Stranger

by Simon Clark

  “And thank you for taking the time to talk to us.”

  “Don’t mention it, Greg. My pleasure. Good night, you two.”

  “Good night.”

  Silence settled on the room again. Michaela shrugged. “Well, I guess I’m going to turn in.” She gave a tired smile. “It’s going to be novel sleeping in a bed again. I hope I remember how.”

  Thirty-five

  It was one in the morning when I closed the door of my room. For the next five minutes I got the bed ready. There wasn’t much to do. A sleeping bag in that shrink wrap sat on a bare plastic mattress. I tore open the packing and something like a concrete block in hardness and size expanded and softened as the air rushed in. I unrolled the sleeping bag onto the mattress, then kicked off my sandals. Bolted on the wall next to the bed was a radio that couldn’t have been much larger than a pack of cigarettes. The controls consisted of a single push button. I pushed it. All I got was more of that ambient elevator music. I switched off.

  “Greg?”

  “Come in, Michaela. It’s not locked.”

  She opened the door and looked in. Her hair fell loosely ’round her shoulders. It was damp from a recent shower. She wore a T-shirt for a nightdress. Shyly, she smoothed it ’round her hips to keep the hem down over her thighs.

  “This might sound silly to you . . .” She smiled, looking awkward. “But do you mind if you leave your door open a little? I’m leaving mine open.” She blushed. “I’ve got so used to sleeping ’round a campfire with a crowd of people that it’s going to be strange sleeping alone in my own room.”

  I smiled back, trying to be reassuring. “Of course. And relax—we’re safe in here. This place is built like a fortress.”

  “That’s going to take getting used to as well. I’m used to sleeping with someone standing watch.”

  “I could sit with you until you go to sleep if you like.”

  “I’m sure I’ll manage.” She yawned. “I can’t wait to lay down on a soft mattress. It’s going to seem like heaven. Thanks anyway.”

  “Make the most of it. Sleep late tomorrow. I’ll fix breakfast.”

  She grinned. “Now you’re spoiling me.”

  “You deserve it.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, Michaela. Just shout if you need anything.”

  When she’d gone I sat on the bed. Through the thin partition wall I could here her moving ’round for a moment or so, then came the click of the light switch. After that there was only silence. I guessed she’d fallen asleep straightaway.

  Switching off the light, I slipped into the sleeping bag and lay there on my back with my fingers knitted behind my head. Despite the time being well south of midnight I didn’t feel ready to sleep yet. A lot of what Phoenix had told us was rattling through my head like a neverending train. I suddenly thought of dozens of questions I wanted to ask. But that’s always the way, isn’t it? You only think of the smart questions long after the opportunity has passed you by. What was life really like in these bunkers for the twenty or so men and women who crewed the place? Did they suffer from cabin fever? Did it get so you wanted to rip off the guy’s head who snores in his sleep? These partition walls between the bedrooms were little more than boards skinned with plaster. Were romantic entanglements banned? Or were there red-hot orgies every night? Did these people ever leave the bunker to take the air and see real daylight? But I guessed not. These people were so afraid of contamination they wouldn’t risk poking their head outdoors in case they inhaled an airborne Jumpy bug. Like nuclear subs that remained submerged under the Arctic ice cap for six months at a time, these people stayed sealed away in their concrete lair.

  I lay in the sleeping bag with those questions going ’round my head. Johnny Christ. How come your thoughts seem loud enough to keep you awake at night? It’s nighttime when all those anxieties and fears that you keep locked down all through the day come stomping out. They keep you lying there wide awake looking at the ceiling. You’ve as much chance of sleeping as levitating yourself off the bed and flying ’round the room. Even as I managed to stop thinking about what Phoenix had told us I immediately found myself wondering if Ben had made it. He was good on that dirt bike. He’d be able to leave the hornets chewing on nothing but moss thrown up by the back tire as he powered away. In my heart I knew he was safe. All I had to concern myself with now was sleeping. But that wasn’t easy.

  Count sheep?

  Yeah, I tried that.

