I was blinded and I held up a hand, so my eyes wouldn’t burn out. I took a physical stock of things and decided I was bruised, but nothing was broken.
“Sir, thank you for rescuing us, but if you’d show me the way out, my daughter and I are leaving.” The woman’s voice was cold and clear.
“Hey, I’m not holding you here, but my daughter, Maggie stays. Mags, you doing ok, kid?”
“Who’s Maggie?” I heard my daughter ask. I pulled myself up and felt around in my pants pocket and found a book of matches. I pulled one out and lit it with trembling hands.
The penlight quit shining in my eyes and in the softer glow of the match, stood the woman and… Oh, dammit. Not again. Not again. I slumped to the ground. Hot tears burned my cheeks.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were my daughter,” I said, my chest starting to hitch despite my best efforts.
The match was starting to burn at my fingertips and I tossed it.
“Mom, let’s go,” the girl said, pulling on her arm.
“You thought she was your daughter?” the woman asked, looking startled.
“I… It’s been some time. I thought… In the dark… I’m sorry if I scared you. I wasn’t going to let those animals take you anyway, but I thought I’d found…”
Something invisible sucker-punched me in the gut, and a sob escaped me. The feeling of loss was like the day I’d been coming out of the hospital and I’d been sharing a room with Baker, the kid who’d stepped on a land mine. He’d died of his wounds weeks later from a complication in the surgery. I’d known that my wife had consulted a lawyer and I was being served with divorce papers. I’d loved the idea of being a father, but I’d never been around to actually try it out.
“Are you ok, mister?” the girl asked, taking a step forward, putting her hand on my arm.
In the semi-darkness, I used a sleeve to wipe my face, but her touch had a calming effect on me. I must have terrified them as much as the men topside had, maybe worse, because I'd killed the others to get to them. Still, my admission and breakdown must have calmed them.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. That must have scared you. I didn’t mean to,” I said simply.
“You got us away from those men,” the woman said.
“I’m… Hell, topside, they call me Dickhead, but you can call me Dick,” I told them and smiled when the young girl snickered, despite looking like she was going to barf all over me.
The woman stepped close and handed me the penlight. “I’m Jamie O’Sullivan, and this is my daughter Melanie, or Mel.”
I stood slowly, and I seemed to be having a harder time than Mel, though she was the one who’d gotten the knock on the head, not I. I felt for the shotgun and turned towards the wall and pulled it up to inspect in the light. Thankfully, I hadn’t landed on it, but I would take it apart and check it out when I got home.
“Nice to meet you. I can show you the way out, but I would advise you to lay low for at least a couple of days. I’m not well-liked and after killing three of them and snatching you too, they’re likely to be out in force for a while.” I told them.
“You said you have people down here,” Jamie said, “Are they close by?”
“Yeah, just about everyone I have left in the world is about twenty minutes’ walk away,” I told her.
“Well, let’s go,” Mel said, “This place is creepy.”
I heard something screech far above and I held my finger over my lips to shush them. From far above, light shone down, and then something started banging around inside the tunnel. I moved fast, using my arms to pull both ladies out of the way as a small trash can came tumbling into the weak light.
“I don’t see nothing,” a voice above yelled to someone, their words almost lost by the distance of forty feet.
I indicated a direction with a jerk of my head and the ladies nodded. We moved out slowly and I kept the penlight held down on a slight angle ahead of me, so the ladies could see where to place their feet. I’d stop once in a while at an intersection and look at the markings that led in different directions and briefly wondered about taking strangers into the home site, but I mentally shrugged and decided that if they remembered, they weren’t a threat to me.
The pain of thinking I’d found Maggie and then realizing I’d done it again was agonizing. I knew Jeremy would have a small bout of laughter about it, maybe some of the others, but it hurt. Every time it happened, it hurt.
“Boss,” a loud voice came out of the darkness.
“Jeremy,” I said, hearing the oldest of the kids, “Those with great power,” I said just as loud.
“Comes great responsibility,” the voice said, and a light snapped on as we completed the hokey challenge that let him know I was safe and not under duress.
I was ready for the light, but the ladies gasped behind me as it flicked on and then flicked back off.
“Picking up strays again, boss?” Jeremy asked.
“Pulled them from Curt’s boys,” I told him.
“They hurt?”
In the darkness, I could hear him opening the door behind him and I clicked on the penlight again.
“Is that a bomb shelter?” Mel asked.
“No, it’s a water hatch. A long time ago, these tunnels flooded.”
“That’s not safe,” Jamie said.
“Oh no, ma’am, it’s totally safe. The utilities run through here. Come on,” Jeremy turned on his big halogen hand light again and stepped through.
“It’s safe. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the crew,” I told them and stepped through the nearly four-foot hatch, that was set a foot off the ground.
They followed me in and the almost six-foot round tunnel turned a right-hand corner, and both me and Jeremy killed our lights. Kerosene and oil lamps lit the opening. Maggie, I mean, Mel gasped. A dozen kids of various ages came streaming up and I took off the shotgun sling, handing it to Jeremy as I got tackled. Three kids wrapped around my legs and the rest pushed me backwards until we all fell in a laughing heap.
