by Sandy Nathan
“How do you feel, Henry? Lena?” Grace stepped in.
Lena looked torn. “I don’t know, Grace. I was for marching over there and saving Sam’s people—the children, at least. But when you lay it out logically, I can’t see how we can do it. Those Bigs … How can we fight them?”
“And how do we not fight them?” Henry said.
“We’re damned if we go and damned if we don’t,” Grace replied. “If I had six weeks, I could turn myself back into a soldier. Maybe I could do something with you, too. But we don’t. Sam’s been here for,” she counted on her fingers, “four nights?” Can that be true, she thought. Only four nights? Her life had totally changed in those nights. “But that also means that his people, the disabled ones, haven’t been fed for four days and nights. Right, Sam?”
“Aye.” He looked down.
“Do they have any supplies?”
“Some water and food.”
“That’s still cutting it close. It will take us a day to get there, at least. If we had vehicles or trained horses, we could do it. But we don’t. We have lightweight automatic rifles and machine guns. We can carry those. Have any of you shot automatic weapons?” Jeremy raised his hand. “Two of us. Not good. It’s not target shooting. Do the Bigs know how to shoot, Sam?”
“No.”
“They don’t shoot that you know. By the time we get there, they might have broken into the general’s stores. They may have the heaviest firepower you can imagine out on the front lawn where they can practice with it. Has anyone noticed smoke over there?”
They turned and looked. Jeremy got up with some field glasses and peered at the eastern horizon carefully. “Nothing, Mom.”
“Things look bleak,” Mel said.
“Very bleak, Mel. Do you know what the general would do?” Grace made eye contact with everyone again.
“What?”
“He’d shoot a missile or three over there and blow up the shelter and everyone in it. The problem would be solved in minutes. We have missiles. I can have them ready in an hour. No one will suffer any more and the Bigs will be neutralized.”
Blank faces looked back at her.
“I didn’t talk about the possibility that we might lose if we fight. We have to consider that.”
“What do you want to do, Grace?” Henry asked.
“I think we should shoot the missiles and be done with it.”
Sam pulled away as though she’d struck him.
Ellie had been silent, studying the pictures of the underground. She sat apart from the others, tearing into barbecued fish. A pile of bones lay next to her. Her eyes looked a bit odd, larger and more slanted than usual, and her pupils might have been slightly elongated.
“We will save the babies,” Ellie said in a matter-of-fact tone. Grace jumped. Ellie’s voice sounded almost like Sam’s. A little deeper. She had heard that voice before, but couldn’t place it. Jeremy had told her how well Ellie could mimic voices, but she wouldn’t have believed it without hearing it.
Ellie’s words struck Grace, reverberating inside her. Although she couldn’t say exactly why, she realized that they should save the babies. That voice was compelling. She had to do what it said. As she thought about it, she realized that they would rescue those kids if it was the last thing they did.
“Sam, can you tell us where your people are?” Grace and the others studied the photos, “I can see these holes that you and other diggers have made. Are these tunnels, or are there rooms inside?”
Sam’s eyes widened when he heard Ellie speak. She had the Voice and had used it to change the others’ minds. Where did she get it? And whose Voice? That wasn’t hers. His mind raced.
“Sam?” Grace said.
“Some are tunnels, and some are rooms.” He pointed to the holes around the floor plan. “There are three people here and four here. This is two rooms with five people. I put water pipes to them from the fields. When it rains, the water flows. It comes in for the fields, and goes to them through the pipes.” It hadn’t rained since Sam had been gone.
“OK. Your people number fifteen, including you,” Grace said. “There could be as many as thirty women. And the eleven children you’ve saved. That and thirty-four Bigs, makes ninety people. The shelter was built for one hundred. Could there really be that many more Bigs?”
“The Bigs could have had many children, some may already be Big. But I don’t think so. The underground is dying. The fields don’t make as much food. No one works, just me. Children don’t grow up. The Bigs take them from the nursery and kill them.”
“Why would they kill their own children?” Mel said.
Sam said it before he could stop himself. “They eat them.” Eyes opened wide and people pulled away.
“They’re cannibals?”
“Ay. The sheep and chickens sickened and died long ago. The fields don’t yield. I tend them, but few others do. I can’t make enough food.” Sam held his hands up like he was holding the group off. “There’s no meat. We are dying. No one wants to do it, but we must to stay alive.”
“You’re telling us that you’ve killed and eaten children?” Mel looked like he wanted to pull out a machine gun and shoot Sam.
“No. The Bigs do that. I save them. I have hidden eleven children. They’re not in your pictures. No one can find them but me.” He poked at the floor plan. “They’re here, next to the growing fields. I built a room for them above the fields. I put water to them and I feed them when I tend the crops. The Bigs don’t know. I save children; I don’t kill them.”
“You have eleven kids hidden away?”
“Yes. They are the best of the village. All the Arthurs and Sams from lines without the disease. They are good babies.”
Grace stared at him. “Sam, I’ll just say it. Do you and your people eat human flesh?”
“Yes, lady. The dead, only. There’s no food, lady.” He bent over, face contorting, begging her to understand.
“You don’t kill anyone?”