  But all the sheep turned into hornets. Then my imagination had them creeping through a back door of the bunker. I listened. With no TV or conversations with Michaela to distract me I could hear clicks and whirring sounds behind the walls. They were just the bunker plumbing and air-conditioning units. Of course my imagination turned those sounds into some bare-footed, murdering bastard shuffling down the corridor outside. Jesus, I wish I’d kept my rifle. I wish I’d . . . crap to this. I switched on the light.

  Come on, Valdiva, settle down. It’s only your imagination winding you up. Relax. You’re safe. Michaela’s safe. No hor-nets can get through those walls. Yeah, as if your imagination ever listens to you when it turns itself into a tormenting devil. It just quacks on and on, leaving you more wide awake than ever. I climbed out of bed, went to the bathroom, drank some water, then returned to my room. Of course the corridor was deserted. No murdering hornets. Nothing could enter here from the outside. Hell, not even a mosquito.

  I paused outside Michaela’s room. Through the door I could hear the regular sound of her breathing. Take her lead, Valdiva, old buddy, sleep.

  When I was back in my room I pushed the door three quarters shut. For the first time I noticed a plastic envelope pinned to the back of the door. It must have been there all along, but this was the first time I’d noticed it. Not that there was much to notice. Through the plastic I could see the words. CIVIL DEFENSE AUXILIARY INSTALLATION. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES. PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE FROM ROOM .

  Great, a little bedtime reading.

  Memorize these alarm sounds.

  1. Continuous siren: Incoming missile alert.

  2. Alarm in pulse mode: Nuclear detonation in Bunker vicinity.

  3. Alarm in horn mode: Internal fire.

  And so on. I’d have given the notice no further attention if it hadn’t been for a penciled addition to the list that ran: In case of direct nuclear strike kiss your fanny good-bye.

  Someone with a sense of humor had stayed here. On the paper I could make out impressions that made me think that whoever had slept in that bed before me had written some witty comments on the other side of the doom-’n-gloom notice. The plastic envelope was open-ended, so it was simple enough to slip out the sheets. I took them across to the bed and sat down.

  Valdiva, I scolded: sitting on your bed at 2 AM reading someone else’s bored-out-of-their-skull doodles is the act of a desperate man. A desperately bored one, that is. I turned over the sheets of paper to the blank side. Sure enough there were pencil doodles including a man entering a woman from behind with the caption: Dr. Roestller’s preferred injection procedure. A speech balloon came out of his mouth: “This won’t hurt, my dear. You’ll just feel a little prick.” The scribbler’s humor reserve seemed to run dry after that. Everything else jotted down there seemed to relate to meal times, work rotations and the warning to run the shower on hot until warm water made it through the pipes from the main bunker. Yeah, we’d had that warning from Phoenix, too. In my mind’s eye I saw one of the civil defense bunker team who was new to the job sitting here and jotting down these notes to remind himself or herself what time supper was and when they were expected to start a shift. In the bottom righthand corner of the sheet were also columns of numbers.

  6731

  4411

  8730

  9010

  They were too short for telephone numbers. And some had a couple of letters tagged on: 7608—SB, 4799—Q and so on. At the bottom of the page in shouting capitals was the word MEMORIZE! An arro
w pointed to heavily underscored words that didn’t make a bunch of sense: maple-eagle-green.

  I checked the other sheets. Apart from the printed emergency procedures and do’s and don’ts—No smoking in bathroom. Dispose of sanitary products in chute provided NOT in the toilet—there weren’t any more handwritten notes. With the notice’s entertainment value well and truly exhausted I turned out the light to try to sleep.

  Five minutes later I sat up in bed. A minor revelation had just crackled across my brain. Suddenly some of those inexplicable handwritten notes made sense. Also gut instinct told me to be on my guard. Faking restlessness, I walked through every room in the bunker from the locker room, with its shrink-wrapped clothes, back to the kitchen to drink some orange juice, then into the lounge to flick through the TV channels, then back to the corridor with the sealed steel doors, then back to bed.

