by Matt Brennan
I jump to my feet, shouting, “You’re going to do what?”
“Calm down, we’re safe in here. Besides, if the doors fail, behind you is an escape hatch.”
I close in on her. “Then why are you doing this?”
“Trust me.”
I grab her arms. “Stop! Explain this to me first!”
Lyssa rips her hands away from me. “I know what I’m doing!”
“I don’t doubt that, but I don’t know what you’re doing and I need to know.”
Lyssa looks at me and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just not used to having someone to—” She pauses, before continuing, “Look, I’m releasing the water to blow through the rubble out to the bay and clear a path right through to the harbor.”
I think about what she said—it sounds feasible. “What if the blockage just gets wedged in more. Then all that pressure is going to hit that door down there, right?”
“Two doors.”
I roll my eyes. “Sorry, two doors! Are you nuts! We would definitely drown!”
Lyssa sighs. “Look, we’re forty feet from the floor. If those doors blow, it’ll take thirty seconds for the room to fill up to our level. That’ll give us plenty of time to use the escape hatch.”
“Well, where is the escape hatch?”
“It’s usually a manhole or something like that. But it’s on the other side of that pressure door. We can’t open it unless the other doors are decompressed.”
“Well, can’t you just depressurize them so I can make sure it’s a viable escape path?”
“Yes, but we don’t have time.”
She hits a button and an alarm starts to ring.
“What did you do?”
Lyssa says calmly. “Relax, we’re perfectly safe. The spillway emergency valve is opening. Water is now racing the thirty-eight miles toward the blockage.”
“How much time do we have?”
Lyssa shrugs. “Twenty minutes, maybe less.”
“Then depressurize the door so I can check the escape hatch.”
“No way, I—”
I scream out, “DO IT YOU CRAZY BITCH!”
Lyssa cringes, “Hey, just because a woman takes a leadership role, does not make her—”
“DO IT NOW!”
“Okay, jeez, calm down. I told you we’re safe.”
She hits a switch and I feel the room depressurize, I grab the escape hatch release and spin it. I pull open the door and there is nothing but rubble behind it.
“Oh my god! I had no idea! I mean... I don’t know how that could have happened!”
I grab her hand. “Come on!” And pull her towards the door.
Lyssa yanks free. “Where? We’re screwed!”
I grab her this time more forcefully. “Come on! We have to get to the ladder!”
“We can’! The bad guys are there!”
“Then we jump on the sled and race to the other door. It might buy us some time before find another way up.”
I grab the sides of the ladder and slide down to the bottom, and Lyssa does the same. We grab the sled and race to the door. We rip it open, both of us barely slowing down. We throw the sled on the ground and then we both run alongside it. When we are running as fast as we can, we jump on. Both of us are using our legs to push it on faster. We just about reach the ladder topside when we first start to hear the rushing water.
“Faster!”
We frantically begin driving the sled on with our feet, I see the rubble wall first and yell out, “STOP!”
I slam my feet down and yank on the brake, but we crash into the wall of rubble anyway.
Lyssa is a bit shaken and tries to grab the sled. I grab one of the backpacks for her, then make towards the door. I throw her through it and slam the door, spinning the lock just as the water hits.
Both .22’s were on the sled, but there was nothing I could do. At least I still have the revolver.
I can hear the door groaning. I grab Lyssa and we start to run. We pass the ladder I climbed and couldn’t move the manhole cover, because I know that’s a dead end. We never could have squeezed through the storm drain or budge the thing. So we run on. We hit another ladder going up and I’m tempted to skip it, because it looks exactly the same as the other ladder did from below.
But I hear the door burst behind us. “Up, let’s go!”
I send Lyssa up first and I bring up the rear. The water is close; I can feel the air rushing past my ear. I see Lyssa above me trying the manhole to no avail.
“Try to squeeze through the storm drain!”
“But you’ll never fit!”
“But maybe you can clear the crap covering the manhole!”
She scrambles out the tiny hole and then sticks her head back through. “There’s nothing there! It just won’t move!”
I climb up and hand her the pack I grabbed, and try to wiggle through the storm drain. But it’s no good. Even though I am a skinny little twit, I’m just too big.
I grab the manhole cover and push as hard as I can with my arms and legs. It doesn’t move an inch.
I scream at Lyssa, “LOOK FOR SOMETHING TO PRY IT WITH!”
I climb higher and slam my shoulder into it, I’m hoping the combined strength of my legs and arms can move it. That’s when I feel the water.
It rushes up at me like a bullet in a gun. In a flash, I’m totally submerged in water. But, miraculously, I can see the force of the water is lifting the manhole cover a bit. So I push up with all my strength and it moves enough for me to begin to slide it out of the way. Suddenly, it is ripped from my hand and moves off to the side and I feel two hands grab me by my collar and pull me to safety.
Next thing I know, I’m lying on the ground, panting and coughing up water at the same time. It takes me a few moments to look up to thank Lyssa for saving me. I can’t believe how strong she is. I have to remember to not get her too angry with me.
I turn and see Jacques standing there, looking down at me, smiling.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jacques smiles. “Hey there, I been all over looking for you, eh?”
