A shadow moved over by the window and Jill nearly screamed out loud in shock. A familiar silhouette was standing by the window framed by the soft moonlight on the curtains.
“Tom?” She whispered.
“Hello mum,” Tom replied softly and moved over to the bed.
“You scared me kitten. Where you outside just know?”
Although she couldn’t see his face, the tilt of his head suggested he was studying her.
“Tom?”
“I needed the loo,” he replied after an excruciating amount of time.
“You okay?”
Tom got into bed next to his sister and pulled the covered up under his chin. Jill had to fight the urge to turn on the light so that she could look at his face for some reason. But she put this down to her nightmare. Perhaps the sound of Tom wandering though the corridor had set off the dream in the first place.
“Night mum,” Tom said in the darkness.
“Night love.”
Jill slipped from the room, but for some reason found herself listening at the closed door. She could hear muffled voices coming from inside but tore herself away. They were both in there, they were both safe and she desperately needed to get back to sleep.
Jean Hubert, mayor of Bais De Veuves and the surrounding villages watched through the open door of his office as his
secretary Madam Le Roy, who was at the best of times a nervous woman, was speaking to the policeman.
They were in her office having just finished a cursory search of all the offices in the village’s small-town hall building. Le Roy shook the officer’s hand, who Hubert for the life of him couldn’t remember the man’s name. Then the man put his hat back on, pocketed his notebook and exited. As he passed Hubert’s door, he gave a quick salute to which the mayor gave a nod in response.
“Thank you, officer,” Hubert said as he disappeared down the hall leading to the front door.
Le Roy appeared in his doorway a moment later, she was he noted looking a little less flustered.
She had been the one who had discovered the break in this morning when she had opened up at eight o’clock. The intruder, or intruders had broken a small window in his office sometime during the night to gain entrance.
“Any news?” Hubert asked, but he already knew the answer.
“It’s strange,” she said. “At first glance, they don’t appear to have taken anything.”
He frowned feigning surprise.
“But we will get someone to do a full inventory just in case,” she added.
“Perhaps they were disturbed before they could take anything,” Hubert offered.
“Perhaps,” Le Roy said. “I’ll get someone to repair your window.” She gestured to the glassless window frame at his back.
“Thank you,” Hubert replied. why don’t you get yourself a coffee, it’s been quite a morning.”
“I will, thank you.”
She turned to leave.
“Please close the door, would you?”
“Of course,” she replied and pulled the door closed.
The police could scour the building from top to bottom, Hubert thought bitterly, and they still wouldn’t find anything missing. On the contrary, it wasn’t what the intruder had taken that concern him. It was what they had left.
He pulled his desk draw open and took out the ratty old noose that had been left on his desk. Carefully hidden under his framed medal of honour he had received for his war time heroism, which they had laid on top. He had noticed the frame was out of place when he had been called in by Le Roy about the break in and discovered the noose underneath.
It was a nice touch, he had to admit.
Then there was the odd note which had been left with the noose. Hubert unfolded it and read it once again. It was written in crayon of all things, perhaps to hide the author’s handwriting.
It stated in a childlike scrawl:
We know what you did, twelve noon at the scene of your crimes.
You know where.
It had taken Hubert a good while to decipher the accompanying drawing underneath. Then it came to him with a genuine shudder, and he knew exactly where they wanted to meet.
The carriage. The scene of your crimes. Christ, it had been decades since he had even thought about that accursed place.
And thought the manner of the invitation had unnerved him. The intention behind it was a familiar one.
Blackmail. In truth, it had been years since the last threat to expose what had actually occurred during his time in the resistance during the war. But it was something he was always prepared for.
And as always, this new threat could be dealt with in one of two ways. In the past, depending on the evidence his
accusers had provided and their intentions. He would either buy them off, if greed was their motivation, which it nearly always was. Or, if they had a misplaced but righteous desire to expose him for no other reason than ‘justice.’ He had a more permanent solution.
He folded the paper and put it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. So be it, he thought with a shiver of anticipation.
This latest incident had made Hubert realise just how complacent he had been over the last few years, and that life here was becoming too comfortable for an old rouge like himself. He thought back to his return, years ago now. He could have gone anywhere in the world, but instead had chosen to come back here. To the scene of his crimes as the note had put it.
Back then, he had thought his return home was nothing more than an act of hubris, brought on by his later years. He remembered almost wishing that the truth had been discovered in the decades since his absence and that he would be pilloried by the locals upon his return.
Not out of guilt and the wish for condemnation. Never that, he had done what he had done and slept well at night.
Perhaps just so he... Felt something akin to excitement again.
But it had been the exact opposite, the people here had welcomed him with open arms and hailed him the conquering hero, and what was more they insisted he took up the then vacant position of mayor. That had always seemed like a sick joke to him, but one he was all too willing to indulge in.
Hubert traced a finger over the curious drawing. His initial concern had gradually given way to a strange sense of euphoria. He was actually glad the old ghosts from the war had surfaced once more. He was rotting away here in Bais Des Veuves, and in his more melancholic moments missed his old nefarious life. Oh, he knew he was too old to go toe to toe with the new breed of gangster Paris now enjoyed, but God how he missed it.
But now? He felt alive again.
He checked the clock on the wall, it was already five to eleven. He did a quick calculation and although it had been years since he had walked those haunted woods where that carriage had festered for so long. He figured it would only take twenty minutes to get home, collect his pistol and what cash he might need from his safe and drive there.
No, forget the cash, there was only one way he was going to settle this particular dilemma. He would only need the pistol.
“Where are the terrible twosome?” Béatrice asked from behind Jill.
Jill had been lounging on a patio chair watching Tom and Daisy playing football out on the lawn. They seemed to have even more boundless energy this morning and she was just glad to see them enjoying themselves after last night’s dream. The pair had now gone off exploring, but with a promise to stay close to the hotel.
“Hey, how are you?” Jill asked and got up from the chair to give her a hug.
“I’m good, shattered, but okay, thanks.”
“And Lucy?”
Béatrice gave a grimace.
“She’s gone to stay with her sister for a few days. It really hit her hard.”
“God, I can imagine. Have they any idea what happened?”
“Between you and me,” Béatrice said. “I heard Henry was drunk and trying to fill up the lawn mower or something.”
“Christ.”
“So, the kids?” Béatrice asked.
“Oh, off exploring, I’m just glad they have no idea what happened.”
Béatrice nodded in agreement and both women sat down.
“Arh, my two favourite ladies!” Daniel exclaimed and came out through the patio doors with a tray of drinks.
“Christ Danny,” Jill said. “Are you trying to turn me into a drunkard?”
“Don’t be so judgemental,” he replied. “Non-alcoholic thank you very much. Not all Frenchies are al-keys.”
“Although we try,” Béatrice said.
The three of them sat sipped their drinks in silence for a moment, enjoying the sunshine.
“Good to see the kids playing,” Daniel said after a good while.
“Yeah, none the wiser about the accident,” Jill replied.
“Yeah,” Daniel agreed, then. “Oh, almost forgot. Béa’, what does...” He had to think for a moment. “What does En avoir assez, mean?”
“
What makes you ask that?” Béatrice said.
“Just something Daisy said yesterday.”
“Hmm, it means... Sick and tired,” she said with a frown.
“Odd,” Daniel said. “Then, hang on... What about...
Tout sera beintot fini?”
“Weird,” he said.
Jill looked to the treeline at the far end of the lawn for any sign of the kids with a growing sixth sense of unease only a parent could feel.
Jean Hubert had been surprised just how much the news of Henry Baudin’s death had affected him. Madam Le Roy had mentioned it, almost in passing, just as he was leaving for home before his meeting with the blackmailer.
The woman had no way of knowing his connection with the gardener and in truth he had barely seen the man since his return. They had exchanged the odd glance in passing here and there. At which Baudin would always look away first. With his hang dog expression and his drink problem, Hubert would have despised the man if he had any opinion of him at all, which he didn’t.
The man had always been weak, easily threatened of cajoled. But in the end just a guilty as the rest of them.
Whereas Baudin wore his guilt like a heavy chain around his neck all these years, Hubert had wallowed in it.
So why did he care that the man was now dead? Now that Baudin was gone, Hubert was the last remnant of that four-man
duplicitous cabal they had formed during the war. The last to know what they had done or turned a blind eye to.
Not counting this new development of course. Whoever had left that strange note and the noose, knew something, from a relative perhaps? That had been the case before. Some relative or other sorting through a dead uncle’s belongings, no doubt in search of hidden wealth only to find half formed conspiracy theories about the lauded mayor and others, scribbled down on long forgotten note pads with faded war time papers, amongst the rest of the junk.
But now there was this nagging doubt, had they been involved in Baudin’s death? Was it revenge and not financial gain that was the motive here? It was one hell of a coincidence if not, and he did not believe in such things.
He would find out soon enough, Hubert mused as he pulled his car off the main road and into the picnic area car park by the stream. He knew, despite the decades that had passed, that there was a trail which led through the woods and to the railway siding, where he pictured with a shudder, the carriage would be waiting.
The picnic area was thankfully empty, Hubert killed the engine and checked his watch. Twenty to twelve, it was a short hike to the siding, so if he set off now, he would be early, which was always and advantage.
He took the pistol out of the glove compartment and popped open the cylinder. Six rounds, more than enough to get him out of any sticky situation he might come across. Also, he knew he could rely on his outer appearance he looked after all like a man in his late-seventies, and a crusty old politician at that.
Little did they know he had more than a few drops of blood on his hands, and that wasn’t taking into account his time in the war. You didn’t get as rich as fast as he had by playing nicely by the rules. He put the pistol in his jacket pocket and got out of the car.
Despite the warm summer sun, Hubert felt a distinct chill as he took in his surroundings. Everything seemed at once familiar yet sinister at the same time. The smell of flowers, the sound of birds overhead, just audible over the babbling stream. Normally idyllic sensations that grated on his nerves somehow.
Hubert put his hand in his jacket pocket and felt the reassuring cool metal of the pistol, and pushing any lingering doubts out of his mind, he set off across the picnic clearing and into the woods ahead.
Still as he made his way further into the darkening woods, he couldn’t help but think back to the last time he had made this short journey. It had been when the German’s had
made their final retreat, and he had come back with Marc Reno to ensure the Krauts hadn’t left any incriminating evidence.
They had come across three German stragglers, who having recognised them didn’t put up a fight, they figured would help them avoid the oncoming group of resistance fighters who were also in the woods mopping up any enemy forces left.
Ironically, with their fellow resistance fighters close by themselves, when Hubert and Reno had gunned the three men down and were hailed as heroes for it. Hubert had found that perversely amusing whereas Marc Reno had nearly confessed to them then and there. Hubert had talked him around, but he later suspected this had tipped Reno over the edge and he’d heard later he had killed himself after the war.
The further he got into the darkening woods the more the memories resurfaced, unbidden but so vivid he almost felt like he was back there in forty-four, entering this place a traitor to save his neck, exiting a hero.
A large oak tree, just off to one side of the trail, he pictured bodies swinging from nooses, not unlike the one in his pocket. A mound of brush covered dirt just visible amongst the trees. Hadn’t there been a pit close by, where the German’s had burnt and buried bodies after execution?
There was a knot of guilt twisting in his stomach as foreign to him as the emotion of love, but there nevertheless
and it shocked him. He did his best to suppress the unwelcome memories forcing their way back into his mind after all these decades.
She strode on with renewed purpose along the overgrown path which wound through the trees. This time he made sure he just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and not glancing off at his surroundings for fear of what ghosts might be lurking there.
But still this unexpected rush of raw guilt had shaken him, he gritted his teeth and pushed through it. That wasn’t an emotion for strong men like Hubert. That was for weaker men than he, men like Baudin and Marc Reno.
He could feel the guilt giving way to anger as he walked.
He could almost hear the inner monologue raging in his head out loud. As if his younger self was walking by his side, whispering encouragement and justifications in his ear.
A voice fuelled as it always had, by his remarkable ability to justify any and all of his actions, not just in the war, but also his brutal post war years where he had forged a bloody path through the Paris underworld. All whilst hiding his true nature from those politicians and police chiefs he couldn’t threaten or bribe.
He could feel his anger subsiding now as the voice whispered on. He even chanced a look around him as if daring
the ghosts of those who died here to show their spectral faces. There had been a war on, he wanted to shout to the trees. They had lost, they were under occupation before many could react. It would have been suicide to fight on, they did what they did for the greater good. After all, hadn’t they saved more than they had led to the slaughter?
(It was in times such as these he would often become, they.) Those idiot commanders had wanted to fight on, but Hubert had more than done his part during the invasion, he was well known, and he and the Reno brothers had been picked up in the first weeks of the occupation. They would have been shot and what good would that have done anyone?
Besides, they had saved so many ordinary villagers from the German reprisals. All they had to do in return was give up the odd resistance commander or the location of a proposed attack.
Hubert’s mood was improving with every step now, which was helped as he came to a clearing and back out into the sunlight. His foot kicked something hard in the undergrowth with a metallic ‘clang’ and he looked down to see the top of a rusty rail at his feet. It snaked off to the right and around
a bend which he knew led to the railway siding in front of the old tunnel, and of course, the carriage.
That nagging fear sparked for a moment, but he pushed it back down into his subconscious with the rest of the redundant emotions that he had supressed during the short walk. He set off along the rails at a pace.
Despite his bravado, when Hubert came around the bend, he stopped dead and was hit by an almost physical sense of déjà vu.
There it was half obscured by thick bushes like some predatory beast lurking in the undergrowth. It seemed much longer than he remembered. Whenever he’d had the misfortune to go inside, it had always seemed so cramped and oppressive and in his memory, it was half the actual size.
He approached the carriage with caution and peered into the woods to his right for any sign of potential advisories.
He paused as he reached the black and white barrier and strained to see through the thick bushes to the carriage beyond. Still no sign signs of life, but he knew they could already be inside. He took out his pistol and pulled down the sleeve of his jacket to obscure the weapon in his hand and cocked the hammer.
