Years After Series | Book 1 | Nine Years After

by Clary, LeRoy

  I believed she was joking about killing me. Probably joking at worst. I felt much the same, but her reaction was either much stronger than mine or she had reached the level of hatred for those who expelled us faster than me. Considering the sluggishness of my mind, it was reasonable to assume I was not in my right mind. However, I wanted to find an air vent and send poison smoke down into Deep Hole, if I figured out how to build fire. If there was anything to burn. If there were air vents. Anything to get even.

  My head still pounded.

  She held up the sheet of paper. “Door codes and a note from Sarge.”

  “Read it.”

  “This is the gist. This door will reset the code when closed. It will not reopen. He says to put everything on the other side before letting it swing shut.”

  My eyes went to the floor beside her. Five largish bags made of heavy material. Then to the door. It was a massive thing, with rods thicker than my thumb that extended into deep steel wells, looking like bank vaults I’d seen in pictures. A wheel in the center controlled the six cold-steel rods that secured it. Steel reinforcement had been added to the walls to either side, held in place by massive bolts.

  They were scared to go outside the next door. It was that simple. Whoever opened it was going to die. And it was not even the last one. The next room was like an airlock built for a hundred people.

  She continued, “The keypad to the outside door will function for three days, exit and entrance. The code will then be changed remotely.”

  That gave us the lobby to use as a base of operations as they had indicated. That was good.

  She hesitated, then went on, “He says there is a buzzer and speaker behind a small cabinet door on the outside of every Deep Hole type of sanctuary. Open the little door and push the call-button and hope someone answers. Bring help back here if we can.”

  She paused. I said, “There’s more.”

  “They provided maps. To confuse enemies that might obtain the maps, which means they kill us and take the maps or pluck them from our dead bodies, I assume, each map has many symbols. Stars, houses, trees, and others. They mean nothing. Only rose icons are important. Each of them is the location of another sanctuary.”

  We sat and looked at each other for a long while. The reality of what lay beyond the door was making an impact. We wanted to point fingers and spew hate. Again, the reality told me it wouldn’t matter and couldn’t change anything.

  Mayfield said, “Sarge added a little PS to the bottom. He’s sorry. This was not his idea. And he said to remember all he taught us.”

  Like half an apology meant anything. We were most likely to die with a few days and he’s sorry. Me too.

  She worked her way to her feet, ignored the streams of tears on her face, and said firmly, “The best thing we can do right now is to go through the damn door, and just don’t let it close. It will do no good to sit here and wait.”

  “Do it.”

  She dared to punch the numbers and a solid metallic click was her reward. She spun the wheel and the rods retracted, then she turned the handle and pushed. It swung open.

  I leaped to place myself in the doorjamb so it couldn’t accidentally close. My body was there to stop it. Beyond the door was a bare room, concrete or granite on all sides, granite floor and roof, perhaps four normal steps to each side. No decorations. It may as well have been a mine dug a thousand years ago.

  Directly across stood another door, if anything it was even larger, with another wheel to unlock it. Dim light filtered down from recesses in the ceiling, probably with LED fixtures up there. I reached behind and slid the first of the bags across the floor. She pulled it to the center of the lobby and reached for the next.

  We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. Five bags shifted past the door frame.

  It was time. She gave me a tiny nod of encouragement. I stepped aside and gravity closed the door by itself with a solid thump that was matched by my heart dropping. We heard the wheel turning and the locking rods slip back into place. Not able to help myself, my hand, as if it was not even connected to me, reached out and tested the handle. It didn’t move.

  The symbolism was not missed by either of us.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Two things,” I said. “It’s cold in here, so let’s check for warmer clothing. Then inventory everything. We can’t carry all this with us, so we have to decide.”

  We were wearing our everyday clothing, our only type of clothing we’d seen for nine years, which was a synthetic pullover top and pants with a string tie at the waist. Booties were made of the same pale blue material, the same as everyone below wore. We looked like doctors and nurses in a hospital.

  When the pile of dirty clothing in the corner of my space began to make my cubicle smell—and probably those cubicles on either side—I grabbed the armful and carried it to the recycler and stood aside as the small washers cleaned them. When I needed new ones, a woman named Grace handed them to me from the storehouse she guarded as if she was a miser handing out pennies. It had been that way since arriving.

  The temperature in the Deep Hole was kept constant if a little warm for my taste. The stone lobby we were in felt twenty degrees colder. I knelt and dumped out the contents of the first bag. Pouches of water, powdered food foils of several flavors, and pills to filter and purify water. Sarge assumed there would be water outside and that was slightly optimistic.

  The second bag contained brand new M-17s, two of them. They were short for rifles, the ends of the barrels as large in diameter as my forearm. The large diameter and short barrel were an incorporated silencer and flash suppressor. They must have been kept in storage all this time, which begged the question of how many other arms were stored.

  Extra ammo was there. We’d both trained under Sarge with simulators, and both had fired a precious few live rounds. We carefully set the rifles aside.

  Backpacks and sleeping bags were in the next. While neither of us had used a sleeping bag or carried a backpack, we’d seen them in the pictures in military classes. They went into the third pile.

