by A. K. Meek
“Arney gotta get outta here. Gonna be buried alive,” a man’s voice cried out, the fear in it unmistakable.
A woman across the room started sobbing loudly.
More falling dust sprinkled onto Nate’s head, tickling his ears, sticking to his sweaty head. He tried to brush it off and took in a deep breath, only to close his mouth on more grit.
The screaming man was right, they would die here.
A warm, flushed feeling began in his chest. His left leg trembled and he couldn’t make it stop.
But now someone spoke in a soothing manner to the man, the words not discernable but the tone unmistakable, reassuring him that everything would be okay. He cried, repeating, “Arney gotta go.”
Nate squinted to see him, but couldn’t. That man, whoever he was, just needed to shut up. He would make everyone nervous, cause panic.
The warm feeling spread to his arms and face, just as the shelter closed in, dark, tight.
“Wait, listen,” someone said.
The shelter rumbled with another explosion and more dust rained down, this time with fist-sized chunks of concrete ceiling. People gasped and screamed. A small girl started crying.
“Gotta get out,” the hysterical man said.
Unseen bodies rustled in the darkness. Voices spoke again, soft reassuring tones amidst restrained sobbing. The hysterical man continued crying. “I gotta go, let me go. Arney not safe here.”
The flushed feeling intensified to the point of becoming hot. So hot that it became difficult to take a deep breath. Nate loosened the tie that clung to his neck. The hysterical man made it worse, made it more difficult to breathe. Nate needed to put a stop to it.
“Shut up, you crazy fool! Shut up! You’re making everyone nervous,” Nate yelled.
Someone moved close to him and rested their hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, it’ll be alright. Take a breath.”
The woman’s thick southern voice was sturdy but tired. She sounded black. He pulled away from her comforting touch and clutched his backpack. After scooting several feet away, he leaned against the backpack that he had propped against the wall.
He shivered as the cold concrete penetrated his thin dress slacks, making him pull his legs up close, curling into a ball.
Amazing how quickly the warm flush gave way to the cold floor.
Rest would probably help. So far this day hadn’t worked out as planned. Everyone else would have to deal with the hysterical man.
Nate closed his eyes, but he couldn’t sleep, or so he thought.
Nate’s eyes snapped open to darkness.
Metal banging on metal reverberated through the shelter, startling him.
“We can’t let them in,” a man said.
“Why not? What if it were you out there? What if it were your family?” a lady said.
“But it’s not me. I’m here, my family’s here. They’re out there and need to stay out there.”
The argument stopped as the banging began again. Nate wiped his burning eyes and rubbed his sore neck. The stagnant air carried sweat and fear. Near him someone sniffled.
Several cell phones now lit the darkness, small floating lights illuminating strange faces. His eyes adjusted to the dark enough to see silhouettes sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. He dug in his pocket for his own cell phone. “Do they work in here?” he said through a dry mouth.
“No, but we need light,” a man responded.
Something heavy slammed against Shelter 1710’s door. A large metal object.
“What—what’s that?” Nate said.
“Shhh…” came an old woman’s voice.
For as many people as were crammed in the hole, the majority were silent. In the quiet, his heartbeat pulsed in his ears. The banging stopped and a voice pierced the reinforced door.
“He’s saying there’s about five out there, two really hurt,” another man said.
“What if they’re out there, hurting? Who knows what’s going on?” a woman said. Her voice was the one that had tried to console him earlier.
An explosion in the distance rattled. More dust rained down, sprinkling over the illuminated phones like a filthy snowfall.
“Hold on, he’s saying something else,” the man said. “He said if we don’t let them in he’ll rip open the door.”
Gunfire erupted on the other side of the door. Nate shuddered at the burst and dropped his cell phone. Others screamed and the sniffling girl started crying.
Bullets ricocheted off the door, sending horrid scraping sounds echoing throughout the dark prison.
“I told you we can’t let anyone else in,” one man yelled, the one that had not wanted to let anyone else in the shelter.