His heart was pounding more than it had done in years and he felt that old familiar hit of adrenaline as he moved
forwards. He picked his way awkwardly through the bushes, it was harder than he had anticipated but he powered through, not caring as the branches ripped at the expensive material of his suit here and there. He scanned his surroundings as he went, he cursed the sheer amount of noise he was making as he crashed through, but that couldn’t be helped.
Finally, he staggered out the other side, breathing hard and soaked in sweat, he rested his free hand against the harsh metal bracket which secured the carriage’s coupling at the end. And paused whilst he caught his breath.
“You have gotten old, Hubert,” a voice called out.
Hubert straightened and swept the pistol left and right as he strained to see into the woods beyond the tangle of bushes.
Then two things hit him about the speaker.
One, it was, of all things a boy’s voice. And two, it was coming from inside the carriage.
He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. Surely, he had misheard and tried to reason that it was the blood rushing through his ears from the sheer effort of getting through the bushes, coupled with the acoustics of the carriage’s interior, that had distorted the sound.
He began to slowly edge his way along the carriage to the door, he tried the handle, but it didn’t so much as move. He could see there was another door at the far end so, making
sure he kept below the shuttered windows, he moved off down towards it.
“I got your message,” Hubert shouted.
As he approached the door, he trained his pistol on the opening he could now see.
“Come on, you bastard,” he whispered. “Show yourself.”
He stopped some five feet from the door, which he could now see was buckled and actually hanging off its hinges as if it had been wrenched open with great force.
“I’m not coming in, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he shouted.
He glanced to his right again and through the trees, he cursed to himself. If there was someone hiding in there, he was a sitting duck. He held his breath and strained to listen, but he couldn’t hear any movement from inside. Then he realised the error his tormentor had made. He was in an enclosed space, with only one exit, which Hubert had covered.
And if he indeed didn’t have someone in the woods, the man was an idiot.
He sneered to himself, once again the enemy had underestimated Jean Hubert. Sure, physically he looked like a man in his eighth decade, but he still had that same sharp mind that had helped him flourish his whole life.
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” he said defiantly.
“Oh, don’t we?”
There was no use blaming his hearing this time. It was the voice of a boy coming from inside.
“Mister mayor,” the boy added with contempt.
A girlish giggle erupted from just inside the open door ahead.
Two children!!?
Hubert himself was renowned in certain circles as a callous bastard, but had the blackmailer brought two children as cover? That had caught him off guard and he didn’t like it.
He shuffled closer, gun at the ready.
“Christ!”
He jolted in shock and nearly fired as a young girl appeared in the open gap. She was smiling sweetly and didn’t look at all destressed to have a gun pointing at her.
“Hello Jean,” she said. “Come on in, it’s a reunion.”
He took a step closer, then lunged forwards without really thinking, and took a hold of the girl’s arm. He pulled
her violently out and put his arm around her neck, pressing her to him like a shield.
“Now, Jean, that’s not very nice,” the boy said from inside, without a hint of fear in his voice.
“What the hell is going on here!?” Hubert demanded and shook the girl.
“We trusted you,” the girl said. Her young voice was thick with a strangely adult accusation. “You said we would be safe, but you and the other traitors led us here, like lambs to the slaughter.”
“All the others are dead, Jean,” the boy said. “Just you now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Hubert wanted to know. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“How quickly he forgets,” the boy said.
The girl suddenly ducked under Hubert’s arm and jumped up onto the step and into the carriage, without thinking, he gave chase. He stumbled up the step and into the gloom of the carriage. The drop in light blinded him for a moment and he swung the pistol left and right anticipating an attack.
As his eyes adjusted to the meagre illumination from the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the shutters and roof, the carriage interior slowly came into view.
He cried out in shock at the sight of a dozen or more spectral figures dotted around the carriage, faces he knew from past crimes, looking, pointing at their betrayer. But an instant later they were gone. Leaving just the two children standing under a shaft of light coming from a sizable hole in the roof. He couldn’t quite believe it, but they looked no more than ten years old. They were holding hands but not out of fright but kinship.
They were alone, his frenetic thoughts screamed, no adults skulking in the shadows, or trying to use them as a human shield. He took a breath, he had imagined the other figures, he tried to tell himself, just a trick of the light.
No ghosts, other than those in his overactive imagination brought on by the walk over here. But as reasonable as that was, it just wouldn’t stick.
He realised he had lowered the pistol to his side but was too distracted to bring it back up again. The image of those figures, Christ, some had once been his friends, comrades, he was sure! Was seared into his mind’s eye like a crime scene photograph.
It had been a terrible mistake, coming back here, but it was too late now. The memories of this place came flooding back like a physical assault. He could almost see the Gestapo interrogators milling around, inflicting casual acts of violence. Bodies strung up against the walls of the carriage
or worst still handing from the ceiling like broken marionettes.
He screwed his eyes tight shut, just memories, he wanted to scream out loud. He opened his eyes again and they gradually focused once more. Reality had been restored to the scene somewhat he was relieved to see, albeit a surreal one.
The children were standing in front of the heavy table at the other end, where the Nazis had chained people as part of their interrogations. A place where unspeakable acts of sadism had taken place. It was all the more obscene juxtaposed with these two fresh faced innocents.
“Get away from there!” He shouted but neither child moved. “Who are you,” he pleaded. “How did you know about this place?”
“We lived it, Jean,” the boy replied. His face was set in such a look of utter disdain it shamed the old man.
All Hubert could do was shake his head in incomprehension.
“Lived it, and died here,” the girl said with a sneer that looked all the more horrific on her angelic face.
“What are you...”
“We are the dead, Jean Hubert,” she girl said, cutting him off. “We are at once a single victim of this place and
every single poor soul who perished because of your treachery.”
“We are every emotion, every lingering fragment of pain and suffering, endured here,” the boy added. “Watching, waiting for retribution.”
“That time is now,” they said in tandem.
Hubert spun on his heel at the sound of screaming metal as the door slammed shut and lodged itself at an odd angle, blocking his exit. He ran to it and shoved his full weight against it, but despite the awkwardness of the mangled fit, it was wedged tight.
“So much blood spilt in here...” The boy said.
Hubert heard what at first he thought was rain coming in through the roof, but as a smattering fell at his feet, he could see it was red. Blood began to run down the walls of the carriage and through the gaps in the roof. He could smell it in the air as he breathed.
“No!” It was a demand not a plea.
This was impossible, he was just overwhelmed by the memories of this place. And yes, although he was loathed to admit it, the guilt of what he had done was threatening to undo all reason. He had to fight it!
“We have waited so long to see you again, Jean,” the girl said as she took a step forward.
Hubert instinctively raised the pistol, but she had already stopped.
“Sometimes memories fade,” she continued. “Or they die when those who remember pass on.”
“Or they can be distorted into something milder, when they are too traumatic to take,” the boy said and moved to the girl’s side.
“Or,” the girl added. “Like you, Jean Hubert. Memories can be manipulated into misremembering past deeds, turning horrors into heroics.
Hubert was pitched forwards as the whole carriage began to shake. Pooling blood sloshed against his ankles as he tried to steady himself.
“This is impossible!” He screamed.
But his words were drowned out as the wooden walls of the carriage began to splinter and come away from the metal framework. The panels buckled and snapped as if the whole construction was in the grip of some giant hand, crushing it like a child’s toy.
“Jesus! Jesus!” Hubert exclaimed.
The children huddled together but neither looked afraid.
The carriage began to contort and bend with a near deafening, nerve shredding cacophony of splintering wood and twisting metal, as the separate parts of the structure formed themselves into a multitude of crude hands which began clawing at Hubert’s clothing.
He fired at the floor, barely missing his own foot, then a rust covered metal hand grabbed at his wrist and twisted it violently and he dropped the pistol with a scream of pain.
Others grasped at his arms and legs, crushing the bones and tearing open the flesh. The wooden floor at his back splintered as a long arm like mass came up through the deepening pool of blood and snaked up and clasped a hold of the top of Hubert’s head. The splinters dug deep into his scalp and blood flowed down his face and into his mouth.
The roof above the children was ripped away as if hit by a hurricane and they were both lifted up as gently as babes in a mother’s arms by the transforming carriage all around them.
And they were whisked off into the trees and away, laughing as they went.
Hubert watched them go, just as the blood filled his eyes, blinding him. And he was in the grip of madness now, he had come here expecting to bully or even murder his way out of this new threat to his equilibrium.
He had come to face the ghosts of his past once more.
But not in his wildest nightmares had he expected those ghosts to have purchase in the real physical world. Their collective trauma and lust for vengeance able to manifest into this writhing, twisting tool of retribution.
But places have memories too, he now realised in a horrifying moment of clarity amongst all the pain and oncoming madness. Memories that can fester over decades fermenting into a desperate need for release.
The carriage should by rights have rotted away years ago, if it were not for the sheer psychic power of the multitude of crimes it had witnessed. That power seeping into its very structure, into every atom like so much spilt blood. The inanimate made animate by the overwhelming hopelessness, rage and suffering from within its walls, growing more malignant and cancerous with each passing day.
A once dormant instrument of justice that just needed one more life to be snuffed out in order to end its unnatural existence.
His.
Hubert, blind and in extremis was dragged, kicking and screaming to the torture table. The wood of the table itself
cracked and splintered as it bound him in its jagged embrace, forming itself into a perverse facsimile of an old medieval iron maiden. But razor-sharp metal spikes replaced by dozens of dull wooden chards and splinters that slowly pieced his flesh as it enclosed the pulverized remains if his body.
Jean Hubert gave one final death rattle and died. And this final release of life was the trigger for the carriage and all of its pend up rage to collapse in on itself. The years of decay, held in suspension whilst it waited patiently to fulfil its unspoken promise to the dead, suddenly undone in mere seconds.
The structure caved in like it was made of paper and soon was nothing more than a smouldering crater. In the coming days and weeks, the trees and undergrowth so long kept at bay would take over and the natural order of things would forever erase this once cursed spot.
Life where there had only been death, and a fitting monument for those who had died there.
Jill felt a stab of panic as she called the children’s names for the umpteenth time whilst frantically wandering the grounds, and again got no reply. They had gone off to play in the trees by the lawn, but that had been way before noon, and
they hadn’t returned at lunch time which was so unlike either of them.
Béatrice and Daniel had volunteered to help her look, but she could tell from their faces, they thought she was overreacting. And maybe she was, what with the accident, the stupid dream, and that lingering feeling she’d had that the kids just hadn’t been themselves over the last couple of days.
The spectre of the separation loomed large in her mind again.
Where they just playing up?
She tried to reason in her growing panic, that it was more likely she had been so worried about how the break-up had affected the kids that she hadn’t taken time to process it herself. That she was projecting her uncertainties and catastrophising the most innocent of situations.
Yep, I’m going mad she thought. But still, where were the kids?
“Jill!”
It was Béatrice, she appeared out of the wooded area at the bottom of the massive lawn out in front of the hotel. She waved her over and Jill found herself running across the grass. As she approached, she searched the young woman’s face for any sign of panic.
“Béatrice?” She asked breathlessly as she reached her.
Béatrice smiled and put her finder to her lips.
“C’mon,” she whispered, and Jill followed her as she ducked back into the dense shrubbery.
“Have you found them?” Jill asked nervously.
“Shh, this way.”
Béatrice held out her hand Jill took it, and she led her through to a small path on the other side of the foliage.
Jill saw a flash of blue colour and could see Daniel standing a little way ahead. He smiled warmly and waved them over.
He was standing next to the small war memorial the kids and Madam Besson had visited the other day. It was covered in a mass of fresh flowers.
“Look,” Daniel whispered and pointed into the heap of flowers.
Jill almost burst into tears of relief. Tom and Daisy were laid, curled up asleep under the flowers either side of the simple stone statue which was a white bird atop a plinth with a base containing a list of carved names. They both looked filthy, but unharmed.
She knelt down and gently touched Daisy warm cheek. The young girl stirred slightly and then opened her eyes. It seemed to take her a moment to realise where she was, then she looked up at her mum and smiled.
“I’m starving,” she said sleepily.
Jill picked her up and gave her a kiss.
Tom sat up and yawned, his grubby face still creased from sleep.
“Hi mate,” Jill said.
Tom rubbed his eyes and looked at the three adults who were all staring at him and grinning like loons.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Jill replied. “Had a good morning?”
He nodded and got to his feet.
“You starving too?” She asked.
“Always,” he replied.
“Well then,” Béatrice said. “Let us get you some food before you fade away completely.”
As they made their way back along the path, Béatrice gave Jill a look and ruffled Daisy’s hair.
“Daisy? Alors, quelle français connaissez-vous chérie?”
“Huh?” Daisy replied with a look of confusion.
Béatrice turned to Tom.
“Et Toi?”
“You what?” He said with a frown and look from her to Jill. “What’s aunty Béatrice on about?”
Jill shrugged and just about stopped the tears threatening to come.
“I asked,” Béatrice said. “So, what French do you know?”
Tom thought about this for a moment with a frown, then a look of mischief crossed his young face. He looked at his sister who grinned.
“Wee! Wee!” They shouted in unison before bursting into fits of laughter.
“My children, ladies and gentlemen,” Jill announced, with a little more relief than she had meant to.
My beautiful children.
Sure, it’s state of the art. But it’s still a tomb There were two main reasons why Hadden University kept their new experimental survival bunker project, out of sight of the general university population. Why the had decided to build the prototype structure deep within the dense woods, located at the farthest edge of the main campus’ vast grounds. Away from prying student and faculty members eyes.
One: Simply enough, seclusion. When they ran their tests, which basically amounted to three or four hand-picked volunteers not connected to the University. The last thing for these tests to work correctly was for a bunch of students to come wandering into the test area whilst searching for magic mushrooms or a place to copulate. The subjects had to truly believe they could truly be the last people on earth.
