“Understood,” Daren replied.
The pressure lifted from his hand, and he shook it to let the blood rush back. A woman with a bone earring and a half shaved head broke into a guffaw. Around her eyes was some kind of black pigment that made her look like a raccoon. He gulped when he saw that her necklace was made from human molars.
“All right, Daren.” Bryson extended his arm to his side. “Lead the way.”
Daren felt his heartbeat thudding in his ears as he took point with Bryson behind him. The other clan members followed along in single file through the forest. He had no idea where the food stash was—if there was even a stash to be found. And it wouldn’t take too long for the raiders to figure that out either.
Daren kept on walking, not knowing where he’d eventually end up. The area wasn’t familiar to him. In the distance, there was a clearing in the forest, and he headed toward it. When he got to the middle of the clearing, he tried to figure out his next move. As he slowed down to think, he felt a knife point on his lower back.
“Body language reveals so much,” Bryson said. “And based on what yours is saying, I’m not convinced you know where you’re headed.”
Daren pointed right ahead of him and forced himself to sound confident. “It’s not that far. The stash is right over there.”
“Show me.” Bryson shoved him between the shoulder blades.
Daren walked to a random area on the ground and knelt down. Bryson stopped to watch him.
“There’s an underground cellar right about here.” He brushed the dust on the ground with his fingers. “I just have to find the latch on the trapdoor.”
“What trapdoor?”
“It’s cleverly concealed.” Daren tried to keep his voice even as his panic began to rise. “We used compacted earth to cover it so it blends with everything else.”
“Where is it?” Bryson’s pretense of friendliness was fading fast.
“If you’ll come closer you’ll find it right over here.”
Bryson knelt down beside him and hovered his torch above the ground.
“We have one of two things here,” said Bryson, examining the dirt, “a brilliantly concealed room or a brilliant liar.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Daren said.
With only seconds to pull it off, he grabbed a clump of dirt and pretended to pull an unseen latch. He gave Bryson a quick glance. The raider’s attention was focused on Daren’s hand. In one fluid motion, Daren swiped the dirt and flung it right at the clan leader’s face. Bryson roared, a cloud of dust billowing from his head. He fell backwards as he tried to rub off the dirt that had lodged in his eyelids.
Daren saw his chance and bolted, hoping that he wouldn’t trip or run into a tree as he plunged headlong into the darkness. Shouts and footfalls echoed behind him. Something whizzed past his right ear…then his left. A few more strides and he saw a cluster of arrows embedded in a tree ahead of him. He swerved to the right and then to the left, zigzagging his way through the woods to confound the archers behind him. Most of the raiders weren’t as agile, and he heard some of them cry out as they slammed into the trees. He scaled over several fallen trunks and leaped over a small gulch. He felt confident that he was increasing the distance from his pursuers. Then he made a big mistake: he looked back to see how close they were. In that second, he tripped over a tree root and hurtled forward. His head collided with a log. Flashes appeared before his eyes accompanied by a ringing in his ears as he struggled to sit up. A shrill voice pierced the night.
“He’s on the ground and he’s mine!”
Daren’s temple throbbed as he groped around for a weapon. His fingers wrapped around a nearby rock as he managed to push himself to his feet. The pain made it difficult to focus. He turned to see the molar-necklaced woman barreling towards him, the teeth around her neck jiggling with each stride. Her features twisted with fury as she raised a scythe over her head and screeched. Her mouth was wide open with teeth filed into fangs just like Bryson’s. Daren clenched his jaw as he endured the ache boring into his skull. He raised the rock to his ear and waited for her to close the gap between them.
As soon as she got near, he hurled the rock. Her forward momentum smashed her face into the oncoming missile. The force of the blow pushed her back, and she landed on the ground. She sat up and spat out her teeth into her palm. The woman stared at her hand then raised her head. Blood gushed down her nose and mouth like a scarlet waterfall. She trembled with rage.
“I’ll rip your guts out!”
Daren looked behind her and watched the torches get closer. As he turned to run, the ringing in his ears increased. A wave of nausea assaulted him as he took a few more steps. The trees began to spin around as he tried to get away. He felt a hand grab his ankle, and he fell on his back. Molar Woman wasn’t going to let him escape. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He hoped that whatever they were going to do, they’d do it quickly. But he wasn’t really counting on it.
There was screaming. He could hear shouts of “angel,” “death,” and “glowing” and the sound of running feet. But this time they were moving away. A few moments later, the forest lay silent. He opened his eyes and raised his head. In the distance, he saw the cloaked figure. A soft, greenish light radiated from under its robe. It stopped when it saw him, raised its arm, and pulled back its hood. He gasped when he saw who it was. Darkness swam into his peripheral vision. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the shock of recognition on Lara’s face.
⊕ ⊕ ⊕
A DAMP CLOTH PRESSED AGAINST Daren’s head. He stirred and opened his eyes into tiny slits. The dull ache in his skull returned as he slowly regained consciousness.
“Thank the Unseen One you’re awake.” The voice was soft…reassuring. “You got a nasty bump on your head.”