No one said anything else to oppose him.
Several minutes and two bursts of gunfire later, the voices outside the shelter faded. The crying girl next to Nate began to cough as she tried to catch her breath. Her coughing turned back into crying.
It set him on edge.
She needed to stop crying. Whining kids annoyed him, and now, this girl was going to send him over the edge. Her mother needed to shut her up, because the crying would affect everyone, set everyone else on edge.
“It’s hot in here,” Nate said. “It’s stuffy.”
Two random voices agreed.
Heat pulsed in his head and the tie felt like it tightened around his throat with each breath, choking him. He yanked it from his neck, stripping the knot out, and stuffed it in his backpack. His chest heaved, grasping for any precious air.
“Help me up, Efrem,” the old woman who’d hushed him earlier said.
Bodies shuffled in the weak light of phones and keychain flashlights. Silhouettes of an old couple with shuffling footsteps, arched backs, and aching movements approached the crying girl next to him.
The faint smell of roses overpowered the stench of sweat, but just for a moment.
The old lady bent to the crying girl. “Can someone bring a light?” she said, her voice surprisingly young.
“Here,” a man’s gruff voice said. Another silhouette pushed toward her. His phone’s flash brightened and he held it close to the stooped lady.
“Hush, child, stop crying. Look what I have here,” she said.
The cell phone light that played across the old lady’s face exaggerated her appearance; she had deep gouges under her eyes and around her mouth, and her leathery skin was pulled tight over cheekbones. White, curled hair swept away from her forehead, revealing more wrinkled skin. A large necklace of pearls was strung about her thin neck, resting on a frilled collar. She held up a small box wrapped in shiny, silvery paper.
She fumbled with the present, taking an excruciating amount of time to unwrap the knotted twine. The old man stepped close to her and offered his own shaky hands to help. After wrestling with his fidgeting hands for a few seconds, she pushed them away. “I’ve got it, Efrem,” she said in an exasperated tone.
The crying girl had stopped, caught up in watching the old couple wrestle with the package. Only an occasional snivel came from her.
The old lady finished untying the twine, and after partially pulling off some of the wrapping, held it close to the girl.
“Here. It’s a teddy bear pillow. We bought this for our granddaughter Elizabeth, who is about your age, but I think she wouldn’t mind if we gave it to you.”
“What do you say? Thank you?” the crying girl’s mother said.
Tiny arms reached for the teddy bear and tugged its leg until the old lady let go. Without a word the girl pulled the present from the light of the gruff man’s phone, back into the darkness to become one more silhouette among the many.
I’m gonna die here underground with old ladies and children.
Nate closed his eyes to the dark and tried to calm his shallow breathing.
The sound of an engine roared through Shelter 1710.
Several people jumped, screaming.
It sputtered, choked out, then died.
Cell
phones came to life, acting as flashlights. The phone LEDs cast a harsh light on faces in the group, making everyone appear sinister.
“What in the? A motor?” a woman said.
The engine came back to life, sputtering until it grew in strength, becoming a rhythmic peal, piercing the air like a banshee, shattering the hours of whispers and crying and mostly silence. Nate held his hands out to the suddenly deafening sound. “Where’s that noise coming from?”
If anyone answered, he couldn’t hear because of the overwhelming sound.
A wisp of light appeared overhead, breaking through the dark. The pale, ghostly faerie swayed and danced. As it danced, it grew in intensity and the dark started to give way more and more.
The light bulb swinging from the pendulum fixture began to brighten the shelter, bathing everything in pale, dirty yellow.
What once were silhouettes in darkness filled in; rough outlines of bodies gave way to skin and clothing. Another bulb lit overhead. Then another.
Within moments, Fallout Shelter 1710 had light.
The group of people had massed near the entrance to the shelter, near the stairway, but the room widened and extended at least thirty more feet in length; an elongated room. It never occurred to Nate that there was more room.
