by Aiden Bates
Glenn pulls into a spot in the parking lot so he and Greg can eat. This is when they finally start to talk.
“I assume Kevin told you,” Greg says.
“He did, last night before bed,” Glenn says, nodding and taking a bite of his egg and sausage and salt sandwich. He’ll miss the option of eating this putrid garbage in the future, miss things as sad and lonely as drive-thrus, miss eating in parked cars instead of a table like a human with dignity. Will he ever drive again after today? Probably not. Will his and Greg’s great-grandchildren emerge from the bunker and wonder what cars even are and why they once seemed necessary? Hopefully so. Assuming the world recovers, why not take a good, long time before people start polluting it again?
“Are you still okay with it? It’s one thing to have the idea, another thing when it’s been done.”
Glenn glances at Greg, Gorgeous Greg, wondering how he could be so shy about all this. Glenn smiles.
“It’s strange, but Kevin said it was pretty weird for the two of you too. How was it?”
“Fine, I mean I’ve definitely had worse dates, I can tell you that. We both at least managed to … finish satisfactorily.”
“Do you feel lucky? I mean, you can’t know for a while if anything happened this time, but … you know what I’m asking. Do you feel like what you want will come, that it’s only a matter of time?”
Glenn only sees it out of the corner of his eye, but he sees Greg grin deeply, naturally, and without hesitation, and say, “Yes.” His answer is as clear and true as Glenn hoped it would be, and in hearing that, all his discomfort from this morning is suddenly gone. “All we have to do is live long enough to greet the good news, I believe that.”
“So do I,” Glenn says, packing up his trash into the bag their food came in, and looking around the parking lot to find the trash can before he realizes that not-littering is irrelevant. He throws their trash away all the same, because they’re still under instruction not to start acting recklessly in public, but he does it with a great feeling of goodbye. Goodbye to old habits and old concerns, but Glenn is less sad now that this morning’s presence of doom has lifted; there will be good things in the future, things they probably can’t even imagine today, and now Glenn doesn’t even have to feel passive or helpless about it, he has a goal. It’ll take a lot of work to stay alive come tomorrow, and Glenn is ready to get started.
He and Greg lapse back into silence as they continue the drive to pick up Thomas and Malakai. Glenn and Kevin discussed this before today, that his mother shouldn’t know about any of this, and that their kids shouldn’t know until it’s time to lock the bunker door and explain to them why they can never go outside to play ever again. It was Kevin’s decision about his mother—Glenn’s parents are gone, most of the rest of their friends aren’t on speaking terms with their parents for one reason or another and didn’t have to think twice about it. Kevin actually took most of his counsel on the subject from Julian, whose grandparents heard the news and decided to enjoy their final days rather than fight for their last few years on earth. Kevin’s been very attentive to his mother since they moved back, and part of the reason to keep their home in Vermont was so that she wouldn’t be far from her grandchildren. But talking to Julian, and knowing that his mother spends a lot of her life in pain from aging, pain that they would not be able to alleviate at all to the standard she’s used to now, and knowing that as hard as change is for themselves, it’s even harder for someone who has earned the right to be done adapting … Kevin decided that would send his love along with Glenn, and along with his love a peaceful overdose, the kind that he was going to give them all if he hadn’t found a place that could keep them alive. Glenn is to replace all of his mother’s daily pills with these in his pocket, and be sure to see her swallow them before they leave. Glenn will do this while Greg helps the kids out to the car and into their seats. He hopes it will be the most unpleasant and unsettling task of the day, but …
Something about bringing children into the mix makes everyone’s mood shift. It’s not a bad shift, necessarily, but it’s not good either. Thomas starts asking questions no one wants to answer: “Where are we going? Why are you coming with us? Who is this? Who is that?” That inquisitiveness that Glenn and Kevin so love about him every other day is making everyone dodgy and upset. Malakai is different; when he sees the house like a beehive of activity and finds out they’re going on another vacation—two in a row!—he starts running around getting in everyone’s way, moving things out of their bags that need to stay in, adding things that must be left behind. Glenn has to set Thomas in charge of Malakai, which they both hate having to do, and tells them to stay in Malakai’s room.
“I’ll come and get Malakai soon and then you can pack in peace,” Glenn tells Thomas, “but just watch your brother until,” he checks his watch, and then takes it off to leave it with Thomas, “four o’clock. No later, I promise. If I don’t come to you, you can come find me then, okay?”
Thomas nods. He likes it when he can hold his parents as accountable as they hold him. Glenn already dreads what they’ll have to do to reign in Malakai and make him understand the seriousness of no underground. He likes breaking the rules, but the rules for the rest of their lives will be the difference between life and death. Glenn goes to ask Kevin how many of those doors in Alex’s stronghold have locks on them. Kevin grins and says, “All of them. Combination and key pad, all of them.” Glenn smiles back at him and then gets going again. They don’t know what time Sunday the demolition is set for, and they can only assume the guy on the phone meant Sunday as in the United States’ Sunday, since it’s already Sunday in other parts of the world, though so far is quiet in all time zones, Kevin’s keeping it monitored. They intend to be locked inside the bunker at sunset. They’ll all watch it one last time, and then go inside when the darkness crowds them towards the door.