These lab rats would be accompanied by at least one of the senior scientists from the project who would monitor their reactions to being so isolated from the outside world, and also be able to complete certain tasks within the bunker and maintain any running repairs that might pop up.
This was then complicated by the occasional assault on the bunker by an armed group of ‘marauders’ trying to gain access by force or pleading for entry as they ‘died’ horribly
from the after-effects of whatever weapon of the week was chosen.
These so-called marauders consisted of a group of amateur actors recruited form a local theatre company. Who would take great delight in dying with ever increasing histrionics and homemade special effects, whenever called upon to do so.
And two, (unofficially): Sheer embarrassment. The bunker, especially when in the midst of a bad actor onslaught, looked like the set from a low budget sci-fi movie.
It had looked good on paper, the design schematics were very impressive. But once the structure had been built, its clunky steel exterior, especially when set against the backdrop of the lush green and brown foliage of the wood, looked utterly ridiculous.
Their fears had been compounded when, to add architectural insult to injury, one of the older actors had said that it looked like a bad late nineties live action roll playing location.
The aesthetics of the bunker however were lost on the two project leaders and the engineering supervisor who had birthed it. It worked, and despite still being a work in progress, worked well. It still had a way to go to be perfect but if push came to shove any one of its proud creators would gladly call it home if the end of days came anytime soon.
It had an effective air filtration system, cctv cameras offering a three-sixty view of outside. Storage space for nearly a year’s supply of canned and freeze dried foods.
Running filtered water and two chemical toilets.
At present the water supply, which was connected to a local river, had to be hand pumped and purified with tablets.
But that was a small price to pay for survival. Soon, once the next round of funding came through, everything would be automated.
And in due time, all of this would be powered by solar panels, which would be fitted in the next stage of construction. Then they could do away with the noisy petrol-powered generator they currently used.
The whole project had been reluctantly (at first) hosted by the university nine months ago. After being approached (and yes bribed) by the UK military who closely supervised the university’s highly admired engineering department.
The team was headed up by Major Masie Kamen, a brilliant engineer in her own right, who herself had graduated from Hadden eight years previously before choosing a career in the military.
Once the cash began to flow, the university now gladly lent out their staff for the project. All of whom worked on the bunker with an enthusiasm bordering on the obsessive. To
most it was a well-funded great game where no idea was off limits.
But to Major Kamen, it had always been so much more than that. And lately she was increasingly aware of its absolute relevance.
Global tensions of late were at an all-time high, so much higher and precarious that any civilian was allowed to know.
As the saying goes; ‘Ignorance is bliss.’
Behind the scenes, superpowers were at each other’s throats. Old alliances were in tatters as the rhetoric became more and more vitriolic with each secretly held crisis summit.
And just for good measure, throw in the odd rogue failed state and its dubious weapons programmes. Times were grim.
And so, Kamen and her team worked on. Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
Last month after another successful test (four volunteers surviving five weeks without any outside assistance.) The chief engineering team stood in front of their pride and joy.
Sipping champagne and slapping each other on the back.
Professor Miles Adams PHD who was only second in the team to Major Kamen. Turned to his eight colleagues, puffed out his pigeon chest and announced.
“Be careful what you wish for, Miles,” Kamen had told him after the self-congratulatory cheer had died down.
Major Masie Kamen was, as usual, absolutely right.
Even though the build-up of tensions and violent rhetoric had gone on for months. The end, when it came, came fast.
Governments had screamed foul, claiming red lines had been crossed, innocents slaughtered.
It had all played out just under the radar of Joe public who had been drip fed just enough info to make them feel informed without causing the panic the actual facts would induce.
Besides, no one would ever be insane enough to go to war over it... Would they?
So, that morning for whatever reason, someone blinked first. Someone’s trigger finger was just a little bit itchier than the others. In the end no one knew who, or why really.
But in the end, none of that mattered. No one in the real everyday world had paid that much attention to the global
‘tensions’ as they grew. But they sure as hell did when
people started to drop over left, right and centre all around them.
When the world started ending, Kyle Easterbrook had been on a photoshoot.
Just a normal day in his up until then charmed life.
Four hours of being pampered, photographed and told just how amazing his bone structure was. Just, ‘stand there, tilt your head slightly to the right so those baby blues catch the light just so.’ ‘Move here, smile that perfect smile.’
Four hours, fifty grand. Nice work if you can get it.
And Kyle could.
You see Kyle Easterbrook was handsome as hell, beautiful really. He had been dealt a full house in the genetic card game and had used it to his advantage his whole life. Today at twenty-five it was modelling. And when he hit the dizzy heights of thirty, a career in acting would surely follow. He had even started lessons.
Not that Kyle was thinking about his career prospects at that very moment. No, Kyle was hitting a hundred and ten in his Audi R8, screaming down the dual carriageway.
Death was all around him, silent, tasteless, odourless.
But there all the same. The people he tore passed, those poor ignorant fools would soon be dead, they just didn’t know it
yet. They would be the first victims in what would turn out to be the shortest, most deadly of the now three world wars.
How did an over paid, narcissistic, pretty boy model know? Two words from his girlfriend Masie.
“It’s started.”
He didn’t remember much of the frantic phone call after that. He had protested, pleaded, threatened even, but she had cut him off with her customary authority.
“Get to the bunker,” she ordered. “I’ll meet you there.”
Chances are, if Kyle was the most beautiful person in Britain, (Europe at least surely! He would have argued.) Then Masie Kaman was the smartest.
To say they were an odd couple was an understatement.
Kyle was the young superstar model whereas Masie was twelve years his senior and a Major in the royal engineers. They had met just over a year ago at an army veteran’s charity fundraiser. Kyle, whose grandfather who had been a retired colonel in the marines, had recently died, and his mother had put on the gala in his memory.
Despite his grandfather’s numerous decorations throughout his long and distinguished service, everyone knew Kyle was the real star of the show. It had been a cynical ploy by his mother to invite him to the event. As it had concluded with
an auction, where the main prize was a dinner with her famous son.
Major Kamen had won the bid, and much to both of their surprise, they had hit it off immediately. Certainly, they both knew it could never be anything too serious. But as time passed there had developed a sort of unspoken pact between them.
Kyle knew, but would never admit it to anyone, that he was the stereotypical dumb pretty boy, all beauty and no brains. And although he loved himself more than was probably healthy. This was the ‘ugly’ part of him that no amount of beauty treatment or surgery could fix. And he secretly loathed himself for it.
It was as if being with Masie he had hoped some of her impressive intellect would rub off on him. And he suspected for her part, Masie enjoyed the envious looks she would get from other women when they were out together. She was quite a plain woman, truth be told, even in her uniform. Well, plain in comparison to the man on her arm or the women he usually dated.
But in the end, none of that mattered. Because as the world was teetering on the brink of the abyss. That relationship might just have saved Kyle Easterbrook’s life.
He found himself smiling to himself, despite his panic.
Yes, Kyle had a charmed life indeed, and to think he had moaned like a teenager on the several occasions Masie had dragged him along to see her pride and joy take shape.
On one such clandestine visit, they had spent an unexpectedly passionate weekend in the bunker. Against all protocols, but when you are the project manager you can write your own rules. It was out of character for Masie, and he suspected it was the place itself that fuelled her passions those days and nights.
Well, what do you know, he had mused to himself at the time. Science can be fun.
Seeing his exit up ahead, Kyle dropped his speed just a little and swung the Audi onto the slip road. He took the roundabout at the bottom without breaking and turned effortlessly onto the A road that would take him all the way to Hadden Uni’s engineering campus and hopefully safety.
The sports car ate up the five miles to the campus in no time and before he knew it, he was turning off the main road and onto the long winding road that weaved through the lush countryside and up towards the large main campus building.
It had once been a stately home he vaguely remembered Masie telling him once (yawn) and had practised his burgeoning acting skills by feigning interest.
He rounded a corner, and the building came into view, vast even in the distance. Just up ahead there was a small security guard kiosk with a red and white striped poll across the road. As usual there would only be one guard on duty as it was half term and only the most diligent faculty and students would be on campus today.
As Kyle didn’t have a pass of his own, he would have to sweet talk the guard into letting him in. He gunned the engine as he approached to get the guard’s attention and he pulled up by the kiosk window.
“Mister Easterbrook!” The guard said in surprise and stuck his head out of the open window.
Bollocks! Kyle knew the man but couldn’t for all the world remember his name. The guard leaned forwards and Kyle caught sight of his security ID badge. Bill Rogers.
“Hi Bill,” Kyle said as brightly as he could, and the man seemed genuinely touched he had ‘remembered’ his name. “And it’s Kyle, please.”
“Okay, Kyle,” he replied, and did he blush?
It was clear from his manner and the fact half the British army wasn’t already here, that Bill Rogers had no idea he would be dead soon.
He grabbed a clip board from inside and came outside, flicking through a sheet of paper pinned to it as he did so.
“I’m afraid the major isn’t in today,” he said with a frown.
“Oh, it’s okay, she asked me to meet her here.”
Tick, tick, tick! The doomsday clock in Kyle’s brain echoed as the man seemed to be moving in slow motion. Taking an age with every action. And he had to fight the urge just to speed straight through the barrier. Calm, he told himself, calm.
“She wanted to show me something she was working on, thought it best to come during half term, y’know?”
His voice sounded strained, but he would just have to front it out. He knew technically he would have needed prior permission as he wasn’t facility or a student.
Bill Rogers re-read the list at a glacial pace.
For Christ sakes! Kyle wanted to scream at him, this is a fucking university not Area 51!!
“You know what she’s like,” Kyle ventured calmly. “She’s really passionate about all this stuff.”
“Yeah,” Rogers replied with an amiable smile. “Must say it’s all very exciting, having the military collaborating on something here. Don’t suppose you could give me a hint about what it is?”
“Sorry Bill, I could, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Rogers guffawed at the old joke and went back inside the kiosk. Kyle felt sick at the banter, he could tell him and wouldn’t then have to kill him. Whatever was coming would take care of that.
“Wouldn’t want that!” He said cheerfully after a moment and pushed the barrier release button. “It’s my lad’s eighteenth on Tuesday.”
Kyle tried to reply as the barrier slowly opened but he feared if he opened his mouth he would throw up.
“I’ll tell the major you’ve here when she arrives,”
Rogers added.
“Cheers,” Kyle managed to choke out and sped away.
Suddenly it was all real now, real people would really die. And little Bill junior wasn’t going to make it to eighteen.
“Fuck,” Kyle felt a wave of nausea wash over him and his polo shirt was instantly socked in sweat. It was like
something out of a bad war movie. ‘Here, have you seen this picture of my wife and kids?’
The location of the bunker wasn’t sign posted but Kyle remembered the way. He turned off the main road leading to the campus car park and onto a smaller road with a ‘private road, no entry,’ sign at the beginning.
Then onto what was little more than a dirt track which led through the woods and to a makeshift car park further in.
His Audi complained endlessly as he approached the parking area, muddy dirt tracks were a sports car’s nemesis and he ended up abandoning it some twenty metres from his destination as it slid into a ditch by the side of the track.
He didn’t even wonder if he would ever get to drive the thing again as he set off running along the track towards his salvation. His famous love of all things material dissipating with every stride. The fact that he didn’t even care he was ruining his brand-new Balenciaga trainers in the mud was testament to that.
He only had eyes for that ugly metal bunker he had in the past been so eager to avoid. And as he ran, he thanked Christ for Masie’s obsession with the place.
A flash of sunlight glinting off metal through the thick trees ahead caught his eye. Just like a photographer’s flash
gun from one of his shoots. He had always loved that sight, but never so more than now.
As he approached the large clearing at the front of the bunker, he slowed his pace. Masie wasn’t here yet and there hadn’t been any vehicles in the woodland car park her team used. But still, could any other the others know about the impending disaster and beaten him here?
He stopped at the very edge of the clearing and scoped his surroundings. But was greeted only with the wind blowing through the trees and his own panicked breathing.
“Hello?” He shouted, winced, waited. “Hello, is anybody there?”
He held his breath for what seemed like a full five minutes and listened. Still nothing.
His phone went off and he screamed out loud.
“Jesus!!” His voice was shrill, like a frightened child and he was doubly glad he was alone.
He checked the caller ID: ‘Masie.’
“Maze!’ Where the fuck are you?” He whispered and suddenly hoped she was going to say it had all been a false alarm.
“On my way,” her normally calm professional tone was tinged with genuine fear, and it chilled him.
“Babe, what’s going on?” He said weakly.
“Kyle... This is all real.” There was a finality in her voice now, which was so much worse than the fear.
He bit back tears and felt his stomach flip.
“Kyle?”
“I’m here,” he croaked. “At the bunker.”
“Thank Christ. Is there anyone else...”
“No,” he replied cutting her off without meaning to.
“I’m the first.”
The first, his mind whirled. The first what? What was this, some kind of race? He felt sick, yes of course it was.
A race for survival.
“Good, good,” she said, sounding calmer now. “You’ll need today’s code to get inside.”
Of course! He remembered now. The door lock was controlled by a four-digit code that they changed every day.
“Okay, just a sec’,” he broke cover and ran the twenty or so yards across open ground between the treeline and the thick steel door.
“Okay, I’m here,” he said.
“Right, okay,” she paused, and he heard papers shuffling.
“Ready? Two, nine, zero, zero.”
“Got it,” Kyle snapped open the hard plastic cover of the keypad.
He raised his hand to tap in the numbers, but his fingers suddenly weren’t his own. His whole hand was shaking like an alcoholic before that first drink of the day. He looked at his rebellious digits in disbelief and could not stop his hand from shaking. Not even if his life depended... He shook both hands and the tremors abated somewhat.
Even so, he had to wedge his phone awkwardly between his cheek and shoulder so that he could use his left hand to hold his right wrist just to keep it steady enough to use. Christ it was like a nightmare, his phantom limbs unable to do even the most basic task. He slowly, fighting against the shakes, managed to move his index finger up to the pad to punch in the code...
