The kitten snuggled into me, her claws gripping my shirt. I didn’t care. I needed her as much as she seemed to need me. I curled myself around her and drew into a tight ball as far away from the edge of the bed as I could manage.
“It’s going to be okay.” I whispered. “It’s going to be just fine.”
Callie meowed in response as if she understood me.
Funny, because I wasn’t even talking to her.
My eyes blinked open, and I flew upright, nearly cracking my skull on the bed above me. I didn’t realize it was possible to sleep while the world ended all around me, yet somehow I’d done just that.
The clock on the shelf blinked. Ten-thirty. Six hours since Dad had left me down here. Six hours. He should’ve been back by now. Did I miss his knocking? Did I sleep right through it?
Panicked, I left Callie asleep on the bed and went to wait beneath the door.
If he knocked and I missed it, he’ll come back, right? Of course he would. There was no way he’d leave me. No way at all. Still I waited and listened as if at any moment the Morse Code knock would happen. What’s taking Dad so long?
I glanced at the clock again. It had to be wrong because finding Toby shouldn’t take six hours. I climbed the ladder and pressed the side of my head against the door, listening for any clue as to what was happening outside. Whatever had caused the earth to rumble and make mushroom clouds burst in the sky seemed to have stopped. That had to be a good sign, but I couldn’t hear a thing.
“Dad, you out there?”
Come on, knock. Please!
Silence.
Callie stood at the edge of the bed and stretched, arching her back. She stared at me and began a string of non-stop meows.
“Shush, I can’t hear.” She needed to be quiet, just in case, but she kept right on at it.
A part of me wanted to unlatch the door and fling it open, check everything out and see for myself, but I’d promised I wouldn’t.
The darn cat wouldn’t shut up.
“Okay, okay.” I climbed back down the ladder. She was still a baby after all and probably hungry. As for using the litter box, I hadn’t thought of that when I’d brought her down here, but I’d need to figure something out quick or I’d have quite the mess on my hands.
As for Dad and Toby, I’d have to stay awake and make sure to really listen. If they’d come and I had missed it, I knew Dad would wait and try again.
I scooped up the kitten in my arms. “I guess it’s time to figure out what we’ve got down here to eat, huh?”
She nuzzled against me, but kept on with her incessant howling.
“Okay, we’ll find something for you.” And maybe a little something for me while we’re at it.
There were MREs in both mine and Dad’s bags, but the very idea of cracking any of them open seemed appalling. There had to be something better. Dad had installed several shelves, and lined them with various sized cans, along with toilet paper, hygiene products, medicine, and vitamins. The endless supply of cans overwhelmed me, but I grabbed a small tin can I recognized.
“How about some tuna for you?” I put Callie down and she followed at my feet as I searched through the various cupboards and drawers for a can opener. Dad had thought of it all, and to see his preparedness not only gave me even more admiration for him, but scared me a little too. He’d seemed to have planned for everything, and that couldn’t have been a happy way to live—fearful of the worst.
He’d supplied the place with food, a small fridge, a stove, a sink, a toilet, a trash compactor, and a television with shelves of DVDs and board games. There was even a CD player and dozens of CDs to choose from. In one drawer lay crayons and coloring books—princess and Barbie. He’d been putting things down here for years. He must have forgotten I wasn’t ten anymore and didn’t color, but it was nice of him to consider my boredom.
I opened the can and sat it in the middle of the floor. Callie dipped her face right into it and the meowing stopped as she started eating.
A sigh escaped my lips as I took in my new surroundings, trying to figure everything out. I turned on the sink faucet and water poured out. It works. I quickly shut it off, not wanting to waste a drop.
I took more time looking through every drawer and cupboard, and opening every storage bin to see what supplies there were, though I didn’t intend on staying down here long enough to use most of them.
Each of the mattresses hung over the edge of the beds and when I lifted them, saw a good three inch deep storage area under them, the entire size of the bed. Dad’s clothes filled one, Toby’s filled another, and a third bed held my clothes—underwear, socks, sweatshirts, and pants. Remembering the coloring books, I suspiciously plucked out a pair of jeans, shocked to find they were my exact size. So what was with the coloring books then? It didn’t matter. I tossed the jeans back inside and lifted the fourth mattress.
Thick winter coats, several sleeping bags and blankets, hats, and gloves, and to top off the stash, a huge stack of porn magazines in the corner. Seriously? The very idea of my dad or Toby looking at them gave me the creeps. Yuck. They looked brand new, but still.
Well, if they didn’t come back soon, I’d put the dirty magazines to use and let Callie do her business on them. I mean, my bed was right across from theirs—what were they thinking?
I lowered the mattress and noticed the latches all along the floor boards, so I bent and lifted one. Underneath the entire floor, lined from one end of the bunker to the other, stood fifty gallon barrel drums, presumably filled with water. There had to be thirty of them. Good to know.
After exploring the toilet and figuring out how to use the darn thing, and checking the emergency hatch on the opposite side of the shelter, I grabbed a can of peaches from the shelf, opened it, and flopped down on the couch to eat.
What’s going on up above?
Thirty-six hours.
