Gotcha. He traced the square before hooking his finger through the latch. A low humming vibrated around him, and then he was moving forward. Fuck! They’d started the conveyor. He popped the latch and rammed a shoulder against the panel.
The door swung open.
Then he was falling.
Chapter Nine
“You can’t go in there.” Manny pulled the storage door shut behind him. The latch clicked in place. He leaned against the door. No one was getting inside. He had to protect them and the Sergeant-Major.
Chef Bonnie’s lips quirked up. “Emmanuel, you mustn’t think to hog all the pomme de terre.”
“The what?” His heart rate kept time with the Geiger counter ticking in his hand. Radiation spilled out here. Here! He scanned the empty tables of the canteen. Thank God no one was about.
Nearly no one. He and Chef where both getting a lifetime’s dose. They had to leave.
“Potatoes, dear boy.” She shook her head and her chef’s hat tilted over her left brown eye. “Gracious, I knew the state of education was bad, but surely everyone knows a soupcon of French.”
With his free hand, he fumbled with the latch, hooked the lock through and pinched it closed. There. Safe and secure. He turned to double-check and tugged on the lock. Closed.
But that hadn’t stopped the bad guys the last time.
His tongue swelled in his dry mouth. Whoever came in must have a key to the door. He’d have to talk with the Sergeant-Major about changing the lock when he came back.
“Emmanuel, what are you doing?” Chef Bonnie’s voice rose on the last word. “Everyone is expecting potatoes. Locking them up will only upset those people.”
Potatoes.
He took a shaky breath. Today was supposed to be a day of celebration. The second crop coming in. And now…they might not even be able to eat in here. They might not be able to eat the tomatoes he’d prepped. “There’s a leak. Radiation. Everywhere.”
Raising his hand, he flashed the Geiger counter’s readout.
Bonnie paled and stroked her throat. “Oh! Oh my! Is that real?”
Real? Manny blinked. Maybe it was the language barrier.
“Of course it’s real.” Why would anyone make it up? How would anyone make it up? He pushed away from the door and strode toward his boss. “We have to tell them. They need to know.”
“Them? Who is them?” The skin puckered between her pencil thin eyebrows.
“The military, er, security.” Hooking his arm through hers, Manny tugged her toward the kitchen. The counts slowed to intermittent beeps. Maybe things weren’t so bad in here. “They have to be notified that there’s been a breach.”
Jogging at his side to keep up, Bonnie glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes widened as she stared at the metal storeroom. “Oh my!”
He steered her around the serving counter and released her. The ticking stopped. Could the radiation have died away? Glancing down, he saw that three red zeros preceded the seventy-eight. His knees wobbled. Oh God! Had it spun more than a hundred thousand and started again?
That was lethal wasn’t it?
He was going to die.
“Emmanuel. Emmanuel!” She snapped her fingers in front of his nose.
He jerked back.
Bonnie wrapped her hand around his wrist and gripped the Geiger counter with the other. With a twist, she pulled it free. “Get to the infirmary.”
He stared at his palms before sweeping his thumb over his fingers. Nothing. He felt nothing. Was this the beginning of the end? “The infirmary?”
“Yes.” She set the instrument on the serving area.
“Don’t!” He lunged for it, scooped it up and held it to his chest. “You’ll get everyone else sick.”
Radiation was contagious. That’s why those who had a nuclear tan had to be separated from the rest and buried far away.
“Emmanuel.” She breathed slowly. “I need you to hand me the machine.”
He held it tighter. “It’s contaminated. Like me.”
Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. “Then you’re getting sicker by holding it.”
It slipped through his fingers and crashed to the floor. The battery cover popped off and skidded across the stone to stop near the stove.
“No!” He slammed his fist into his forehead. How could he be so stupid? Now he just contaminated the kitchen.
“Emmanuel.” Bonnie latched onto the back of his neck, her fingers dug into his flesh.