Shit! What was the code again? Suddenly the twelve buttons on the keypad looked like ancient alien hieroglyphics.
“Maze...”
“I can’t hear you, something’s wrong with your phone,”
her muffled voice said.
“What’s the code again?” He almost sobbed it.
Christ, he was so fucking dumb! He couldn’t even remember four fucking numbers! Couldn’t even read them!
“Kyle, calm down,” Masie told him, her voice slightly clearer as he shifted his shoulder slightly. “Two, nine, zero, zero.”
He screwed his eyes shut and took a long breath. When he opened them again, the numbers. Yes, ten numbers plus a hash tag and a star symbol were as clear as day.
He punched in the code and was instantly rewarded with a loud metallic ‘clunk’ and the door hissed open on hydraulic pistons.
He took the phone out from under his chin before he dropped it.
“Maze! Maze, I’m in!” He could have burst into tears then and there.
“Good,” she said.
He waited for more, but she had fallen silent on the other end.
“Masie?”
“I’m here,” she finally replied. “I’m sending you over a PDF. It’s got the basic operating procedures for the bunker.
It’s the one we give to the volunteers, should be easy enough to follow, that’s the idea.”
At least she didn’t call it idiot proof, Kyle thought.
“Okay, but you’re gonna be here soon, right?”
“Yes, Christ yes!” She reassured him. “But look, it’s going to take me a while yet to get to you. You’ll only need to power up a couple of things to get you up and running before I get there. Nothing too complicated, locking the door, turning on the generator, checking the air filters and shit. Just follow the PDF and you’ll be fine.”
“Nothing too complicated?” He asked as his phone
‘pinged’ with a new message. He checked the screen. “I got the file.”
“Cool. Kyle, just stay calm and follow the instructions.
The bunker is just a prototype, but it all works,” she said, and he was only too happy to believe her.
“Okay, okay.”
He heard her take a long forlorn breath.
“And I’m going to need you to change the entrance code.”
“Change the code?”
“Yeah,” the guilt was heavy in her voice. “Kyle, it’s only going to be a matter of time before Professor Adams and the rest of the team figure out what’s happened. They’ll come, bring others. I know it’s a shitty thing to do, but the bunker can’t sustain us all. Just you and me, babe. Just you and me.”
The statement and its implications hung heavy in the dead air between them.
“Fucking hell, Maze,” Kyle felt lightheaded and had to lean against the side of the bunker and let that sink in.
Suddenly the thought of all those amateur actors laying siege to the bunker didn’t seem quite so funny anymore.
“I know,” she said softly. “Change the number, just in case. You’ll be able to let me in from the inside, there’s a door release button. But no one else will be able to get in if the code’s changed. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” he replied, his voice gossamer.
“And don’t let anyone in until I get there,” she said as clinically as only a soldier could.
Kyle had been standing there with the phone still to his ear for a full minute before he realised she had gone. The next moment he was on his knees vomiting up his very expensive lunch.
The harsh automatic overhead fluorescent lights flickered for a moment and Kyle closed his eyes and waited for the strobing to stop.
Once the audible click, click, clicking had stopped he could hear a soft whirring, which he took as the air filter
coming on and he opened his eyes. He pushed shut the heavy metal door, which was much easier than he’d thought, and it locked with an ominous yet reassuring metal ‘clunk’.
He turned and took in the bunker’s interior. Hadn’t it been bigger the last time he had been here?
The truth was that he hadn’t paid that much attention to the guided tours Masie had given him. He had been too eager to get her out of her uniform and into one of the bunks.
The main part of the bunker was open plan and was dominated by the control centre, six side screen computer monitors, stretched out on a long table against the back wall.
Three keyboards and a console with a dozen or so lights and switches complete with what looked to Kyle like the old computer game joysticks from back in the day attached.
A mass of tangled multi-coloured wires snaked out from the back of the electronics and into five large grey metal boxes on the floor. And no matter how sensitive he was about his intellect, Kyle knew enough not to go anywhere near any of that shit.
Thankfully three of the monitors flickered into life.
Their screens split into four boxes each giving him a black and white view from the various cameras placed around the bunker and some into the trees themselves. One was pointing to the makeshift car park, and he could just make out his
abandoned Audi at the very edge of frame. That camera would make it easy to see if anyone else drove up the track.
He could still taste the bile at the back of his throat, so he went through into the modest living area, which consisted of two three-seater sofas, a four-chair dining table and a plasma TV on top of a cabinet complete with computer games set up. It all put Kyle in mind of a student’s flat, basic but practical.
A small kitchen was set up was at the back of the bunker.
Again, nothing special. A sink, worksurface, several cupboards and on the end a hand pump with a black plastic handle, for pumping water.
And that was it for the open plan living and working area. There were two doors leading to the remaining parts of the bunker. One wooden, and one steel like the exterior.
A sign on the wooden door read; ‘Bunks.’ And the metal door was marked; ‘Storage/Generator room’.
Kyle opened the heavy metal door and went inside. Like the main area, the overhead lights flickered on automatically.
This room was much longer than he had expected. It had wall to floor racking on each side, which were half filled with military issue canned and dried foods.
Kyle walked down the narrow gap in between the racks, there was another metal door at the very end, marked;
‘Generator room.’ Which he noted for later.
As he walked, he ran his hands over the various tins and food containers. Until he came across a dozen packs of bottled water. He gratefully ripped into one and took a long drink water. It was tepid at best, but he was grateful for it all the same.
He swilled his mouth out with the remaining water and grabbed another bottle before making his way back to the living area. He turned on the TV, more for comfort than anything and drank down the second bottle.
He glanced back over to the monitors and was reassured to see nothing but nature and the ugly sides of the bunker on them.
He flicked through the TV channels and came to rest on a news channel. The report was nothing special, a woman, pitch side at a football stadium talking to some pundit or another.
The normally banal scene set his heart racing. Didn’t they know what was coming? Not yet but they soon would, everybody would know. But still it seemed the outside world was more interested in the price of petrol and Leeds United’s five game winning streak to care about the end of the world.
Maybe that was for the best he thought forlornly.
He began pottering around the bunker, more to pass the time than anything. His initial panic on the journey over here had thankfully abated a little now that he was locked inside. It was clear, even to his untrained eye that the place was still a work in progress. Wires sticking out of the walls, stacks of boxes containing more electronics to be fitted at a later date.
But even in this chaotic state, it worked. Masie had assured him of that. So, for now he was content enough that although, it might not be the Ritz, it would save their lives.
Change the code.
Kyle swivelled on a chair in front of the monitors and peered at the screen showing the clearing and woods. No sign yet of Masie, and thankfully no one else.
He chewed his lip, it had been nearly an hour now since he had arrived and still Masie hadn’t shown. A hundred scenarios had played out in his agitated brain as he had been rattling around the bunker waiting, waiting.
Each scenario more catastrophic than the last, from a crash on the motorway to Masie dying from whatever the hell was coming. Something he still had no idea of. Nuclear? Germ warfare? Fucking zombies!?
And what’s more, the keypad on the inside of the door had begun an incessant intermittent beeping, which wasn’t helping his growing anxiety.
Change the code.
Back in the living area, the TV was still spewing banalities, ignorant in its bliss.
He sat down and channel hopped and checked his phone for the umpteenth time. Still no message from Masie, dead in a ditch, his hyped-up imagination told him. Shut up! He told it back.
He settled on an old seventies cop show, he remembered his late dad loving. And for the first time in his life, he was glad both his parents had died young. Better that than what was coming (whatever that was!) One less thing to worry about at least, he thought grimly and rightly got a twinge of guilt for it.
He turned up the volume to drown out that annoying beeping coming from the door.
Change the code.
He tried Masie’s number again, but for the fourth time since they had last spoken it went to voice mail.
He hit the call end button with an expletive she would have kicked his arse for if she’d heard. Then he opened the PDF and tapped idly through the pages.
Change the code.
It started with a bullet point list intituled; ‘Upon entry.’
But he hadn’t had the courage to read it yet. Just in case, his old insecurities told him, it made no sense at all pretty boy.
It was easy to convince himself he should wait another half hour and if Masie wasn’t here, then he would attack the PDF instructions with renewed confidence.
Change the code...
Much to the relief of his shredded nerves, ten minutes into that half an hour the door keypad finally stopped beeping. He was about to thank God for small mercies when the power went out.
He cried out in shock and leapt up from the sofa. The bunker was in near darkness, no TV, no monitor and no lights.
It took him a moment to realise, the only illumination was coming from a small emergency light above the door. He scrambled across the bunker, catching his knee on the monitor table, and hobbled over to the door.
The keypad, whose buttons had been illuminated before was dead.
“Fuck!”
Then, to his horror, the door hissed and opened slightly.
Probably some safety measure in the event of no power.
Kyle pushed against the door, but it barely moved. It was on hydraulic hinges which aided its closure. If there was power!
“Oh, no, no, no,” he uttered and pushed harder. “Come on! Please, Christ.”
Fuelled by a much needed hit of adrenaline, he planted his feet firmly on the floor and pushed against the heavy steel door with all his body weight. It moved an inch, then another as it slowly began to close.
“Yes! Come on!” He shouted in rage and gave it one final push.
The door swung the last few inches more under its own weight than his strength, but it closed nevertheless with that satisfying ‘clunk.’
Kyle howled in relief and staggered back. He was now in total darkness, so he fumbled in his pocket for his phone. He was about to turn on the flashlight app when...
‘Clunk!’
The door opened slightly, and he was hit with a sliver of sunlight.
“What!? What?” His head was spinning in panic, he moved over to the keypad, the small digital display above the buttons had the symbol of a battery icon with a line through it.
“Shit! Shit.”
Kyle frantically opened up the PDF on his phone, then paused. He let out a long deep breath. Calm down.
He tapped the screen and the front page changed to the bullet point list he had not yet read.
Upon entry. One: Start the generator. Emergency battery power is very limited and under no circumstances should it be used to power any appliance within the structure. Its main function is to power the entrance door keypad and hydraulics.
When the emergency battery is dangerously low it will omit an audible intermittent tone and must be recharged immediately.
Note: **The entrance door will not lock without power.**
It was even in bold.
Dumbstruck, Kyle gawped at all the appliances, the lights that had switched on when he had arrived, the fucking TV.
It would have been funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.
And he could only imagine what Masie would have said. ‘It’s a good job you’re pretty. You dumb fuck.’
He just stood there and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So, in the end, he did both.
The sound of a heavy diesel engine someway off outside snapped Kyle out of his hysterics.
He held his breath and listened. Yes, there it was again, drifting in on the breeze. He instantly knew it wasn’t Maise. She drove an electric, something he often teased her about.
Whoever it was, they were still in the distance and although it was hard to judge, might not actually be coming
this way at all. He tried to think, wasn’t the A road he had come in on just on the other side of the wood?
He knew he couldn’t take that chance. He moved swiftly back into the bunker using the meagre light from the door opening, until he came to the storeroom door. He flicked on the torch app and went inside.
He ran down between the racks until he came to the metal door at the end. Generator room. He tentatively tried the handle, half expecting it to be locked, but it opened, and he went inside. Thanking Christ as he did so.
The room was small, little bigger than a walk-in closet, with walls of plain brick. The generator sat by the back wall connected to a grey metal electrical junction box. A jerry can was standing next to the grimy machine, so Kyle took two strides inside and gave it a kick. It toppled over, empty.
“Shite!”
He knelt by the generator and rested his phone on the top, so the light was shining on the petrol cap. The smell of petrol stung his sinuses. He could see a thick exhaust hose coming out of the back and into the wall behind.
He unscrewed the fuel tank lid and gave the machine a nudge and could see fuel lapping right up to the rim. It was full.
“Thank Christ,” he breathed with relief. At last, something was going his way.
The generator looked easy enough to start. There was an on/off switch and a black pull handle like on an old lawn mower. He flicked the switch to the ‘on’ position and took a hold of the handle.
“C’mon!” He gritted his teeth and pulled.
And much to his surprise the generator kicked in first time. He let go of the handle and the cable pulled itself back into place. He stood back and just marvelled at it. All this technology and money and the whole place ran on an old petrol generator.
The lights flickered back on, and he could hear the TV
back in the living area and the wonderful hum as the air filtration system kicked in again.
Kyle jogged back over to the door and pushed it with two hands, it easily closed with a soft hiss and a ‘clunk’ as it locked. He paused, the keypad on the wall was still registering zero battery, but the icon was now pulsing with an arrow running through it to indicate it was charging. And the numbers were illuminated once more.
Change the code.
He glanced back at the monitors. Whoever had been driving hadn’t made their way onto the estate. He was still alone, but for how long?
He let out a strangled laugh and lent back against the cool metal of the door. The next job he decided was hunting through the storeroom of any sign of booze. Because by Christ all this peril had made him desperate for a drink.
“Where are you, Maze?” He breathed.
Hearing her name out loud set off a nagging spark that he had forgotten something else. Should he try calling her again?
He came away from the door and looked at his phone.
Maybe later after a drink. He just prayed she got here before Adams and anyone else. She would know what to do when they did. Like she said, the bunker can’t hold them all.
“Change the code!” He shouted out loud as it hit him.
“Fuck wit!”
Kyle scrolled through the PDF until he found the ‘change PIN’ page. And he just hoped it was an easy procedure. He didn’t know what would be worse, Adams turning up and simply popping in the code, or Masie getting here and realising he didn’t know how to follow simple instructions on an idiot proof PDF.
He dismissed that as his insecurities messing with his head. He just needed to read the damn instructions, which after all had been specifically written for those who had no knowledge of how the place worked.
“Right, come on,” he told himself and began reading.
‘Press star,’ he pressed star on the keypad. He was greeted with a short menu on the keypad’s small screen each option had a corresponding number. Change door code was four.
He pressed four and the hashtag to confirm as instructed.
The display flashed four horizontal lines. What should he choose?
Movement from one of the monitors caught his eye as he was glancing around for inspiration. Did he just see the back end of a car disappear from one of the screens?
