by AR Shaw
“We need information,” Bishop said.
“First person we find…we’ll at least know more.”
“I forgot how big this damn place was.”
“Yeah, it’s massive. There was a need for these huge Trident missile silos back during the Cold War. Then they shut them down, just to be nice. They should have foreseen what a benefit force is, even just for show. We got our butts slaughtered in North Korea, and then China jumped on board. They knew we were weak.”
Bishop wasn’t much for conversation, and he knew that Yeager wasn’t either. Lifting an eyebrow, he said, “Preaching to the choir, young man.”
“Not preaching at all,” Yeager said, slightly out of breath. “Just a damn shame we had to go through this when it wasn’t necessary. I mean, look at what this used to be,” he said, holding out his arms. “We had it right the first time. Speak softly and carry a big stick and all. I know. Stop glaring, I know…preaching to the choir.”
“We’re almost there,” Bishop said as he flashed his light on the connecting door to the next pod. When they stepped through the entrance, it was like walking forward in time. They went from the rusted metals of the 1950s to the new-age and high-tech materials of 2030. They literally stepped from one time into another. The experience was profound. Yeager shut the hatch on the old world, which had seemed more prepared than the current one was or coming ones would be.
To Bishop, it was what Yeager had said and more. An utter failure. Humankind had lost its common sense.
Once inside the second underground pod, they walked on cautiously. In complete darkness, other than Bishop’s flashlight, they crept along the edge. Finally, near the end of the upward slope, they saw a faint light coming from under the greenhouse doorway. Yeager knew, but Bishop only suspected what was going on. Bishop remembered breaking into this place. Yeager put his hand out and waved it downward repeatedly.
Bishop knew this meant to lower his weapon as they crept to the doorway. Suddenly an older woman came down the opposite stairwell with several others. Bishop swung his weapon in her direction.
Only ten stairs above them, she startled, sucked in a quick breath, and held her hand out reflexively to stop the children’s descent. Then, with her hand over her heart, she scolded him. “You should have known better,” she whispered.
Bishop lowered his weapon as they approached. For the life of him, he wasn’t sure if she was referring to his decision to leave or his decision to point the weapon at them. He suspected it was the former. Either way, she walked toward him and Yeager in front of the nursery door and knocked twice. Then, in a gravelly voice, she said, “Cider.”
A woman opened the door and eyed them suspiciously. “Oh, thank God,” she said, when she saw Bishop and Yeager. She ushered the woman and children inside.
“Are Maeve and the children inside?” Bishop asked.
She shook her head no and lowered her eyes quickly.
Bishop felt gut punched. “What’s happened? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. We think it was Donovan. No one really knows yet. We’re not sure who’s in charge.”
Yeager interrupted her. “Have you seen Cassie?”
“Yes, she said to get down here with the kids. That’s all I know. I just ran with them and anyone I found along the way. I gave her the password.”
“Okay. You did great. Shut the door and stay inside. We’ll be back.”
She nodded. A faint light within the plant nursery told him that they were using candles alone. The temperature, even in that warm room, was far too cold already.
She shut the door and bolted the latch from the inside. It was a good plan. At least most of the children were safe from this maniac or maniacs. Bishop still wasn’t certain who the enemy was.
“We at least know Donovan is involved somehow.”
Bishop cleared his throat as they made their way to the stairs. “It’ll be a pleasure to take him down once and for all. Damn menace.”
60 MAEVE
Maeve and Cassie reached the main hallway from which Maeve was dragged unconscious. Maeve touched the throbbing knot on her temple. Not only did she want to get Donovan, she wanted to end him and end him now before he hurt anyone else.
It wasn’t easy to refrain from sprinting to her apartment when she and Cassie came to the end of the hallway.
“Just wait,” Cassie said. We don’t know what we’re up against. And we still haven’t found Morrow.”
“He’s probably bleeding out somewhere, and we can’t even help him,” Maeve said, wishing she could at least treat his wounds.
That’s when they heard the voice over the speakers. “Stop right where you are. Don’t come any further,” Donovan said. Suddenly, the lights in that one hallway flashed on.
They skidded to a stop. Maeve shielded her eyes.
“What’s wrong with you, Donovan?” Cassie yelled, knowing he was the one responsible for turning on the lights.
“He killed my father.”
Maeve corrected him. “That’s not what happened. Bishop didn’t kill your father. It wasn’t him.”
“That doesn’t matter. This place is mine. My father built it a long time ago. He spent years making this place livable. Planning for every contingency. Filling it with supplies. Hell, he even sought out seeds around the globe for the greenhouse.
“I’m taking it back. And I’ll slaughter each and every one of you if I have to. I want you to open the front hatch door and leave—all of you—or I swear, I’ll start killing the hostages and throwing their dead bodies outside for you to climb over.”
Cassie dropped her weapon and went forward then, her voice pleading. “You can’t! Donovan, you can’t do that. We can come up with another plan, but you can’t just kill the children. Think about this.”
Maeve thought it was a little too late for Cassie to play the good cop, at this point. But she noted that his voice a little less caustic when he addressed her.