Pain skittered down his spine. He raised his shoulders, but the ache pulsed through him. Maybe he could drop free. He bent his knees. She held on like a starving leech.
“Ow!”
“I know it hurts, Emmanuel. But you’re beginning to panic and I can’t have that in my kitchen.” With her Vulcan death grip, she steered him along the back of the serving counter toward the exit.
He stumbled along on feet like wooden blocks. Tears burned his eyes. “I won’t panic. I won’t.”
“That’s good.” With a sigh, she released him.
He danced out of reach and rubbed her gouge marks from his shoulders. Damn, she was stronger than she looked.
“I do so abhor violence. It is the refuge of the crudest orders, don’t you think?”
“Sure.” He’d agree to anything so long as she didn’t unleash those pincers again. Skirting a row of tables and chairs, he reached the archway dividing the dining room from hallway.
She grinned. “Now please visit the infirmary. I’m just getting you trained the way I like and can’t have my prep assistant falling ill.”
He tucked his hands into his army pants’ pockets. “But what about the counter?”
“I’ll take care of everything.” She reached out to him.
He ducked her touch and stumbled into the hallway. No way would she touch him again. He’d seen the movies where people had been paralyzed with just a touch. “I’ll tell security.”
The Sergeant-Major was outside. He might need backup. Manny couldn’t let him down. The guy had saved him and his new family.
“Don’t be silly.” Bonnie wagged her finger at him. “You will march to the hospital and concentrate on staying healthy. I will not have you undergoing some rubber-hosed interrogation while you are sick.”
Rubber-hosed interrogation? The Sergeant-Major and his men had given him food, looked out for him and buried his friends and family. He owed them. Everyone in these caves owed the soldiers. “Things aren’t like that here. The soldiers—”
“Do not argue with me, young man.” Red spots floated on her cheeks and she planted her fists on her hips. “You will rest and recover, or you will not work for me again.”
“You can’t mean that!” All he’d ever wanted to be was a chef—to serve great food to those he loved.
“Then you will cease this…” she waved her hands between them, “…insubordination. Once, you are declared fit, the powers that be can talk to you, but not before.”
He swallowed his reply. The wad nearly choked him.
“Many people depend upon you, no?”
“Yes.” He had lots of family counting on him. Including a few who tried to boss him around for his own good. Including a few he tried to boss around to keep them safe. Guess he wasn’t the only one suffering from the Bubble Wrap and Feather Pillow syndrome. He sighed. Tension released him so quickly, he propped himself up against the stone wall. Cold leached into his skin.
“Good. Now shoo.”
“I’ll come back and help with the tomatoes after my checkup.”
“If you feel up to it.”
He would. Something would be checked off his bucket list before the radiation ate him. Turning right, he headed toward the elevator that would take him to the infirmary a couple levels above. Of course, he’d have to write a bucket list first.
He gasped for breath and fell to his knees. Plowing his fingers through his hair, he squeezed his scalp.
Oh God. He was dying. Really dying. The doctors and nurses couldn
’t fix him. He’d served enough MREs to the patients to know…to know his future.
The cracked blackened skin.
The corpse breath.
The organ slushie oozing from his body.
Well, if he had to die, he’d take those idiots that exposed him with him. Manny pushed to his feet. And he’d keep his job for as long as he could, too. He’d get help from someone who needed to find his place now that his grandfather had died.
By-passing the elevator, he turned down the ramp leading toward the living areas. If it was the last thing he did, he’d help Justin Quartermain find his purpose.
Chapter Ten
“Were they plucking the chicken as they walked?” Sunnie grabbed a handful of feathers from the damp stones. Water gushed in the gully on the side of the tunnel. Bare incandescent bulbs cast fan blades of light on the walls and floor. Stiff quills bent under her grip. She dropped them into her jacket currently serving as a pouch.
“More than likely, they’re deliberately leaving a trail.” Robertson added to his collection. Between them, they had enough for one really flat pillow.
