Survival of The Fittest | Book 1 | The Fall

by Fawkes, K. M.

“Then we might be able to use his thumb,” she said slowly. “Oh my God.”

  An enormous grin broke out over her face, and I grinned back, nearly too excited to keep quiet. It all worked out so well that it was almost like we’d planned it.

  And he was there thinking he was so clever to be walking the hallways. Like it was going to stop us. Like it was going to make me think twice about what I knew I needed to do. Never considering that he might actually—literally—hold the key to our escape.

  “So are we still searching the rooms for the key?” she asked quickly.

  I heard the rush in her voice and glanced at the door. No, we weren’t going to have much time left in this room. Oliver and Bob would, at some point, wonder what we were doing in here that was taking so long. Especially when we’d just cleaned this room yesterday. We needed to wrap this up.

  “We are,” I said firmly. “If we can get the key and do this without having to involve him, it’s safer. But if we don’t find it, this is our backup plan.”

  “I’ve always been a fan of Plan B,” she noted. She gave me one more glance. “Same time, same place?”

  “Different time, same place. We'll figure it out later,” I answered.

  A second later, she was on her feet and heading for the door, calling out to Oliver that she was finished in here. I ran my hand under the bed for good measure, and then moved to the desk, calling out to Bob that I was going to finish up with the dusting, and then I’d be out.

  I started opening and closing the drawers, running my hands through the contents and looking for that key, while I kept my eyes trained on the doorway in case anyone happened to come through it.

  Dinner that night was an incredibly somber affair—and not only because the men were barely speaking to us lowly women. My uncle had been refusing to meet my eyes through the entire meal, no matter how much I stared at him, and was maintaining a stony silence that didn’t even break when Bob or Oliver asked him something. He’d been downright excited for so much of the time we were down here, too caught up in the glory of his bunker to let anything like reality bring him down for long. But now, he seemed to have sunk into a stupor colored only by anger and suspicion.

  It worried me. I hated seeing him like that. But my instincts were telling me that there was nothing I could do—and that this time, I had to save myself.

  Oliver and Bob, on the other hand, spent much of their time smirking at us, their expressions saying very clearly what they hadn’t said during the day.

  Well, I didn’t think Oliver would have really said much of anything. Bob, however, hadn’t been able to shut up about how fantastic it was that I had betrayed Jeff and was now in the doghouse. I didn’t know what the man had against me, but I suspected it was because I was smart. And a woman. And I clearly didn’t think much of him. He was an idiot.

  Hey, in my experience, stupid men don’t like intelligent women. They’re scared of us. Think we might pull one over on them at any moment. Probably because we will.

  Anyhow, they were both seemingly emboldened by Jeff’s presence, and were not only leering at us, but also managing to both look like they’d somehow won the lottery.

  It made me wonder if Jeff had promised them some sort of prize money if they were the last ones standing in the bunker. What if this was some sort of game show? A reality show? My eyes darted to the corners of the room where the walls met the ceiling, my mind suddenly curious. It seemed completely outlandish that he might have set this up as something that was going out into the world for entertainment purposes, but at the same time…

  It sure would have explained some things. All the drama. The sudden descent into madness. The overreaction to something like a dead plant. The bunker—which was still bothering me, due to how much it must have cost. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how dear old Uncle Jeff would have paid for it, and it was an open hole in this plot. If this was a show, though, the producers or the funding for the show would have paid for it.

  There were no cameras in those corners, though, and I almost laughed at myself for having thought it.

  The truth was, the other reason for the heavy silence in the room that night was that I was having trouble keeping a straight face, and I didn’t trust myself to speak to anyone. I was absolutely positive that Simone and I would be leaving that night, and it made me almost giddy.

  Almost.

  I was still well aware of the fact that it might not work. That we might fail, that we might get caught, that we might be punished. And that was the other reason for keeping quiet. I was close enough to victory that I might let my mouth run away with me in terms of what I said to Bob and Oliver. And if we ended up getting stuck here, then words like that would come back to haunt me.

  I just wasn’t ready to take that risk.

  Every so often, though, I looked up and caught Simone’ eyes on me, shining with excitement, and I knew that she was thinking the same thing I was.

  If we did what we were setting out to do, and we succeeded, then this would be our last supper in this hellhole.

  That night, I was back at my door when the lights went out, ear pressed to the surface as I strained to hear whether anyone was out there. Simone and I had agreed that we would wait a little bit longer this time, to make sure everyone was actually asleep when we were out creeping around. No, we weren’t planning any extra side trips this time, but tonight was also way more important than last night had been.

  Tonight, we were leaving.

  I had a pack next to me, full of the things I wanted to take with me. Not that I’d brought much down with me. I was still wearing the clothes I’d worn to see my uncle and had only picked up an extra sweater down here—which I was wearing. The pack included the remains of the crackers I’d stolen from the pantry during our earlier adventure, the water bottle which I'd refilled, plus a note I’d found in my uncle’s things—something I’d written when I was a girl, and which encapsulated how I’d felt about him then.