“Cassie, it’s up to you,” Donovan said. “You’re the one killing them if you don’t follow my terms. You could have stayed with me, but now I don’t trust you, Cassie. You need to go too.”
Then the lights went black again. In utter darkness, they heard Donovan say, “You have ten minutes to start leaving.”
Maeve looked at Cassie in the dark. “Will he really start to shoot them?”
“I don’t know, but something tells me we should open the door and make a good effort to show we’re leaving.”
They heard movement behind them. Several of the residents exited their rooms and came up from below, bundled in their outerwear. A few walked past them. “What are we going to do?”
“Open the door,” Maeve said. “Get your gear on and start marching outside. There’s nothing else we can do right now. We can’t take the chance that he might kill the kids in there.”
61 BISHOP
At the sound of Donovan’s voice, a familiar hatred built up inside Bishop’s veins. “That son of a bitch. I bet they left him with a laptop.”
He and Yeager began running toward the office. They stopped at the top of the last staircase, where they watched the last person leave through the hatch doorway, leaving the door open to the gray cold outside. Then he and Yeager slipped inside the first open door and shut it behind them, leaving them in total darkness but close to Donovan and out of sight of any surveillance cameras.
He knew that Maeve and the children were out there. That, at least, was heartening. He also knew that more of his people were out there too and they would not freeze to death…immediately.
“Does this mean Cassie, Maeve, and the kids…does this mean they’re outside too?” Yeager asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see them leave, did you?”
“No, but he has to open the office door now and send out the children. That was his deal. We can ambush him then. As long as we stay out of sight of the cameras, we’re fine. He won’t know we’re here.”
Yeager nodded and then patted
his canvas pack, reminding Bishop that they, in fact, had some firepower on their side.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s dead anyhow. Even with my bare hands,” Bishop whispered.
They listened for what seemed like an hour. Yeager swayed in place occasionally, reminding Bishop that he wasn’t well. They needed this to end quickly.
When finally, they heard the metal latch on the office door give way, Bishop opened theirs without a sound. Yeager straightened up, knowing that it was go time. He seemed to pull strength from somewhere within.
Armed, Bishop peeked around the corner. Between his position and the office were two doors. One belonged to the nursery, where Donovan had taken the children. The other was Bishop’s apartment door.
“Get out! Go!” Donovan yelled.
Eerily, a young child stepped out—a boy around four years of age, his form in silhouette as he walked toward the dim gray light. The wind blew his short hair in wisps. He had no coat on, no outer gear. Nothing to protect him from the deadly elements.
Bishop pointed his rifle down the hallway, looking through the scope. He wanted to yell to the child, Run the other way. Don’t go out there. You’ll freeze to death.
Donovan was sending them to their deaths anyway. He didn’t care for humanity at all. The boy wouldn’t last more than a few minutes without protection.
The boy turned, seemingly questioning the logic of Donovan’s command. Then shivering, wrapping his arms around his sides, he stepped outside onto the icy steps. Snow cascaded over him, enveloping him in its icy grip. He stumbled down the cold embankment and then out of sight.
“We can’t—” Yeager began.
“Wait!”
A hand braced against the doorway. That’s all that Bishop saw through the scope.
“Get! Get out of here!” Donovan yelled. “Go outside and play.”
Cries erupted from the children then. The first girl, not more than a toddler herself, held a screaming bundle in her arms. That cry came from a child they all knew well. It was the baby who nearly didn’t make the first trip. They’d spent hours, caring for that infant around the clock.
“Oh, you son of a bitch,” Bishop said, his voice low and ominous.
“Have a clear shot?” asked Yeager.
“No…and there’s no way we can throw a grenade over there.”
A wave of small kids and then a few older children began to walk out the doorway, some darting as they held onto other children. They were afraid of him. Afraid of what he might do. They ran, and one tripped after she was pushed by another.
Yeager began to get impatient. He nudged Bishop.
“No, just wait.”
“They’re going to die out there.”
“Cassie and Maeve will get them. They’re not alone. Alyssa and the rest are out there, too.”
He felt Yeager’s frustration. “Remember, he has to come out to close the door after they’re gone. We’ll get him then.”
“Okay,” Yeager said.
They waited as another ten children fled through the doorway with Donovan yelling after them.
Then that was it. The wave stopped. Donovan’s hostages were gone. It didn’t matter. He was done with them.
Snow blew through the open entrance. The tiny footsteps would soon fill up and disappear along with their owners.
Bishop waited with bated breath to see the man with a soul so cold. Looking through his scope and watching the door intently for the monster to emerge, he should have felt the cold pouring through the hallway. Instead, his brow sweated.
Then suddenly, Donovan started to come out. Just as Bishop pulled the trigger, the door to his apartment opened and to his shock, Cassie and Maeve stepped out between Bishop and his target.
62 MAEVE
Just as the trail of humanity had come to shelter the night of the big storm weeks ago, now people fled for their lives, going into nothing but the cold grip of death. Maeve and Cassie acted as if they, too, were going along, but at the last second, Maeve keyed in the code to her apartment door and pulled Cassie inside with her, shutting the door quickly and hoping Donovan didn’t notice, hoping that he assumed they’d left with the horde of refugees that he was sending to death.
