Immediately, Fran waves us over. “This way, this way. Want to make sure you get credit for everything you’ve found.”
I suddenly notice a new dispersion of people. The sick group is still down at the end to my left, and some of them aren’t looking so good. But now, there’s another group, all of them are old, sitting not too far from them. In the center, Masaru and Edgar are holding down our spot. That’s a relief. To the right of them is a group of young and brawn men and women, maybe thirty of them. Everyone else is sort of scattered throughout.
Finch and Tobias place the three duffle bags onto the table. Fran starts with Elsie’s bag first. “Oh, you had a great shift! Medical supplies are top of the list.” She pulls out several rolls of gauze, adhesive tape, bandages and numerous pre-filled syringes, among other things.
My bag is next. “What did you do to yourself, dear,” she says pointing to my head. “Claudia Sheeplord, one large band aid,” she mumbles to herself, as she writes on the clipboard.
She pulls out the bags of peanuts. “Food, very good, very good indeed.” Next, she inventories the cans of juice and soda. “Mmmm, hmmm, good, good.” She adds the first aid kit to the others. “Well, maybe we can give you credit for that band aid.” She scratches across whatever she had written on the clipboard. “Oh and these…these will be for medicinal purposes only.” Her smile carries warning as she removes the small liquor bottles from my bag and places them in the stack of medical supplies. “Dorian made a rule about no drinking alcohol, just so you all know.”
I don’t even care about the liquor bottles, but these people have let this Dorian guy have far too much power. Do they think this is what life is now? Is anyone even trying to go back to normal life?
Ben’s bag is pretty light, even with the items we shared with him. He has a few bottles of water, some duct tape and half the snacks I found on the plane. He stashed the umbrella for later.
“That’s okay, Benjamin. I know you tried your best,” Fran says sincerely. “We don’t expect as much out of the children.”
Chapter 5
Blizzard conditions have set in over the past few days, so any plans to leave the airport and head west have been delayed. Food is running dangerously low and because of the heavy snow, search shifts are coming up mostly empty. Even Ben, Elsie and I have come up short, with nothing more than a few bottles of water here and there, and we’re three of the best scavengers in the shelter. The truly sad thing is that we are stashing half of what we find. It amazes me at how subdued these people are.
Dorian spends most of his time in small huddles with various members of his gun squad. Fran keeps busy making lists and more lists and tracking people’s temperatures. Five more victims were added to the sick group in the past three days. One actually did manage to get better and come out, but then she put him in the group of the old.
A few more people have died from their injuries or illnesses. The old man with white hair that was hacking up his lung died last night. Ben told me his name was Charlie. He had been flying to see his new grandson.
I can’t stand sitting around doing nothing, staring at devastation for one more minute. I stand up to stretch my legs. “I’m going to explore the other concourses if I can get to any of them. Anyone want to come?”
Edgar grabs his ax. “I’ll come.”
Masaru is sleeping. His fever is gone now, so we’re actually allowed in the general population, but we choose to stay in our spot.
Ben jumps up. “I’m in.” He knocks over a house of cards he’d built.
“I’ll protect the fort with Masaru,” Elsie says. She is fiddling with things inside her trunk anyway. I can’t believe Fran hasn’t come to inspect its contents. Bernie pecks around the ground near Elsie at some trail mix crumbs she must have thrown down.
We haven’t made it ten feet outside the central command area and Dorian approaches us. “Where are you going?”
“We’re low on food. Thought we’d see if we can find some in the other concourses. There're other restaurants, other freezers,” I reply, trying to remain humble.
“It’s not safe. Things are still settling. That’s why we’ve kept everyone here. No one is allowed in the other concourses.”
“Starving isn’t safe either,” I say.
Edgar holds up his ax and smiles, showing his gold crown.
“If people are starving to death, you’ll have a lot more trouble on your hands than if the three of us die from falling debris,” Ben warns. “You’ve heard of the Donner party, right?”
Dorian eyes Ben for a long minute but remains silent. He’s probably decided it would be better if we did die.