  When, at last, I turned out the light I knew I had something to tell Michaela in the morning.

  Thirty-six

  “Hey, Michaela, come and take a look at what I’ve found.”

  Stifling a yawn, she walked into the kitchen, her eyes still sleepy. “Some fine vintage wines, I hope . . . pardon me.” She yawned again. “Thanks for breakfast, by the way. Breakfast in bed has to be a first since God knows how long.” She pushed back her hair. “What have you got there, Greg?”

  “Popcorn.”

  “Popcorn? Thought of everything, didn’t they?”

  “See? It’s the kind you cook in a pan.” I put the pan on the stove and began to tear open the foil wrapper to expose a block of golden corn fused together by butter. “Great stuff, this. When I was ten I nearly lost an eye making it. A piece of corn shot from the pan and hit me. Red-hot it was, too. I had to sit for an hour with a wet sponge pressed to my eye.”

  Michaela laughed, bemused. “But popcorn at this time of the morning, Greg?”

  “We’re on vacation, aren’t we? C’mon, break some rules. Let’s make popcorn and watch a movie.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t crazy?”

  I grinned and yattered away in a lighthearted way. But there was method to my madness. “Look at this, Michaela.” I showed her that the pan had a glass lid. “Now we can see the corn popping before our very eyes.”

  She grinned. “You are mad, Valdiva. Now I’m going back to bed.”

  “You can’t miss this. Marvel at how these little seeds become puffs of snowy white corn. Be amazed at how a block the size of a cigarette carton grows miraculously to fill the pan.”

  “You’re nuts. I’m going back to sleep.”

  “You’ll miss the popcorn!”

  “Well, my loss.”

  “Wonderful popcorn.”

  “I don’t even like popcorn.”

  “Of course you do. Everyone loves popcorn.”

  “There are always pieces of corn that don’t get popped and you wind up cracking a tooth on it.”

  “Michaela, my love—”

  “You been drinking, Greg?”

  “You lay on the couch, my darling. I’ll pop one piece through your red-rose lips one delicious morsel at a time.”

  Her grin faded. “Greg, you’re starting to make me nervous.”

  “Help me make popcorn, my love.”

  “No, really . . . stop this, Greg.”

  “I’ll stop on one condition?”

  “What’s that?” She looked uneasy.

  “Help me make the popcorn.”

  “Greg—”

  She looked ready to storm out of the kitchen. Could I blame her? I was acting weird.

  “Michaela, listen, it used to be a big thing at home. Saturday evenings Mom would put up her feet after working all day. Chelle—that’s my sister—and I would wash up the supper things, then make popcorn together. It was a . . . a ritual, I guess you’d call it. We made the popcorn year in, year out. I must have made hundreds of pansful. . . . Of course, I was always so curious to see the corn popping I’d take a little peak into the pan and bang! Hot corn would come flying out like machine-gun bullets.”

  “Your mom must have loved popcorn.”

  “As a matter of fact she didn’t. She always complained that there’d be an unpopped piece of corn that would chip a tooth.” I smiled. “But it was our ritual.”

  “So making the stuff was the best part of it.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She gave a good-natured sigh. “OK, then. Let’s make popcorn.” She dug me in the ribs with her finger. “But no more weird stuff, right?”

  “Right.”

  “OK, start cooking.”

  “Come close . . . closer, right up close to me.”

  “Greg, I warned you.”

  “You want to see the corn pop, don’t you?”

  “No funny stuff, OK?”

  I turned up the heat, then dropped the block of buttered corn into the pan.

  “Don’t forget the lid, Greg. I’ve got two eyes and I want to keep it that way.”

  She did stand close to me, but she kept shooting me looks that said loud and clear that she was suspicious of me. Maybe wondering what I’d do next. “See, the butter’s starting to melt.”

  “Thrilling.”

  “It’s bubbling now.”

  “Exciting.”

  “Are you humoring me, Michaela Ford?”

  “I am, Valdiva. I could be in bed sleeping instead of watching—”

  “Whoa, I think we have lift off. No . . . false alarm.”