Glenn packs the kids and loads them with their own backpacks and luggage, sets them outside to stand with Greg, and then makes one last sweep of the house. He takes a moment to smell every pillow, the scent that immediately lets him know which friend and which son slept where, a smell that will be different soon, since everyone will be using the same soap. He looks out each window he passes at the woods they were so reluctant to leave, and the driveway they had put in themselves because they didn’t like the dirt path that used to lead here, and of course he watches the rush of people loading up the cars. Sam rolls down the door on the back of the moving truck. Jeff and Julian get into their car and start play-fighting over the radio station. God, music. They didn’t think to bring music, did they? Not even instruments to learn, and now it’s too late. How sad.
Kevin goes to Greg and then looks up at the house. Glenn is the last one left inside.
He comes downstairs, grabbing the two pictures that Kevin pulled down the first night he told them he had a plan to stay alive, the picture of their family and their college crew, Glenn wants these. He walks through and checks to make sure the doors are locked, just for fun, perhaps, or just to feel normal one last time. The house doesn’t feel empty because the furniture is all still there, and food is still in the fridge (Glenn reaches in for a last bite of one of their leftovers, some potato salad, and then tosses the spoon into the sink where it will remain unwashed forever). This is the strangest exit Glenn has ever made, not leaving this place preparing to return nor to pass it along to anyone else. This house is nothing but ruins-to-be. He turns out the lights as he walks through each room and then out the front door to join his family.
“Okay, kids, I’ll be in the big truck, you’re with Glenn-Dad and Greg, you’ll follow me.” Kevin says to their boys when Glenn emerges from the door, checking the lock and pocketing his keys. He’ll keep the keys as a souvenir even after he doesn’t need them for driving, he wants those too. Thomas notices Glenn is carrying framed pictures from the wall, and at last he knows something really is unusual about this, seriously unusual, but he’s perceptive enough to say noth
ing. Malakai is still bouncing around, still excited for his new adventure. Thomas looks at his little brother with both pity and envy—sad that Malakai doesn’t know something’s happening, and jealous that he gets to stay happy for that much longer than Thomas. Glenn smiles at Thomas, and then they both know that the other understands. His sweet boy.
The other cars start up as Glenn and Greg get the kids into their car. The smaller cars will all file out of the driveway first then line up to wait for Kevin to maneuver the truck out of the driveway. They all have the location on GPS in their cars, but now’s not the time to get turned around. Kevin knows where they’re going, and so they all follow him in a big caravan a lot like the funeral procession they were in just one week ago.
Thinking of that, Glenn takes one last look at his house, bids it goodbye and thanks for the memories, then says another goodbye to the guest garage, and to Alex, who brought them all together for one last time and forever.
16. Greg Finds His Family
It’s rough watching Glenn leave his home forever. Greg remembers him talking about it for ages before they moved in, he was so privy to the design process that by the time he was their first guest in the room upstairs that later became Thomas’s, he felt like he had already been there, or like he and Glenn had invented the place just by thinking about it hard enough, by wishing it into being. Right now Glenn is feeling an extra loss the rest of them will never know—even Kevin isn’t that attached to this house, he’s the one who brought up moving the whole clan to Dallas. His home is wherever his family is, and Glenn feels the same way, but he still loves that house; he conjured it from his dreams.
Greg decides to distract the kids so Glenn can think his own thoughts for the first leg of this drive. He thinks playing a road game, knowing those are about to go one hundred percent out of style, will be particularly fitting. He starts with the license plate game, having the boys stare out the windows at the other cars looking for states other than their own. It’s a pretty big game with all the tiny states clustered together, people driving in and out of them all the time. They find most of the Northeast and a good portion of the Midwest before Malakai gets bored and wants a new game. Next Greg has them play I Spy to get all of them looking at the landscape. Best to take it all in one last time, appreciate the details they might well forget after a few years underground.
“I spy with my little eye something that starts with B,” Greg says. The boys start shouting guesses: Bus! Bridge! Barn! Bird! Greg says, “No, but good guesses. The first letter is literally B.” That’s a hint to Thomas, who thinks for a moment about the word literally and then starts looking around for letters.
“Brattleboro! The signs!” You are now leaving Brattleboro.
“Thomas wins! Now you spy something,” Greg says, and the boy starts looking out the window for his object. Greg does his best to guess horribly so that Malakai can win, but then of course by the time Malakai has his turn he’s become bored again. Sort of a sore winner, that kid, never really gives anyone else a chance to be the last one standing—when he wins that’s the end of the whole enterprise for him, mission accomplished. He’ll make a good explorer someday if he ever gets a chance to emerge from their cave or whatever they’re headed to. Because Greg isn’t totally clear on the details, naturally this is the next question the boys have.
