by Hakok, R. A.
*
I CAN’T RIGHTLY SAY what my expectations might have been for the rest of that evening, only that they weren’t met.
Not even close.
I’ve barely gone a mile when a lone figure appears around a bend in the road, not twenty yards ahead of me. She stops when she sees me, shifts her goggles onto her forehead and pulls down her mask. For some reason spidey pings at that, but as usual there’s little explanation for it, so I put it down to the same surprise I’m feeling at finding her so soon. By the time I’ve shifted my brain back into gear she’s already closed the gap between us. She stands there for a moment, then throws her arms around me. I grunt as the air’s squeezed from my lungs.
‘Easy.’
She doesn’t let up.
‘Asshole. You had me worried.’
Eventually she releases her grip.
‘It’s getting late. We should head back.’
I shuffle my snowshoes around and we set off back towards The Suntrust Bank.
‘So what happened? Where were you?’
I tell her about getting surprised by Goldie and how he and Mac brought me to Starkly to meet Garland Finch. I describe how I took dinner with the inmates, but I don’t go into detail on what might have been in Blatch’s cookpot. I’m not sure I mean to tell anyone about that, ever, not even Mags. I describe the tour of the prison I got from Finch afterwards, including the library and the copy of Watership Down he gave me, but when the time comes I don’t mention what I saw in the basement there either. It’d not take her long to work out the significance of a fury being held behind metal bars, and I haven’t yet made up my mind how to tell her about that, or even if I mean to. I finish up with the warning Mac gave me about staying clear of Durham.
‘I didn’t see anyone there.’
‘How far’d you go?’
‘Just to the print store. When I saw your backpack was gone I figured you were on your way back down to us and somehow I’d missed you on the road.’
We walk for a while in silence. The KwikPrint was on the south side of Durham, but that’s still more miles than anyone should have been able to cover in a day.
A normal person, you mean.
I tell the voice to be quiet. Up ahead the sign for Fearrington shifts on its yardarm; beyond it the stoplight and the turn off for the Mount Gilead Church Road.
‘I guess the city’s off limits then?’
I nod, still a little distracted.
‘Unless we want to risk running into more of Finch’s men.’
I tuck my thumbs into the straps of my pack, suddenly aware of how little heft there is to it; it weighs hardly more than the canvas it’s made of.
This place I’m bringing us to, it’d better be stocked.
Mags stops, turns to look at me. It takes me a moment to realize I’ve said the words out loud.
‘You want to see if we can find it?’
‘Now?’
She nods.
I take a look down the Mount Gilead Church Road. Dusk has already settled over the snow-shrouded fields; it won’t be long till darkness draws down behind it. I know what Marv would say; we’ve already pushed our luck enough for one day. But according to the map in my pocket the bunker’s only a mile or so east of here.
I turn back to face her.
‘I do.’
*
WE SET OFF INTO THE FAILING LIGHT. I scan the road ahead for signs. It curves east for a while, then straightens again. The bunker should be somewhere around here, at the end of a lane neither Marv nor the map had bothered to name. Up ahead I spot a turnoff that seems in about the right place. I push my goggles onto my forehead. A narrow track runs through open fields for a couple of hundred yards and then ends at what was once dense woodland. I look across the empty snow, my breath smoking in the cold as I try and decide what to do. The temperature’s falling fast now; there’s not much of the day left to us.
Beside me Mags pulls down her mask. Spidey pings again, like he did when I first saw her earlier, and it seems like he has something more specific he wants to say, but I’m too busy trying to stop my teeth from chattering to focus on whatever it might be. I ask her what she can see. She doesn’t say anything for a while, but then eventually I just get Trees. She goes quiet again.
‘How far down there was it supposed to be?
I don’t need to get the map out to give her an answer.
‘Not far. Half a mile maybe.’
I stamp my snowshoes, trying to keep warm. She looks at me for a moment, like she might be measuring my ability to go on. In the end she must come to a decision because she pulls her mask up again.