Next to the keypad there was an intercom which had three buttons on it. Talk, listen and a large green door release button. He wasn’t going anywhere near that one, he thought.
He pressed the listen button and was rewarded with the sound of birdsong and wind blowing through the speaker. He listened intently. Yes! He definitely heard an engine gunning in the distance.
“Shit!”
Still nothing on the monitors, he had time if someone was coming his way.
What code should he use? He wracked his brain, it needed to be something he wouldn’t forget without writing it down.
So, four random digits were out of the question. He noticed each of the numbers on the keypad had three small letters underneath, just like a phone. He thought for a second, K.Y.L.E would be too obvious. Then a thin childish smile crossed his perfect features.
He typed; 3(F) 8(U) 2(C) 5(K)
The numbers on the display flashed and a prompt came up to press star to save the changes. He pressed star and was rewarded with a ‘Door code change successful’ message.
Kyle rested his head against the door and exhaled deeply in relief. He could feel tears close but bit them back and prayed for Masie to get here. There was something about the finality of such a simple task that scared him. He was alone now, safe, but alone.
And that terrified him.
Buoyed somewhat by his small victory with the door code, Kyle had determined that while he waited for Masie to finally get here (Two hours now!) he was going to master as much of the bunkers rudimentary systems as he could.
He had started off small with things like checking the manual water pump worked okay, which it did, and he even fitted a new filter. Then toasted his success with an odd tasting glass of water.
Then he had turned his attention to the CCTV system.
That as something he knew he would need a rudimentary understanding of.
It had taken him the best part of an hour, but he had eventually managed to work out how to switch cameras on the CCTV monitors, even move the cameras outside using the joystick. Whisper it, but the PDF they had devised was indeed idiot proof. And almost more importantly, the whole endeavour had distracted him from worrying about events outside, events he had no control of. But instead concentrate on things he could control, and it had left him with a certain sense of reassurance.
He had been playing with controlling one of the cameras when a flash of movement through the trees caught his attention on the camera covering the car park and his poor abandoned Audi. A yellow KIA estate car was just visible
through the thick foliage coming closer as it slowly negotiated its way along the now churned up dirt track. He could see the windscreen wipes on the vehicle going ten to the dozen as it slipped and slid its way through the mud.
Gradually it became more and more bogged down and out of control until finally it slid sideways and clipped the front of his Audi, but he barely registered the outrage as it struggled on like some dying beast and came to a halt. He could just make out smoke coming from under the bonnet.
The car just sat there smoking. It didn’t take a genius to know whoever was inside not only knew about the bunker but thanks to his Audi, knew someone had beaten them to it.
The passenger door opened and a middle-aged woman in a heavy coat, Kyle didn’t recognise, got out. She looked at the bottom of the vehicle which was now stuck up to its axle in the mud. She was flailing her arms around in a panic and shouting to the driver inside.
The driver got out to view the situation for himself. It was Professor Adams, Masie’s second on the project. He was talking to the woman then gestured to the Audi.
That’s right, Kyle found himself thinking, too late Professor. Tough shit. It’s mine.
Then he caught himself. Christ, what the hell was that?
It was as if the few hours he had spent in the bunker had
already given him a siege mentality. He looked around his sanctuary, and yes, he had to admit, with a sense of ownership.
It wasn’t a good look on him, he knew, but it was there, nevertheless. Only he knew the door code, only he could grant access to this life saving haven. Yes, dumb old Kyle, the pretty boy arm candy you all looked down upon. How are your half-dozen degrees going to help you now Professor?
The pair outside huddled together, talking, then after a moment Adams went around to the back of the car and opened the hatchback, and took out a large rucksack. He joined the woman, who Kyle assumed was his wife, and they set off through the mud.
Kyle switched to the cameras overlooking the clearing in front of the bunker and waited. Sure enough, five minutes later, the two figures came into view at the very edge of the treeline. They paused, just as Kyle had done and watched the entrance.
He felt a sudden stab of remorse as he watched them, two forlorn but hopeful figures on a TV screen. And not for the first-time cursed Masie for not being here. She should be the one charge, the one capable of making clinical life and death decisions. After all she was the soldier and what was he? A fucking male model!
He watched with a growing sickening feeling as Adams left his wife and came tentatively across the clearing and towards the bunker’s entrance door, like a man crossing a mine field.
Where he eventually appeared on the camera overlooking the door. Kyle tensed as Adams looked straight into the camera above him.
Then he keyed in the entrance code. Kyle could hear the beeps through the interior unit, then the harsh rejection tone. Adams seemed to jump as if he’d gotten an electric shock and then tried again with the same results.
“Christ,” Kyle hissed through his teeth. “Damn you Maze.”
Adams looked back up at the camera and Kyle could clearly see growing panic on the man’s face and he had to look away.
“Hello?” A metallic voice said, and it was Kyle’s turn to jump.
He spun on his chair towards the door half expecting to see the man standing right there.
“Hello? Who’s in there?” The intercom made his voice sound monotone and robotic. “This is Professor Adam. What’s wrong with the door?”
Kyle could see Adams had his face pressed close to the intercom waiting for a response.
“Fuck,” Kyle whispered as if the man could hear him.
“Major Kamen?” Adams tinny voice asked. “Is that you?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Adams then turned and waved his wife over. She seemed reluctant at first, but after some coaxing she came over and stood by his side. As Kyle watched they exchanged some heated words after which, obviously at his wife’s behest Adams tried and failed to open the door again.
Kyle turned away from the monitor unable to watch anymore. He just wished they would give up and leave. He couldn’t imagine what would happen when Masie finally arrived.
A hell of a scene no doubt. Then he had a sobering thought.
What is she brought a gun with her?
He tasted bile at the back of his throat again as he pictured the altercation which would end with both Adams’ shot to death.
Kyle got to his feet and went into the living area, he slumped down on the sofa. There was a glass of half-drunk bourbon on the coffee table next to it. He leaned over and downed it in one and lay on his side as it began to chip away at his anxiety a little.
The intercom buzzed and he grabbed two cushions and put them over his ears as Adam’s metallic voice came through the speaker. He brought his knees up and hugged them staring at
the TV. He began to weep as the oblivious woman on the TV was pointing at a weather map and told him something he already knew. It was raining.
It seemed impossible, but when Kyle next opened his eyes, he saw that the clock in the corner of the news channel screen had leapt an hour since he had managed to stop crying and closed his eyes for a moment’s peace. Nervous exhaustion no doubt, but still it was a shock.
He stiffly threw his legs over the edge of the sofa and got to his feet. He picked up his phone from the coffee table. Still no messages. He felt that old familiar pang of fear and anger in his gut again.
“Shit!!”
He went over to the monitors. The entrance was empty, he sat down in the chair and went through each camera one by one.
But Adams and his wife were nowhere to be seen. Their car was still where it had been abandoned. The CCTV system was impressive, but he imagined it had to have a few blind spots, especially in the woods. He just hoped they had given up and headed back to the university on foot.
Or what that just wishful thinking? He had the nagging doubt that Adams had helped build this place. What if he knew of any weak spots? He went through every camera position
again in rapid succession, looking for even the faintest sign of Adams skulking about, trying to get in. Every part of the bunker’s exterior was well covered, he saw nothing.
Every part except the roof. Kyle started in shock and looked to the ceiling. Was there a crawl space above? The wiring for the lights and air conditioning needed to go somewhere. Was there a junction box on the very roof itself?
“Oh, Jesus!” He exclaimed.
What if, even now he was up there trying to block the air filter? Trying to suffocate him or damage the filtration system so whatever agent was in the air out there could get in and kill him.
Was he having trouble breathing already? He did feel a little lightheaded. His hand instinctively went to his throat which felt a little tighter than normal. He took a long deep breath to be sure and his lungs seemed okay. No couching fits or burning, no taste of blood in his mouth. He was just panicking he told himself. Relax, breath normally, everything is under control.
“Fuck wit,” he admonished himself. But still couldn’t quite seem to catch his breath.
He picked up his phone and opened the PDF. He scrolled through until he came to the bunker’s details schematics section. But he couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
“You bastards!” he shouted to the roof, as if they could hear him through the thick steel.
Then another thought, what if the bunker wasn’t actually airtight? What if the air filter was just for show, or just not set up right? You heard all the time how the military fucked up construction contracts and the like. He could, he thought even now be breathing in the toxins from outside.
Suddenly lightheaded he had to brace himself against the computer table. Despite himself he could feel his anxieties getting the better of him. If he wasn’t carful he would go into full blown hyperventilation.
“Calm, calm,” he told himself and he just concentrated on regulating his breathing.
It seemed to take forever, but gradually his breaths deepened and his head began to clear. He was being paranoid, he told himself. Trust Masie, she was smart, she knew what she was going.
Then another thought came to the surface, and one although it was an insult to his intelligence, he was quite happy to embrace at this uncertain time.
What if the whole thing was a drill? The ‘attack’ even Adams and his wife, if she was even his real wife and not some actress.
Kyle rushed back into the living area and picked up the remote control. He flicked rapidly through the various 24-hour news channels. They were all still up, no screaming headlines of Armageddon. No hint of an attack.
He turned off the TV. Yes, it all made sense. Hadn’t Maise told him they had done tests like this before? Sure, not blind ones using an unsuspecting subject. But wasn’t that the next logical step?
Kyle’s all-consuming vanity railed against the thought a little. Would Masie actually do that to him? She must know humiliating him like this would end their relationship. And after all she would never find anyone in Kyle’s league again.
Were as he could have his pick of anyone.
Still that gnawing thought at the back of his mind wouldn’t budge. That he was nothing more than a glorified lab rat. Christ, hadn’t he himself prayed that the PDF had been... Idiot proof?
He looked around the bunker. Could she be watching him, even now from a lab somewhere, observing the simple-minded pretty boy? All of them laughing at him, joking that if even a simpleton like Kyle Easterbrook could survive in the bunker, anyone could.
Fear gave way to rage, fuelled by years of his insecurities.
He ran back over to the monitors and picked up the chair.
He moved to throw it at the screens but another voice in his addled brain piped up.
What of it isn’t a drill?
“God, damn it!”
He threw the chair across the room in impudent rage. His heart was pounding hit to burst through his chest. His head was throbbing painfully, and he felt for all the world like someone was whacking him on the back of the head with a two by four, in time with each heartbeat. He'd felt this before, on the set of his first big photoshoot. He was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.
His doctor had prescription sedatives, which had worked wonders. Maybe they had something similar in the bunker, he thought, for situations just like this one amongst the volunteers? It wasn’t the worst idea he ever had.
He staggered through the bunker and over to the kitchen area. Hadn’t he seen a first aid kit in their somewhere when he had been searching for a glass for his bourbon?
He tore through the draws and cupboards like a junky in search of a fix, until he found a large red military issue first aid kit, the size of a large flight case at the bottom of the kitchen cupboard under the sink. He dragged it out
onto the kitchen floor and sat down next to it. It had clasps like a suitcase but when he tried to pop the lid it was locked.
“Who the fuck locks a first-aid kit!?” He screamed at it.
He scooted across to the cutlery draw by the cooker and grabbed a hand full of knives and folks. He selected the thickest knife and began to try pry open the lid. It snapped as he put some weight behind it.
“Shit!”
There was also a metal toolbox in the cabinet under the sink, so he pulled up out and onto the floor in front of him.
He rummaged inside and took out the largest hammer it had and began to pummel at the clasps on the medical kit until finally it sprung open.
“Jesus!”
He had thought it would contain plasters and bandages and hopefully a bottle of pills, but this was a military first-aid kit. Inside along with the usual first-aid materials he had expected, there was a shelve underneath with had several small bottles and syringe packs. A pack of three EpiPens and a leather roll which contained half a dozen scalpels. And a package of field dressings.
Kyle took out one of the bottles which was labelled
‘Lorazepam’ and in brackets ‘Ativan.’ He tossed them back in the kit and lugged it back over to the monitor table. He gave the exterior a quick look over but there was still no sign of life.
He picked up his phone and typed Lorazepam into google.
It was a strong sedative used to treat amongst other things anxiety and yes, panic attacks. Perfect for prolonged isolation and claustrophobia, Kyles none medically trained mind told him.
He closed the lid of the kit but left out one bottle and a syringe, just in case. It was a paradox, but he realised despite his desperate search, he was actually feeling a little better just from the simple the act of retrieving the kit.
He gave a short laugh, more at himself than anything.
Chalk one up for the ‘thick’ kid. And he almost wished his was all a test. Because he would pass it with flying colours, just you wait and see.
He saw a flash of movement on one of the screens. And he caught a brief glimpse of a ghostly figure in white darting through the trees, close to the clearing in front of the bunker, then it was gone before he could fully register what he had seen.
“C’mon.”
He sat down and flicked through the various cameras panning and scanning where he could, but it had disappeared from sight.
More movement now on one of the cameras covering the dirt track and car park. Another vehicle was negotiating the mud and drove passed his Audi. This vehicle however he did recognise.
“Masie!” He could have burst into tears with relief.
It took him a second to realise that there was another vehicle he hadn’t noticed pull up already there. A Land Rover that had made it past his Audi and had parked just ahead of where Adams had abandoned his car in such a way to block the whole track.
The figure in white?
Kyle jumped as his phone rang, he picked it up and Masie’s name flashed up on the caller ID.
“Mas...”
“It’s like a fucking car park out here!” She said cutting him off.
“That yellow one’s Adams’. I didn’t see the Landy arrive.”
“Right, okay,” she sounded calmer.
He could hear shuffling on the other end of the phone then the sound of the car door opening. When she got out, Kyle could see on the monitor that she was in full combat fatigues and even from this distance he could clearly see a black holster on her hip.
She jogged forwards, passed Adams’ car and stopped by the Land Rover. She peered in through the windows.
“There’s an NBC suit inside!” She exclaimed.
“A what?”
“Chemical protection suit,” she clarified.
The white figure!
“I saw him, Maze, just now, he’s running around the woods somewhere.”
