by Sara Grant
I peeked into the first room. The space was high enough for me to stand up straight and lie down spread-eagled. Several pipes of various sizes were piled in the middle. ‘I’ll take this one.’ I thought I should be closest to the door. I wanted to be the first one to hear the knock when my parents arrived.
Chaske walked to the next cubbyhole and said, ‘I’ll take this one.’ The space looked like a carved-out, human-sized mouse hole. His room was roundish. It was about two feet taller than he was. It could have fitted a bed and a couch – if he’d had them.
‘I’ll take the next one,’ Marissa said, and pointed to the next opening. She picked it without even looking inside.
Both Tate and Midnight poked their heads in every cubbyhole they encountered. Tate even dropped to his hands and knees and crawled down a munchkin-sized tunnel. He flipped his body around so he was facing us. ‘Maybe I’ll take this one.’
‘Don’t you want a bigger one? Aren’t you going to feel . . .’ I was going to say trapped, but how could he possibly feel more trapped?
‘Yeah, maybe.’ He wiggled so his face poked back outside the hole – like a groundhog looking for his shadow. Midnight pranced over to Tate and tilted her head and arched her neck until Tate butted heads gently with the cat.
The tunnel kept spiralling down forever. One spiral from my new bedroom was the room where Chaske and Tate had found the water and cots. The main tunnel and the lighting system ended in a square about the same dimensions as my entire house. The main tunnel split in two. One tunnel was covered in thick, smoky plastic sheeting hung on a metal frame. We agreed that this was the perfect space for our ‘necessary’. This far down the tunnel would allow a little privacy and maybe even keep the stench factor to a minimum. Chaske said he would hang one of the Maglites somehow so we could have at least a little light behind the plastic curtain.
I walked over to the other tunnel entrance.
‘That dead-ends after maybe twenty feet,’ Chaske said.
The square of light quickly faded into blackness.
‘I explored it earlier,’ Tate said proudly. ‘It’s like there was a cave-in or something.’
My stomach lurched, but the others appeared to be unfazed by the mention of rocks crashing down.
Tate continued, ‘The tunnel ends in a pile of rocks.’
‘And we agreed.’ Chaske waited until he caught Tate’s eye. ‘We agreed that we should stay out of that tunnel.’
‘Fine by me,’ I said
‘Hey, Chaske!’ Tate called, straddling the line where light turned to dark. He swayed in and out of the light. ‘What if I use your tent and sleep right here?’
‘I don’t know,’ Chaske paused and looked at each one of us in turn. ‘I think it would be best if we all stayed a bit closer together.’ There was something he wasn’t saying. Did he think something might happen in the dark of night? Or did he think the bunker was unsafe that far underground. I was thankful he wasn’t sharing whatever fears he had with us. My brain was already overloaded with end-of-the-world and end-of-me scenarios.
‘I think it’s OK,’ I told Tate. Keeping the noisemaker as far from me as possible seemed like a great idea. I also had to admit I was impressed by Tate’s courage. I wouldn’t want to sleep all the way back here by myself.
‘OK,’ Chaske reluctantly agreed. ‘Well, that’s it. That’s all there is.’
I don’t know what I’d expected – satellite TV, maybe a radio, skylights – but it wasn’t this. I guess I’d pictured one of those bomb shelters like they show in the movies. The ones stocked with food and entertainment and a bare swinging lightbulb. I was thankful to my parents for the food in my backpack and the water, but somehow I’d thought they might have rigged something like a five-star hotel crossed with an amusement park underground.
‘All right, team. We’d better get to work,’ Marissa said and hooked her arm through Chaske’s. ‘As my coach always says, “Team equals together everyone achieves a lot”.’
‘More,’ I said. I’d heard that quote before, or maybe seen it on a bulletin board with some picture of skydivers hand in hand in a free fall. ‘Otherwise it spells teal.’
‘Whatever. Chaske and I will work on the . . . what did you call it, Ice? Oh, yeah, the necessary. Maybe you and Tate could go back up and get our supplies stored in one of those extra rooms,’ she said to me.