  The fourth bag was stuffed with clothing, most mottled greens, and browns. Army camouflage, again from the pictures. Mayfield held up a green, short-sleeved tee shirt. “Why?”

  “When the heavy shirt is too hot?”

  “Then why isn’t it the same camouflage pattern?” She held up shorts made of thin material. “And this? Also, for hot days?”

  “I think I know. Those are to wear underneath the uniforms.”

  She scowled. “Why? To protect the inside of the material from us? You’d think they’d worry about dirt getting on the outside of the clothing.”

  She had a point. The thin clothing we wore were two pieces if you didn’t count the slippers. In the temperature-controlled sanctuary, they were enough. Outside would be different.

  There were two sizes, one for her and one for me. I struggled to climb into the larger set, the material felt crisp and heavy. The coarseness convinced me to put on the underwear and things were better.

  Mayfield warily watched me dress, then copied my actions, fumbling with the unfamiliar buttons as I had. They were not used on the recyclable clothing. Soon, we looked like soldiers in old history pictures in our books, the camo design, baggy pants, and boots.

  The last bag contained a tent, thin and yet sturdy and the instructions claimed it was waterproof. It slept two, side by side and we quickly realized the additional length was so our belongings could be stored inside out of the weather along with us. There were other items, but neither of us wanted to spend the time right then doing a full inventory.

  However, there were a pair of wide Velcro utility belts, each with a new silenced nine-millimeter in a holster, a pair of extra clips in holders beside it. The belts were to be worn high on our waists, the gun-holster sitting above our right buttocks so we could sit and move without constantly shifting our hips to move around things. The holders for the ammo clips sat above our left buttock. On the
right side near the front hung a sturdy knife, and on the left another long pouch.

  We recognized all but the contents of the last pouch. It held an odd weapon without a hole in the barrel. It had a trigger and a trigger guard, as well as a handle. I pointed it away and placed my finger on the trigger, the tube pointed away.

  “Ricochets,” Mayfield warned, glancing around the entrance room.

  “There is no hole in the barrel.”

  “It must do something.”

  While pointing it at the far corner of the room for safety, I pulled the trigger. A tiny flame leaped out. As soon as I released the trigger it went out.

  “A fire-maker,” she squealed with joy.

  I could have joined her.

  She said as she turned stiffly in her new clothing, “The metaphorical elephant in the room needs to be addressed.”

  “That speaker on the wall to communicate with those below or the door leading outside.”

  “We’ve already talked about the speaker. We’re not talking to anyone down there or helping them in any manner.” She scowled at the speaker grill. “Screw you.”

  “Okay, the door. But first, they said there is also a call-box outside by the entrance of the sanctuaries we are going looking for. I assume there is one outside here too. If so, why haven’t people from the other Deep Holes come here? They sort of skipped around that while they were talking to us and waiting for us to pass out from their drugged water. I can’t get that out of my mind. If it is so easy to travel from one sanctuary to another, how many messengers have been here? None? If that’s true, we are in for trouble when that door opens.”

  She appeared taken back by the question. In defense, she said, “How do you know others haven’t come? I mean, they could have and were ignored by our leaders when they used the speaker and call button. Right now, I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

  Her answer shocked her as much as me. I saw it in her face. The words had spilled forth before she considered them and they held the ring of truth.

  What if people had come? Maybe our leaders had left them out in the cold, so to speak. Maybe they refused to believe what the messages were intended to reveal. Or they thought it a trap. Like others might do to Mayfield and me when we eventually reached other sanctuaries and tried to contact them. I said, “The door?”

  “We can only stay here for three days. During that time, we will worry, and cross our fingers that when we finally do open it, will we survive the heat, radiation, fierce animals, and crazed humans? Or we can open it now, see what’s out there, and try to prepare ourselves for our eventual departure as best we can. Besides, curiosity is killing me.”

  I chuckled at her small joke about it killing her as if she had been funny. She snorted a laugh that failed almost as quickly as mine. To cheer her up a little, I said, “This is a good day to die. Weapons, first.”

  We buckled on the gun belts, chambered rounds, and held the pistols in front as we moved cautiously to the door as if there were monsters outside that would hear us approaching, and perhaps there were. The mechanics of the door locking us in or out were beyond me, but from the note, it could be controlled from below and that worried me a little extra.

  They’d already lied to us, many times. The three days could easily be another and what could we do about it? Either that or they had sent someone up to set the locking mechanism code and would again in three days with a different one.

  The last was unlikely because I felt certain only the four of them knew the plan. Even adding one more person added a twenty-five percent increase of people holding the secret. It would just take one person to inform the whole sanctuary. The facts of our expulsion would travel to all three hundred in a few hours. The fewer who knew, the better—for them. I spun the wheel and the rods smoothly moved inside, pulling away from the steel doorway surrounding it.

  Those below might be listening to everything we said via that speaker and as soon as we left this room, they might lock it so we can’t get back in because we’d already said we wouldn’t pass on any information as they had demanded. We’d made a threat and they could act upon it any way they wanted.

