by McBain, Tim
Slowly the rounded shape emerged. As they cleared away the thickest of the slop, the rain started helping the cause, washing off the steel. It drained down the sloped sides and pooled along the edges of the hole where the metal bent deeper in the earth.
Erin stopped digging. Stared at the round gray shape shrouded in gloom. She couldn’t really see it. Found herself frustrated.
She stood. Held her hands out into the rain. Watched the dirt slowly wash away from her fingers, the shower falling from the sky, working slowly but cleaning her all the same.
Then she moved to the lip of the hole. She grabbed the lantern that was still lit. Lifted it. Cranked it to the highest setting, the light leaping to life. It flickered as she swung it over the hatch.
The bunker protruded from the black wet soil. Glossy paint coated the steel. Pale gray. It almost looked like a giant propane tank jammed into this backyard, but the details of the hatch itself betrayed that image.
A rectangular window. A handle. A seam along the edges where it could be unsealed. Popped open like a can of baked beans.
She couldn’t see any hinges, but she thought they must be tucked on the inside. Encased in steel. More secure that way.
She grabbed the handle. Yanked. It moved about an eighth of an inch.
Nothing.
It was locked. Of course. She wasn’t surprised, but it still felt like an anti-climax. All that buildup for nothing.
She knelt. Ran her finger along the edge of the doorway, her fingertip disappearing into the seam. They would have to pry it.
Father
Rural Maryland
9 years, 39 days after
Father slumped in his wheelchair, fighting to keep awake. He plucked his cigarette from the ashtray. Hit it. Put it back. Closed his eyes again.
Fiona knelt at his feet. Helped him slide his left shoe on. He’d been having trouble with that side over the past six months or so. That half of his body had gone sluggish. Not paralyzed, but weak. Like everything was softer there. A little slow. Probably a stroke, he thought. He could still walk, with some difficulty, but he used the chair whenever he went in public — he’d told his flock he’d snapped an ankle. Better for them to believe that than know the truth.
Fiona’s voice screeched like violins in his ears.
“You sure you’re up to it today?”
He opened his eyes. Picked his chin up off his chest. Scratched at the back of his bony arm.
“Hell yeah, I’m up to it. Just let me finish this.”
He sucked on his cigarette. Let the smoke plume out of his mouth and nose like exhaust.
He’d hoped for a quiet moment, but more shrill music spilled from her lips instead.
“’Cause everyone would understand if you needed to take the day off or whatever. Sit this one out. We’d all understand something like that is all I’m saying. You don’t have to prove nothing to nobody.”
He rolled his eyes as he hit the cig, harder this time so the cherry crackled a little. He pointed two fingers and the smoldering tube of tobacco at her when he spoke again.
“Just fuckin’ told you I’m good to go, didn’t I? How much plainer can I say it? You want me to scrawl it in crayon? Would that help it get through to you?”
Fiona’s mouth dropped open for a second.
“Fine. You don’t have to snap at me about it.”
He grunted, and then before he knew it, his chin lolled to his chest again. Eyes cinching shut. Lights going out.
His consciousness sucked down into a dream, that drain into the subconscious exerting its pull, taking him under. And in the dream he knelt in some overgrown backyard, hands out at his sides, palms up.
From a distance, he watched two kittens creep out of their hiding spots to eat from the plates he’d set out for them — a gray cat and a brown tabby, gnawing at some canned pâté. He remembered there being a pink label on the can. The sunlight glinted down on this place, rendered the moment clear and bright. A softness. A lightness.
“Father. Father! I ain’t taking you if you can’t stay awake.”
His eyes snapped open, chin lifting again, that red-haired psycho hovering over him. He brushed at the skin going loose under his jaw, sagging like a turkey’s wattle.
“I’m awake. Just resting my eyes. Let’s go.”
“Yeah, you’re awake for a second, and then you’ll be out again. Would it kill you to miss one meeting?”
He laughed at her. A mean laugh.
“What? Is it really so ridiculous to suggest you take a break?”
“Yeah, well, you don’t get it. I start missing meetings — I show any weakness at all — and I get taken out of the picture real quick.”
He snapped his fingers, the sound ringing sharp in the little foyer.
“The council? They have their own plans, their own future of clay to mold the way they want. I’m just something standing in the way of their vision. They want me gone, but they have to time the move right. Wait for me to slip up. Or wait for my body to give out to the point that they no longer fear me.”
“Whatever you say,” she said, getting around to the back of the chair to push him.
A dark splotch marred his t-shirt, a damp place about the size of a slice of bread, darker than the rest. He’d drooled a tremendous amount in what must have been the couple minutes he was out. Embarrassing.
He’d grown old before his time. Burned out his life with pills, keeping himself wired and awake for seven or eight days at a stretch. He’d spent himself rapidly.
And the stroke had hammered that aging into place with some sense of finality, some blood vessel around the brain finally giving out, bursting. Even if a portion of the feeling came back on the weak side of his body, healed in time, would he ever really be the same? He didn’t think so. Maybe in the old world, there’d be doctors, medicine, treatments to help the healing cause. But not here. Not now.