In the darkness during the attack—or whatever happened outside—he stayed against the comfort of the wall, not leaving it.
But now, in the light, familiarity drew across faces as neighbor recognized neighbor. Nate, though, felt that a giant had picked him up and dropped him in the middle of a crowd of strangers.
Sweating, dusty, terrified, men and women leaned on the walls and sat on the floor. The girl next to him clutched the teddy bear as she sat on her mother’s lap. Across from him was a black couple, eyes wide and searching, their two kids so entwined in their parent’s arms they practically blended together. A large white man on his back, propped on a bundle of clothes, cried into a towel. Three others knelt around him, wiping his head, fidgeting with his body, and whispering in calming tones.
As terrifying as the dark was, the lighted faces were worse. He could now see in their faces the terror that welled inside. They gave an image to his horror.
Nate swallowed hard and tried to take his mind off that terror. He inspected his shirt, brushing dirt from his shoulder. His dress shirt was unsalvageable. What a day to wear white.
Leaning forward, he ran his fingers through his hair, shaking off more dust. Grit persisted between his teeth as he ground against tiny particles of concrete. He spit and wiped his mouth with a dirty hand.
At the far end of the room, two folded tables leaned against a concrete wall. Several beat-up boxes were stacked next to the tables. Everything looked dated, old. Maybe it was the pall of dust that covered the items, covered the floor, and hung in the air.
Nate pulled at his shirt collar and held it to his mouth. A homemade filter.
Five doorways were at the other end. Three men emerged from one of the open doors, the room where the engine sound came from.
One of them looked to the crowd, gave an impish smile, and held up his tattooed arms as if declaring “victory” to the group. The faded Confederate flag t-shirt he wore rose to show his white stomach.
“Let there be light,” the tattooed man said.
A few disheartened claps congratulated the trio.
The two other men, with great effort, pulled the door closed and it shut with a loud bang. The engine noise diminished greatly, but did not go away. It became a constant white noise droning at the back of the head.
One of the three, a man of average build with a high forehead and long, curly brown and blond hair dripping with sweat, turned off a small flashlight and tucked it into a small holster that hung off his drooping, weathered belt. He smoothed his long hair away from his face.
According to the oval label on the left side of his khaki button-up shirt, William worked for Haven Cable. According to his other shirt pocket, he was also “Happy to Call Haven Home.”
“We’re fortunate to get that old generator running,” Will the Cable Guy said. “I’m surprised it’s running at all. That old thing hasn’t been tended to in a very long time.”
Several in the group took the hint from the three that it was okay to get up and move, and they started exploring the room. But many stayed near the door, collected in small groups.
Nate grabbed his backpack and strapped it tight. The company laptop he carried dug into his already sore back, so he shifted it away from his ribs. Sleeping on cold, dirty concrete had probably done more damage than good.
Taking exaggerated steps to loosen cramping calves, and slapping his numb left leg, he limped through the milling crowd.
On one expanse of wall, a budding artist had spray-painted “the Ark” in large, calligraphic letters. It probably happened long ago, the weathered black graffiti barely noticeable under the water stains and greenish-black lichen. He shook his head and continued to the large generator door, rubbing his hand across the cool metal.
The door spanned ten feet and vibrated from the engine that hid behind it. He pushed on the elongated door handle but it didn’t budge. He moved to one of the other doorways.
It was solid, like the tomb they were all in. He took a moment to swallow the surge of fear and claustrophobia that rose in his throat.
They were in a tomb.
He clenched his eyes tight in the hopes of forgetting the morbid thought. Too many of his thoughts drifted there. Once open again, his eyes dilated for a moment, then focused.
By now, everyone had spread throughout the shelter, exploring their new home.
Nate entered another door, and stained concrete walls, floor, and ceiling greeted him. In the bathroom ten crude toilets lined one wall, paper-thin partitions separating each. Urinals lined the other wall. In one corner, two small sinks perched on cinder-block pedestals, like an afterthought of the shelter’s designer.