  I faced Mayfield, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We take a quick look and don’t go out there until we have all our supplies out there with us. Below, they might not be happy with us if they’re listening to you saying you’ll kill me if I try to pass them what information they asked for and they might try to lock us out.”

  “They can bite my ass.”

  But she gave me a curt nod of agreement. I glanced at the communicator on the wall and noticed a tiny green light in one corner. Did that mean they had anticipated our little revolt and they had set the communicator to listen to everything we said? I shook my head in wonder. Yes, they had done exactly that. I thought of all four of them huddled in a small anteroom below and listening to our every word.

  Maybe we could take advantage of that. Instead of pointing my idea out to Mayfield and having her rip the unit off the wall or begin cursing them in a fit of temper, I said nothing. Not yet. They had told us one lie after another, then expelled us from our homes as if we meant nothing to them. I could tell a few lies of my own.

  We stood beside the huge iron door and worked the handle beside the wheel. It was stiff, but finally broke free with a snap and from there the mechanism worked easily, despite the fact it probably weighed tons. I had pushed the door open just a little while testing it. The thing had only moved a smidge and bounced back so hard it slammed from the half-inch of travel.

  With my finger, I instructed Mayfield to move to my other side, the side where the door would swing open. She had her weapon locked in her two hands as we’d been taught, the barrel of the weapon trained where the opening would appear. My job was to yank the door closed and spin the wheel if anything out there threatened us. After that . . . who knows?

  “Ready?” I asked, trying to hide the shaking of my hands. Once open, contaminated air, wild animals, poison atmosphere, radiation, and biologicals could flood inside. Maybe three more days of life inside the cold lobby was not so bad. We could discuss it. Come to a mutual decision.

  “Do it,” she ordered as if sensing my hesitation, or even feeling some of her own.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Carefully, very carefully, I pushed the door forward. It didn’t move more than the original half-inch before binding. After a questioning look at Mayfield, I put my shoulder to it but clung to the handle, so it didn’t break free and fly open, leaving us fully exposed.

  While shoving with my back and shoulder, it suddenly freed and moved with a gentle shove. A crack a few inches wide allowed brilliant sunlight to stream in and strike us full-on.

  Mayfield screamed in terror and I pulled the door shut. The lock snapped into place as I furiously spun the wheel in the other direction and then leaned on it because my knees were weak.

  She looked at me and shrugged. “Sorry, I screamed. I didn’t expect that.”

  “I was blinded, too. The sun must be low in the sky and shining directly inside.”

  “Or rising.” Her voice cracked. “We don’t know anything. Morning or night. It was so bright, it scared me. I don’t remember it being like that.”

  My hands were shaking again. I was supposed to be the tough one, the callous independent who rejected the orderly life in Deep Hole. I was the adventurer, the guy always ready with the smart comments. Now my hands shook from fear and I couldn’t speak except to say, “Maybe they keep the lights dim down there and we’re used to it.”

  Mayfield didn’t look any better for my suggestion.

  She said, “Up until you opened the door, it was like a game—or a weird dream. It was not real. Do you see what I mean? We are having our asses kicked out and whatever is behind that door is our lives and future, no matter how short or long. It’s a finality.”

  “The door is going to be standing here taunting us until we open it.”

  In response, she raised her pistol aga
in.

  I spun the wheel, released the handle and pushed slowly. This time, it easily swung outward. The brilliant sunlight was there, but we expected it and squinted in response. Nothing rushed the door.

  Mayfield lowered her pistol and her eyes were almost as wide as mine.

  Smells invaded the lobby to replace the musty, dead, and dank that we were used to. Green smells. Our eyes found a sea of green trees, round ones, pointy ones, stubby ones, and more, others that seemed to crawl across the ground as briars and vines. A touch of breeze moved my hair and a small flock of birds flew past chirping happily.

  Mayfield started to speak in wonder.

  I leaped in front of her and held my hand over her mouth. She pulled away, angry for an instant, ready to take a swing at me.

  I said loudly, but not too much, so it sounded phony to those listening below, “A fucking desert out there. Where are we supposed to get water?”

  Puzzled, she remained quiet and waited, her eyes searching my face for answers.

  I pointed to the speaker on the wall to indicate what I said was for those below.

  She turned to it, noticed the little green light and smiled with sudden understanding. With a wicked grin, she added, “Is that pile of rocks over there what used to be a house?”

  “We should go outside and explore. There has to be more than this emptiness. It’s just sand and rocks.”

  “Careful,” she said. “I think those creatures in the distance are bears, but they look too big.”

  “Deformed bears,” I agreed, holding back laughter. “Mutated.” There were several large rocks near my feet. I gathered a few and used them to block the door. There was no way it was going to swing closed until we were ready to depart.

  Hesitantly, we emerged a few steps into a world we hadn’t expected and knew little about. The ground was soft and damp, covered with the brown remains of tiny leaves that had dropped from the nearby trees. The air held scents long forgotten—along with new ones. The air also held a touch of coolness. A chittering drew our attention. It was a tiny creature no larger than my hand. It leaped to the top of a nearby boulder, sat upon its haunches, and watched us. Then it scolded us and leaped away.