Still, he needed to keep his wits about him, as always. He was the one keeping the peace, stopping the others from going at the throats of their enemies in the Sovereign Cities. Somehow it was the crazy one, the whacked out pillhead they called Father, that had become the voice of reason, the voice of compassion, a source of peace and harmony among a bloodthirsty people. The level of irony in that situation didn’t speak well to the state of the world, he thought, and it sure as shit didn’t speak well for their future.
Fiona grumbled under her breath as she took up her position and wheeled Father out the door and down the ramp. The chair wasn’t great on the dirt path. Rocks and the grooves worn into the trail made for a slow and bumpy ride.
Father tried to steel himself for the meeting, for the energy he was about to expend. He remembered reading about some cold water diver who could get so focused mentally before a dive that he could raise his body temperature several degrees. Already fighting the cold before he even submerged himself. He didn’t know if his own efforts had any such sympathetic effect on the limits of his body or his mind, but he figured it was damn well worth a try.
He wasn’t going on a dive into the frigid ocean, but he was about to swim with the sharks on the council. He’d need his mind to be sharp, need to show them that he was still something to mettle with. Somehow craftier, more cunning, and more capable than all of them, even if his left leg kept him in a chair for the time being. Above all else, he needed to remind them that he was to be feared.
He fell asleep again before they got to the meeting. This time he dreamed of the girl across the hall all those years ago. Fleeting glimpses of her, always just the side of her face peeking through the cracked place as she disappeared into her apartment, hair hanging down to cover much. But he’d see the shape of her jaw, one cheekbone, the smooth skin stretched over it like porcelain. And he wondered if he could ever let these images, these fragmented memories, go. She was long gone. Surely forgotten by anyone left. Even so, she plagued his dreams. That girl from a lifetime ago. A girl he’d never even known.
He woke agai
n just as they pushed through the doors to the council room, Fiona flicking a finger at the back of his ear.
“Sorry,” she said, voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. “I tried talking. Tried shaking you a little. Nothing worked, so…”
“It’s fine.”
He looked down at himself. The pool of slaver on his shirt had only grown during this most recent bout of slumber, now about the size of a hardcover book. But no time to worry about it now. He needed to sharpen his mind, get ready to perform for his audience.
It was showtime.
Erin
Rich Creek, Virginia
9 years, 37 days after
The crowbar jabbed into the crevice near the handle. Erin wiggled the sharpened tip back and forth, sliding it in as far as it would go. When it was firmly in place, she applied pressure, leaning into it with her upper body.
The metal squawked as it resisted. A sound like an injured bird crying out from beneath the sheet of steel.
Flecks of paint and rusted metal spilled away from the point of entry.
Erin couldn’t help but smile and make momentary eye contact with Izzy.
Thankfully, this particular bomb shelter seemed to be made roughly of the same quality as the dated photos in the brochure. Shitty and cheap. Every corner cut.
The wet earth had slowly worked at the metal beneath the steel, moisture wicking or otherwise stealing its way beneath the hatch lid, getting at the door mechanism. After years of such abuse, it was rusted down to something brittle, something Erin was pretty sure she could break with enough elbow grease.
She tested the handle, and the hatch door shimmied. Loose and uneven already. This was going to be a piece of cake.
She worked the crowbar into the gap again. Wrenched on it. Felt the flaky rusted metal disintegrate at her touch.
The rain had slowed now. It still spit at them, but it wasn’t the pounding downpour they’d endured earlier in the night. Her clothes had receded from sopping and heavy to a spongy kind of sogginess. It almost felt colder this way, the cool night air swirling to touch her all over.
Another series of yanks on the crowbar didn’t seem to dislodge any new rust. So Erin decided to get more forceful with it.
Using a hammer, she banged the crowbar further into the crevice. Three solid whacks. There was something satisfying about the heavy swing of the hammer, the sound of metal on metal, clanging out into the night, watching the metal bar drive deeper and deeper.
“Erin!” Izzy hissed.
She stopped mid-hammer swing.
“What?”
Izzy grimaced.
“What if someone hears?”
Erin looked around, only blackness staring back from all directions. The dense night seemed like something that had been charred, that charcoal level of matte black.
“There’s no one left here, Iz.”
Izzy didn’t seem satisfied with that, her grimace hardening some, but she didn’t say anything more.
Erin set down the hammer, trying to find a dryish spot on the edge of the hole for it. Then she moved back to the crowbar.
Her fingers danced a little as they settled around the metal bar. She set her feet wider than shoulder width, wanting to torque her hips into this next bit without the mud sliding out from under her shoes and planting her on her ass.
She took a deep breath. Jerked on the crowbar.
The metal shrieked this time. Higher pitched. Even more frantic than that dying bird sound from earlier.
Izzy grabbed Erin’s arm. Shushed her. Index finger rising up in front of her lips. Eyes gone all the way wide.
Erin stopped working again. They both listened.
Nothing.
“What?” Erin said, and now she couldn’t quite conceal the growing annoyance in her voice.
Izzy was slow to answer. Forehead still creased in concentration. Eyes blinking rapidly.
“I… thought I heard something.”
Erin just stared at her.