Any thoughts Kyle had that this was some sort of exercise were diminishing by the second.
Maise suddenly looked back down the track to something beyond the camera’s view.
“Shit, there’s more coming!” She yelled and set off running up the track towards the car park and the track leading to the bunker.
“Masie! Masie?”
The line went dead, and Kyle switched monitors to follow her as she ran up the track. She put her phone away and pulled out her pistol before ducking into the thick undergrowth and out of sight.
“Jesus, Christ.”
Back on the first monitor two cars came speeding into view. The lead car swerved violently to avoid Masie’s car and ended up on its side in the deep ditch that ran along the side of the road, some twenty yards from Kyle’s stricken Audi.
The other, which was driving even faster despite the conditions and the mud splattered all over its window screen from following the first, swerved quite impressively around Masie’s car but clearly didn’t expect to see Adams’ vehicle coming at it through the thrashing windscreen wipers.
It ploughed full speed into the back of the car. The monitor screen bleached white on impact and took an age to finally adjust itself to the changing light source and the picture became visible once more.
Both cars were ingulfed in flames, Adams’ was on its roof the other completely on fire. Kyle started in shock at the other car, and he saw several dark figures flailing inside the inferno in a vain attempt to escape.
He pushed himself away from the desk and staggered over to the entrance door, and half leant half fell against the
wall by the intercom. He looked back at the monitor covering the clearing and doorway. And waited for Masie to hopefully come running from the tree line and towards the bunker.
He waited, but still she didn’t appear, he cursed her under his breath and pressed the listen button on the console.
At first there was nothing but the natural sounds of the surrounding woods. Then a volley of gunshots cut through the serenity, followed by serval more. It was impossible to tell through the tinny speaker if they were close or way off in the woods.
“C’mon, Masie, c’mon,” he hissed through gritted teeth and checked the monitors again.
A flash of white, moving deep within the trees beyond the clearing. Not close enough for him to make out much but the general outline.
“Bollocks!”
Kyle abandoned the intercom and raced back over to the monitors. He selected the camera with the best view and zoomed in as far as he could. It was badly pixilated, and juddery as he panned with it, but the figure was indeed dressed in a white chemical protection suit. Like the ones he had seen a hundred times in the movies.
They had what looked like a rifle slung over their back, and it took him a little longer to realise they were carrying something bulky in their arms. Not something, someone.
“Oh, God.”
More movement, from one of the other cameras as the figure in white trudged on with its burden. And Kyle almost shouted in relief as Masie came into shot, carefully picking her way through the tangled undergrowth. Pistol drawn, scanning her surroundings like an action movie heroine.
It was impossible for him to get his bearings as to where anyone was in relation to the bunker or each other. The pair could have been at opposite sides of the woods or right on top of each other for all he could tell. He thought about calling Masie to give her the heads up but feared her ring tone might give away her position.
Another figure came into view, coming out of the bushes just behind the soldier in white. It clearly wasn’t Maise as this one was gesticulating wildly without any thought of stealth.
No, it was Professor Adams, he caught up with the soldier who just kept going and they seemed to be arguing as they walked.
“Adams what are you doing?” Kyle said to the screen.
The idiot was going to get his considerable brains blown out.
As they moved closer, and the picture became clearer, Kyle could finally see the cause of Adams’ reckless behaviour.
The soldier was carrying Mrs. Adams. One arm dangling, her head lolling lifelessly back and forth as they walked. There was a dark patch of something on her mouth and chin which was spreading across her cheek and dripping onto the soldier’s suit.
“Shite.”
Adams grabbed his wife’s limp arm and was speaking to her, which seemed to annoy the soldier who pulled her away from him and strode off. Adams followed a few laboured paces behind, clearly in extreme distress.
It was like watching a movie but one where the protagonists might soon show up on your doorstep. Kyle forced himself to switch to the monitor showing the burning cars, and instantly regretted it.
A man was standing by the burning car holding a shotgun.
He pointed it into the car and fired at the unfortunate shadows inside. They surely must have already been dead, but who knew what anyone would do in that situation, Kyle thought grimly. Maybe they had been friends, or God forbid family.
The gunman turned back to the car in the ditch as a woman struggled to push herself out of a back window. He ran down and rested the shotgun against the car and helped pull her all
the way out. Then together they leaned into the car’s window and pulled out what Kyle thought at first was a large ruck sack or bundle of something. But the bundle wrapped its arms around the woman’s neck.
It was a child of perhaps eight or nine.
“Oh, Jesus,” Kyle uttered in growing despair.
Just how many people knew about this place anyway? His phone rang. He picked it up seeing Masie’s name.
“Masie, where are you? These a fucking family out there now!”
For a moment there was nothing on the other end but laboured breathing.
“Masie?”
“Kyle...” Her voice was weak. She let out a horrific wet cough which chilled Kyle to the bone.
“Masie?” He asked cautiously. “You okay?”
“Yeah, course,” she replied weakly. “I’m close, should be there in a sec’.”
He heard the phone clatter to the ground, then Masie fumbling to pick it up before it went dead. She was wheezing like an asthmatic after a marathon. And for the first time since she had called him and set this whole sorry mess into
motion. ‘ It’s started.’ His thought process was crystal clear.
She was too late. The thought was cold, calculating and its finality was oddly comforting, as it laser focused his mind. There was enough food and water here to last two people three maybe four months. But if rationed it could last one person maybe six.
Was he really thinking what he was thinking?
In a distant dream world somewhere, he heard the door buzzer go off. There was a long pause, then it went off again. Kyle slowly spun in the chair and looked across at the reassuringly solid metal door. The buzzer went off a third time followed by four beeps and the familiar rejection tone.
Well in fairness he thought absently, it had been her idea to change the code.
She tried again, maybe the same numbers, maybe she was trying to guess the new code. He felt that familiar pang of anxiety once more. Maise was smart, he had no doubt that she thought he knew him, knew his ‘limited’ intellect.
Condescending bitch! But despite this he couldn’t shift the overwhelming feeling that once she had tried the inevitable K.Y.L.E maybe even M.A.Z.E she would eventually work out his undeniable immaturity and try F.U.C.K.
“Bollocks!” he snapped. Why hadn’t he thought of something more original and less... Him.
He wracked his brain for another code, something more off the cuff that he best write down. But that clarity of thought he had briefly enjoyed was slipping away with each passing BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP as she tried one code after the other.
After her latest attempt he braced himself convinced that this time she had figured him out. But there was no sickening metallic ‘clunk!’ and she didn’t burst in, bringing God only knew what poison with her. Oh yeah, and she had a gun.
The intercom crackled into life.
“Kyle? Kyle it’s me,” her disembodied voice sounded sharp and cold through the speaker.
He glanced back at the monitor covering the door, she was looking up at the camera with a weak smile. And he almost ran to the door and let her in, seeing her face, one he had longed to see at that very door all through this nightmare.
What was he doing? Half of him wanted to punch that door release button, the other screamed at him to stay strong, stay safe.
Kyle roared in frustration at the ceiling. The bottle of Lorazepam shifted slightly on the desk as he pounded his fist on it. It was tempting, but he hadn’t read the side effects,
what if it knocked him out and she finally figured out the code.
Think! Stay focused!
Kyle concentrated on the monitor and did his best to examine the grainy image of Masie’s face on the screen. She seemed okay for all he could tell. She certainly wasn’t bleeding or staggering about like Adams and his wife.
Stressed for sure, but who wouldn’t be? But then again, what did he know about the effects of this thing running amok out there?
“Kyle, it’s okay. Let me in,” her face was benign, understanding even.
He looked into her pixilated eyes and there was no hint of deception there.
“What’s the new code, baby?” She asked.
“I can’t let you in,” Kyle said redundantly to the door.
He was filled with a heavy sense of guilt, at finally saying it out loud. But not having the courage to tell her himself. Christ how could he? He wrapped his arms around himself as tears came. Was it getting colder in here? Or was he going into shock?
He moved his attention to one of the other screens, more to avoid Masie’s plight than anything. The soldier in the NBC
suit was gently placing Mrs. Adams on the ground in a small barren area somewhere within the thick woods. She began thrashing violently, Professor Adams knelt next to her and seemed to be making a vain attempt at calming his wife.
“Jesus, God,” Kyle whispered and hung his head, unable to watch any more.
He was seriously debating turning all the monitors off and just sit here in this steel womb until it was all over outside. Yes, that sounded good, maybe dose himself up with Lorazepam, bury his head under a ton of pillows in the bunk room and sleep away the apocalypse.
“Kyle!” Masie’s voice distorted through the speaker, pulling him back to reality.
“Masie, I can’t...”
He got up and went over to the door. He desperately wanted to say something to her, something she could actually hear but he just couldn’t bring himself to hit the talk button.
Kyle let out a soft sob and pressed his forehead against the cold metal of the door. Trying to force some kind of connection between them, without actually touching her.
“Oh, Maze,” he felt tears stinging the back of his eyes.
But he couldn’t have said, even with a gun to his head, if the impending waterworks were for Masie stranded out there, or for poor Kyle Easterbrook, caught in the grip of indecision.
“Kyle, at least talk to me,” Maise pleaded.
Back at the monitors, Kyle saw the family from the dirt track trudging into view, they looked bedraggled and tired.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he vaguely knew the man.
Probably one of Masie’s worker bees from the university, he reasoned. Although God knows where he got a shotgun from.
“It’s not my fault,” he told them.
His heart sank, the mother, who had been giving the boy a piggyback, let him slip back down to the ground, his legs gave way instantly and he fell on his backside in the mud. But unlike any kid Kyle had ever known, the boy just sat there. He didn’t cry, didn’t hold out his hands to be picked up. Just sat there.
The mother staggered a little and rested herself against the trunk of a tree. Kyle could see a black stain down the front of her bright pink coat.
Back with Adams. It was a growing catalogue of horrors all playing out on the monitors like an interactive snuff film. The soldier was nowhere to be seen, he had left Adams and his wife sat up against a tree stump. The professor put
his arm around his wife, whose face was now absolutely covered in what he could only imagine was blood. She doubled over and spewed up a massive amount all over her legs and began convulsing again.
Kyle pressed the intercom talk button before he had realised he had done so.
“Maze... Why didn’t you wear an NBC suit?” It was an accusation as much as a question.
“Kyle!!? Oh, thank Christ, I thought you were... Open the door, please, baby,” the relief was palpable even through the small speaker.
Tell her you can’t Kyle, tell her the truth.
“Masie... The suit,” he repeated.
“What? Oh, I’m a tech soldier, I couldn’t get one in time. Don’t worry, it’s still okay. Let me in.”
She was desperately scanning the edge of the clearing now, pistol at the ready with her free hand.
“Kyle, for Christ’s sake, let me in.”
Kyle thought of the Adams’, the blood, jet black on the monitor. The family too, gradually succumbing to the poisoned air. He closed his eyes and listened to the life-giving hum of the air filtration unit.
“You said it had started,” he said as if in some way of explanation for his cowardice.
“Kyle, I told you I’m okay. It hasn’t gotten this far yet. There’s still time. Let me in!!” Her normal rational calm had fled.
“I see everything in here,” he told her coldly. “I see people dying out there already.”
“Kyle!”
“Look up into the camera again. Let me get a good look at your face.” He turned to the monitor covering the door.
She shouted something he couldn’t hear because she didn’t press the intercom. He didn’t need to read her lips. She was pissed off, but more than that. She was scared.
He did his best to shake off any lingering indecision that was gnawing at the back of his mind. He had to be strong, after all he was the one being reasonable. He was the one being a good soldier.
“Show me your face,” he instructed firmly, eyes fixed on the monitor.
He saw her mouth ‘fuck you’ but then she seemed to check herself. Yes see!? Kyle thought. You know I’m right. Be a good girl, Masie, show me you’re really okay.
“Masie,” he drew the word out like a sarcastic child. It was perverse but he found he was actually enjoying being the one in control for a change in this relationship. She had the brain smarts, for sure. But he had the door code.
She finally turned and looked up into the camera, her face like thunder. She held out her arms defiantly. ‘Well?’
The arrogance and self-righteousness drained right out of him in a heartbeat, replaced by an ice-cold nausea. And he let out a soft moan.
“Masie... Your nose is bleeding.”
A look of shock flashed across her grainy face, and she touched her nose with the back of her hand, and it came away speered with black.
She elbowed the talk button.
“Kyle, it’s not what you think, I got into a fight, back at the gate with the security guard,” she was clearly rambling. “He wouldn’t let me pass, said I wasn’t on the daily log.”
“Oh, Masie,” he said softly to himself.
The guard had let him straight in and he didn’t even work here. He even knew she was on her way, but of course Masie would have known that if she were thinking straight.
Kyle turned and slid down the door until he was sitting on the cold concrete floor. He tucked his knees up under his chin. She’s already dead, he thought soberly, and there was no getting away from that fact now. Tears came and he began to sob. They were all dead out there, Masie, the Adams’ and that poor family with the kid. Christ, maybe the whole country.
Conversely, he didn’t feel at all safe, despite the sealed walls and air filtration. What was there to say they were any use against this thing poisoning the world anyway?
And hadn’t he himself been outside after it had all started?
Who was to say he had made it here in time?
And then of course he remembered with growing horror.
There were all those precious minutes when the door had opened and he had fumbled around in the dark to start the generator.
Who was to say this wasn’t all just some cosmic joke with him, already dead despite this wonder of modern technology all around him as the punch line?
As the enormity of events finally hit him, Kyle was suddenly finding it hard to breath. He choked out the last sob of self-pity but still couldn’t quite catch his breath.
His heart was hammering hit to burst right out of his chest.
He tried to swallow, could he taste blood? He cried out in shock and dragged himself unsteadily to his feet.
He staggered back against the door to stop himself from collapsing all together. His lungs felt oddly heavy, like they were filling with liquid. He looked across to the monitors, Adams’ wife was laid in the Professor’s lap, convulsing violently, and then a fountain of black blood spurted out of her mouth covering them both in gore.