  Yeah, it would have been a nice gesture to leave it there with him, so he could also look back fondly on those days. But I wanted it with me. I wanted to hold onto the mental picture it brought up, of him and me in the garden at his house, before everything went sideways.

  Before he went sideways.

  Aside from that, though, I didn’t want anything from this place. I didn’t even want to remember it had happened. Hell, if I could completely erase it from my memory—and from reality itself—I would have.

  But if I hadn’t been down in the bunker, I guessed I would probably be dead from the attack. Well, maybe. Well, hopefully not.

  I shook my head and shoved that debate out of my head. I didn’t have time for it.

  I glanced down at my watch, where the dials were still glowing from having been exposed to light within the last couple hours. It was 11:03. Dammit. Of course time was passing as slowly as possible right now. I was itching to get the hell out of there and, of course, time was now going to choose to crawl along.

  Finally, finally, just as the dials were starting to fade but I could still see them clearly enough, it was 11:15. I crouched down to get closer to the gap underneath the door, and stared through it into the darkness of the hallway beyond.

  I couldn’t see a damn thing. But I also couldn’t hear a damn thing.

  I stopped breathing for a full minute, listening with all my might, and closed my eyes in the hope that it would increase my sense of hearing.

  Nothing. There was nothing out there. If my uncle was out there somewhere in the dark, and I hoped he was, then he wasn’t making any sound.

  I got up and reached for the doorknob, my legs tensed with the knowledge that I was going to be running the moment I opened it—especially if I found someone guarding my door or the hallway beyond. I hoped Jeff wasn’t right outside my door, but if he was, I was prepared for it.

  Because I needed his fingers. Or at least one of them.

  Chapter 18

  My uncle wasn’t standing righ
t outside my door. But that didn’t mean I had time to stand around and wait for him. I wanted to be in an area where we had more room to maneuver before we found him—or before he found us. Preferably a room where I could actually use the flashlight I had shoved into my pants' waistband.

  This time, I didn’t try to keep my steps quiet. I hauled ass for Simone’s door and was about to slam my palm down on it when it swung open, Simone’s eyes glowing in the light of the flashlight she was shining up at herself.

  “Let’s go,” I hissed, grabbing at her and rushing down the hall.

  “Did you find the key?” she huffed, working to keep up with me.

  “No. And that means we have to get Jeff’s attention so we have access to his fingerprints.”

  "With as much noise as we’re making, that shouldn’t be hard,” she noted.

  I turned and skidded into the pantry, where I ripped open my backpack and started shoving food in. “That’s the idea,” I said. “Turn the torch on the shelves and grab whatever we can make without electricity. I have no idea whether we’ll have access to food or water up there, and I’d rather not escape this place only to get to the surface and starve to death. There’s also a chance that anyone who’s inclined to chase us will get sidetracked trying to figure out how much we took.”

  We both grabbed things randomly off the shelves, taking little time to figure out whether we could actually use them or not. A second later, I moved over to the small fridge in the area and started shoving more water bottles into my pack. Water would be most important, I knew. Even if the VXM was harmless, there was a chance it had contaminated the water supply, and that would be the first thing that got us.

  This was the other reason for the big pack. No, I didn’t have anything memorable I wanted to take with me from this God-forsaken bunker. But I needed the room for food. Because I wanted to carry as much of that as I could possibly fit.

  “Are you good?” I breathed out when I saw Simone pause.

  “Good,” she answered quickly, her tone clipped and business-like. “I don’t have room for anything else, even if I wanted to take it. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Seconds later, we were through the kitchen and into the common area again, and here I paused and jerked at Simone’s hand to get her to stop.

  “This is where we wait for Jeff,” I breathed out.

  “Why?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait for him closer to the door?”

  “Trust me,” I answered. “We want him to find us—and chase us. And if he finds us here, it gives us plenty of room to maneuver to get away from him. After all, we don’t want him to actually catch us, right?”

  I felt her nod in understanding, and then I grew still, my eyes peering into the darkness as I tried desperately to figure out whether he was already there. I threw my senses out around me, orienting myself in the room and locating the doorway that would lead us toward that front room that we needed. Then, I tipped my head and listened for another person in the room. Someone else breathing the same air. Someone else’s heart beating.

  That was when I heard it. The brush of a heel against the floor, perhaps, or his arm against the wall. Something. Something that told me we weren’t alone.

  I hit the light on my flashlight, turned it quickly toward where the sound had come from, and saw Jeff’s eyes, wide with shock and anger, staring back at me.

  I didn’t pause for anything except to grab Simone’s hand. Then, I turned and ran for the doorway we needed, counting on him to follow.

  It took us about three seconds flat to get into the front room where the stairs wound up to the door, our flashlights bouncing wildly around as we dashed through the hallway. I could hear Jeff’s footsteps behind us, and knew that he was hot on our heels, ready to punish us for being not only out of our rooms, but also so obviously on our way out of the bunker itself.

  Luckily, this was all going exactly according to my plan. I’d counted on him to find us and follow along. Because I needed him.