“Inside, I mean,” Izzy said, her voice going very soft now. “I thought I heard something inside the hatch.”
They stood looking at each other for a few silent seconds, and then they turned their heads to gaze upon the rounded metal door. Erin detected no sound save for the patter of the rain.
After what felt like a long stillness, Izzy leaned up onto the round hatch door, laying her body against it. She cupped her hands over her brow and pressed her face against the small window, trying to see down inside. After a few seconds, she lifted her head, apparently seeing nothing stirring down in the dark chamber.
“You’re getting squirrelly from lack of sleep,” Erin said. “If you want to go lie down… I mean, I can handle it from here. I could come wake you up once it’s open, if you want.”
Izzy slid down off the hatch. She didn’t answer, but she shook her head. She shuffled off to the side of the pit and squatted down in the shadows.
Erin went back to the crowbar, again falling into that superhero stance and taking a deep breath. She pulled the metal rod to her chest, almost like she was rowing an oar.
Something popped deep inside the metal dome, a ping and a crack and a snap all together, and the hatch shuddered. It wobbled along with her movements now, as though the thing had somehow gone slack.
The crowbar came free, the tension that held it in place releasing all at once. It spilled into her hands, and the hatch door seemed to settle lower than before.
She looked over at Izzy. Caught another frightened glance in the girl’s gaze. Held her eyes as though that might comfort her.
Then Erin tossed the crowbar, watched it tumble over the edge of the hole. It slapped down on the wet sod and slid out of view.
The rain seemed to be picking up again. Clinking against the metal. Tapping at the mud.
She swung open the hatch door. Found it easier to maneuver than she’d expected. So light it felt strangely hollow in her hands, which she supposed it was.
It thudded as it hit the end of the hinges. And a perfect circle lay open. A mouth cut out of the ground. The metal edges visible against the mud. That short tunnel down into the dark.
The night seemed to grow very quiet then. Very still. Just that faint babble of the rain. Erin’s eyes focused only on that circular vacancy in the dirt.
She leaned over it and stared down into the blackness.
Izzy
Rich Creek, Virginia
9 years, 37 days after
Izzy edged up to the hole, shoulder to shoulder with Erin. She stared into the black nothing down there, scanning along the edges of it as though she’d find something solid to see there.
It was like staring into a grave, she thought. A deep one. Endless dark trailing down and down and down. Something wrong about it.
Izzy licked her lips. Shuffled backward a few steps. Feet slopping in the mud.
Her eyes snapped to the lantern, half expecting it to extinguish the second her gaze touched it, plunging them into darkness with this hatch door wide open at their feet.
The lantern burned bright and strong, though. She moved to it. Lifted it.
She started back toward the hole, but then she stopped herself. Did she really want to look down in there? She didn’t think so. She kept her distance.
Erin leaned over the opening, half wrapped in shadows. Izzy could see her just enough to make out the folds around her eyes, squinting, the brow all furrowed in concentration.
Erin’s hand came up, fingers opening and closing. A grabby gesture that Izzy knew meant, “Gimme.”
When Izzy didn’t pass the lantern, Erin’s head turned her way then, that fierce look still occupying her features. Her gaze dipped to the light and then back up to Izzy’s face.
“Hand it over,” she said.
Izzy didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
“Hello?” Erin said, as though Izzy hadn’t heard or didn’t understand. “Hand. Me. The. Lantern.”
Izzy tightened her grip on the handle, fingers on b
oth hands squeezing that glossy loop of metal.
Erin stomped over. Eyes locked on the glowing light. Arms reaching out for it.
And Izzy’s instinct was to fight this. Twist. Yank. Keep the lantern away from her. Keep the light close to herself at all costs. Close to her and away from that circle of emptiness sliced out of the ground.
But Erin ripped the lantern away without trouble.
“Thanks,” Erin said, her tone sarcastic. Then her voice softened. “You should go inside and lie down for a while, maybe.”
She trudged back over to that yawning breach in the earth. Her feet slapped and squelched in the mud along the way.
Now Erin really leaned into the opening, the lantern dangling at the end of her arm, extending down into the hole.
Izzy held her breath. Watched the circular glow reach down into the abyss, a sinking feeling inside her accompanying the illumination’s descent.
The light caught on a dashed line leaning down into the hatch — the rungs of a ladder, Izzy realized. That made sense.
Erin straightened and glanced at Izzy.
“I’m gonna take a quick look, just to see what we’ve got.”
Izzy clenched her fists. Fingernails digging into her palms. She wanted to protest, but she said nothing. She knew Erin wouldn’t listen anyway.
“I figure we’ll wait until morning to actually clear it out, assuming there’s loot down there to be had,” Erin continued. “You wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Erin fumbled with the lantern, trying to figure out how best to hold it when she climbed down the ladder. She lifted it up next to her face, and Izzy could tell that she was considering clenching the handle in her teeth. The glowing circle of light swung everywhere as she fussed with it.
Then she leaned out over the hatch entry one more time. Lowered herself to a crouch and hung her top half out over the void, as though thinking about dropping the lantern in ahead of her descent.
Something lurched. A shadow leaping out of the shaft in the ground. Something thick and dark.