“Where are we going?” Malakai asks. “Is it the beach?”
“Wrong direction,” Thomas tells him, pointing at the compass in the dashboard. “We’re heading west, the ocean’s the other way. Are we going to the mountains?”
“That’s right, Thomas,” Glenn says. He’s had enough time to recover now and can engage with the kids. “It’s a place your other dad’s picked out; it’s like nowhere you’ve ever been before.”
And the last place you’ll ever see again, Greg thinks, though he keeps that thought to himself while Glenn describes where they’re going as best he can from the pictures Kevin brought back.
“It’s like a superhero’s fortress,” Glenn says, “like the Bat Cave. It’s a secret spot that no one else knows about.” Malakai says he can’t wait to tell the other kids in school about it. No one corrects him about that.
Soon enough they are turning onto this unmarked little road in the mountains, their cars rolling in a short line, like ants returning to the hill. Greg watches his friends emerge as cautious as deer in the woods, unsure about this place, and without tasks until Kevin gets the moving truck in place and jumps out to give them all the first tour and shows them where their supplies will go. They all follow him around like baby ducklings. Ants, deer, and ducks, but not men, not for the moment.
The inside of this place reminds Greg of every space movie or TV show he’s ever seen. He never liked the thought of space. Some people watch those shows wishing they too could escape earth, go be in some black-and-metal cavernous spaceship, literally aloft from all the problems on earth, living in total regimented efficiency and cataloging new worlds. Even a universe full of aliens wouldn’t be enough to tempt Greg to live in a place without sunlight, claustrophobic and impersonal, with nowhere to be alone, and yet here he is—the wonders of other worlds couldn’t do it, but the threat of death can, so here he is. Kevin walks them down the main hallway of this compound, the one that goes deepest into the rock of the mountain. He points out where things are but doesn’t take them into any of these locked rooms yet: the grow room, the pantry, the electric source, the bathroom, the kitchen. He shows them the rooms empty for occupation; it’s a good thing most everybody is coupled up, because there are only so many free rooms available.
The double room gets claimed by Kevin for him and Glenn and the boys, Sam and Jeff and their little mates pick next, and what’s left is where Greg will stay. His room is the smallest because right now he’s the only one who’s alone. It looks like every prison cell on every TV show with an isolation hole. It looks like the place they throw soldiers who have misbehaved, more barren and plain than even other aspects of military service. Where do they throw prisoners on Star Trek? The brig? That’s where Greg lives now.
He doesn’t get too long to wallow, nor to wish he had thought to bring posters or décor along with their life-or-death supplies, there’s too much unpacking to do. The kids get locked into their parents’ room and are allowed to explore with one of the standing lamps because there’s literally nothing in there except metal and cement, so they can’t get into too much trouble. The rest of the lamps are placed throughout the compound with signs attached to each telling them what sort of stuff belongs where, and for the next two hours that’s all any of them can do. Grab a box you can carry, find its spot, deposit it. At hour three they split into two groups, the young guns (that’s Clarkie and Julian) along with Jeff and Sam are tasked with working together to roll the heavy stuff off the truck and inside, and then to start unpacking once they’re done. Greg and Glenn are nabbed by Kevin to start hooking up their vital stations: make sure those bikes really can make electricity, make sure Alex really did find a way to filter run-off water from the rocks (good one, Alex), make sure everyone understands that to grow their own food they’ll be harvesting the bathroom for fertilizer, and that will be something they start first thing tomorrow. They get to be space farmers now, what fun.
Greg isn’t too enthused by any of this. The others, the couples, are optimistic. They’re new in love, so to them this is like a big honeymoon. No one has to go back to work, no one has to move to a new state for them to be together; this is almost what they would have wished for, a reason to quit life and just moon at each other. Glenn and Kevin, of course, signed up for this in a sense when they started a family—anything for the family, all work is worth it if it’s needed for the kids to be alive and well. They’re a little bit more somber than the lovebirds, but they’re doing big hero’s work, that’s their consolation for all the sweat, tears, and loss. It’s the joy of the refugee: yes, there’s a lot of work going forward, but you’ve survived with your loved ones
, and that’s all that truly matters. There’s no work for the dead.
Greg does his best to remember that he will almost certainly be the first to bring a new life into this place. Not that it’s so fun imagining who will be the midwife (probably Glenn), or how much it’ll hurt without the drugs of the outside world (sad day for Greg), but it’s the reason he won’t check out early. He wants to meet his kids, he wants to see young Thomas holding his half-brother or -sister, to watch the friendships that form in the younger generation, the kind of friendships that have brought them all here at the end of the world. That’s an amazing picture in Greg’s head, and though it’s sad that all he has to keep him warm tonight is his own little fantasy while everyone else has someone to hold, it is what it is. Greg decides to get down to work after they all watch their last sunset together. He’ll be useful while everyone else is honeymooning, and when Greg has a baby to obsess over, the rest of the bunker can pick up the slack, and it’ll be fair. Greg will have earned his time of peace and happiness.