‘Let’s give it another ten minutes. If we haven’t found anything by then we’ll turn back. Okay?’
‘Alright.’
I open my mouth to ask her if she’s cold but she’s already off, a new purpose to her stride. I try to keep up, but by the time we’re halfway across the field she’s already more than a dozen paces ahead of me. She doesn’t slow for the tree line, just disappears among the gnarled trunks. I hesitate for a second and then follow her in. Long-dead trees push up through the snow on either side; their blackened limbs swiping at my parka as I make my way deeper into the wood. Darkness quickly fills the space between, until there’s little to see but the moldering remains of those closest to whatever trail she’s following. I’d get out the flashlight, except I don’t want to fall any further behind, so instead I try and focus on the sound of her snowshoes crunching the ice-crusted powder. They’re getting harder to hear above the sounds of my own breathing. The air is sharp with the cold now; it burns my lungs. This is crazy. I’m about to call out to her to suggest we go back when I realize that she’s stopped.
As I catch up I see something ahead, jutting from the ground to waist height, blocking the way. She brushes snow off it, then turns to look at me. I dig in my parka for the flashlight, fumbling with the stubby handle while I get my breath back. Spidey pings again as the beam spreads, but I’m too distracted by what she’s found to pay attention. I play the light over the obstacle, trying to keep my hand steady against the cold.
A barrier, the kind that rises right out of the road, the rusting metal painted in wide yellow and black stripes. On either side a high fence stretches off as far as the shuddering beam will allow. A single weather-faded sign hangs forlorn from the chain-link. It says we’re on government property and right now we’re trespassing. Beyond it the trees stop, as abruptly as they began.
We clamber over the barrier and make our way into the compound. A small guard shack squats on the far side, the snow drifted high against its aluminum sides. It’s almost full dark now and inside my parka I’m shivering so hard my teeth are rattling together. I crank the flashlight again, the fingers inside my mittens already stiffening with the cold. The dynamo whirs and the bulb grows momentarily brighter, but the beam soon reaches its limit and won’t be pushed further; all I can see are the tracks Mags is making in the snow. She seems to know where she’s going, though, so I give up on winding the handle and follow her. A rusting pole appears out of the darkness; a tattered windsock shifting back and forth on its fraying tether. This must be where Gilbey and the soldiers landed in their helicopter, all those years ago. I look around for other landmarks that might confirm it, but find none.
Ahead the ground starts to incline and soon I can make out a raised embankment. As we get closer a pair of giant concrete cubes slowly emerge from the darkness. I play the flashlight over their sides. The beam won’t stretch all the way to the top, but from what I can see it seems like the concrete sweeps inward to a point in the center, almost like a huge dish has been molded there.
Mags makes for the space between, where a narrow funneled entrance cuts into the ground. I can just make out the top of a metal door, right at the end. A camera stares down from a rusting bracket above, its single lens cataracted with ice.
She steps forward and starts scooping snow from in front of the door. I hang back a mome
nt then join in, but my hands are numb with cold and I end up spilling as much as I clear. When we’ve managed to clear an area big enough for the door to open I stand back and crank the flashlight again, trying to hold the beam steady. It’s little more than a Hobbit hole, hardly bigger than the vault door in the Exhibition Hall back at The Greenbrier. A large wheel handle sits at its center. The only other feature is a small window at eye level above. It’s about the same size and shape as a letterbox, its metal surround held in place by heavy bolts. The thick glass is rimed with ice; I scrub it clear with the edge of my mitten and shine the flashlight inside, but I can’t see a thing.
I search the wall to one side, relieved to find a keypad just like the one in Eden. I clear the snow from around the cowling and hit the reset button. For a moment nothing happens, but then there’s the faintest of flickers from the light at the bottom, like it’s deciding whether it cares to rouse itself from its decade-long slumber. The light gradually grows brighter, and then for a heart-stopping moment it goes out, before finally returning to blink at me in long, steady pulses. The rest of the keypad slowly illuminates.