Kyle gagged at the sight, he checked his nose, his eyes.
There was plenty of tears and snot, but nothing ominous as yet. But he still had to fight to force the air into his aching lungs. Could this be Psychosomatic? He spat on the floor, just regular spit, no blood despite the coppery taste in his mouth.
“Thank Christ,” he managed to choke out.
Panic attack, he told himself. The bunker was spinning now so he screwed his eyes shut. You’re having a panic attack, just breathe. But no matter how much he tried he couldn’t regulate his shallow, staccato breaths.
“Kyle!” Masie voice, metallic, a million miles away.
“Kyle, open the door!!”
Kyle opened his eyes and did his best to concentrate on the monitor table across the other side of the bunker. He staggered forwards on legs that weren’t his own, arms outstretched like a drunkard desperate for one last drink at
the bar. His thighs hit the edge of the table as he crashed into it and a stab of pain ran up his legs.
The bottle of Lorazepam toppled over, and he just managed to grab it before it rolled off the table. He turned and half sat half rested his backside on the edge of the table. He tried to read the small label through tears of panic.
The words seemed to dance and ripple before his eyes. He closed one and tried to read, and old drunken trick. Dose -
Two millilitres, no two milligrams? How many grams in a litre? Fuck, no, concentrate. It’s two milli grams! Wasn’t it? If he wasn’t careful, he was going to overdose.
“Fuck!”
But try as he might, he couldn’t make head nor tail of the instructions. He picked up the packet of syringes, ripped it open and took out a syringe. He stuck the needle into the silver foil top of the bottle, his hands were shaking so much it took him several attempts. But if he thought it was hard trying to read the label, the numbers on the thin syringe were impossible to make out.
“Christ!!” he cried out in frustration and growing hysteria. Again, that taste of blood in his mouth, had he bitten his lip in his mania, or was this the beginning of the end?
The intercom buzzer went off again, pulling him from the brink just a little. Masie. Masie was smart, she would know how much to take.
He pitched forwards and barrelled over to the door. He slammed hard into it with his shoulder and the pain help clear his head somewhat. He looked back at the monitors which seemed to be at the end of a very long dark tunnel. Maise was leant against the door sobbing. Kyle managed to hit the talk button and saw her jerk in shock.
“Masie, I...” He needed to clear this mind, he was mentally tripping over the countless thoughts ricocheting around his head, and it was like English was suddenly a second language.
“Maise, I’m losing it, I need you,” he blurted out unsure if it was even intelligible.
Yes, yes it was as Maise turned to the intercom and listened.
“I need a shot of that drug, the sedative from the medical kit.”
“Lorazepam?”
Masie was smart.
“Yes, yes that’s it! But I can’t make sense of the label! Masie, please, what’s the dose?”
She shook her head wearily in disbelief.
“Panic attacks don’t usually kick in until the second week,” she said. And even through the speaker the sarcasm was clear.
Masie was too smart.
“Tell me the dose and I’ll let you in,” he replied in desperation.
He felt like he had run a marathon in a heat wave. He was soaked in sweat and his head was swimming as he fought for a half decent breath.
“Let me in and I’ll give you the shot myself.”
He was shocked to see his hand drift over the door release button, and he pulled it away.
“No,” he replied, trying to concentrate. “After you tell me.”
“Kyle!?”
“That’s the deal.”
“Deal!!?” She caught herself and ran her hands through her short, cropped hair the way she always did when the was trying to calm down.
“Zero point zero two, millilitres,” she said after an age.
Kyle looked at the shaking bottle and syringe, and willed his hands to steady, even a little. He was just going to have to stick the thing in his leg and hope for the best.
“And you don’t have to inject it,” Masie said as if anticipating his predicament. “Just squirt it under your tongue. That will work fine too, just take a little longer to kick in.”
“Thank you,” he said and slid down the door and onto his back side.
He pulled his legs up and wedged the bottle between his knees and pressed them hard together. This steadied the bottle and the syringe sticking out if the top just enough for him to delicately pull up the syringe plunger, he concentrated on the numbers and stopped as the black rubber at the end reached the zero point zero two marker. It might have been a little over, but he would gladly risk it. He pulled out the syringe and squirted it under his tongue.
He closed his eyes and waited for the drug to take effect.
And waited and waited. It might have been ten seconds or ten minutes but, although he did feel a little less anxious, probably due to just successfully taking the drug, his heart was still hammering fit to bust his ribs and his breathing was only a little deeper.
Kyle struggled to his feet. Had she told him the right dose? Maybe she was wrong about not injecting?
“Maise, it’s not working,” he said into the intercom.
“Christ Kyle, it’ll take a while. Just try and relax.”
“Relax!? Relax? That’s why I took the fucking thing in the first place!!” He ranted.
He suddenly felt faint at the outburst and had to lean against the door to stop himself from toppling over.
“Fuck...”
“You took the right dose, yeah?” Maise said.
Kyle felt a flash of anger.
“Of course! I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“Kyle! You’re gonna have a heart attack if you don’t calm, down! Let me in, I can help.”
Kyle thought back to the others outside and the way Mrs.
Adams had convulsed, throwing up that horrific mess.
“Kyle, I did what you asked.”
“You are already dead,” he whispered to himself.
He gradually became aware that he wasn’t shaking quite so much, his thoughts were not quite so jumbled. He looked back over at the monitors, but not with dread this time, but a sense of detachment. Professor Adams had begun staggering
around, he double over in a coughing fit. His wife was laid motionless on the ground close by. There was no sign of the white suited soldier or the family. The plague family he thought dispassionately.
And for the first time since all this had started, Kyle felt a sense of tranquillity wash over him. He took in the bunker, his home for the foreseeable future and it didn’t seem such a terrifying proposal now. He was safe, Maise had designed it, watched over it as it was built. Masie was smart, he needn’t have worried about its integrity.
He drifted away from the door and slumped down contently in the chair in front of the monitors. Masie was on one, shouting something he could not hear. The Adam’s on another in what he imagined was their death throws.
And finally, the family trio, they had appeared through the woods and looked very much the worse for wear. But it didn’t touch him in the slightest. He was feeling too contented, like he was wrapped in cottonwool and had just drunk a large glass of warming whiskey. It was like watching a tv show while drifting off to sleep. Even the child, who was vomiting black goo onto the ground was just some actor and special effects.
“Not so bad,” he sighed with a smile.
He could feel his heart slowing with each beat and he took a deep cleansing breath and couldn’t quite remember what had gotten him so riled up in the first place.
“Not, so, bad...”
The reassuring warmth of the drug was now all enveloping.
He left the desk and glided over to the living area and turned on the TV. Maybe there was a better show on it than the one outside.
All the channels were off, some had ‘please stand by,’
cards. Others just spat static, but Kyle didn’t care. He went through into the bunk room and collapsed on the first one he came to. Perhaps, he wondered as he slipped off to sleep.
Everything would be back to normal when he awoke. Oh yes, he liked the thought of that.
Kyle woke from the middle of a drugged, blissful half remembered dream, into a waking nightmare. The polar opposite to that feeling of serenity and hope he had drifted off to.
When he opened his eyes, the lights were off, and he could hear shuffling coming from the living area beyond the still open bunk room door.
Hollow voices now, whispering, laughing. He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and got to his feet. He swooned at the effort, no doubt the lingering effects of the
drug, which was slowing his thought process. Then it hit him, if the lights were off that meant the generator and battery backup had stopped working. No air filter... No door lock!
They were inside, they were all inside! Kyle desperately scrambled around in the dark for anything he could use as a weapon. Then he was hit by a massive wave of nausea, and before he could react, his stomach cramped violently, and he threw up a torrent of black blood.
“Oh, Jesus God!” He gasped.
“Glad you could join us, Kyle,” a familiar voice said from the doorway behind him.
He turned to see Maise standing in the near darkness, her deathly white face suspended in the gloom. A grinning death’s head, all teeth and soulless eyes. Her breathing, such as it was, nothing more than a desiccated wheezing death rattle.
“Masie...” Was all he managed before another wave hit him.
His stomach felt like it was on fire, he doubled over and collapsed in a growing pool of black acrid smelling blood.
Bright flecks of light danced around his head and he could hear Masie’s hollow laugh as it filled the room, bouncing off the walls around him.
“There, there,” she said with a ghoulish glee. “It only hurts for like, forever. FYI, that’s your innards liquifying, quite the sensation, isn’t it?”
Kyle began wailing and thrashing around on the floor clutching at his stomach. Her cruel, mocking laughter louder and harsher with each of his accompanying sobs.
The short sharp buzzing of the intercom someway off cut through the laughter. Then again as the laughter began to fade.
Kyle jolted away with a shrill scream. The bright overhead lights blinded him, and it seemed to take him a full minute of disorientation to realise he was slumped over the monitor desk.
It had been a dream a damn nightmare, but still he couldn’t shake the utter terror it had induced in him. A quick glance behind him confirmed the door was still very much locked, the hum of the air filtration system a welcome background noise.
His thought process was laborious at best and not just from being wrenched from a deep sleep. It felt a lot like he was hung over, not the pain, just the feeling each thought he tried to formulate had to drag itself through a lake of thick treacle. The ongoing effect of the drug no doubt.
The buzzer sounded again which should have set his nerves on edge, but his reaction to it was so delayed and muted, by the time it had registered it had lost all power to startle.
That he thought ponderously, he could live with.
“Kyle?” Masie’s voice tinny and distant through the speaker. “Are you dead yet?”
That did sour his serene mood just a little.
He took in the monitors, one at a time. It was dark outside, but he could just make out what looked like a dozen or so ghost-like figures shuffling through the woods. Their faces as white as Masie’s had been in the nightmare.
That soured his mood a little more.
Maise was by the door, she was clinging to the frame as she rested her head against the intercom. But he could still see she was deathly white, except for the black blood around her mouth and chin, which was dripping onto her jacket.
With great effort, Kyle tried to stand, but his legs refused to let him. He planted his hands on the desk and tried to push himself up, but he was as weak as a child.
“What the hell...” The rest of the sentence stuck in his throat at the sound of his own voice. He was slurring like a paralytic student on freshers’ night.
“God, God!” Even those two syllables were an effort.
He figured the drug might make him a little spaced out, but this was so much worse.
“Kyle, speak to me, lover, if you can,” Maise taunted from outside.
Movement on the edge of the clearing set off the proximity lights on the top if the bunker and Kyle saw eight of the figures from the wood were now at the very edge of the clearing, shuffling forwards. Just like Masie, they were all deathly white, where they weren’t covered in black blood.
It was now he noticed five, no six figures laid motionless on the ground. One was the white suited soldier, his rifle was discarded in the dirt by his body. Kyle could make out several ragged bullet holes in the suit.
“Jesus.”
Then the overhead lights seemed to flicker. Was it a trick of his drug addled brain? He shielded his over sensitive eyes and looked up at the strip just above his head.
And yes, there was no doubt, it dimmed ever so slightly then flickered again, before stabilising once more.
Some of the figures in the woods were moving through the trees and into the clearing. As the proximity lights hit them Kyle saw it was the family of three as came into view. The boy was walking haltingly next to his mother like a toddler who had just learnt to walk, but Kyle could now see he was
probably ten years old at the least. His young face all but covered in dripping black.
Five others in similar states of distress followed but Kyle didn’t know who they were. But just like the rest they had come to this place in hope of salvation. But just like the rest, they were too late.
He checked his phone which was down to its last bar of power. The network symbol had a line through it, which meant all the mobile towers were offline now.
He was about to throw the phone across the room when he noticed the date.
“Holy, Christ!”
All this had started on Tuesday morning, hadn’t it? He thought so, yes Tuesday. It was now 7.30 on Thursday evening.
He had lost nearly two days since taking the Lorazepam! The light flickered briefly again, as did the monitors and the lights outside.
He could see Masie looking up at the flickering lights.
A grin crossed her ghoulish features. She wasn’t too far gone to know what that meant. Beyond the tree line, Kyle could make out yet more ghostly figures in the woods. Some were just wandering around, clearly in distress or thrashing around as the poison in the air took its toll on them. Yet more
still seemed to me making their way towards the clearing, and the light there, moths to the flame.
“Say,” Masie’s voice came through the intercom. “That generator has been on for an awfully long time.”
The shock of realization gave Kyle just enough energy to push himself to his feet. Using anything he could to lean on he made his way into the living area. He could see plates on the coffee table with half eaten food on them. Over in the kitchen area there were pots and pans and the detritus of abandoned food preparation strewn everywhere.
But he had no memory of any of it. He must have been conscious to some extent during his black out. Christ! Hours and hours of stumbling around the place, with all the lights, monitors and God only knew what else on sapping the power.
He came haltingly through the living area, using the furniture to brace himself, then he slid along the back wall and over to the half open door of the storage room. He eased the door further open and came inside. Tins and ration packs were everywhere, and it looked like the room had been attacked by a pack of wild dogs.
“God damn it!” Try as he might, he couldn’t remember any of this.
Using the racks on the right, Kyle slowly picked his way through the debris and down to the generator room at the very
end. He could hear the thing chugging away as he approached and when he opened the door he was hit with a blast of fumes and heat.
He unscrewed the petrol cap and peered inside. He couldn’t see any fuel at all, again, that stab of fear, but the drug soon smothered it, just not as effectively as before.
He did his best to ignore the residual low hum of panic in the pit of his stomach and nudged the generator, so it rocked slightly.
The overhead light glinted off the very bottom of the tank which had a thin layer of petrol sloshing around. It was almost down to fumes.
He kicked the petrol can by the generator already knowing it was empty and it clattered against the wall.
The generator gave a shudder and spluttered, the lights flickered again, and Kyle held his breath, willing the thing to keep going. He gritted his teeth as it seemed about to give up the ghost, then it rallied again, and the lights brightened. But for how much longer?
His future suddenly came to him with ice cold clarity.