I bristled again at being told what to do. I had to assume Marissa meant well. She was getting us organized. She was the Cheer Captain and maybe she couldn’t help it. But this was my bunker and I’d saved her, all of them. I wasn’t proud of myself for thinking this way. I couldn’t deny that something had already changed between us.
‘Race you, Dread!’ Tate called, and legged it up the tunnel.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and followed Tate at a considerably reduced speed.
Tate and I dumped the food and medical supplies in Chaske’s sleeping bag and headed for what would become our supply room. He held two corners and I held the other two. We stretched the sleeping bag between us and side-stepped down the long incline.
As we walked deeper and deeper underground, the further and further I felt from my normal life. It was as if everything outside had ended already.
Tate began to sing, ‘“Quit yo cryin’ be-otch. No time for lyin’ we-otch”.’ He sang the same lyrics over and over.
I gritted my teeth determined not to say anything. This was his coping mechanism. I knew the song. It was ‘Outta Time’ by In Complete Faith. It didn’t help that it was one of Tristan’s favourite songs.
He mumbled through the next part of the song but hit the chorus with gusto. ‘Don’t hold on to hate. Accept your fate. We had time. Not so much time. All you got is time till it’s gone.’
I’d never really listened to the lyrics before. ‘Hey, Tate,’ I said when we’d navigated the first turn and I couldn’t take it any longer. ‘How about we switch stations?’
‘Yeah, sure. You got a request?’ He honestly asked me that question.
My body was tight with a terror that I didn’t think would ever go away, but somehow this kid was managing to have a little bit of fun. I couldn’t take that away. ‘Whatever you want,’ I said. ‘You have a really nice voice.’
‘Thanks,’ Tate said. ‘I’m going to be a rock star someday.’
Didn’t he get it? There were no more rock stars. No more music. Probably no more nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Stop it, I told myself as Tate started to sing another song.
‘“Wha Eva. Wha Eva. The bad, the good. Wha Eva. I put my faith in Wha Eva. Wha Eva alone”.’ I sang along with him and, to my surprise, by the time we’d reached the supply room, I’d forgotten our dire situation for a few seconds.
‘I’m going to deliver the cots to everyone’s rooms, OK, Dread?’ Tate said when we’d laid the sleeping bag and its contents out on the floor of the supply room. ‘You can handle this organizing stuff?’
As soon as I’d said, ‘Sure,’ the boy was out the door and up the tunnel.
My head was fuzzy with exhaustion. It was only the first day and I could feel the claustrophobia playing around the edges of my mind. Stay busy, I told myself. No time to think. I got right to work, stacking and piling and then re-stacking and sorting. Whenever I paused, my brain would pluck the faces of Mum, Dad, Lola, Tristan and other people and things from my life before. Those images flicked like a PowerPoint presentation to random people, such as my English teacher Mrs Lord, or the president of the United States, or the old guy at the corner shop who gave me one of those mini-Peppermint Patties every time I dropped by. The grief these memories triggered was overwhelming. I had to turn off that part of my brain that wanted to flick to my old life.
I finally figured out some sort of system for our supplies. Everything was stacked neatly first by category – food, medicine, tools – and then in alphabetical order. I’m not sure it would have made any sense to anyone else, but it kept me occupied.
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br /> Tate was singing at the top of his lungs. I could hear the constant clink and tap of Chaske and Marissa chiselling out a trench for our toilet. The idea, Chaske had explained, was to dig a new hole every few days and fill the old one in. I sort of gagged at the thought of our ‘necessary’ situation.
Tate called out, ‘Six twenty-two!’ and added, ‘Time to eat!’
Everyone gathered for dinner. Chaske and Marissa were covered in a fine, rocky powder. We were almost too tired to eat our half a power bar and stick of beef jerky. Only Midnight seemed delighted by our dinner. She gobbled down the jerky as if it were a double pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. We nibbled our dry and greasy dinner.
‘If we ration carefully, I figure we have enough food for maybe three months,’ I told them after we’d finished eating. ‘Half a power bar for breakfast and lunch and half an MRE for dinner. We can substitute jerky and Marissa’s snacks for a few meals each week.’
