing the damn thing.
With each step down the tunnel, a little more of the tunnel’s incline came into view. In the dim red light ahead, as he neared the point where the floor took its steep incline, he thought something moved.
He stopped. There was no cover or even concealment in the long tunnel. He suddenly felt very exposed. If he wanted cover he would have to run back to his bunker. He wanted to look behind him to gauge the distance back to the bunker door, but didn’t want to take his eyes off the tunnel ahead.
Then he thought that Tango might had accidentally shut the bunker door and sealed him out. His stomach dropped and he felt the tingle in his feet telling him to look back and make sure that everything was okay.
It’s a heavy door, he told himself. Tango won’t be able to push it closed on accident.
But if he did and it locked in place I would be so fucked.
Lee clenched his teeth and shot a quick look behind him. Down the tunnel he could see the oblong oval shape of the door to his bunker. The inside of his bunker was well lit compared to the tunnel and he could see the light pouring out, silhouetting the frame of Tango, still sitting obediently but attentively at the door.
Tango was most definitely in the fatal funnel, but didn’t seem to care. Lee faced forward again. The cold cement tunnel stretched out in front of him. Silent and still. The movement had been a trick of his eyes. Probably.
He proceeded on.
The tunnel ended in a set of short, steel stairs that lead up to a circular hatch with a locking-wheel, similar to the one on the door to his bunker. The hatch appeared to be secure, and could not be opened from the outside without significant efforts. Lee relaxed for a moment, taking the time to blink rapidly, testing the acuity of his natural night-vision. It was nearly 1200 hours and would be broad daylight outside, however, the hatch was in the bottom of his basement, which he had left unlit and assumed was still dark. He didn’t want to use the light attached to the underside of his MK23 for fear that it would draw attention. Recon was about stealth.
He holstered his sidearm but didn’t clip the retention strap. He then climbed the five stairs to the hatch. He cranked the wheel to the left. The locks disengaged with only the slightest of metallic clanks, but the noise still made Lee cringe.
He reached down and pulled his pistol out again as he slowly pushed the hatch upwards, clearing a few inches of space—just enough for him to peek out. Even with his eyes adjusted, the basement was too dark to see anything in detail. He took a long moment to listen for shuffling feet or rustling clothing. Anything that would tip him off to someone inside his basement.
After another minute of listening he felt satisfied and pushed the hatch all the way open. His head and shoulders now clear of the hatch, he swiveled and gave his surroundings a quick scan with the light on his MK23. He identified the usual occupants of his basement: the water heater, the freezer where he kept venison during deer-hunting season, the tool cabinet, the pile of boxes with Christmas decorations in them.
Everything was quiet and undisturbed.
He flicked off the light.
Lee felt a wash of relief, his body relaxed from tension he hadn’t been aware he was holding. The sight of his belongings, all those normal, every-day things, still sitting right where he left them made it feel as though the world was the same one he had left over a month ago. Whatever had happened could not be that bad if his light-up Santa statue was still lying in the garage, unharmed and collecting dust until next holiday season.
Feeling more confident, Lee pulled himself fully out of the tunnel and knelt next to the hatch. He reached to close it behind him, paused, then pulled his hand back. The hatch lock was disengaged from the exterior by punching a code into a numbered keypad. While he didn’t want anyone slipping in behind him while he was out reconning, he also didn’t want to be screwing around with the keypad if he needed to beat a hasty retreat.
If anyone slipped into the tunnel behind his back, Tango would discourage them from getting into the bunker.
From where he knelt he could see up the basement stairs to the main portion of his house. The door at the top was closed, but he could see daylight illuminating the cracks, making it look like a large, glowing white frame was hovering in mid-air.
He made his way to the bottom of the stairs, keeping the pistol at low-ready and keeping a sharp eye on the frame of light around the door, waiting for a flash of shadow to indicate movement on the other side.
At the top of the stairs he repeated his stop-and-listen technique until he felt certain the house was empty. He opened the door and stepped through, quickly this time, checking right, then left...nothing.
The basement door opened into the kitchen area. In front of him was a granite counter top that turned 90 degrees into a cooking area. Pans hung from the wall, cabinets were stacked with glasses and plates. The brown dish-towel with the white stripes still hung on the handle of the stainless oven. Everything was exactly where he had left it.
Through the windows that surrounded the kitchen he looked out into the wooded area around his house. The light from the outside world was so bright after a month in the bunker that it nearly sapped the color out of the greenery, making the leaves appear silver in the flashing sun. It was not only a shock to his eyes, but to his mind. He realized that he had half-expected some post-apocalyptic world, where the trees were charred stumps jutting from the ground and the air was filled with soot.
But this was simply his backyard.
Lee hesitated for a moment. He could continue to clear his house and property, possibly get a better idea of what was going on, or he could return to his bunker and wait the remaining days out. Prudence told him he had pushed far enough, and should go back...but now curiosity had taken hold and spurred him on.