I paced from one end of the shelter to the other. They should’ve been back by now and since they weren’t, I had no idea what to do. Dad had said to stay put, but a large part of me wondered if they were in some kind of trouble—hurt or injured—and needed my help.
Go? Stay? I didn’t know which option was right, or even where I would begin to start looking for them. What’s happening out there?
I picked up Callie, cradled her in my arms, and sat on the edge of my bed. “Should we go?” I asked the wiggling kitten. “We could pack a bag and some food, and go look for them. We could always come back if we had to. This place will still be here.” I stroked her fur, which seemed to please her and she purred and settled in my lap. Going seemed the best choice, because staying made me feel helpless and afraid. Not knowing what was going on caused my mind to imagine the worst scenarios.
“After lunch we’ll leave.” I included the little cat in my plans, because I couldn’t leave her alone in case I found my brother and dad and couldn’t get back to her. It would make things tricky, carrying a kitten around, but she was my responsibility. I’d begged for a cat until Dad had finally given in. It only took a few tears and threatening to pierce my tongue to get him to cave. If it came down to it, piercing my tongue was never an option. Hangnails hurt so I couldn’t even imagine deliberately forcing a piece of metal through the floppy muscle I used to eat with. And besides, I liked food. I wouldn’t want anything to get in the way of that.
At first, taking care of the defiant little creature had taken a lot of work and patience, and I’d even planned to give her back to the animal shelter at one point, but now I was so grateful to have her. Especially down here in the belly of the earth.
I would make sure to leave a note for Dad in case he came for me and found me gone.
“Yep.” I continued to pet the kitten. “We’ll leave after lunch.” Perhaps the more I said it out loud, the braver I’d become. Hopeful thinking.
Callie swiped at my hand, her sign she’d had enough, so I stopped, and she jumped down from my lap. I sighed. We’ll leave after lunch.
; While an individual serving of macaroni and cheese warmed in the microwave, I grabbed my bag and added more supplies to the already bulky thing—food for Callie and extra water for the both of us. I included an extra wool blanket and a few winter items to keep the weather from kicking my butt.
I couldn’t find any paper or pens anywhere, so I used the crayons and ripped a page out of the coloring book to write on, drawing all over Sleeping Beauty’s face.
WEDNESDAY 10:00am
Dad,
You said to wait, and I stayed as long as I could, but I started to get worried. I left to go looking for you since you took forever to come for me, but I will be back on Friday, in case you came back while I’m gone. Stay here. I WILL be back. Unless I find you, then ignore this.
Love, Tess
P.S. Don’t be mad at me. You were supposed to be here by now, so technically this is your fault.
I placed the note on the counter, propped against the microwave so it could easily be seen. After giving Callie some condensed milk, I sat down on the couch to eat my lunch.
The idea of leaving scared the crap out of me, but the idea of not knowing what was going on scared me even worse. I ate my lunch slowly.
The kitten started with her incessant meowing. She had food. She had milk. She’d already used the litter box.
“What do you want?” I lowered my fork to my bowl.
She arched her back and stared at the open door between the decontamination area of the shelter and the living room, then kept meowing, which was strange for her. She hadn’t behaved like this before.
“You want to play? Is that it?” I waved around a pair of balled up socks, a homemade toy I’d made out of Toby’s supplies—the jerk—but even when I threw it for her, she didn’t bother to go after it like she normally did. It rolled across the floor and came to a stop in the far corner.
I placed my bowl to the side, scooped up the cat in my arms, and started petting her, trying to calm her. “You okay? What’s going on, huh? You nervous too?”
She twisted away from me—giving me two fresh scratches on my arms for my effort—and disappeared under the couch. She kept right on meowing.
“You know, sometimes you remind me of my brother.” Weird cat. Whatever.
I held my empty bowl under the sink spigot and pumped a little water to rinse it out.
Banging on the square metal hatch caused me to drop the bowl in the sink. It clattered and I spun around.
Slam! Slam! Slam!
Muffled yelling and even more banging followed, then the sound of a shovel scraping against metal, like nails scratching a black board.
I stiffened, didn’t move, and hardly breathed.
Dad?
A large part of me hoped it was him, but a greater part of me knew he would have used the code.
Callie’s meowing grew louder.
Voices, definitely male, were forceful, frantic, but their words were indecipherable. Chills ran down my spine and the hairs on my neck and arms stood erect.
When rapid fire bullets ricocheted against the door, I dove for my bed. Lost in the shadows, I covered my head with my arms, trying to block out the machine gun sounds. Not the bravest thing to do, but the only thing I knew to do.
My heart thrummed and my chest heaved with frightened breaths. What do I do? What do I do?
The gunfire ceased briefly, replaced by more banging. In a moment of courage, I managed to run from my safe place and slam the door shut, separating the decontamination area from the living area. My hands shook, but I latched the lock into place. Even if they managed to break through the metal square door—highly unlikely—they’d never get through the bomb door. Still, fear continued to hold me in its grip.
I ran to the opposite side of the shelter and crawled up the tube toward the escape door and found relief at seeing it secure. No one banged on it or fired bullets at it. Perhaps they had no idea it even existed. Dad had hid it quite well.