I close my eyes and the section of Marv’s map that showed Fearrington, complete with the code he had written next to it, appears before me. I start to punch in the sequence but my fingers are shaking so badly I keep having to start over. After the third attempt Mags taps me on the shoulder. I step away and call them out so she can do it.
She enters the twelve letters and numbers and stands back. The light underneath switches from red to green, and then there’s a pause. A faint whine rises from somewhere behind the door, builds to complaining pitch, and then from deep within there’s the grinding of gears. The handle in the center of the door begins a hesitant, anti-clockwise rotation. For a few seconds there’s the muted screech of metal being dragged against metal as bolts slide back into their recesses, then it reaches the end of its travel with a loud clunk. Silence returns once again to the darkness.
I grab the wheel with both hands and pull but the door allows me only a fraction and then immediately retreats, like there’s something else holding it in place, preventing it from opening. I kick the last of the snow from the base and try again, this time bracing one boot against the concrete to the side. Behind me I hear Mags asking if she can help, but I just keep yanking desperately at the handle. At last I think I feel something give. I renew my efforts. It takes a few more frantic tugs, but at last there’s a soft sucking sound and the door finally surrenders, swinging back out towards me with a dull metallic groan.
*
I WIND THE FLASHLIGHT and shine it inside. A thick rubber seal runs around the edge of the recessed frame, explaining its unwillingness to yield. Beyond there’s a small chamber, no taller or wider than the entrance. At the end another heavy steel door, identical to the first.
I step in. The air smells fusty, stale, like it hasn’t been disturbed in years. I play the beam over the walls. The metal looks old, its surface covered with tiny whorls, scratches, the dull patina of age. The floor is steel grating, and when I point the flashlight upwards it finds more of the same. In the hatched shadows behind I can just make out the curving blades of what look like ventilation fans.
I step up to the inner door and try the handle, but it won’t turn. I search the frame for a keypad; there’s none. Instead a large green button protrudes from the wall, the plastic cracked, faded, the word CYCLE stenciled above. I push it, but nothing happens. I wait for a few seconds, listening, then try again. This time I press my ear to the cold steel, straining for any sign of activity within. But there’s only the sound of my breathing.
I point the flashlight at the edges. Another strip of rubber compressed between door and frame, just like the one behind me. I grab the wheel and lean into it. The soles of my boots squeak as they compress against the grating but it won’t budge, not even a fraction.
I step back and hit the button, harder this time, feeling the panic begin to rise. We can’t have come all this way to be denied entry now. Mags rests a hand on my shoulder.
‘Gabe.’
I turn around. She looks back at the door we’ve just come through.
‘Let’s try closing that one. Maybe the inner door isn’t designed to open unless the outer one’s shut.’
‘Okay. Yeah. Good idea.’
She reaches for the handle to pull it shut.
‘Wait.’
I dig in my pocket for Marv’s map, but my fingers are numb with the cold and I have to fumble with it to pull it out. I look up. My breath hangs heavy in the air between us, and suddenly I understand what spidey’s been trying to tell me since we left the Juvies. Because it’s only my breath I see, roiling yellow in the flashlight’s faltering beam. I stare at her, studying her slightly parted lips, the almost imperceptible flare of her nostrils as she exhales. There’s no mistake; her breath is clear.
I wonder what that means.
‘Gabe?’
It doesn’t have to mean anything. She’s not freaking out like you are, that’s all. Besides, right now I have other things to worry about. If I don’t get this door open we could freeze out here.
You might. She won’t.
I squeeze my eyes shut and to my surprise it works; when I open them again the voice has gone.
‘Gabe, you okay?’
I nod, hold the map out to her. The faded blue-red cover with the Standard Oil logo trembles in my hand. I tell her through chattering teeth to go back outside.
She looks at me like she means to argue, but I shake my head.