‘OK, that’s totally do-able. I survived my first cheer camp on one yogurt and two bananas a day.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a lot to me,’ Tate said, surveying the empty wrappers tossed in the middle of our circle. ‘I’m still hungry.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got to try, OK?’
Tate shrugged.
We retired to our cubbyholes when Tate told us it was nine o’clock. No one made a move to turn out the lights, and I was glad. I curled up in my cot and was pleased when Midnight snuggled up next to me as if she knew that I needed a little comfort. I clutched the key in my fist. Holding it made me feel as if I had the power to leave whenever I liked. I knew that wasn’t true, but it made me feel the tiniest bit less trapped. I didn’t want to think any more about toilets or MREs or how we were going to survive.
One day down. How many more did we have to go?
We slept most of the next day. It was easier to lie on my cot and doze in and out of consciousness. Then we were like ping-pong balls in a swimming pool. We’d float on our own for a while and bump into one another. We didn’t know what to say or how to act. The novelty had worn off and reality had set in. We were hungry and tired. None of us wanted to talk about our situation nor about anything that would remind us of what we’d lost.
Late that night I walked to the entrance with only a flashlight to illuminate my way. I thought about leaving. I even held the key up to the lock. But I couldn’t open the door. The infected, vampires, zombies, soldiers, aliens, serial killers, snakes, spiders and even sharks now inhabited the space outside that door. Or, worse yet, there might be nothing out there. A vast grey space with everything burned to ash.
It’s hard to explain how you grieve for the loss of the world as you knew it. One day Lola and I were sipping cappuccinos at Starbucks, me indecisive about a Skinny Blueberry Muffin or chocolate chunk cookie and Lola giving me the scoop on Wyatt and Saleha’s Facebook flaming. The next day, everyone and everything was stripped away.
I’d close my eyes and see my parents screaming in pain. Then I’d see them in coffins. I couldn’t bear that thought so I countered every horrible image with a mundane one of me and Dad licking fingers covered in brownie batter and laughing when there wasn’t enough left to bake. Or Mum and I watching An American Werewolf in London and screaming at the scary parts, even though we’d seen them all before. My parents would be coming to get me. They would. That’s the thought I clung to with all of my might.
I woke up to Tate calling out that it was morning, but it could have been afternoon or evening. I was already losing track of time.
I didn’t feel like getting up. What was the point? I spotted the coverless copy of To Kill a Mockingbird peeking out of my messenger bag. I’d nicked it from the supply room. It was the only personal thing Chaske had had in his backpack. I wondered why. I turned it over and over in my hands. I wondered what the cover looked like and where it was.
You can’t judge a book by its cover.
That’s how my brain was functioning. Random thoughts kept popping into my mind like unwanted text messages from strangers. I had nothing to do but couldn’t concentrate on anything.
Midnight curled up on my chest, tucking herself right under my chin. I raised the book higher and flicked through the pages. I could feel the thrum of her purrs. I stroked her and she made this tiny squeaking sound. I felt the tiniest twinge of something.
Something. Something.
Whatever.
This was one of the books on the summer reading list in my sophomore year. My English teacher, Mrs Storms, told us that Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, won some major award and sold a bazillion copies and then never wrote another book. Had she said everything she needed to say? Or was putting yourself out there on paper like walking naked through school? Once was more than enough.
I flipped to the last page. I wanted to see how this story ended. I didn’t understand it all. It was about some guy reading to a little girl, his daughter maybe. Someone had underlined the line that said something about nothing being scary except in books.
I laughed out loud. Midnight dug her claws into my chest as she sprang off the bed, startled by the unnatural sound I’d just made. What did the narrator know about scary?
I kept reading. The characters were reading a book about someone who was accused of doing a bad thing. The dad character was saying that most people are nice once you finally see them. I didn’t think he was right. All evidence I had was to the contrary. I bet those terrorist people who launched the bio-attack weren’t nice deep down. How could they be? And what about the guy who’d pulled a gun on Tate? Was it just the situation that brought out the worst in people? Then I thought of Marissa, Tate and Chaske. We’d pitched in to help one another. They were good, weren’t they?