The crazy noise, now muffled by the bomb door, seemed to carry on forever. Dad should have stayed with me. He shouldn’t have left me alone here. What would happen if they got inside? What did they want? Would they take everything I had? The supplies? The food?
Would they kill me?
I wanted to cover my ears with my hands and refuse to listen to the men’s crazy efforts as I’d done before, but I forced myself to slide to my knees in front of my bed and reach for my duffle bag. My fingers shook as I fumbled around inside, wrenching out all the things I’d packed earlier, scattering the contents around, until I found what I was looking for.
My gun.
I planted myself square in the middle of the bunker, aiming toward the door. My arms shook and my breathing quickened. I pulled back the hammer and the gun seemed to weigh a ton, heavier than it had ever felt before.
My training had only been at the local firing range and with black and white paper targets. Nothing threatening. Nothing real. Could I shoot a person if I had to? I didn’t know. I wasn’t the violent type— more like a wallflower when it came to other people and to confrontation. I was more likely to walk away than throw a punch.
But this was different.
I’d become so used to the on-and-off-again machine gun fire that when it ended for good, the surrounding silence felt loud in my ears. The voices fell away to nothingness. The quiet of it all engulfed me, but I refused to lower my gun. My courage had budded to the surface just moments before the silence, a burst of adrenaline, and now it wouldn’t fade so easily, even though the threat appeared to be over.
I don’t know how long I continued to stand there with my arms straight, the gun pointed at the door and my head swimming with horrible images of what might be happening above me.
Was this it? Was this the end of the world Dad had prepared for?
Maybe it was better not to know. At least that way, I still had some hope.
Callie rubbed herself against my leg, purring like a completely different cat than the maniac animal she’d been earlier. I ignored her until her tiny claws pierced the material of my pants and pricked my skin.
I pushed the hammer back into the safety position and tucked the gun in my waistband. My heart still thrummed, but I picked up Callie and held her tight.
“So what do we do now?”
She purred a response, and I buried my face in her soft fur and cried. After several minutes of my holding her, she wriggled free and went back to exploring our tiny home, walking along the counters and the back of the couch as though nothing had ever happened.
I grabbed my crayon scribbled note and read it over several times.
Please be okay and please come back for me. Please.
I closed my eyes, angry for being left alone and not being strong enough or brave enough to go after them or to simply be on my own either. I sank my teeth into my trembling lip in an effort to stop more tears sliding down my cheeks, then crumpled the paper into a tight ball and tossed it away.
Callie bounded after it and proceeded to rip it to shreds.
“This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.”
“What do you mean, ‘biblical’?”
“What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.”
“Exactly.”
“Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!”
“Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes....”
“The dead rising from the grave!”
“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!”
“All right, all right! I get the point!”
I pressed the rewind on the remote; the video skimmed backward and the scene and words repeated themselves. At the end, I pressed pause and watched the stilled actors on the television, their mouths contorted, their eyes half blinking. Thanks a lot, Ghostbusters. Thanks a bunch.
Was that going on above? Fire and brimstone, boiling seas? I’d been down in this tin box for eight long days, crossing ea
ch one off on the calendar with the hope that Dad would finally show up. The stupid movie was supposed to take my mind off my troubles, but instead it got me wondering and thinking again—not a good pastime for an idle person. And I thought I was safe with Ghostbusters.
Dad supplied the bunker with a shelf of movies, but the majority of them leaned more toward Toby and his tastes, not mine—Resident Evil, The Shining, The Ring, Silence of the Lambs, etc.... There were also some Disney princess movies to go along with my coloring books—something I may have enjoyed when I was three—and nestled between Snow White and Ariel, he had tucked the movie Black Swan. He obviously had no idea that movie had no Disney qualities to it whatsoever. At least he’d installed a TV and movies. It would be a whole lot worse down here if he hadn’t.
I continued to hold the remote as I rolled over flat on my back and stared at the ceiling above me.
Callie napped on the back of the couch, curled in a little ball, content. She didn’t care what movie we watched. She had come to accept our new surroundings, adjusting to life living in a twenty-by-eight-foot space a lot easier than I thought she would.
I ran my hand lightly over her fur, not waking her, but needing to feel her to remind myself I wasn’t truly alone.
I hit the play button and the silence fell away to the sounds of ghosts and men trying to capture them without getting slimed, but looked away from the screen. For all I knew there could very well be a real life giant marshmallow man stomping around above me right now, crushing houses and causing destruction with his inflated body. Not knowing allowed me to think about all sorts of strange possibilities, but a giant marshmallow man didn’t sound half as bad as some of my other thoughts—earthquake, war, aliens from another planet.
Screw this.
I tossed the remote aside, leaving the movie on, and rolled over with my back facing the television. I didn’t want to watch anymore, but couldn’t face listening to silence either.
Thirteen days.
I held up my princess coloring page—outlined in darker colors and shaded for effect. It had taken me three hours to add the details and the appearance of texture to give the manufactured coloring page a bit of needed flare. “Whatcha think?”
Anyone? Page 2