“What do we do now?” Maeve said.
“We can’t just stay here.”
“Mom?” came Ben’s quiet voice from the kitchen.
“Ben!” Maeve said as she turned around and found her son holding his rifle in front of him.
He lowered the weapon immediately to the floor, the way Bishop taught him to do, and Maeve rushed to him. She wasn’t sure if she was more terrified now or thankful that he and Louna weren’t inside the office with the other children whom Donovan held hostage.
“Thankfully, we found them, but we still need to get them out of here and into the greenhouse,” Cassie said.
She was right. The only problem was, they couldn’t do it now. “I’m not taking them anywhere. They’re not leaving here. He’s leaving. He has to shut that door at some point, and he thinks most of us have gone.”
63 BISHOP
When aiming at a target, there’s a bit of slack in the trigger pull and then a point of no return. Bishop’s finger took up the slack, and when he saw Donovan exit the room, he waited to get a clean shot at the man. In that tiny millisecond, things changed rapidly.
Another door suddenly opened in between them, exposing, to his horror, Cassie and Maeve to deadly force. His deadly force. A bullet meant for Donovan knocked on the door above her head. “Maeve!” yelled Bishop.
She turned to him in slow motion, her body in silhouette, just like the boy’s before her. Her hair swung out around her head as she heard his voice.
Then a volley of bullets came in their direction. The door across the hallway opened, and a man rushed out of the room and pulled Maeve to the ground.
Then Cassie, taking cover, aimed at Donovan and repeatedly returned fire, unloading her entire magazine into the man. His body finally dropped in the cold doorway.
“Maeve?” Bishop yelled again, horrified that he might have killed her after all.
Running to her, he knelt down and found Morrow’s body covering hers. He pulled the man off her.
Cassie walked toward Donovan.
“Wait, Cassie,” Yeager cautioned.
She held her hand up to him. “I think he’s dead,” she said.
Yeager followed her, his weapon raised just in case.
Meanwhile, Bishop barely noted what the other two were doing. “Maeve?” he said, pulling her up to him.
“I’m okay. I’m not hurt,” she said, holding him.
With the light too dim to tell, he wasn’t sure who’d been shot.
“Is he dead?” Maeve asked.
“Donovan’s dead,” Cassie said.
“No. Morrow?”
Bishop laid her to the side and checked Morrow. He still breathed. His chest was rising and falling but shallowly. He opened his blue eyes.
Saw Maeve’s form above him. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
Morrow’s tattooed arm reached up. The back of his hand brushed her cheek and then fell away.
64 BISHOP
Two weeks later, Bishop took a deep breath while taking his stand on guard duty. The wind outside was the same mind-numbing cold as usual, but in the distance, he heard a slight humming sound.
“Bishop, you hear that?” Yeager asked.
“Yep…we can only hope,” Bishop said. “Then again, it could be someone else.”
He pulled up his binoculars, viewed the snowmobiles, and his heart sank. Though he was glad to see Austin coming this way, finally, there were so few of them. He feared the worst.
“It’s them,” he said with sad enthusiasm. “A few of them, anyway. Let the others know some of the parents are here.”
As Austin’s group pulled up, many of the silo residents came out to greet them. A few desperate parents rushed to their children. A few parents looked on with questions. Alyssa and Maeve tried to
answer the desperation. Many cried.
Bishop only observed and watched as Rebecca wandered into the group. “Daddy?” She looked around, her face hopeful…and then after a while, there was disappointment, realization, and sobbing.
Once they settled inside the silo, Austin could barely walk on his own.
“You’re so thin, Austin,” Alyssa said in the infirmary.
“We were running low on food. Had to leave a lot. We lost three people just due to fighting one another.”
Bishop couldn’t take it anymore. He’d tried to wait to ask, but now was the time. “Austin, where are Jax and Carl…where’s Saul? What happened?”
“Jax?” The young man seemed dazed, as though he’d lived a lifetime in the past few weeks and could barely remember who Jax was now.
Fearing the worst, Bishop waited for the answer.
“Jax and a few more are coming by horseback. We lost the buses after the avalanche. Carl’s dead. That’s how he died. I’m really sorry. I hope Jax makes it, Bishop. He said he was following us. I don’t know how that’s possible.” That’s when Austin lost it. His eyes filled with tears. Bishop held him for a time.
“It’s all right, buddy.” But it wasn’t all right and never would be again.
Bishop had turned to leave when Austin sniffed, regained his composure, and asked. “Is my dumb half brother here?”
“No. He’s dead,” Bishop replied matter-of-factly.
“Good. That’s good.”
65 JAX
Year 2042
REMEMBERING the day that he and Saul finally arrived at the silo, Jax was not impressed with the new, improved, underground accommodations then. He chuckled now as he made his way outside to relieve the young man on guard duty.
Not many stragglers ventured their way these days. Not too many men endured traveling in the first few years of the new ice age. Those they did encounter were humbled after the die off, after the hunger, and after the disease that followed.
“How are things, Ben?”