  “You have been drinking.”

  “Hear it, hissing? Should be any second now that we . . . No. It needs to be hotter. I’ll give it more gas.” The first piece of corn popped. Through the glass I saw fluffy white erupt from the shell of the corn. “Don’t miss any of this, Michaela.”

  “Greg?”

  I put my arm around her waist and pulled her close to me so she could look into the pan through the glass lid.

  “Greg, maybe we should talk about personal bound-aries. I don’t think—”

  “Whoa, here it comes. Sounds like firecrackers, doesn’t it?”

  “You are nuts. And you’re making me nervous, so—”

  “Wow, here it comes.” As the clatter of popping corn swelled I still kept the fascinated look on my face as I gazed through the lid, but I whispered low enough to keep my voice beneath the sound of frying corn, “Michaela, humor me. Do you get the feeling Phoenix is listening to every word we say?”

  To her credit she didn’t react. She fixed her eyes on the popcorn pan. “You thought it, too?”

  “And watches us.”

  “I don’t see any cameras.”

  “Neither do I,” I whispered, still standing with my arm ’round her while grinning like a loon at the popping corn. “But think back to the decontamination procedure. The way he told us to move from one part of the room to the other suggested he could see us. Hey, there go a whole bunch of corn. How do they expand like that?”

  “Search me.”

  The popping of corn came in sporadic bursts like machine gun fire. We had to synch our conversation to the clatter of exploding corn to make sure Phoenix didn’t hear us over microphones that must be concealed nearby.

  As the bang of corn grew louder again I said, “When we went through decontamination Phoenix was watching us.”

  “And probably juicing himself watching our reactions as we stood there, scared half to death.”

  “He didn’t warn us about the disinfectant spray or the cold water shower. . . . There should be some more corn in there to pop.”

  “There always is. Remember what I said about our teeth?” Once more the clatter of exploding kernels filled the kitchen. “Something isn’t right here, is it?”

  “I feel like a peep show.”

  “Those guys have been isolated in here for months. We might be their favorite TV show.”

  “Possibly . . . You want salt on the popcorn . . . or they want something else from us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Who knows, but I�
�ll tell you something . . .” The popping paused for a second before restarting. “We’re unarmed; we depend on these bunker people for food and protection. I’m starting to feel we’re at their mercy.”

  “So what do you propose?”

  “Last night I found something written on a sheet of paper that could be useful.”

  “Useful? How?”

  The popping paused. Without the loud popping to mask my voice I reverted to chitchat. “Do you want coffee with this? Or there’s soda in the refrigerator.” I gave the pan a shake. The corn must be all but used up. Popcorn had reached the lid. “Hey, here we go again.” The bangs and pops started up, nice and loud. I whispered, “There were sets of numbers on some paper. Code numbers for the locked doors. What do you say to some late-night exploring?”

  “Michaela, Greg. Good morning.” The voice of Phoenix broke in quickly. “Did you both sleep well?”

  We broke the clinch and turned to reply to that disembodied voice.

  “Fine, thanks,” Michaela said pleasantly. “We helped ourselves to breakfast.”

  “Of course, be our guests.” Phoenix’s velvet voice padded from the speaker. “After all, your tax dollars paid for it. Be sure to make yourself at home and enjoy the rest of your day.”

  “Thanks, we will,” I said.

  “Any plans?”

  “We thought we’d stay home today.”

  Phoenix laughed. “You might as well. It’s raining out.”

  “Any sign of hornets?”

  “Oh, the infected people? Yes, they’re still waiting outside the door. They won’t quit for a day or so yet.”

  “Do you know what became of your previous guests, Phoenix? People like us you invited in to stay for a while?”

  “They moved on. Of course we—the bunker crew, that is—don’t know where they went. Naturally we pray they found some safe haven. What’s that sound?”

  “A sound?” Michaela asked the question innocently.

  “Yes. It sounded like gunshots.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “It’s just popcorn.”

  “Popcorn? It sounded so loud.” Phoenix paused.