“One, two, three. You’re out, sucka!” a boy laughed loudly.
A sullen teenage girl stood by, twirling her hair and tried to look bored.
“Oh look, more mouths to feed,” she quipped.
The kids scrambled off me, and more than one gave me a big squeeze and whispered that “they got me that time” before I could stand. Mel stood there, her mouth agape, but her mom had an amused grin on her face. I smiled back and shrugged my shoulders.
“Danielle, this is Jamie and Melanie,” I said pointing out the women. “This is Danielle, our resident sourpuss, diaper changer, and cook,” I said, watching the teen turn a furious shade of red, and not from embarrassment.
“Dude, you’re telling me, you found a baby?” Danielle said.
“No, but if I did, you’d totally be the one to change the diapers,” I told her.
“In your dreams, grandpa,” she said and stalked away.
“Are these all…” Melanie started to say, but her words ran out as she took in the scene.
The room served as a utility junction. The lower parts of the floor were wet and damp, but a three-foot raised platform had been built. Overall, the section we called home was close to thirty feet by forty feet. There was an even higher raised mezzanine of about twenty by twenty in one corner, and everyone's bedrolls and bedding stood there.
“Orphans. I’ll introduce you to all of them, after tackling me, they got shy,” I told them, watching as the younger ones ran back to a large open spot on the mez and sat down.
We’d done this before, and they were waiting for me to make introductions.
“I hear we’re having meat tonight in the soup,” Jeremy told me, clapping me on the shoulder, and he put my shotgun on my hammock that I kept by the mez and walked up, sitting amongst the younger kids.
“Do I want to know?” Mel asked.
“These are kids who have no one else left,” I told her, “I do what I can. I help whoever I can if…”
&nb
sp; “Oh, who’s that?” Jamie asked.
Standing almost four feet tall, Mouse came running from somewhere on the mez and when she leaped I caught her easily out of the air. The little girl buried her head in my neck and gave me a big squeeze before coughing and hacking. Her body was warm, warmer than it should have been. I slowly put her down on the edge of the mez.
“Easy, you aren’t supposed to be up and out of bed,” I told her.
“Uncle Dick, I missed you. You were gone for like… ten years.”
I could see the fever in her, but she was smiling. She must be breathing easier still, I’d give her the pills. Actually, that'd be Danielle's job.
“Are these new friends? Are they going to stay?” she asked quickly.
“They’re friends,” I told her, “whether or not they stay is up to them. I’m going to introduce them to the group. You want to help me?” I asked her.
Mouse stood and held out her hand. I took it and she tugged on it, so I leaned down. Her voice was quiet and in a whisper.
“What’s her name?” she asked pointing to Jamie.
“Jamie,” I told her.
“Hey, everybody!” Mouse yelled and all of the chatter stopped, and all eyes turned to look at us. “Uncle Dick has some new friends for us,” she said, coughing.
I smiled. The kid was sick, but she tried so hard to be a grown up. She looked to be around six, but she wasn’t sure, and her brother wasn’t much help in figuring things out.
“This is Jamie,” she said, pointing out the older woman, “And this is…”
“Maggie!” all the kids yelled as one voice.
My face turned scarlet and I let go of Mouse’s hand and started walking. The tears flowed freely.
3
“There you are,” Danielle said, coming out of the darkness of the tunnel.
I hadn’t gone far, but I needed time to get my shit together. Today was what I’d consider a bad day, but I’d imagine it was a bad day for more than one reason to most people.
“Hey,” I told her.
She slid down next to me by the wall.
“You freaked out that lady a bit, taking off like that.”
“I didn’t mean too. I thought I’d found her. She’s even the right age…”
“Hey,” Danielle said, “They’re ok. I explained things. When you get stressed, you kind of…”
“Go crazy?” I asked her. “I mean, Melanie doesn’t look anything like Maggie.”
“With what you’ve been through and how the Topsider gangs are hunting you, it’s ok to be a little crazy. We all owe you our lives.”
I think I almost choked. Danielle had not only insulted me, but she’d also complimented me in the same breath… and I felt the weight on my chest lifting.
“Now, I got one today, in one of the traps down by the park. It was feral, and there’s enough meat for everyone to have two bowls of soup.”
I smiled, “You and Jeremy keeping things held together when I melt down… I appreciate it,” I told her, meaning every word of it.
“Sir, yes sir,” she said with a mock salute, and I half sobbed, half laughed.
“Why are you suddenly so grown up?” I asked her.
She was silent and thought about it for a moment. Danielle had been one of the first kids I’d saved, and the gangs topside had been operating for a while now… so I got her early on. Still, she’d have both mental and physical scars from her ordeal.
“You never treated me like a kid. You always talked to me like a grown up. I guess…” She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, “I realized that arguing with you about everything was me being… well, I was a pain in the ass, but I think I was doing it because I thought that’s what you expected of me. If that makes any sense at all.”
I laughed loudly at that, “No, but teenagers never made sense to me. Come on, kid,” I said, and I stood, offering her a hand.
