by Isaiah Lee
Karen stepped off the elevator first. Jason turned the lock on the console, effectively locking their ride in the basement. If nothing else, they knew nobody else would be able to attack them down here. In case of nuclear fallout, they should be fine. That was what this place was built for, after all. Surely they could survive aliens.
Still, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to help anyone else, that they couldn’t get innocent women and children and loved ones down here to survive the onslaught… it hurt. They knew they couldn’t risk it, though. So many people had gone crazy and begun hurting and killing others. The corpses upstairs could attest to that fact.
It was almost dawn and neither Karen nor Jason had slept in almost twenty-four hours. “I’m so tired, but I don’t think I could sleep right now,” Jason admitted.
“Me either.” Karen plopped onto a cot in the middle of the room. Jason sat down next to her. “This is really happening?”
Jason had asked himself the same question numerous times over the past weeks. “Yeah.” He watched Karen bury her hands in her face and sob. He rubbed a gentle hand over her back. Black mascara ran down her cheeks.
After a time, Karen regained her composure. “I’ve never killed anyone before… I never dreamed I would have had to.”
“Me either. But I have to admit, you were damn impressive up there.”
Karen offered a slight grin. “Thanks.”
Jason waited a short time for an explanation of Karen’s skills. She didn’t offer. Jason decided he would have to pick. “How…”
“How come I’m such a good shot?” She knew the question before he ever had to ask it. She could tell up top that he was shocked as hell to see her in action.
“Well, yeah.”
“When I was young, I had to live with my mother’s family for a few years. Let’s just say that my mother was incapable of taking care of me. My mother’s cousin had four boys, all close to my age. They were all the time playing paintball or practice shooting their guns.
“My mother raised me to think that ladies had to be dainty and clean and… boring. I finally decided to join my cousins and had the time of my life. It didn’t take long before I realized that getting hit by paintballs hurt like a motherfucker. I learned to dive and duck and sneak. I learned how to shoot as good as, hell no, better than my cousins. I was totally a tomboy.”
“Makes sense. I’ve tried paintball a few times. I couldn’t afford to go somewhere and play and I didn’t have enough friends who played to play at home. It just wasn’t fun one on one.” In reality, Jason was making excuses. He was too much of a pussy to play, and he knew it. Still, he didn’t want Karen knowing the truth.
“I know something fun one on one,” Karen said before she thought. “Oh God, no not that!” Her tone revealed what she figured Jason had presumed the comment to mean.
Jason sniggered. “No of course not. You obviously meant tennis or a game of checkers.”
Karen’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “I meant airsoft. You know, with the little plastic pellets?” It was too late. Jason’s dirty mind already picked up and ran with what he’d been given.
◆◆◆
Neither could sleep well that morning. The early morning events were too fresh on their minds, too real. They were both operating on a sleep deficit already. He was afraid it would only worsen in the upcoming days or weeks.
Jason lay in bed trying to figure out what today was. Wednesday. The 30th of January, 2019. Had it really been over three weeks since Johnny and Stacy had been killed. That had been January 4th. The day he lost two of his friends had been the worst day of his life. That sentiment only lasted a couple of weeks.
Three days ago, he and Hank found and dug up an alien spacecraft. That night, Hank shared their findings with the world. Three days. That seemed an eternity away now. So much had happened since then.
Two days ago, the alien prince Yikaslmer Perqindtru had revealed himself on live television. Sergeant O’Reilly had singlehandedly doomed the human race when he refused to allow himself to be sacrificed. Sacrifice one to save billions; seemed a no-brainer. And the bastard had died anyway! What a stupid motherfucker, Jason thought to himself.
As of right now, yesterday was the worst day of Jason’s life. His best friend in the world had been killed. Thousands of people had been killed right in front of his eyes. It seemed impossible to take it all in.
Jason had had to take several lives himself. It was a hard concept to accept. Could he claim self-defense? Yes and no. Yes because they would have killed him had he not killed them first. No because it was not an absolute necessity that they go into Young & Buck’s in the first place.
Or was it?
Jason sat up in his cot. His thoughts were spiraling and he couldn’t seem to break free from their grasp. Two cots over lay Karen. She was still but he would have bet anything that she couldn’t sleep either. He didn’t want to disturb her on the off chance she had fallen asleep.
He hadn’t wanted to invade her space, but at the same time, he couldn’t stand the thoughts of leaving her now. Two cots away had seemed a safe, yet comforting distance. She was all he had left in his life. All he knew he hadn’t already lost. He wasn’t so sad about that revelation. He had developed feelings for Karen a long time ago when they began working together.
Jason thought about his family. His father had always seemed a little disappointed in Jason and his decisions. They had offered to help him move to Chicago, but the offer seemed a little forced. Like it was something they were supposed to say instead of something they wanted to say.
He tried not to let it bother him that his father had never messaged him back. What was something else he could think about? His shitty apartment, his shitty car, his cat. His shitty cat.
Shadow was a grey and black Tabby with beautiful blue eyes. Jason rescued her at the local shelter – her original name had been Cali which Jason was none too fond of – and immediately renamed her Shadow. He loved Shadow from day one, but that never meant he had to like her.