‘W-who knows how much juice is left in the b-batteries? If they die before the cycle’s c-complete I need you out there to f-figure a way to get me out.’
She hesitates for a moment like she doesn’t care much for this plan. I guess she can’t think of a better one, though, because in the end she takes the map and steps back outside.
I pull the door closed behind her, turning the wheel to lock it. This time when I hit the button there’s a series of muted clicks, followed by more silence. I hold my breath, waiting for something else to happen. After what seems like an eternity there’s a buzzing sound from above my head and I point the flashlight up just in time to see the fans in the ceiling start to rotate. They stutter at first, but then the pitch builds until they’re nothing more than a blur. I feel a pressure in my ears as the air’s sucked out of the tiny chamber. The motors run for a while then die, and for a long time after there’s more silence. I’m starting to think there might not have been enough left in the batteries to complete the cycle after all, when at last I hear a click from the door in front of me and then the whine of another motor, followed by the low grinding of cogs as the mechanism grumbles through its internal processes. In front of me the handle slowly starts to turn, and from inside the door there’s the familiar sound of bolts working their way home. When the wheel reaches the end of its travel it stops and silence once again returns to the small chamber.
I press my shoulder to the steel and push. It takes another couple of tries to break the seal on the inner door, but in the end it gives just like the outer one did. I shout over my shoulder that I’m in. I’ve no idea whether she can hear me through the steel, but I tell her to wait while I find a way to open the door manually.
I step out of the airlock into a tiled area, no wider than the chamber I’ve just left. A fat metal drain in the center of the floor; a showerhead, round like a sunflower; a metal chain you’d pull to make the water flow. A sign on the wall with instructions. Beyond the decontamination area, a concrete passageway stretches off into darkness. I find a metal hatch, low on the wall. It opens with a creak, revealing a handle with the word OVERRIDE stenciled in red above, an arrow telling me the direction it needs to go. The mechanism’s stiff, but after a little coaxing I get it to move. I step back into the airlock, and this time when I grasp the outer door’s wheel it turns. I keep winding it until the bolts have been drawn back. I push the door open and Mags joins me.
We
make our way along the passageway, following a run of rust-spackled pipes that hang from the low ceiling. No more than a dozen yards from the entrance it ends abruptly at a narrow concrete-lined shaft. A short walkway with guardrails on either side leads out to a metal staircase that spirals down into darkness. I shine the flashlight over the edge, but the drop is deeper than the beam will show me. I stand there for a second, inhaling the spent air. It feels dank, clammy. There’s something else, too: a smell, heavy, unpleasant, drifting up from the depths.
‘Everything okay?
I nod, make my way out onto the gangway. The metal looks old, worn, just like in the airlock. It groans worryingly as it accepts my weight, but it doesn’t feel like it’s about to give, so I keep going, out to the stairs. When I reach them I rest a hand on the rail. Paint still clings to the underside, but on top the steel’s burnished smooth from years of use. When I point the flashlight down at the tread plate it’s the same there: in the corners the raised diamonds still show; in the center where my boots fall there’s little left but their outlines.
I start down. Inside my head I begin the count, measuring our progress in steps descended. The shaft is tight, the walls close enough to touch. Small vents punctuate the concrete at intervals I take to be equal to a floor, the area beneath each streaked brown with rust. I shine the flashlight on one. My breath still smokes in the beam, but less than above; already it feels a little warmer. I pull off a mitten and stretch my hand out to the grille. A gentle breeze slips between my fingers.
We continue on, round and round, each spiral taking us deeper into the bunker, our footfalls echoing and rebounding off the concrete as we descend. The walls get no closer, but somehow the shaft seems to press in, becoming more confined the lower I go. I push that thought from my mind and focus on the count. By the time I’ve reached two hundred I’m beginning to worry. I lean over the railing and point the flashlight down into the blackness below, desperate for evidence of anything other than this never-ending spiral. But the beam finds only more steps.