If the generator goes down, the battery back-up kicks in. But that has a very limited life. And once the battery packed up, the power would go out...
And Kyle Easterbrook knew only too well what that meant.
He pitched forward as the realization hit him. He reached out and caught a hold of a wooden shelf on the wall over the generator to stop himself from cracking his head.
His fingers touched something metallic. He picked it up, it was a key with a label attached. He turned the label over and read.
‘Fuel shed key.’
It took him a while, but once Kyle had made his way clumsily back to the monitors, he panned, zoomed and scanned one of the cameras covering the clearing. He was having real trouble focusing his eyes but after a third go around he finally saw it.
Tucked off to one side, at the very edge of the clearing and just visible in the midst of a bunch of overgrown bushes was the outline of a small metal shed. It had a sign on the door, but he didn’t need to read it.
The lights flickered again.
“Bet the air filtration isn’t working so well,” Masie taunted through the intercom.
Was that why he was feeling so shitty? Kyle wondered with unease. Had the virus or whatever it was killing everyone outside somehow made its was in after all?
The lights and the monitor screens flickered, died for a moment, came back on for a second, then he was plunged into total darkness.
Kyle screamed as the constant hum of the air filtration unit slowly ground to a halt and he was left with nothing but his panic breathing. The Lorazepam was good, but even that couldn’t sooth the fear of impending death.
Kyle got up and barrelled headfirst in the direction of the entrance door, he hit the wall and fumbled blindly until he found the handle and pressed his weight against the door for either the battery to kick in, or the ominous death nell of the door lock failing.
Then the sweet sound of; Beep, beep, beep. And the lights, monitors, and thank Christ the air filtration came back on as the battery backup kicked in.
Kyle rested his hands on his thighs and sucked in air.
He couldn’t tell if it was the drug or just the sheer panic, but he felt ready to throw up again.
Either way he had a little more time.
Over on the monitors the proximity lights had taken a little longer to come back on. The picture strobed for a
second and he could make out Masie pushing against the door with her shoulder. She took a step back in dismay when the lights finally kicked in.
“Nice try,” Kyle breathed in relief.
Suddenly the young boy broke into a sprint and ran screaming into the door. He hit it hard, and Kyle winced on the kid’s behalf, the lad staggered back, his shoulder at an odd angle, then he rallied a little and ran at it again, headfirst. Blood hit the shiny metal of the door.
Again, the kid staggered two paces back. He stood staring at the entrance with a look of pure feral hatred on his young face, but this time didn’t attack again.
“Fucking hell,” Kyle watched the manic display, mesmerised by the sheer ferocity of the onslaught.
He could only imagine what the growing hoard would do if they actually got inside.
He looked at the keypad and the battery indicator and he knew it wouldn’t last that long. He needed to preserve as much power as possible until he figured out how the hell to get to the fuel shed and back without contaminating himself.
He dragged himself over to the monitor desk and turned off every screen except the one with the cameras covering the clearing and entrance door. Then he slowly made his way through the entire bunker, turning off every light and
appliance he could find. Leaving only the air filtration unit and the one monitor, which he would use as his only light source for now.
Kyle finally collapsed in the chair in front of the monitors, gasping for air and completely exhausted from the extreme effort it had taken him to perform just those simple tasks.
He was definitely feeling ill, there was no getting away from it. The old thoughts of paranoia started to bubble to the surface once more, gaining dominance over the drug which must be diluting now as it coursed through his system. Had the virus gotten in when the filtration went briefly down?
Or, which was a more terrifying thought, what if the place wasn’t truly air tight all along? It was a prototype he reminded himself and not for the first time since entering.
“Stop it!” He admonished himself.
The last thing he needed was to give in to despair and morbid speculation. He needed to think straight. He needed...
Lorazepam. The bottle and syringe were on the desk to his left, although he had no recollection of doing so, he had put them back during his blackout. He reached down the desk and picked up the bottle and syringe. He looked at the label, despite his growing distress, his hands were thankfully
steadier than before. He squinted at the tiny lettering and waited for his eyes to focus.
What was the dose? The numbers seemed to ripple before his eyes so he couldn’t make them out. He wracked his brain trying to remember the dose Masie had told him and to his surprise it popped straight into his head.
‘Zero point zero two millilitres.’ Strange he could remember, but he supposed it had saved his life before.
He moved to stick the syringe into the top of the bottle again when the numbers and lettering finally came into focus.
‘Recommended dose: Zero point zero zero two millilitres no more than three times a day.’
Kyle paused, that couldn’t be right. She had definitely told him to take zero point zero two millilitres. It was wedged in his brain.
Kyles blood chilled. Had he misheard? He didn’t know shit about maths or medical doses, but that must have been a massive overdose. He dropped the bottle, his hands shaking violently once more.
Then he remembered Maise’s taunt at the door when he had first come around. ‘Are you dead yet?’ Why would she have
said that? What else? Yes, something about ‘talk to me, if you can.’
“Fucking bitch!” He slurred.
No wonder he had blacked out for so long. Christ, she had deliberately caused him to overdose! She had tried to kill him! No wonder he felt like death warmed up, then out of nowhere he laughed. It was strange, but despite his outrage, it was tempered with the realisation that all this disorientation, blackouts and nausea had nothing to do with the virus outside.
He was the fucking experiencing the aftereffects of a drug overdose and although he felt shocking, he was alive, it hadn’t killed him.
Then another thing hit him. He hadn’t used the intercom since he had come around. So, for all Masie knew, he was indeed dead. Not so cleaver after all, are you sweetheart?
He thought mischievously.
Right, he told himself. Calm the fuck down, you’re alive, and this bunker is the only thing that’s going to keep you that way. So, you need to pull yourself together and figure out how the hell you are going to get to that fuel shed. It felt good to have a focus and it helped clear his mind somewhat.
He tried to remember anything Masie might have told him about the bunker during her tour. But if he was honest, he had switched off for most of it, eager as he was to get her to the bunks and out of her uniform.
The bunks! There were lockers next to every bunk for weapons and uniform storage, wasn’t there? He doubted he would find guns but there might be something in them he could use. He thought back to the soldier in the NBC suit. He had died by shooting and not the shit in the air.
And just like that he had a plan. If he could get an NBC
suit or something similar, then he could get outside. They were all fucked up out there and he had the element of surprise, plus his very ex-girlfriend thought he was probably already dead.
He'd grab a couple of cans of fuel and make it back here hopefully before they had any clue what was going on. He even then remembered, it would be a good idea to stay in the suit for a while once he was back, to give the air filter time to purify the air once more.
Christ, it might just work, he thought with great pride.
All those years of being insecure about his intelligence and he had come up with this all on his own. And what was more, all the brainiacs with their fancy degrees and condescending
looks were out there, dead or dying and he was in here, safe, and with a kick ass plan.
Hope, that great motivator. A sudden rush of purpose filled adrenaline ran through Kyle’s body and out of nowhere he burst into tears of relief.
Although it had taken up most of Kyle’s remaining energy and a good ten minutes of searching, he had found an NBC suit in an airtight suit carrier type garment bag in one of the lockers which lined the back wall of the bunk house.
Next to this was a metal, thankfully unlocked cabinet in which he had found a row of gas masks, each individually sealed in polythene type bags. Everything a growing boy would need to survive the apocalypse, apart from a gun unfortunately. But, despite his growing self-confidence, Kyle was still self-aware enough to know that was a good thing as he would probably end up blowing his own foot off.
He put the suit half on and then tied the arms around his waist for comfort while he sat back down at the monitors to survey his opposition. The suit had been easy enough to put on as much to his relief it wasn’t some space aged contraction with valves and tubes, but in truth was little more than glorified zip up onesie, made from thin white plastic like
material, complete with booties and black plastic gloves already attached.
The zip at the front also had a Velcro like strip next to it which once it was zipped up could seal you in completely, which was extra reassuring. The black gasmask had a ridge all the way around the face part which he deduced the suits hood would feed into. He had also found a roll of gaffer tape which he would use to seal everything even more.
All he needed now was the right moment to exit then he would suit up proper. During his time watching the clearing and the woods beyond, he had seen the dozen or so shambling figures thin out, either as they wandered off into the woods or just keeled over dead. It would have been easier to think of them as zombies out of a movie, but he had observed all too human traits in the half hour or so to believe that.
He had seen them fight amongst themselves, cry, gather around the entrance, mutely threatening or begging for help.
He had seen some scream at the night sky, perhaps to an uncaring God. Before most shuffled away into the woods. He could still see them amongst the trees some way off as they wandered in the dark. Those he didn’t need to worry about.
Now Kyle counted maybe eleven bodies in the clearing, and a twelfth laid just by the treeline. That was the dead, Kyle scanned and panned one of the cameras. There was only Masie,
and two others still milling around that he could see. All three clearly feeling the devastating effects of whatever was killing everyone.
Maise looked shocking, there hadn’t been any taunts or threats since the generator had shut down, she didn’t seem to know or care what that meant when the battery failed.
“Oh, Masie,” any anger he had felt at the overdose had long since dissipated.
As he watched she stumbled off towards the trees like a drunkard. Ever the soldier, she was still clutching the pistol in her hand. And Kyle wondered grimly if she was going to find somewhere private to shoot herself rather than suffer any longer.
He waited until she had disappeared into the dark wood.
That just left the other two, both men Kyle didn’t know. And just like Maise they looked to be on their last legs.
The battery indicator on the keypad had told him there was just two bars left the last time he had checked. As if he needed reminding time was of the essence.
Kyle had made sure he had turned off everything but the essentials to preserve the battery but the one thing he couldn’t control was the proximity light, which would maddingly come on every time someone moved outside, helping
drain the already dwindling power supply. He had even consulted the hated PDF but could find nothing to disable it.
He angled the camera to take in the woods, there were still plenty of shapes shuffling around, just visible at the very edge of the light’s reach, but he knew he couldn’t sit here forever waiting for the right moment. He had to make a decision.
One of the men in the clearing collapsed and the other knelt next to him and seemed to be trying to help.
“Poor bastards,” Kyle uttered.
Grim as it was, that was the que he had been waiting for.
It was now, or never. He stood and zipped up the suit and awkwardly struggled to put the mask on. It took him a frustrating amount of time to manoeuvre it into what felt like the right place so that it felt tight against his skull. Then he had to thread the hood into the groove around the facemask.
There was a mirror on the wall in the living area, Kyle went through and examined himself. He looked the real deal, then he jumped up and down and it all seemed to stay intact.
Back at the monitor desk, he took the tape and ripped off several strips and covered the Velcro zip cover and taped the edge of the gasmask where it fitted to the hood as best he could.
Kyle was acutely aware he may have put the whole thing on wrong anyway and would be committing suicide the moment he stepped outside. But he also knew he had no choice but to at least try. Afterall he would be dead soon enough if he stayed put.
He put the fuel shed key in a Velcro breast pouch and moved over to the door, the suit was light, and he was surprised just how easily he could walk. The battery indicator was now down to one bar.
“Fucking proximity lights!” he cursed and his voice sounded weird in the mask.
Over on the monitor, the man was trying to pull his fallen friend up and onto his knees, all the time shouting what must have been encouragements to keep going.
Kyle took a couple of deep breaths and raised his hand to the door release button. He felt lightheaded, but any fatigue he had been feeling was burnt away by the adrenaline overdose coursing through his veins.
“Three, eight, two, five, three, eight, two, five.” He would need to be quick punching the entrance code in once he had the cans.
Three, eight, two, five.
Fuck indeed.
He punched the door release button and a moment later came the metallic ‘clunk’ as the lock released. The door opened slightly, and he pulled it open a little further so he could slip outside.
The two men were holding on to each other like Saturday night town drunks.
“Come on, George, come on mate, gotta keep going,” the helper coaxed.
The other man wailed something incomprehensible that chilled Kyle with its sheer desperation.
He turned and pulled the door, and it closed with a satisfying ‘click’ as it locked once more. He turned back and was about to set off when he saw the helper, who had abandoned his friend and was now standing bolt upright staring straight at him in wild eyed disbelief.
Now that he could see the man’s face properly, Kyle had to fight the urge to turn and flee back inside. Even accentuated by the harsh proximity lights, where the pallid skin was visible, the man’s partially black blood splattered face was so impossibly white it almost glowed.
But what made the death-like mask of his features even worse, were his blood red eyes and the burning hate behind them as he looked upon the author of all his pain. Then the man’s eyes flashed with something close to recognition.
“Kyle fucking Easterbrook?” His voice sounded like he had been gargling with broken glass.
Kyle winced at the unexpected sound of his own name coming from such a monstrous face. Did he recognise the man after all? Parsons, yes, something Parsons, from Maise’s team.
“Parsons?”
As if triggered by this, Parsons let out a shriek of pure murderous hate and ran full pelt at Kyle. Luckily for him, it was blind rage, so all Kyle had to do was side-step at the last minute and Parsons hit the door head first and hard.
He bounced back a foot or so then crumpled to the ground where he started to convulse violently and spewing jets of black blood.
Kyle moved away and caught sight of the soldier laid dead close by. He saw the rifle in the dirt by his side. He scooped it up and swung it in Parson’s direction, but the impact had all but killed the man.
“Christ!”
Kyle turned to the other man, George, but he was just sitting on the ground watching him in mute confusion as if he was looking at some sort of alien. No threat.
He made his way across the clearing and over to the shed, all the time scanning the woods for any sign of the many infected roaming around out there.
“Fuck,” he could see several moving shadows, closer than before, probably attracted by Parson’s shrieking.
He propped himself against the shed and lamely aimed the rifle at one of the shuffling figures, then another. But he could barely see out of the mask as it was, let alone aim a weapon. Hopefully, they were moving slow enough to give him enough time to get the fuel and get back to the bunker before they were a threat. Hopefully.
Kyle leant the rifle against the side of the shed, and began fumbling with the Velcro pouch, which he now found had been mush easier to close than to open with his fucking Micky Mouse gloves on. After an agonising struggle he finally managed to rip open the top and fish out the key.