“What’s in there?”
Nate turned to the voice.
The postman stood behind him. Gray dust peppered his curled black hair and clothes. His wrinkled uniform had large sweat stains running down each side. Sweat also coated his face and arms, making the dust stick to his dark skin. “That was quite a ride we had,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Dunno. I know as much as you about what happened. Near as I can tell, we were bombed. Very badly.”
“I don’t get it. We weren’t—aren’t—at war with anyone.”
The postman chuckled. “We’re at war with everybody, you just don’t know it.”
Nate nodded and let the door to the bathroom swing closed.
“I’ve never seen you in town,” the postman said. “New here?”
Nate searched the main hall, but wasn’t looking for anything in particular. “Uhm, no. Yeah, I’m not from the area. I’m from Atlanta.”
“Atlanta? So I guess you’re traveling. My name’s Charles Fuller. Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, looked at it, wiped it on his pants leg, then extended it again. Nate shook it.
“I’m Nate. Nathaniel.”
“So you’re traveling?”
“Yeah. I was driving down to Dothan for business. I’m an analyst.”
“Pleased to meet you. Come on, let’s see what else is in here.”
Nate followed Postman Charles across the main hall. Charles waved to someone across the room as they made their way to another doorway that several people had already crowded around.
The room was actually a small foyer leading to another door. A faded placard showed the door allowed entrance to a Main Office.
Two of the men, Tattoo and the Cable Guy, the ones that had started the engine, were arguing. Nate edged closer to hear what they were saying.
Another man, a typical-looking Georgia native—beard and mustache, close-shaved head, looked like he hadn’t missed many meals, wearing faded jeans and a Wal-Mart t-shirt—walked up to the two.
The Cable Guy sho
ok the knob and pushed against the metal door but it didn’t open. He examined the lock. Wal-Mart pushed his way forward. “Let me at it, I’ll kick the stupid thing in,” he said in a familiar voice. Nate remembered that he was the man at the stairway from earlier, the man that hadn’t let the other people in. The Cable Guy shrugged and moved away from the door.
“Bruce,” Tattoo said, suddenly recognizing Wal-Mart. “You’re in here too? Is Amber with you?”
“Yeah, Colton. Amber and Paige both. They’re in the other room. Let me open this door,” Wal-Mart Bruce said.
Tattoo Colton stepped aside and spread his arms. “Be my guest.”
Bruce paced off a couple feet from the door. He took two deep breaths and lifted his booted foot. With a forceful thrust he slammed it into the door. The metallic bang echoed through the air, stopping many conversations. He staggered back but the door held. Colton snickered, trying to contain a laugh. Two guys moved closer to watch.
Bruce glanced at them, then with renewed vigor kicked the door again.
It held.
He tried two more times, each kick less forceful than the last. He readied his foot, rubbing his leg, but the Cable Guy stepped in his way. “Bruce, right? I don’t think you’re going to be able to kick it in. Let me take a look at it.”
Bruce huffed, his stare shifting between the Cable Guy and the door. “We’re not gonna get in there,” he said, throwing up his arms.
Cable Guy bent over and examined the knob. “I think if we get this faceplate off…” He pulled his multi-tool from the leather holster on his belt and worked a knife edge along the beveled faceplate surrounding the knob. He worked the plate loose enough so that he could wedge the tip of his blade under it. He pressed his head against the door to see under the plate. “Yes. I can see some screws. I need light.”
He reached to his belt and pulled his small flashlight and held it out. A guy standing next to him took it and flipped the switch and held it close to the plate. “If I can get the handle loose I think we’ll be able to jimmy it. I need a pry bar. Hey, Colton, next to the generator, the box of parts. I need a bar that can fit in this opening, about a foot long.”
Colton nodded. “I think I saw something in there that would work. I need some help opening the door.” He headed back toward the generator room. Bruce followed after him. A younger kid watching the action also followed.