  When we got to the room and whirled around to face him, though, we arrived at the big, gaping hole in my plan. Because I’d needed him there with us, and we’d done everything we had to do to get him there. But I hadn’t dedicated any brain activity at all to figuring out how we were going to get him to actually help us.

  Hey, I hadn’t been sure we’d be able to pull any of it off at all. Can you really blame a girl for not planning out the final step when she wasn’t sure the first five were going to happen?

  I stared at him, the light shining directly from my hand into his face, and he stared back, his chest heaving. For a moment, I wondered once more if he was on the verge of having a heart attack, but then I put that thought behind me. I couldn’t think like that anymore. I had to stop trying to protect him or take care of him. He’d proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was no longer my job—and that it was uninvited.

  And that meant I had to think about myself right now, not him. I had to take care of what Michelle needed. And Simone.

  I wondered suddenly, though, if I could just convince him to help us. Convince him that it would be better for him if we were gone.

  “Jeff, we’re getting out of here,” I told him bluntly. “You’ve been told that we want to leave, and you’ve refused to cooperate. I would prefer if you help us. You don’t want us here; you’ve made that much obvious. Why not just let us go? One way or another, we’re taking our lives into our own hands tonight. One way or another, we’re leaving the bunker.”

  Honesty was always the best policy, or something like that. If I told him straight out what we were doing, surely he would back down. What was he going to do, stand there and argue with me?

  It turned out he was going to do one better than that, though. I just hadn’t seen it coming.

  Instead of answering, he pulled a handgun out of the waistband of his jeans and pointed it right at me.

  “Wrong,” he said simply.

  I’ll admit that it took me at least five seconds to get my voice working again. I hadn’t expected him to pull a gun on us. Hell, I hadn’t even known he had a gun down in the bunker. I’d always thought my uncle was a pacifist, and definitely against gun ownership.

  Of course, maybe that had been stupid of me. I’d always known he was anti-government. Paranoid. Full of conspiracy theories. Hell, I probably should have anticipated him having a gun. He probably had a whole fucking arsenal, just in case the government tried to force him to do something he didn’t want to do.

  “You’re pulling a gun on your own niece?” I asked softly. “You’d actually shoot me to keep me from leaving, Uncle Jeff?”

  He motioned with the gun, asking us to step away from the base of the stairs, but his face had grown soft. Almost apologetic.

  “I’ve already told you, Michelle, how dangerous it would be for you to open that door. I’ve told you how important it is that you stay down here. I don’t know why you won’t listen to me.” He paused and shook his head. “Then again, you’ve always been too headstrong in going your own way to listen to anyone else, haven’t you? Always doing things in the Michelle method. Pulling up the plants you didn’t like, even when I told you to leave them be. Running around with the wrong kids, even after I told you that they didn’t have your best interests in mind.”

  His voice suddenly turned a corner, becoming manic now, and the man I had known and loved was gone once more. The anger was growing in his eyes and I could see him starting to lose control. I tensed, despite myself. I didn’t want a fight with my uncle. Particularly not when he had a gun and I had… well, nothing, really, to use as a weapon.

  A flashlight. That wasn’t going to do me any good against bullets.

  But I could already tell that this was going to come down to a fight. Jeff was dead set on keeping us there—and I wasn’t sure whether I could talk him down off that ledge. Not anymore. But I knew I couldn’t let him win. Not this time.

  “Uncle Jeff,” I said, deciding to give it a try
. “Come on. You really want to keep us down here when we don’t want to be here? Really want us to stay when you know we’ll just cause trouble?”

  “The same sort of trouble you caused on the surface?” he asked. When I gasped, he gave a nasty chuckle. “The kind that got you thrown in jail, Michelle? The kind that made you a pariah in society?” He turned his eyes to Simone. “Like I said, she was always doing things she knew she shouldn’t do. Always choosing the wrong friends, who led her down the wrong paths.”

  He casually straightened his arm so that the gun was pointing directly at my face and gave me another crazy-looking grin.

  “Friends who talk you into making bad decisions,” he said.

  Then, he swung the gun toward Simone and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 19

  I rushed him. I couldn’t help it; it was an instinctive response. The moment the muzzle flash had cleared, I threw a glance at Simone to see she’d hit the ground and then rushed at my uncle, bent over at the waist, linebacker-style, to try to protect myself from him if he decided to keep shooting.

  I barreled into him with my shoulders, arms wrapping around his waist, and threw him right into the wall, acting on instinct alone and keeping my mind very carefully blank about what I was doing.

  I heard it when his head hit the steel of the wall. I felt his body go limp. I saw, through my peripheral vision, the gun drop to the floor. And when I let go of my uncle’s body, it fell as well—landing right next to the gun.

  I stood there staring at him, and then at the gun, and then at him again, before my mind came screaming back into gear and I remembered Simone. I turned and rushed back to her, sliding onto my knees by her side and taking her into my arms.

  “Simone?” I gasped. “Simone, can you hear me?”

  My eyes were running frantically over her body, looking for the bullet wound I knew she had to have somewhere. But I didn’t see any blood. Why didn’t I see any blood? She should have been spurting it from whatever wound she had, shouldn’t she?