“I’m flattered. How’d you know I was here?”
My finger begins itching to grab my revolver. There’s no way he knows I’m armed. It might just be the advantage I need. Of course, I’d be completely screwed if the gun misfired because the bullets got wet.
I wish I hadn’t just thought that last part.
“Oh, I saw that little girl, eh? She ran off that way though. When I saw the cover move I knew you needed help boy, eh? Good thing I was here, I think.”
“I couldn’t agree more. So what now?”
“Ah yes, straight to the point. I like that, eh? Okay, I have some folks who want to talk to ya, eh?”
“Well, I already have a pressing engagement.”
“Yeah, we know, eh? A boat I think.”
“Okay, not at all creepy that you know that.” I begin to slowly move my hand towards my gun.
“Look, you are not going to believe this, but I work for UNN, eh?”
“What?”
Jacques falls flat on his face.
Standing behind him is Lyssa holding a tire iron. She rushes forward and drops to her knees by my side, “Oh my god are you alright?”
I smile. “I’m fine, thanks to him. He saved me.”
She looks at Jacques. “Who cares about him, can you move? Because, believe it or not, according to my map, the dock you wanted to reach is five blocks that way!”
I smile even broader. “Well, let’s hope that you somehow suck more at keeping track of time than you do clearing spillways.”
Lyssa smiles. “Sure, I almost kill us one time and you’re never going to let me live it down, are you?”
“Would you?”
“Good point, let’s go before he wakes up.”
She extends her hand and we start running down the street. It’s weird. Nothing is as I expected it would be. The city isn’t wonderful. There is dirt and mold everywhere. B
uildings have fallen down everywhere. By its condition, I wouldn’t be shocked if in ten years not one would even be standing. Everywhere I look, I see the products of neglect and the devastation of vermin. It seems like the city’s only living inhabitants are the rats.
We run the five blocks and again I’m about to pass out. I grab my knees and try to catch my breath and calm my nerves. You see, we can clearly see the end of the dock, and there is absolutely no ship is there.
Which is really bad news.
We look at each other for a moment of collective panic and then look back at the end of the dock. Suddenly, slicing through the fog we can see a catamaran, racing towards the dock. We instantly look at each other and high five. We start walking towards the boat, but a moment of giddiness takes us over and before we know it, we start running.
We are halfway to the end of the dock, when we hear the sound of horses behind us.
I spin around and I see that about three blocks behind us, Jacques is charging at us on his horse.
“Dammit! Run as fast as you can.”
We kick it into high gear. We are about two hundred meters from the end of the dock when we see the boat turn and long a gangway lower itself down. I look behind me and Jacques has halved the distance between us.
“Man, I don’t think we’re going to make it!”
“We will if you’d stop whining and start running!”
The mad dash for the boat is quickly sucking my strength, but the terror of being caught is driving me on. My lungs are on fire and the muscles in my legs and arms hurt so much it feels like they are about to rip off the bone at any second. I can hear the click-clack of the horses hooves on the ground. They are close. But I don’t look back, I push on harder. I pass Lyssa and she yelps, trying to keep up. We reach the plank of the boat, and the moment we set a foot on it, the gang way raises itself up and the boat pulls away from the dock and heads offshore. As I turn back to shore, the horse has come to a rest at the edge. It’s too late for them to jump aboard.
We beat him.
But Jacques isn’t looking at us; he’s pulling something up from his saddle. At first, I assume it must be a pair of binoculars. But when he spins around, he places a rocket launcher on his shoulder.
I grab Lyssa and press her down on the deck, covering her body. I don’t see what happens next, but there is a high-pitched whistling noise followed by an explosion, which rocks the whole boat. I stay down on top of Lyssa for about five minutes. Finally she elbows me in the ribs and I roll off her. When we stand up and look back, I can see the boat has put enough distance between us and the shore, so the fear of further attack has passed.
I sit on a nearby bench, completely out of breath. “I can’t believe we made it!”
Lyssa sits next to me, collapses against me and rests her on my shoulder. “Yeah, you run pretty fast when you’re running for your life. I mean, I knew you were a pansy, but you really impressed me with the depth of your cowardice.”
I laugh, and put my arm around her. “Yeah, well anything worth doing—”
The air is suddenly filled with the extremely loud voice of Doctor Sanderson. “MR. WHITNEY, WOULD YOU MIND STEPPING INSIDE THE BRIDGE? WE WOULD LIKE TO DEBRIEF YOU ON THE SITUATION. OH, YOUR FRIEND SHOULD PROBABLY COME AS WELL.”
Lyssa spins away from me and gets in a really defensive posture, I smile, “Don’t worry, the Doc isn’t here. He’s in San Francisco. Come on, let’s see what he has to say.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As we make our way around the big boat and try to figure out a way onto the bridge, I feel safe for the first time in days. I can’t tell you how that feels in a world so out of control. The last time I felt this way, was when I first met Lyssa.