“This cannot be good.” Bright light pushed into the dark tunnels. The living quarters were dead ahead. Hers and Aunt Mavis’s quarters were the first on the left. Sunnie’d bet her life the trailed ended there. She swallowed hard.
Both their lives would end if someone noticed the feathers or found the carcass first.
“I don’t suppose anyone would believe the chicken decapitated itself, then plucked its own tail as it impersonated the Headless Horseman running down the hallway?” He held his T-shirt away from his stomach and held his portion of the trail. A light dusting of black hair created a happy trail right through his six-pack abs.
Not that she was looking. Okay, she looked. She was recovering.
“Sunnie. Woo-hoo, Earth to Sunnie.” Robertson stepped around her. “Did you just have a brain fart or a seizure?”
“Jeez.” Heat seared her cheeks. Just what she needed, to be caught staring at the biggest flirt left on Earth. She tilted her head so her hair hid her face. “I’ll take what’s behind curtain C, Pat.”
“Curtain C?” He rolled a quill between his fingers. Deviltry glinted in his eyes. “That would be constipation.”
“I thought we left behind the potty humor after week three.” She raked up another pile off the stone floor. Squishing them between her fingers, she watched the delicate strands cling to her skin. These were softer. Down, maybe?
Robertson snorted. “Potty humor. Behind.”
That wasn’t what she meant. She opened her mouth then closed it. Her teeth clicked together. Maybe now wasn’t the time to be making jokes.
He nudged her shoulder. “Laughter is a bright light in dark times.”
And these were dark times. Perilous times. She could die because of a chicken. Biting the inside of her cheek, she blinked at the tears stinging her eyes. She didn’t want to die. Not when she was just getting better.
Robertson swept a knuckle down her cheek and caught her tear. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You know that right?”
She nodded. He meant the words, but she wouldn’t be able to cash the check his mouth had written. “The law has to be applied to everyone if this new world is supposed to survive. You know that.”
Hugging her sweater close, she tromped down the hall. Dammit. She’d gone all serious when he’d worked so hard to lighten the mood.
He swiped up a feather then jogged to her side. “I don’t plan to let you welch out of our deal.”
“What deal?” She ignored two feathers on the ground. She had to get to her quarters. She had to find that chicken.
“I saved your life so now I own you.”
“You own me?” Now what game was he playing at?
“Glad to hear you admit it.” Cradling his bulging shirt like a football, he slipped in front of her then walked backward. “For your new duties, I want you to wash my clothes in champagne, rub my feet—braiding the hair on my toes— and roast my latest T-Rex kill all the while wearing a French maid uniform.”
Obviously someone had been reading too many comic books. “In your dreams, Private.”
“In my dreams, you’re not wearing a uniform.” With a wink, he ran back to pick up the two abandoned feathers. “Jump ahead and collect the deceased. I’ll clean up here and meet you in a few.”
She snorted. The horndog. Of course, he’d dream of her naked. Not that she hadn’t imagined him in his birthday suit. She squelched the thought. There were more important things she that needed her attention. She could…
Voices decided the issue.
People were coming. People would be witnesses. Hugging her jacket to her belly, she fast walked the twenty yards to her quarters. The voices grew more distinct. Two men.
She paused by the curtain providing privacy for their room. Four feathers pointed their quills directly into her room. God, it was so obvious they were being framed.
But how many would care?
If rumors were right, Aunt Mavis had saved that man, Dirk Benedict, from being lynched for eating a whole fried chicken, and everyone had only been eating MREs for a week then, not two months. Lifting the curtain, she kicked the evidence inside then followed it.
A small swan-neck lamp spotlighted the corpse on Aunt Mavis’s desk. The two orange feet lay like wilted blossoms on the scarred top.
Oh God! She’d been right!
She squeezed her jacket tight. A feather fluttered out. Fabric swished. The white down soared high in the current.
Robertson slipped inside, pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh.”
“I don’t care what you say, I plan to stay the course. The Doc is good people and I’m voting her to stay in office.” Their footsteps didn’t sound louder. They must not be turning down this corridor.