He looked up to see Lara gazing down. She was so close to him, and in the dim lamplight, something about the shape of her lips and the endless green of her eyes made his heart go faster.
“Where am I?” His voice sounded weak, and he didn’t want to sound weak in front of her.
“My home away from home,” she replied.
Daren slowly sat up to get his bearings. The first thing he noticed was how soft the bed felt. He pressed his hands down on the mattress. He’d never felt anything like it before. He looked around to check his surroundings. The room was small and seemed to have solid metal walls. Beside the bed was a desk with a lamp on top.
He turned to Lara, who sat on a chair beside him. He was so overjoyed to see her alive and all her limbs intact. He wanted to tell her that he missed her and that he was worried about her. There were so many emotions roiling inside him, and it surprised him when anger was the first to burst through the surface.
“Where in the hell have you been this past week?” he shouted. “I’ve been going nuts wondering where you were!”
“Wow.” Lara raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you cared so much.”
“Every damn day for an entire week you didn’t show up to hunt,” Daren kept on. “Raiders killed three hunters from my village, you know. I thought they got you.”
She smiled and ruffled his hair in an annoyingly condescending manner. “I never realized how cute you look when you show concern about my welfare.”
“Knock it off!” Daren swatted away her hand. “I’m being serious here. And what’s with you going around like some ghost? You get your kicks scaring the crap out of people?”
The smile dropped from Lara’s face, and he immediately regretted his harsh tone. She looked down at her lap, placed her hands on her knees, and squeezed them.
“I don’t do it for fun if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “I need the robe when I go on a supply run to my village. It scares off any potential attackers.”
“Supply run?” Daren remembered the can of beans he found at the edge of the woods. “You’re delivering food? Are you saying you have a stash somewhere? Of course you have. Why else would you stop hunting?”
&n
bsp; He noticed Lara hesitate. She was deciding whether or not to tell him anything. It pained him to think that after all the times they’ve spent hunting together, there was still a part of her that couldn’t trust him.
“I know you have a lot of questions for me,” she said. “And I really do want to answer them. It’s just that I don’t want to open a door I can’t close. Do you know what I mean?”
“Not really.”
“What I’ve found out in the past few days has blown my mind.” She looked up at him. “And I think that knowledge could be dangerous. It’s just that it’s better if fewer people know about it for now.”
He creased his forehead. “You’re not making any sense, Lara.”
“No, I guess not,” she said. “You probably have to see it for yourself to realize the magnitude of the whole thing.”
Daren wondered if she had gone completely nuts since he last saw her. Maybe she had nibbled on a weird root and it toasted her brain. What was with the Angel of Death disguise, and why was she staying in this strange, metallic dwelling? What was she trying to keep hidden? At the very least, he had to know about the can he found.
“I found a can of beans near my village,” he said. “I spotted it near the place where you passed over in your creepy costume last night. It looked brand new—like it was made just days ago.”
Lara widened her eyes in shock.
“I dropped a can?” she asked. “Who else saw it?”
“The raiders took it from me,” he replied. “They demanded to know where the rest of it was so I led them on a wild chase through the forest.”
“So that’s why they were after you.”
“That’s right. I just want to know if there’s more of it and why it looks so damn new.”
Lara scratched the back of her head and exhaled. She looked up at the ceiling for a few moments as if considering her next move. She then turned her face to look at him.
“I don’t know about this, Daren.”
“I want to help my village just like you.” He reached out and touched her hand. The intimate gesture surprised her, but she kept her hand in place. “I can’t stand to see them put up with rat heads and rat tails for one more day. Just once, I’d like to see them eat a real, honest meal that’s actually meant for a human.”
He watched her face soften as he spoke the words. Her posture began to relax.
“I promise you that I will never reveal to a single soul the location of the stash or any of your secrets,” he said, raising his other hand in the air as he locked his eyes with hers, “on pain of torture and dismemberment, so help me, O Unseen One.”
“Well,” said Lara with a slight smile, “I guess you can’t get any more reassurance than that.”
As soon as he felt well enough to stand, Lara led him outside the room. She shone her lamp on a small hallway. Like the room he woke up in, the walls and ceiling were made of metal plates with rivets going down the seams. A sudden thought occurred to Daren.
“Are we underground?”
“Yes,” she replied. “This place was built a long time ago. But it doesn’t seem like anyone ever used it.”
Daren followed her to the end of the hallway where a large steel door waited. He froze when he looked closely at the door. It matched the one in his dream exactly.
Lara left her lamp on the floor and placed her hands on the door’s hand wheel. The wheel didn’t move at first. She leaned slightly to her right to apply more force to her turn. The hand wheel budged a little then stopped. She grunted as she pulled a little harder. The wheel squeaked as she managed to turn it the rest of the way. She rested her hand on the doorknob and looked at Daren.
“Whatever you do,” she told him, “try not to freak out.”
She turned the doorknob, pulled open the door, and stepped inside the room, which was pitch black. Daren picked up the lamp she left on the floor and raised it to chest level.
“Hey,” he called out to her, “you forgot your lamp.”