I closed the book and clutched it to my chest, missing the warmth of Midnight. The book made me feel closer to Chaske. I felt guilty about taking the book. It must be special to him. I’d put it back in the supply room later.
I studied the patterns in the uneven dirt ceiling. I was like a worm burrowed deep underground. The only time I ever saw worms was when it poured with rain. The pavement in front of my house would be scattered with dead ones – like some battlefield of Worm War III.
Floods.
War.
Don’t think.
I felt as if a giant hand had reached into my chest and grabbed a fistful of my organs and was trying to jerk them out of my body.
Don’t think of end-of-the-world scenarios or anything from outside.
But that was impossible.
I leapt up. My head swam. I tottered as if I was on a cliff edge. I shut my eyes and pulled myself back.
Find Midnight, I told myself. If I could find her, then everything would be all right.
I smelled a hint of citrus and the eye-watering stench of gym socks. And then Marissa stopped right in front of me.
‘Hey, Ice!’ Her voice a bouncing ball.
‘Hey.’ I sounded like a gooey, underdone pancake.
‘Let’s do something. We can’t keep lying around all the time.’ She jogged in place. ‘I’ve finished my run. I’ve got to stay in shape, you know? I’m getting bored. The four of us should do something together.’
I wasn’t in the mood for Marissa’s brand of extreme perky, but what excuse could I possibly give? I didn’t have any plans for the foreseeable future. ‘Sure.’
‘Let’s get the guys and, oh, I don’t know, play twenty questions.’
I felt as if I’d stepped into some strange combo episode of the old Star Trek and Little House on the Prairie. She led me straight to Chaske’s room.
Right before we reached his doorway, she stopped. ‘How do I look?’ she asked.
Um, really? Seriously? Was she angling for the Miss Apocalypse crown?
I wanted to respond: What does it matter? But instead I gave her the elevator eyes like the freshman boys gave the girls in gym class. Her head had a hint of black stubble. Her eyes were bordered by dark circles, a
s if she’d been punched. Her skin was more yellow than brown, from the lack of self-tanning product, I assumed. She hadn’t changed her clothes since we’d met. She seemed like a recycled version of herself. Her sleeves were rolled up and scrunched past her elbows. She unbuttoned her pink shirt and flashed her hot-pink sports bra. She knotted the shirt right under her breasts. The effect was better than a boob job for accentuating the positive.
‘You look good,’ I said and finally understood a little more about Marissa. It was all about the guy. Yeah, she shaved her head, but she couldn’t give up flirting. It was an addiction. I’d had girl friends like Marissa before. They’d be your BFF until some boy came along. I felt a bit sorry for her that even in our disastrous situation she couldn’t turn the flirt down, but I also felt a little sorry for myself because she was sort of abandoning me too.
I swear to the power of Victoria’s Secret that the girl sashayed into Chaske’s room. And I hoped my mum – a card-carrying member of the bra-burners’ society – would forgive me, but I fluffed my dreadlocks, gave my pits a sniff – not too rank – and scratched at the flaky, beige spot that had crusted on my purple Be Nice to Your Children – They Choose Your Nursing Home shirt.
When I walked, OK shuffled, into the room, Marissa was all ‘Oh, Chaske, this’ and ‘Ooo, Chaske, that’. She was all touchy-feely and he was like a kung fu master trying to deflect her advances. Her vow to swear off boys was beyond broken. I guess Chaske was way more interesting than I was – seeing as I’d been comatose more than awake since we met.
‘You agree, don’t you, Ice?’ Marissa cooed in my direction.
‘Yeah, um, what?’ I had to shift my brain into conversation mode.
‘I was telling Chaske that we thought it might be fun to play a little twenty questions or truth or dare. You know, something to take our minds off . . .’
‘I’m not sure . . . maybe we could . . .’ I started to form a response but Marissa had slipped her arm through Chaske’s and was leading him out of his room.