He turned left, facing the entryway to his living room. Over the top of the couch he could see through the windows that faced the front of his house and the yard beyond. His grass had grown surprisingly long and looked almost waist-high. Large weeds had taken root in the cracks of his driveway and had grown to the height of small sapling trees. Amazing what nature could do if you left it alone for a month.
Past the overgrown yard, Lee could barely see the tops of the split-log fence he’d installed along the front of his property the previous summer. A bit past the fence, Lee could just make out the two-lane blacktop of Morrison Street, shimmering in the noonday heat. He wasn’t in a neighborhood and the nearest house to his was about a tenth of a mile down the road.
The Petersons.
Jason Peterson was a cop and a good neighbor, as well as a friend to Lee. He’d helped Lee re-grade his backyard when water began building up after rain storms, and displayed some prowess with a bobcat. He hunted with Lee on occasion, and when Lee couldn’t make it out to bag a deer, Jason always made sure to bring him several pounds of venison, and some scraps for Tango.
Lee clenched his jaw.
There was a footpath that connected his backyard to the Petersons’. It would only take five minutes to skirt the edge of the property and take a look at his neighbors’ house to see how they had fared. He figured it would be a decent litmus test of how things were overall.
Plus, it was the right thing to do. Even just gaining a vantage point on the Petersons’ house would allow him to gauge how bad things truly were. Obviously his own yard would be overgrown since he had been living in The Hole for the past month. It was not necessa
rily indicative of how the rest of the world was going. If he saw the Petersons’ yard clean cut, then obviously things couldn’t be that bad.
Lee stepped into the living room and swept left and right as he had in the kitchen. All was clear. His front door was still secured and none of his windows appeared broken or tampered with. He moved through the living room to the front door. The door was steel, but he had installed sidelights with the impact-resistant glass he’d used everywhere else in the house. He liked to be able to see who was knocking on his front door.
This made him think about receiving packages from UPS and he wondered if that would ever occur again.
He cupped a hand against the sidelight glass and peered through. Everything seemed very still. The blacktop in the distance shimmered in the July heat, and the waist- high stalks of grass in his front yard lilted motionless in the baking sun. Not a breeze to stir a blade of grass.
Lee twisted the deadbolt and heard the cylinder disengage with a clack, making him flinch. It sounded like the loudest noise he’d heard in ages. He turned the door knob, felt it catch and release from the doorframe. The weather stripping crackled as the long-sealed door finally separated and swung open.
The heat of summer hit him in the face like steam from a boiling pot. It smelled like grass and pollen and baking concrete. The calls of cicadas, rising and falling, seemed overwhelmingly loud. The air seemed full of flying insects, flitting back and forth across his overgrown lawn. It felt as though nature was completely unaware of his existence, or the existence of any man.
He stepped out onto the front porch and felt the heat and humidity blanket him. Without looking, he pulled the door quietly shut behind him. He walked to the edge of the three wooden steps from his porch to the concrete walkway that led to his driveway. The grass around his front porch appeared flat. Trampled.
This would later occur to him as something he should have noticed.
He took the steps, looking to his left, towards the footpath to the Petersons’. The next thing he knew he was falling, landing hard on the ground. He felt the hard concrete bounce the side of his face and the breath came out of him with a whoosh.
He heard something shrill, like a woman shrieking. Something had him by the leg. He tried to roll onto his back, but felt an iron grip on his ankle, pulling his leg through the stairs into the shadows underneath. He flailed, kicking with his free leg, then bringing his heel down hard on whatever held him. He felt his boot hit something and then his ankle was free.
He rolled onto his back, holding the pistol between his knees. Two pale, bony arms reached through the stairs, trying to grab at his feet. In the hand of one was a small knife, slashing the air repeatedly in a spastic X pattern. He tried to kick the knife, but the arms retreated under the stairs again. He scooted backwards and pulled his legs underneath him, trying to gain his feet. Something came out from behind the stairs, scuttling towards him on hands and knees, making noises that he couldn’t distinguish as words. Instinct told him to launch with his legs and he thrust himself backwards and landed again on his back. His attacker seemed small but was moving fast.
In the half-second before it tried to stab him to death, he had the impression of a young girl wearing a smock or a loose white dress, with long, wild hair hanging down around her face.
She reared up and swung down hard, planting the small knife in Lee’s left thigh. Lee let out a noise like a cough or a bark and shoved his pistol against the top of the girl’s chest and pulled the trigger.
He felt the pressure of the blast in his face and watched the back of her gown burst out. He swung hard with his right knee, catching her hard in the jaw. She fell to the side, pulling the knife out of Lee’s thigh as she went. He was on his feet fast, despite the wound to his leg. He breathed rapidly, his chest burning as the gas mask restricted his airflow. Each inhale and exhale rattled the filter. He pointed his pistol straight out in front of him, finger on the trigger and backpedaled towards the porch.
The girl—15-years-old was his best guess—was down, but getting up. Even over the rattle of his own breath, Lee could hear the gurgling of her chest wound. “Stay the fuck down!” Lee yelled.
The girl was standing now, hunched over, strange looking eyes staring from under a hood of tangled hair. She pointed the bloody knife at him. “You!” It was a wheezing whisper.