Vote? Sunnie blew the feather farther into the room. What about voting and her aunt?
Robertson shrugged.
“How can you say that?” the second man growled. “She’s nothing but a stooge for the military and the government. The government that killed my kids. And yours too.”
Shaking his head, Robertson walked farther into her room.
“The Doc saved us, got the military to drive us here and lay in supplies.”
“Where were all these supplies when we were starving to death?”
“When did you starve?” The first man spat.
Yeah, when. Oooh, she’d like to force him to eat his words. An idea sparked to life. Eat his words…
The hollow thud of their footfalls muffled his response.
Shadows carved up the living space. A shower curtain separated her cot from Aunt Mavis’s and David’s blow up Queen-sized bed. A dented pillow and dog hair betrayed where Shep, the German shepherd, had slept. Empty tin cans served as legs for the footlockers at the end of the beds. A crate separated two metal chairs.
And everywhere the sound of dripping water echoed.
Robertson paused by the carcass and poked it with his finger. “So what are we going to do with the little troublemaker? Wringing his neck is definitely out.”
“Ha. Ha.” Sunnie unrolled her jacket on the desk next to the chicken then slid her hands underneath and lifted. The feet stuck straight out. Instead of being soft and warm, the body felt cool and stiff. “Do chickens have rigor mortis?”
“Seriously?”
She rolled her eyes. Now he wanted to go cold turkey on the funny man act. He’ll be sorry. Setting the chicken on a nest of feathers, she tucked the feet inside. “Add your feathers.”
He dumped his armload on top. “That’s not really a disguise.”
She widened her eyes and smiled. “I have absolutely nothing to hide.”
“Uh, the chicken. You know, the death sentence with feathers.”
“Oh you mean this poor thing?” She wrapped it in her jacket then tied the sleeves.
“Are you sure you’re recovered?” He set his palm against her forehead.<
br />
She ducked, grabbed the parcel and slipped outside. “It’s very simple. One of the horses became nervous during the move and accidentally stomped on this poor chicken.”
Robertson snapped his fingers. “Pee Wee. That damn rooster is always causing trouble. Anyone who’s ever been pecked by that evil thing would believe he’s capable of anything.”
“I’m sure Chef Jardin will appreciate the opportunity to show off her cooking skills with real food.”
He leaned on the elevator call button. “You know, I wouldn’t rule out that Pee Wee chopped off the hen’s head and left it as a warning not to steal his eggs.”
It had been a warning. But not from a rooster.
Now all she had to do was to figure out who.
Chapter Eleven
“What are they doing in there?”
“Investigating the crime.” Folding his arms over his stomach, Papa Rose leaned against the stone wall at his back. Water trickled over the collar of his jacket and was absorbed by his T-shirt. He focused on the cold and the damp, anything but the smell of charred human permeating the air. Behind the metal door, the two investigators clanged and banged on the evidence.
“From the sound of it, they’re destroying things even more.” Eddie limped back and forth across the corridor. Pimples of red light swelled in the darkness.
“You’re wound up a bit tight.”
“Someone blew up the electrolysis machine. Deliberately.” Eddie peered through the crack between the door and the jamb. “And they haven’t even covered Forrest’s body yet.”
“They’ll do right by Forrest.” Eventually. Papa Rose drummed his fingers on his biceps. Another clang resonated in the hall. They were making a lot of noise, but then they were officers—one zipper-suited sun god and the other a Marine. He’d taken it as a sign of the seriousness General Lister had taken the threat. Now… Now he wasn’t so sure.
Lister had snapped ‘report’ over the phone. After Papa Rose had reported the sabotage, the officer had practically bitten through the phone wires. Of course, he was a Marine and jarheads were notorious for their tempers. Papa Rose’s gut twisted. Yet, he couldn’t help but think something had happened during today’s weekly briefing.
Redaction: Dark Hope Part III Page 8