Crunching through the snow, we walk around the exterior of the airport to make our way to the old B concourse. It’s the only possible way to get in as the interior corridor is completely blocked.
Even from the outside, it’s still a challenge to find a safe place to enter. We find one spot where we think it looks safe and we almost lose Edgar. He puts his hand against a wall to support his weight, and as he steps inside, a pile of concrete comes down in an avalanche from above.
“Edgar!”
Ben throws the concrete off of Edgar like he has superhuman strength or something. I help him dig him out, but I’m not near as fast.
“Edgar, are you okay?” Ben gives Edgar his hand to help him off the ground.
“Yep, think so. Just scared the dickens out of me.” He brushes rocks and dust out of his beard.
We continue to search and stumble upon an entry that looks as if it has been made post-destruction. Rocks have been set aside in a pile that is just a little too neat. Someone has been here.
When we enter, the place is a mess. We haven’t been inside for two minutes before a piece of the ceiling crashes down only fifteen feet from us. We all drop to the floor and cover our heads. When it sounds like everything has settled once again, we resume our mission.
There’s a sports bar across the way from us. “I’m going to see if there’s anything salvageable in there.”
“I’ll grab the drinks from here.” Ben points to the cooler inside the general store. “I’ll meet you there.”
At least we aren’t dehydrated. We’ve had plenty of water and if we run out, we have snow. But he has just found juice, soda and even coffee beverages. We are low on that stuff.
I motion to Edgar to stay with Ben. He nods.
Other than the chairs that must have floated around in the flood and are now scattered in and out of the bar and overturned, the place looks pretty much intact. I enter the kitchen and find a huge butcher knife. Masaru needs this. I put it in the bag of stuff to hide.
Looking around, the place is bare. It strikes me as a little odd that there isn’t anything around. No broken spice jars on the floor? No cans of anything? I go into the store room—same thing, it’s bare. I know the water rushed through, but I’d think there would be some remnants of something. This place has been picked dry.
Someone made that entrance and found this place on their shift, although it is forbidden to enter the concourses. Doesn’t mean there aren’t other rebels in the camp. I snicker.
I come out and point the knife at Edgar just joking around. “You will not leave the shelter. This is my country now.” We have a good laugh at my impression of Dorian.
“Did you find anything else?” Edgar asks. “I could definitely eat something.”
“Strangely, no. I think someone has been here already.”
We take a glance around. To go anywhere else is going to require the use of Edgar’s ax and some sweat and probable pain. Then, Ben and I see it at the same time—the “Employee Only” door. We can probably get anywhere through the underground tunnels.
We run to the door and Edgar follows close behind, down the stairs to the mechanical room. Ben takes a flashlight from the desk and gives it to me. He opens the fake wall and we’re in.
“Should we head toward the C gates?” I ask. We haven’t been back there since we l
anded.
“Or one of the other tunnels?” Ben has the most inquisitive look on his face.
We have no idea where those lead. We saw them but had only explored the main tram tunnel when ‘the world ended.’
“I’m game.”
Edgar doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll go wherever you guys want to go.”
We head over to one of the smaller tunnels. The passageway is still lit somehow. I assume it has to be the solar panels, although I’m surprised they’re working with the blizzard we’ve had the past few days, or has it been a week now? I’m losing track being locked up in a shelter where every day seems pretty much the same.
The tunnel is long, leading to who knows where. And I’m pretty sure we are descending. We must walk for two miles when we come to a wall. Why would they build something like this?
Ben finds the switch immediately, and the wall opens up to expose an elevator. Too bad. There’s no way it can work without electricity. He presses the button, and to my surprise, the doors open. The three of us step in and my heart races. What if we end up stuck later?
The inside of this elevator is different. Not only does it have buttons with numbers, there are also four arrow buttons. Ben presses the one pointing left and the doors close slowly.
With a jerk, the elevator is in motion, moving us to the left. Sideways? Interesting. We go along for several minutes before the doors open.
“What the…” I don’t know what to think.
“What do you suppose this place is?” Edgar asks, just as bewildered as I am.