***
I remember I had walked for hours on the second morning after I left the biosphere and hadn’t see anything but trees and snow. The night before, during a snowstorm, I slept in a shack by the side of the road. I would have frozen my butt off but there was a tiny wood burning stove in there that kept me nice and warm. I ransacked the place and found some kitchen matches and some candles and a crap load of paper. I couldn’t believe it! Real paper! All we had was the synthetic plastic sheets in the biosphere.
Anyway, the next morning as I was walking, I saw what looked like a small village across a pretty sizable valley. I was tempted to go explore, but in order to reach it I would have had to walk through a bunch of fields covered with god knows how much snow. In the end, I decided to stick to the road and trust that I would eventually get somewhere I could navigate from.
Just when I began to doubt that decision, the road veered sharply to the east and, as I rounded the bend, the space between the road and the trees suddenly opened up to a large open area where something else caused me to freeze in my tracks—a rather large complex of buildings.
Now keep in mind, I’d never seen a place like that before, but to a kid who grew up in a fishbowl, the compound looked like Manhattan and Chicago merged into one. I had no clue what the place was used for before the plague, but whatever it was, they had valued it enough to build a metal chain-link fence around it, with barbed wire coiled at the top. If the place had a huge surplus of food and weapons, from the size of it, a hundred people could have easily called it home. Not that I really thought anyone was alive, mind you, but the last time I talked to the Doc he said something that really got to me.
Just before we were disconnected, he’d said, “We advise that you avoid any contact with anyone you find on the road.”
And then he was gone. And so was the satellite link. I looked for it for hours, but found nothing. It just bugged me, because everyone was supposed to be dead and if they were, how would I run into anyone? It didn’t make sense. Here was this giant complex and for all I knew it could have boarded a hundred people. And they might not welcome outsiders. It had been twenty years since there were civil societies, police and armies. There was no telling what kind of new orders had popped up if there really were survivors.
So I had decided to lean toward the side of caution and be wary.
I raced for the tree line and stashed my pack behind a pine tree. If there were people there and they weren’t friendly, I didn’t want them to get all my gear if I was caught. Plus, that way if I escaped, I’d have some food to get me to Vancouver.
I made my way along the tree line till I was right across from the main gate. I said a silent prayer to anyone who might have been listening, and dashed out of the woods. I ran as fast as I could in the six-inch snow and dove through the gate behind a big mound of snow. It provided adequate cover from the main building. I paused for a few seconds and listened to see if my entrance had raised any alarms.
But all I heard were the sounds of the wind and typical noises of winter forest.
I shifted around and accidentally knocked some snow off of a sign, which clearly read: “Vancouver Hydroelectric Power Plant Facility and Public Works.”
Suddenly, I felt stupid. I doubted severely that a power plant would have the food stores necessary to support an army. I stood up and brushed the snow off my clothes as best as I could. Then I trudged through the ankle-deep snow back to my sheltering tree, fetched my pack and headed back to the main building.
The inside was dimly lit by sunlight creeping into the long hallway from all the open doors on both sides. There were at least twenty doors all together. The building was very long and narrow. I crept along the main hallway, making sure the floor was sturdy and that no one was hiding behind any doors in the offices before I moved on.
The offices themselves were in shambles. Drawers of filing cabinets laid open and empty. The desks looked to have been completely ransacked. I couldn’t tell if they were searched or emptied in a hasty retreat, but whatever the reason they were void of salvageable stuff. So I decided to leave the main building and search the outer buildings. Anything had to be better than nothing.
I stepped outside and was temporarily blinded. The sun had come out from beh
ind the clouds and the brightness of the snow was paralyzing. All those movies I watched about snow-covered places and not a one mentioned that fresh snow could be so bright. I would have given a million dollars for some sunglasses at that point.
I stumbled down the back steps only barely aware of where I was going. After a minute of squinting I finally managed to get a lay of the land. It looked like the nearest building to me was some kind of garage. I walked over and found it had a variety of tools, but no metal flashing I could use to make a stove or chimney. I knew I’d need heat to get through the night, so I was on the hunt for a way to safely have a fire.
The next outbuilding looked like a giant metal barrel cut in half and laid on its side. It had a big retractable door on the front that I couldn’t figure out how to open. I did, however, spot a small door on the side and when I tried the knob, it opened easily. Behind the door was a couple of heavy looking black curtains with a split up the middle. I slowly moved them apart and stepped inside. Once past the threshold, I instantly sensed a problem.
There was absolutely no light inside at all.
Which was a godsend. The light outside was really hurting my eyes. So once I stepped inside, I closed the curtains behind me and just wallowed in the dark.
After a moment, I took off my pack and fumbled around for the matches and candles. Lighting one candle, I held it up, but the tiny flame offered barely enough light to see through the pitch-black space, and what it did light up was only the immediate area.
I felt like I was back in the biosphere and plunged into the dark by the Doc and I didn’t like it much. The place was so big; I could literally have stumbled around in there for hours and never find anything but cobwebs. So I stepped backwards towards the door and freedom when something made me stop. I don’t know how to explain it, but I got this strange feeling. I don’t know how or why, but I just couldn’t escape the feeling that I wasn’t alone and it had totally crept me out. So I blew out my candle, moved to a different spot in the dark and froze in place.