“Drop that knife!”
“You!” She started forward.
He pulled the trigger, instinctively aiming center mass. Three shots in quick succession at near point blank range spattered her chest in red. She stumbled back, but didn’t go down. Her breath came out again like she was trying to say something but couldn’t form the words. She put one foot in front of the other, and Lee turned and took the three wooden stairs to the porch in one bound. He planted his shoulder into his front door, noticing as he went that there was a piece of paper taped to the door. He didn’t have time to grab it. He spun in the doorway, slammed the front door and locked it, then sprinted for the basement door.
He nearly tripped going down the stairs, feeling the pain in his thigh now. His footfalls were a rapid tumble. He hit the basement floor, blind in the dark, and groped around for the hatch. His hand touched cold metal.
He heard something banging on the front door upstairs. “Slow down,” he told himself but didn’t take his own advice. He nearly dove in, hitting his elbow and the top of his forehead on the frame as he scrambled in. He slammed the hatch behind him, twisted it to lock it in place, then skipped the ladder rungs and dropped straight to the ground.
Pain shot up his leg and his knees buckled, crashing him to the floor. He got up and ran for a few steps, then slowed to a jog, knowing that it was panic driving him and trying to battle it off. He breathed deep and tried not to think about the girl running swiftly and silently up behind him to slit his throat.
The door to the bunker came into view and Tango stood up, his head lowered, sensing something was wrong.
“Move,” Lee snapped as he lurched through the door, pushing Tango out of the way with his wounded leg, then wincing as he realized it was a bad choice. Tango’s attention was fixated down the tunnel.
Lee swore as he slammed the hatch closed and whipped the wheel into the locked position. He ripped the gas mask off his face, tasted fresh air. He moved quickly to the kitchen sink, pulling open the cabinet doors and grabbing a bottle of bleach from underneath. He spun the cap off and started dousing himself right there in the middle of the kitchen.
He rubbed the bleach all over the exterior of the MOPP suit as he marched into the bathroom with the bottle of bleach and cranked on the hot water. He waited for the water to start steaming and stepped in, still fully dressed. He doused himself two more times with bleach, working it over every inch of the MOPP suit. The water seeped in and stung his skin. He started pulling the suit off, swearing under his breath through clenched teeth as the scalding hot water sprayed over him. Rivulets of hot water snaked down his body and found his fresh leg wound. He cried out in pain and punched the wall of the shower.
“So fucking stupid!” he yelled.
He doused himself three times head to toe with the bleach, rubbing it everywhere, including the open knife wound, which brought tears to his eyes. He rinsed with the scalding water and stepped out of the shower. He skipped drying and dressing and went straight to his closet where his medical pack lay, grabbing a hand-towel off the bathroom sink as he went.
“There’s no way I got myself infected. No fucking way.” Lee didn’t believe himself.
He rifled through the pack pulling out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, yanking off the cap and pouring it over the wound. He watched as the clear liquid cascaded over the wound, then stung and started to bubble. The more bubbles, the dirtier the wound. There was no telling what the hell was on that knife, or if she had used it to stab or cut someone else that was infected. Lee could see the bacteria as microscopic ants racing through his bloodstream, already beginning to pick away at his frontal
lobe.
As the hydrogen peroxide did its work, he inspected the wound and thought about the consequences of his ill-fated recon mission. He estimated the knife was about three inches long—he thought it was a kitchen paring knife. Though the blade was only a half inch wide, when she stabbed him she’d pulled it down, slicing open an extra inch of flesh. There was definite muscle damage, but nothing so severe that it would inhibit his movement.
He pulled out a sterile-packaged syringe and held it between his teeth, then found a bottle of lydocaine, an iodine wipe, a pack of triple antibiotic ointment, two medium sized gauze pads, and a pack of suturing needles with a length of nylon thread.
He used the first gauze pad and pressed it down on his wound, kicking his leg up onto the back of his couch to keep it elevated and reduce the blood flow that had already created red streams that criss-crossed his lower leg down to his ankle and begun dripping on the floor. While holding the gauze firmly on the wound and grinding his teeth against the sharp pain, he mopped up the blood on the floor and on his leg with the hand-towel he’d grabbed on the way out of the shower.
After a few moments of firm, stinging pressure on the wound, he pulled the gauze away and checked the blood flow. The wound filled slowly with blood and trickled over again onto his leg, but the blood wasn’t pulsing which meant no arterial damage, and the flow seemed to be abating with the elevation and pressure. Luckily—if you could call it that —the wound was a clean cut so he didn’t need to use a scalpel to remove any “nonviable” tissue, or smooth out the edges as you would with a ripping or tearing wound. That would save Lee a significant amount of pain.
He put the gauze back down and held it in place with his elbow while both hands worked open the sterile syringe package and used it to draw a few CC’s of lydocaine. He cleared the syringe of air and clamped it back in his teeth, then opened the iodine wipe. He pulled the bloody gauze pad off and tossed it on the ground, then swabbed the area around the wound with the iodine wipe, staining his skin a yellowish brown.