How had he managed to forget about Shadow? He guessed there would have been no way to save the Tabby either way, but the revelation didn’t make him feel less guilty for it.
She had started off decent, he guessed. She only shit in the house twice. It didn’t take long for her to learn where the litter box was and how to properly use it. The problem was her clawing. Three weeks before getting Shadow, Jason purchased a new recliner. It was new to him, anyway. It wasn’t the swankiest chair around, but it was certainly the nicest Jason had ever had.
Within the first week, Shadow had the posh chair in shreds. Jason, regrettably, had already fallen for the furry creature. All she had to do was jump onto the kitchen counter and rub against his cheek. Instantly all missteps were forgiven. Until the next act of destruction.
As bad as he hated it, Jason had to admit he would miss the furry bitch. She was destructive and vindictive, but she was great company when he was having a bad day. It seemed odd that Shadow wasn’t around on this shitty morning of epic proportions.
Chapter 23
After hours of struggling to contain his thoughts, Jason finally made it to sleep around noon. At exactly 6:48pm, Jason jolted straight up in bed. He heard Karen’s cot creak as she mimicked his movement.
“What was that?” Karen asked, her voice exhausted and battered.
Jason wiped at his heavy eyes. “I felt something.” It was a similar sensation to the vibrations reverberating through The Coliseum during the concert last night. Had that really been less than twenty-four hours ago?
The room around them shook and an explosion boomed outside. It was muffled but still audible.
“Sounds like something or someone had caught up with us…” Jason said as he stood. He wasn’t about to venture outside to see firsthand what the commotion was. He could only imagine the alien spaceships hovering above, obliterating everything in sight. He began to pace back and forth, wondering if the building was falling in ab
ove them. How far underground were they?
“You may as well calm down,” Karen stated. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere now.”
Jason sighed and plopped onto the cot across from Karen. “I can’t stop thinking about Hank.” Jason knew his family was probably dead, or would be soon, but watching the building collapse on his friend had been traumatizing.
“I know.” Karen took Jason into an embrace. She held him long and tight, offering what little solace she could. “There was nothing we could do. He got separated and there was no way to go back. You saw it yourself: had we gone back, we would have gotten killed, too.”
Jason knew this. They escaped with mere seconds to spare before the building collapsed. He pulled away and stared in Karen’s eyes. They were pools of emerald green and were gorgeous. Under her eyes was almost a shade of black from the sleep deprivation. After some time, Jason spoke. “Hank was my first real friend. He saved me from a fight in fourth grade.”
Karen ran a soothing hand through Jason’s hair. She didn’t speak; she knew Jason wasn’t seeking a response. He was talking as a coping mechanism. Something to keep him busy and help keep his mind from wandering too much. Even if he was still focused on Hank, at least it wasn’t about his horrific death.
“This boy, Ben Tuffman, had me pinned against a wall. He and two of his buddies surrounded me and tried to beat me up. I don’t remember now what the scuffle was about. Ben punched me in the stomach and I fell to the floor. I was much smaller than the other boys my age so I didn’t stand much of a chance.
“Both of Ben’s friends kicked me while I was down. Then Hank showed up. He was taller than the other boys and stronger. He punched Ben in the face. Ben’s friends both ran away, practically screaming for their lives.”
“Karen smiled. What happened next?”
“Well, I got suspended for fighting in school. The bitch principal said that it was all our faults and that she had better see us getting along from now on. I did manage to get Ben back, though. I walked around school on the first day I was allowed back and told all my friends that Ben wasn’t so tough, man. The other kids all thought it was hilarious. You know, kids find the goofiest shit amusing.
“Even up until graduation, Ben’s nickname around school was ‘tough man.’ He threatened a few more times to whip my ass, but Hank was always there to help me when I was younger. As I grew, so did my friendship with Hank. He was the one, true friend I knew I could always count on.”
Karen noticed the tears in Jason’s eyes and again embraced him. This time, Jason did not pull away. He did not move. He simply lay his head into her chest and wept silently. “I’m sorry,” she cooed. “I didn’t know Hank like you did, but I could tell he was special. He seemed sweet and like a good person.”
Jason nodded. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.” His voice was barely audible from his current position. He did not move from Karen’s grasp. He felt Karen’s warm tears fall into his hair as tears racked through her body. Karen began to cry as well, letting loose all the emotions and pain from the last few days.
The embrace loosened after some time. Jason sat up straight and stared into those green gems. He leaned forward and closed his eyes as his lips met Karen’s.
She didn’t immediately react from shock that Jason had finally made a move. She’d liked Jason for a long time but she never saw any indication that he liked her back. She fell into his lips and returned the kiss.
Jason broke away. “I’m… so sorry,” he told her.
Karen didn’t say a word. She simply leaned forward and planted her lips back on his.
There was something about that kiss. Yes, it was amazing and long overdue. Yes, there was a connection that neither could deny.