“Did you tell Melanie and Jamie what the meat was?” I asked her.
“Oh, it was the lady, Jamie, who skinned it.”
I stopped and looked at her, making sure she wasn’t pulling a fast one on me. She wasn’t.
“Really?”
“Really. Apparently her husband was some sort of crazy survivalist. I talked to her for a while…” Jamie looked away from me, “she reminds me of my mom, you know?”
“I never knew your mom,” I said and pushed her, smiling as she stumbled a bit, “But I think she’d tell me what I already know.”
“Oh yeah?” She arched an eyebrow.
“You’re a good kid, and someday you and Jeremy will be— “
This time, I was the one who got shoved, it was more of a slow punch to the shoulder with a push, but I saw I’d hit a sensitive spot with my jibe. They’d been circling each other, sharing insults whenever they didn’t think I was paying attention.
“That’s not even funny,” she said.
Yes, it was, but I wasn’t going to make her misery worse and tell her that Mouse had already informed everyone, except Jeremy and Danielle, that she was going to be their flower girl. Of course, Mouse expected everything to happen down here, below ground. She carried mental scars almost as dark and deep as I did.
“That was a little bit funny. Let’s eat.”
“So how long have you been down here?” Mel asked me, while Pauly, Mouse’s older brother, regaled her with stories of fighting off tunnel rats like a Ninja Turtle.
“Three or four years now,” I told her, “Or maybe less. It’s been a long time. What year is it?” I asked her.
“Uh…” she told me and I shook my head.
“Two and a half years. Wow, I thought it was longer.”
“How can you not remember something like that?” she asked me.
“I quit caring about life. Got into some bad stuff,” I told her.
“Were you hiding from the police?”
“No, I just… quit caring about being alive for a while.”
The group of kids and young adults suddenly grew silent and they all looked at me.
“He never talks about the ‘before’,” Mouse said, scooting closer to my side until I could feel the burning heat coming off of her body.
“Before I forget, little Door Mouse, I have medicine for you,” I said fishing in my pocket, almost spilling the bowl of stew I had in my lap.
We were almost all sitting Indian style, but Jeremy was standing near the small step to the mez where we were all resting. I straightened my leg out enough to get the envelope out, and I fished out a pill.
“Swallow that,” I told her, “One in the morning, one at night,” then I closed the envelope and tossed it to Danielle.
She would remember for me. Mouse took a slurp of soup and then put the pill in her mouth and made a face as she swallowed it.
“You were going to talk about before,” Pauly said, putting his bowl down.
“Well, I wasn’t wanting to…”
“Come on,” the little kids begged.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Jamie said.
I didn’t blame her. I had basically been admitting I had been having suicidal thoughts.
“Yeah, nobody wants to hear about that,” I agreed.
“Oh, I sort of do,” Danielle said, standing and walking over to Jeremy, putting an arm around his waist.
His eyes shot open and some of the younger kids laughed and snickered, but nobody said anything about it. It had been obvious that Jeremy had had a ‘thing’ for Danielle for a long time. Danielle had finally noticed when she realized he wasn't being standoffish to her on purpose, but was trying to mask his feelings. Still, it was the first sort of contact. Both of them were actually eighteen or nineteen, still kids, but old enough.
“Ok, I won’t tell the bad stuff, but what do you want to know?” I asked them.
“Why do you have bad dreams at night?” Mouse said, “You pretend to be so mean, but you get bad dreams and cry sometimes when you’re sleeping.”
“I don�
�t…” but I stopped because all the kids were nodding in agreement with her.
“I don’t know if I can talk about that,” I said after a few moments.
“You always said that talking about it helps,” Jeremy said.
“For conquering your fears, yes,” I told him, “If I tell everything, I might just scare the little ones,” I said, hoping he’d drop it.
“What if you tell the parts that aren’t scary?” Mel asked.
Now what the hell was going on?
“I don’t know how to separate out the good and the bad,” I said after a minute.
“What did you used to do for a living?” Danielle asked, “You weren’t no preacher, that’s for sure.”
Chuckles broke out around the room. Every single one of them had known violence of some sort. I’d had to deal a ton of it out to secure their freedom. Sometimes, it caused loss of life. Sometimes, I’d had to send a message. Nobody here was truly innocent anymore. Even little Mouse, who was so scared of men that she preferred living underground with our misfit family.
“Well,” I said considering my words, “I was an active duty Marine for twenty-two years, a Devil Dog— “
“Like a mean junkyard dog, like you said before?” Sarah asked the nine-year-old who’d joined us a week before.
“No, I was a soldier. Devil Dog’s a nickname for a Marine,” I told her, “I was in every sandbox and hellhole in the world, but the worst was in Fallujah. After I got a medical discharge, I worked for the Transit Authority.”
“What’s that?” Pauly asked.
“Yeah, what’s that?” Mouse piped up.
“Well, I was like a railroad cop,” I told them, hoping to skip the discharge conversation entirely.
Devil Dog: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (Out Of The Dark Book 1) Page 3