There must be twenty-five or thirty rooms carved out as a colony. Each one is nearly identical with a bed cut into the wall. They’re pretty much empty, but why would they even be here?
We continue down the corridor until we find a room that isn’t empty. Dozens of cans of food are stacked up against the wall, and there must be at least two hundred bottles of water piled in the corner. Then, I notice a bunch of spices lined up next to several salt and pepper shakers—probably the ones that were missing from the sports bar. The bed is covered with several blankets and pillows from an airplane. To the side, at table is littered with a couple empty beer cans. There’s a deck of cards piled in the center.
We hurry back to the elevator. There’s no telling how big this place is, and we have more exploring to do while we have a chance. I’m betting there’s more down here than a few cubby holes and some blankets.
This time I push the down arrow and the 33 button. It takes forever and feels like we descend for 33-minutes. I’m sweating with anxiety by the time the elevator comes to a stop with a thud. The doors open into another long corridor with tons of smaller pathways fingering out.
“Where to?” Edgar looks to us.
There are at least ten different options we can take. “This way?” I suggest pointing to the closest path.
The tunnel twists and turns every five or ten feet like a maze, so it doesn’t feel like we are getting anywhere. When we finally do make it to the end, it’s a dead end. Or at least we can’t find a false wall. As we head back to the starting point, I can tell Ben is searching like mad for the opening. He knows it’s here somewhere.
“How about the far tunnel?” Edgar suggests. Might as well, it’s not like we really even know where we’re going.
This path winds around like the one we had just come from. Who knew something like this existed beneath the Denver airport?
This time, we do find the false wall, but Ben can’t figure out how to open it. “It must have an eye somewhere,” he says. “There are no access pressure swings.”
What? I know he knows what he’s talking about, so I just nod.
“Edgar?” I ask, eyeing the ax.
Edgar steps up to the wall. “My pleasure.”
Ben and I step back to give him some space. With all his might, he swings the ax into the wall. It makes a hairline split that’s about a foot long down the center. This is going to take some work.
He swings the ax again. Another hairline split. This one is only about six inches long. The blade isn’t even breaking the surface.
“Wait, I have an idea,” Ben says, and he takes the mini screwdriver set out of his lime-green pack. He pulls out the driver with the tiniest flathead and sticks it midway down inside the foot-long split. “May I?” he asks Edgar.
“Sure,” Edgar gives him the ax.
Ben turns the ax head backwards and taps the butt of the screwdriver gently. The split runs up to the ceiling.
“Tap it again,” I say.
He taps the same split again, and it spreads to the floor. Now we have two pieces, but, unfortunately, they are still too tight to pry out.
Ben taps the screwdriver into the smaller split and the same thing happens. “Edgar, try to hit this spot with your ax.” Ben points to a place between the two splits.
Edgar swings his ax and breaks a large hole into the surface of the wall, large enough we can now get the pieces out. We get through the wall and two feet behind it, is a locked metal door.
“They definitely don’t want anyone in here,” I say. “This place has to be tighter than Ft. Knox.”
Ben is already in position, trying to pick the lock. Doesn’t seem likely, and then…
Click! We’re in!
***
…and our jaws are on the floor.
It can’t be.
We stare into a gigantic cavern with dozens of vast missile heads protruding from its depths.
“Nuclear weapons?” Ben asks.
“What are you doing in here!”
The sound of his voice makes me jump. Dorian has found us.
Once again, guns are pointed at our heads.
Dorian looks me dead in the eyes. “Take them to level thirteen. They are now prisoners.”
Thank you for downloading Dorian Lennox--The Dark Days series, Episode 2. If you enjoyed this story, please be sure to download the other episodes in this series!
End of the World – The Dark Days Series, Episode 1
The Others – The Dark Days Series, Episode 3.
Dark Beginnings – The Dark Days Series, Episode 4
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Quest of the Hybrid - Book 1
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Conflict Rising - Prequel Series Two
Calm Before the Storm - Prequel Series Three
Chaos Unleashed – Prequel Series Four
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The Dark Days: Dorian Lennox - Episode 2 Page 3