“I don’t, lady. That is wrong. But I wanted to live. I had to do it to live,” he moaned. “If you don’t want me here, I will leave. But please, save my children. They are the last of the village. The good part.”
Sam stood up and went to the ladder. “I’ll stay down below and you can tell me if you want me to leave.” And he climbed down.
Grace looked at the group. “They’re baby-eating cannibals.”
“Not Sam, Mom,” Jeremy said. “He saved babies and children. He kept them from being eaten. He wouldn’t kill anyone.”
“How do you know?” Lena barked. “You’ve known him for four days. Maybe he’s waiting for you to fatten up.”
“I don’t think Sam would do that, Mother. He’s the most amiable young man I’ve met,” Henry said. “I’ve heard many stories of people surviving by eating the bodies of their companions. The Donner Party. Remember them, from the history books? They got stuck in the snow crossing the Sierras one winter. The survivors did so by eating those who died. It’s happened many times when people face starvation.”
“Sam doesn’t look like he’s starving,” James said. “He looks pretty damned healthy.”
“You should have seen him when I found him,” Jeremy replied. “He looked terrible. He was gray and had fungus all over him and that eye in his stomach. It was the people from Ellie’s world that made him look good. I bet all those people down there look like concentration camp victims.”
“Well, they didn’t eat each other in the camps around New York City,” said Mel.
“Actually, they probably did,” Grace said. “It’s been a problem in death camps as long as they’ve existed. People go mad from hunger. Listen, I know Sam better than any of you. He saved my life. He put up the solar panels for us. He put the ladder down. And he’s got eleven kids he cares about dying in a hole right now. Why don’t we think about them?”
The words sounded good coming out of her mouth, but she knew it would take some time before she felt the same about Sam
. Maybe forever.
27
He had seemed too good to be true, Grace thought, and he was. Her new husband was a cannibal. Would she eat human flesh to keep herself alive? She imagined biting into a nice thigh, or a liver. Tearing someone apart to eat him.
People have done worse. The general was worse. He killed but didn’t eat his prey. He raped and destroyed. Is that worse than eating those he killed?
But Sam had eaten people. He ate people.
“Jeremy, can I look at all those images again?” She and Jeremy went into the storage container/computer lab. He pulled the pictures of the underground up and they went over them one by one. He blew them up on computer screens all over the room.
“That’s just the bare suggestion, Mom,” Jeremy said. “You don’t get the smells or the sounds. Cut him some slack. I don’t think he’d hurt anyone. Remember how scared he was when he got out?”
“Yes, I remember.” I remember lying in his arms last night. I remember loving him.
“And none of us are perfect. I mean …”
She knew exactly what he meant. She’d fucked half the male population. How had Sam felt about hearing that? She blushed. He had faith that she could change. Could she have faith in him?
He was sitting by the river, watching the water flow by. His head was bowed and his shoulders slumped.
“Hi,” she said as she sat next to him. “How are you?”
“Not good. I’m sorry, lady. I didn’t want to tell you. If you dinna want me, I will leave.”
“No, you won’t go anywhere. I need to ask you some questions, though.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t kill anyone to eat them?”
“No.”
“You knew it was wrong?”
“Yes, lady. But I wanted to live.”
“When did they start doing that in the underground?”
“It’s always been that way, since the bad times started generations ago. Hunger is always there. There is no meat. You must see what it’s like.”
“I don’t have to worry about your killing me or anyone else and eating us?”
“No, lady. Never.”
“Have you killed anyone?”
He looked away. “No more than you.”
She pulled back. She had killed the general. Was she a killer? Yes. Was he? Yes.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No, lady. I could not bear it. Please.” His anguish was so intense that she backed off.
“I need to ask you about something else. The children you have hidden, are they yours? Did you father them?”
He looked incredulous. “My children? They are mine because I saved them. They are the last of the Arthurs and the good Sams. I saved them.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I’m a little crazy. You don’t have a pack of kids somewhere, do you? And a few other wives?”
“No. I have no children. You are my wife. I will take no other wife.”
“Have you been with other women down there, Sam?”
“No, lady. I told you.” He looked nonplussed. “I keep the Commands. I have no children of my own.”
She laughed, suddenly relieved. “Oh, Sam. What was I thinking? Quizzing you about your sexual history given my past?” She slipped her arm in his. “Let’s go up top and finish the meeting. I want to save those kids.”
“It’s OK?”
“It’s OK by me. If the others have anything to say about it, I’ll take my missiles and leave.” He looked puzzled. “Don’t worry, Sam, you did what you did and you’re not going to do it again. We won’t talk about it anymore.”
28
“I believe Sam when he says he and the others, the non-Bigs, did what they did do stay alive,” Grace said, looking into the eyes of each member of the reconvened group. “I ask you to give him the benefit of the doubt until you see what they were up against for yourselves. Until then, you don’t have to worry. He’s sleeping with me; he’ll eat me first.
“Despite what I said earlier about the impossibility of our task, I want to save those kids. I also want to neutralize the Bigs. We need to vote on what we are going to do. Time is of the essence. And we need to appoint a commander. We cannot run a campaign by committee. Nominations are open.”