“Don’t need it.”
Daren nearly dropped the lamp when he saw the room instantly illuminated. He placed it back on the floor and stepped inside. Overhead were several rectangular lamps stuck to the ceiling. He gasped when he saw what lay underneath the bright lights. On each side of the long narrow chamber were shelves stocked to overflowing. There were all sorts of cans, sacks, packets, jars of food, and plastic containers filled with water. Lara stood in the middle of the room, clearly enjoying his reaction.
“You should see the look on your face.” She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.
Daren gazed around stupefied. He kept rubbing his eyes and blinking them. There was more food there than he had ever thought existed. He picked up random cans to look at them. He saw a sack of rice and inhaled its fragrance. His mouth watered when he saw pictures of fruits, meats, and vegetables on the various containers. And the most astonishing thing of all was that every single item looked fresh. Somehow the ravages of time had spared the room.
“How?” He stared at Lara. “How is this possible?”
“No clue. This is how I found it.”
“And how can those lamps work?” Daren pointed above him. “I’ve seen the same things when I visited the Great City ruins, but none of them ever turned on.”
“I have no idea.” She looked up at the ceiling. “The other ceiling lamps in the bunker don’t work except for the ones in this room.”
“This is amazing!” Daren felt a surge of excitement. “All this food! My mind is blown!”
Lara gave him a knowing smile, relishing his astonishment. It looked like she had another surprise up her sleeve.
“Ever wondered how I do the floating trick?”
“I’ve been dying to know,” Daren replied.
“Stay here.” She pointed her finger to the floor. “I’ll be right back.”
Daren watched as Lara walked to the back of the room. Somewhere in the far end, there was a space between the end of the shelving and the wall. Lara stepped into the space and disappeared from his line of sight.
“No peeking!” Her voice echoed back.
“I’m staying here. Just like you asked me to.”
Lara appeared again but this time she was standing on a small platform with two wheels. A pole extended from the platform. Attached to the pole were handlebars, which she held on to. She fiddled with a few controls and turned the vehicle to face him. She propelled the vehicle forward and slowly made her way from the back of the room until she stopped right in front of him.
“Whoah!” He backed away from the contraption.
“Voila!” Lara stretched out her arms to her sides. “The secret to my magic trick.”
“What is it?” Daren leaned forward to touch the vehicle’s pole.
“Again, I have no idea.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I found it here and taught myself how to ride it.”
“So this is what you used to seem like you were floating.”
“I use it when I need to transport food.” She stepped down from the vehicle. “I wear a long enough robe so it covers the wheels. But not so long that the hem will get caught under them.”
“And the glowing?” Daren asked.
Without a word she reached into her pocket and pulled out several translucent tubes. She grasped them with both hands and bent them until there was a slight cracking noise. He looked on in amazement as the tubes filled with a greenish light. She handed them over to him.
“What’s causing the glow?” He examined the tubes closely.
“Some sort of chemical inside. Not sure what it is or how it works.”
“I need my arm pinched and my face slapped.” Daren shook his head. “I think I hit my head way too hard.”
“By the way,” Lara said, placing a serrated hunting knife in his hand. “I noticed your sheath was empty so I thought you might like this.”
Daren looked at the blade and touched the sharp edge. It was in excellent condition. Probably the best knife he’d ever had.
He imagined Logan would drool buckets if he saw it.
“Thanks.” He grinned widely. “This is an awesome gift.”
He wondered if she gave it to him because she was just being a thoughtful friend or if she was taking a shine to him. The latter wouldn’t be too bad in his opinion.
“There’s one last thing I need to show you,” Lara said. “This is going to take mind-blowing to a whole new level.”
“I seriously doubt anything can top what I’ve just seen.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen the best part yet.”
She walked back to the store room’s entrance and stepped out the door. She then turned around to look at him.
“Take anything out of the shelves.”
“What?”
“I said take anything. Preferably something big and noticeable.”
Daren frowned at her strange request but chose to play along. His eyes darted around the food items to see what he could take. Should he pick a can with a picture of fruit in it, one of those shiny foil packets, or a jug of water? He stood for a few seconds while he decided on what to take.
“Come on!” Lara sounded impatient. “You’re not choosing a girlfriend.”
Her remark made the blood rush to his face. He hoped he wasn’t blushing too hard as he went for a large can of hominy grits and pulled it off the shelf. He was surprised at how heavy it felt.
“Light a fire under it!” Lara snapped her fingers.
Daren carried the can outside the cellar and waited for Lara’s next instruction. She slammed the door and turned back the hand wheel to lock the room. Then she waited a few moments.
“All right,” she said, “time to go back in.”
“Huh?” Daren was incredulous. “You made me take out this can just to put it back on the shelf? It’s not like I didn’t get enough exercise tonight.”
“Just keep quiet and pay attention.”
She turned the hand wheel counterclockwise and opened the door. The room, which had its lights on when they left it, was dark again. Lara stepped inside the room and switched them back on.
“Come inside and bring the can with you.”
The Cellar: A Post-Apocalyptic Novella Page 4