But there was also something else. A release of built up energy. That kiss allowed them both to momentarily forget about all their problems and worries. They could forget about the apocalypse as it played out above them. They could forget about family members who were most likely dead. Dead friends who were taken in their prime and all of the grieving that was long overdue.
Jason began pulling Karen’s top off as her hands tugged at the bottom of his shirt.
◆◆◆
They lay on the concrete floor, only a thin blanket offering protection from the cool, hard surface. Their naked, sweaty bodies were entangled in a mass of limbs and skin. Karen lay her head on Jason’s chest and listened to his heart beat. It began to slow to a normal rate. She found it relaxing, getting to lay peacefully on this man after everything that had happened.
Karen exhaled. “I’ve wanted to jump your bones for a long time, Jason Carter.” She followed his muscles with her index finger, admiring his toned physique.
Jason admired her curves as he took in her scent. She still smelled slightly of the perfume he’d noticed at the concert. “That makes two of us, Karen Pierce.”
They lay tangled for a long time, enjoying the intimacy of each other’s touch until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Neither stirred until the next morning. It seemed odd not to have a sunrise beaming through bedroom windows. There was no hum of traffic outside or horns honking as impatient commuters cursed each other.
There was only silence and the sound of their bodies as they breathed and squirmed around in the blanket on the floor. Neither Karen nor Jason had wanted to end the embrace during the night; they pulled more blankets into the floor from surrounding cots to pad the floor and keep them warm.
Surprisingly, the bunker was fairly warm, considering the frigid air outside. Ventilation ducting was run all along the ceiling with vents about every ten feet. There was a wall-mounted thermostat control near the elevator which read sixty-two degrees; Neither Karen nor Jason had tried to adjust it.
The walls were poured, reinforced concrete, at least two feet thick in most places. The walls were empty: no windows, pictures, or televisions. There were a handful of doors on the wall with the elevator – a men’s restroom and women’s restroom, storage closet, and something similar to a server room.
Racks of computers lined two of the walls in the eight-feet-square room. They were stacked floor to ceiling with cooling fans pointed into the stacks. An exhaust fan was ported through the ceiling of the server room into the main room of the bunker. Racks full of servers put off tremendous amounts of heat. The door to the server room was supposed to remain locked when not in use. On the left wall of the room was a trio of monitors.
The first displayed a map of the United States on the top half and a world map on the bottom half. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of red dots scattered across the United Stated. Mixed in was a handful of green dots. Most were in the Washington DC area.
One of the few green dots was the Young & Buck’s location in Ithaca. Once a location had been locked down and secured, as Jason and Karen had done by locking the elevator in the basement, its location pinged the system and every safe room displayed its current status for all to see its green status indicator. Instead of relying on a physical landline connection, which could easily be broken, the system used GPS and satellite signals to update each other bunker server system. The system was outdated now, but it was top of the line when first implemented.
This redundancy allowed any bunker location to be completely annihilated and all others could still operate as usual. There was no risk of destroying the entire system unless every single bunker was destroyed. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.
Any status update immediately pinged every other bunker still online; ideally, there was supposed to be ‘staff’ in each bunker to oversee daily operations. There should have been somebody who, at least hourly, checked on the servers to stay updated and check for messages.
On the middle screen was the bunker’s current stats. Water level and purity (each bunker had the ability to recycle water as needed), ambient room temperature and humidity, generator status indicator for if power was lost to the bunker, fuel level for the bunker, and the es
timated number of living days left. The last one was based on an algorithm using the number of inhabitants and the current store of food, current energy usage estimations, and the quality and percentage of oxygen in the air.
The last monitor had a single message directly in the middle of the screen. The sender block read WDC2. The bunker’s location in latitude and longitude, along with physical mailing address, were listed alongside the codename WDC2.
There was no need to decode the message. It was straightforward and to the point. It read: INY1 STATUS UPDATE REQUIRED.
Chapter 24
“Wake up,” Karen nudged Jason’s ribs with her elbow. Not quite hard enough to hurt, but definitely enough to agitate. He was incredibly sore after getting shot but was otherwise in good health. His wounds had patched up quickly and cleanly.
He opened his eyes and smiled. “Good morning, beautiful.” He kissed Karen on the forehead before sitting up from the makeshift bed in the floor.
“I heard something coming from behind that door over there. Beeping or something.”
Jason stood and pulled his pants on. He slid his shirt over his head and walked over to the door. He pulled on the handle. It was locked. He placed his ear on the door but was unable to hear anything. “It’s locked. You see any keys anywhere?”
Karen slipped her clothes on and pointed toward the pile of belongings Jason had pulled from his pocket. Underneath his wallet lay the keyring with the key for the elevator. There was another key on the ring. “Here’s another key. Want it?”
Jason nodded his head and Karen tossed him the keyring. He inserted the key into the server room door and turned. The door opened and exposed the server room in all its glory. “What is this?”
Karen walked to the doorway and took in the sight. “Some sort computer system, obviously.”
Jason stepped inside as a wave of warm air overtook him. He noticed the map of the United States with its red and green status indicators. He pointed to the screen. “This is us. We’re green.”