“Grace, you’re the only one who can do it,” Henry said. “How can we sit here and let children die? Let’s take a vote.” The vote was unanimous.
“Now that you’re our chief, what do we do?” Henry said.
“We contemplate. We need to marshal our resources,” she said. “We need to think about every asset we’ve got. Stuff we have going for us that isn’t guns and ammo. What skills do we have, and how can we use them now? We need to get there with supplies and weapons. We need to break into the underground, kill the Bigs, and save the kids. We need to take care of them and get back. Sam, you know most about the place. What do we need?”
“We need to get there,” he said.
“We need a bunch of trucks,” James said.
“Sorry. Don’t have them. Here’s a bigger question: How do we get in once we’re there? How many levels are there in the shelter, Jeremy?”
“Seven, with six foot-thick steel doors between them. They were strong enough to withstand the nuclear war.”
“To rescue anyone from the main shelter, we’d have to fight through six impregnable doors. Down how many feet, Jeremy?”
“Two hundred and eighty feet.”
They looked at each other.
“It’s impossible, Mom, unless they open the doors for us. There is the hole for the canaries that they shoved Sam out. That has six locked doors, too.”
“Sam, can we get the kids from the outside of the shelter?”
“Yes, lady. By digging. They are by the solar fields, but outside the shelter. They’re here, in a room here.” He pointed at the printouts, indicating an area outside the shelter’s concrete shell. “It’s much higher than the fields.”
“How did you get them there, Sam? That’s not in the original plan,” Jeremy said.
Sam ran his finger along the photo, indicating the shelter’s concrete edge. “Many generations of diggers made a tunnel from here.” He pointed to a place inside the shelter.
“That’s one of the cells where Sam Baahuhd thought we were going to lock up the villagers,” said Jeremy.
“Yes. The cells. The villagers were locked up in them, but by each other. A digger broke through the concrete long ago. We kept digging, secretly. We made the tunnel go up, toward the outside.”
“Why do the diggers dig, Sam?”
“To keep from going crazy. To do something against the pain here.” Sam rubbed his chest. “Sam Baahuhd was the first digger. Some said he was crazy, he dug so hard. I know he was not. It was all he could do.”
Grace blanched, thinking of her dear friend locked in a cement dungeon. “Oh, Sam. That’s so awful.”
“Yes,” he said without inflection. “The tunnel went outside the wall around the fields, and up. We were going to escape through it. We could have dug all the way out many years ago, but we didn’t because the computers said the radiation would kill us. What they said never changed.” A tiny smile curved his lips.
“Now I know the computers were wrong. But as time went on, fewer of us were strong enough to dig. I am the only one now.” He shrugged. “The water for my children comes from the big pipes at the top that go to the main tanks. It flows down to the children’s room.
“I thought I could finish the tunnel in my life, dig all the way out, so that we could escape, even if it meant dying from the radiation outside. But when the Bigs took over, I needed to save the children. I made a room for them at the end of the tunnel. I used wood and things I could find to hold up the roof and walls.”
“So you dragged those kids through the tunnel and left them there?”
“Yes. In the dark. Alone.” His voice broke. “Oh, please. We have to save them.”
“We will save the children,” Ellie s
aid in that man’s voice so like Sam’s.
Sam stared at her, mouth a little open.
“We will save them, Ellie, don’t worry,” Grace said. “And then you brought food and water to them?”
“Yes. I put in a pipe for water and brought them food. I stayed with them as much as I could.” Sam’s shoulders drooped and his face screwed up into a mask of pain. He looked like he’d dug the whole tunnel himself that afternoon. “Please … I can’t talk of this.”
“OK, Sam. One more question. Any idea how close you were to the surface?” Jeremy asked.
“Close. At the beginning, the tunnel is mostly rock. Now, it’s much easier to dig. But the dirt is very heavy in winter. And slippery.”
“Take a break, Sam. We’ll work on it,” Jeremy said. “It sounds like he’s digging through clay. The field where the shelter is was once a river valley. There’s a deep layer of clay over the bedrock, then lots of topsoil. That’s why the estate’s garden was so great. Might be easy to dig out the rest of the way. On the other hand, clay can be very unstable. The roof could cave in.”
Sam groaned. “Aye.”
“So we bring shovels,” Grace remarked.
James mumbled, “And a backhoe.” He smirked, shaking his head.
“Cynicism doesn’t help, James. Though if you can find a backhoe, that would be great.”
“Mom! I may know where one is! Remember that I told you on my first night here, I found the equipment barn and slept there? It was underground, totally covered with dirt. I found a pipe sticking out of the ground and dug down to the barn’s roof. I pulled a piece of the tin roof up and got in. There was equipment in it—tons of equipment. And barrels of stuff, maybe fuel. The plastic fuel we use wouldn’t explode.”
“Would the equipment still work? We don’t know how long it’s been there.”
“I don’t know.”
“Anybody?
”Car batteries die when they sit less than six months,” Henry said. “The vehicles are probably frozen solid with rust. The rubber hoses will need replacing. The crud in the fuel is probably solid in the bottom of the tanks …”