But the Children Survived

by A. L. Jambor

  “You've been saying that for days, Jenny,” Dani said. “What could be keeping them?”

  “Jenny, is there another way out of here?” Joe asked.

  “No, they made the shaft for the elevator, but that's all.”

  “Didn't they think this might happen? What kind of idiot builds something with one exit?” Joe was yelling and his voice sounded really loud as it bounced off the walls of the cavern.

  “Shut up, Joe. She didn't build it.” Dani's voice sounded flat. She felt so depressed.

  “At least we have food and water,” Jenny said.

  Joe went to the box of food searching for something to eat. He couldn't find what he wanted, so he picked it up and threw it across the room. Food packets flew everywhere. Dani got up and walked over to him. She began pounding his chest with her fists. He grabbed her arms and held her so she couldn't land any more punches. Jenny got up, and ran off the island.

  “Stop it, Dani!” Joe yelled.

  “You did this. You brought us here!” Dani was still trying to hit him as she yelled.

  “Yeah, I did it, I ruined your life. So what else is new?” Joe pushed her away. She fell backwards and landed on her butt. She began to cry.

  “I can't take this anymore. I have to get out of here,” Dani said.

  They didn't talk for several minutes. Jenny slowly approached them from the direction of the elevator. She’d been pushing the button over and over, willing the elevator to move. It hadn't. She climbed the stair, and looked at Dani on the floor.

  “You okay?” she asked her.

  “I'm fine,” Dani whispered.

  Joe sat down at the table, and put his head on his hands. Jenny sat on the sofa, and Dani stayed on the floor. As they each contemplated spending the rest of their lives in the cavern, they heard a small “ding.”

  Jenny got up, and ran towards the elevator. Joe followed her, with Dani close behind. Jenny got to the elevator door first and found it open. She screamed in delight. Joe saw it too, and whooped. Dani grinned.

  Joe spotted something on the floor of the elevator. It was right on the threshold. The object was black and looked like leather. It was kind of round with things sticking out of it. Joe kicked it with his foot, and Dani gasped as she realized what it was.

  “It's a hand,” she said quietly.

  *****

  “Oh, my God, where did it come from?” Jenny said.

  Joe got into the elevator, and kicked the hand out.

  “Come on, let's get our stuff,” he said as he walked past Dani. She followed him to the island.

  Jenny stood staring at the hand. What had happened on the surface that would cause someone to lose a hand? She didn't want to think about it. She just wanted to go home. She got on the elevator, and kept her eyes on the floor. When Dani and Joe finally came back, they got on the elevator, and Jenny pushed the button.

  The elevator slowly started up. It took several minutes to reach the surface. During the ride up, no one talked about the hand. Dani also kept her eyes on the floor. Joe looked up, as if staring at the ceiling would get them there faster. Finally, they felt the elevator slow down and stop.

  The door opened automatically, and Dani, Joe, and Jenny stared at the cavern lobby. There were bodies everywhere. There was a body in front of the elevator with one hand missing. The smell was so bad, that Jenny began to vomit. She covered her mouth, and ran out of the elevator. Dani and Joe followed suit.

  They exited the building as fast as they could. There were more bodies outside the entrance. Jenny almost tripped over one, and Joe caught her by the arm before she fell. They moved as quickly as they could to get to the parking lot.

  Joe tried to remember where he’d parked. Dani ran past him, and he followed. Jenny kept as close to them as she could.

  Dani found the car first. She waited for Joe, who had the car keys, to open the doors. Joe pushed the button on the keys to open the doors. Dani and Jenny slid inside; Dani in front, and Jenny in back. Joe ran around the car and got into the driver's seat. Jenny closed her eyes, and wouldn't open them.

  Dani kept staring at the bodies, trying to figure out what had happened. Joe put the car in gear drove out of the parking lot at top speed, running over bodies along the way. Every time he hit one, Dani would cringe, and Jenny would hug herself. When he finally got to the road, he headed for Las Vegas.

  Chapter 46

  The 34-mile trip to Vegas took an hour. Joe had to keep slowing down to go around cars as they got closer to Vegas. As they entered the city, the lights were still blazing. There were bodies everywhere. They were mostly bones and hair. Dani looked through their backpacks to find something to mask the smell. She ended up taking off her shirt and tying it around her face. Joe did the same.

  Joe found their hotel and stopped the car in front of it. Jenny was asleep so Dani and Joe quietly got out of the car, leaving the door open so as not to wake her. There was a body lying in the doorway to the hotel. They walked around it and into the lobby. It was filled bodies, some sitting, others lying on the floor.

  Joe went behind the counter, looking for a pass key to open their room. He found one in the cashier’s drawer. He and Dani decided to take the stairs rather than risk being stuck in the elevator. Their room was on the eighth floor. By the time they reached it, they were breathing heavily.

  “Let's get this over with fast,” Dani said between breaths.

  They found the room as they had left it. Dani found her suitcase and put her clothes and toiletries in it. Joe did the same. They worked fast and got what they needed. When they were done, they took one more look around and then headed downstairs.

  When they got to the lobby, they could hear Jenny screaming. They ran to the street and saw her standing in the middle of the road.

  “WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU?”

  Jenny was hysterical. Dani dropped her bag and ran to Jenny. She put her arms around her and held her.

  “We just went to get our stuff. You were asleep. I'm so sorry.”

  Dani rocked Jenny like a baby. Jenny's shaking body began to calm down. Dani guided her back to the car. She and Jenny slid into the back seat. Jenny put her head on Dani's shoulder and cried.

  “Ready?” Joe asked. He looked at Dani in the rearview mirror and she nodded. He’d left the car running so he closed his door and drove out of Vegas, rolling over the bodies that littered the streets. He couldn't avoid them. It was the crunching of bones that got to Dani. Her body began to shake and the tears rolled down her face. Joe looked at her in the mirror again.

  “It'll be okay. I promise,” Joe said. Dani looked at him and nodded slightly. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Jenny, where are we going?” Dani asked.

  “Boulder City,” Jenny whispered.

  “Which road do I take?” Joe asked.

  “Go south,” she said.

  The drive to Boulder City took half an hour. Joe looked at Dani in the rearview mirror. Jenny was looking out the window. Dani touched her hand.

  “Which way, Jenny?” she said.

  “Keep going,” Jenny replied.

  They drove through the center of town for several minutes. Suddenly Jenny began to yell.

  “Stop here, please!”

  Joe stopped the car and Jenny opened the door and got out. She ran up to a house, climbed the front steps and opened the door. They heard her scream.

  Dani got out and ran to the house. As she entered the house, she saw Jenny on her knees on the floor. Her mother was at the kitchen table. Her brother was on the floor in front of the TV. It was hot in the house; the bodies were now bones and hair. Most of their flesh had melted away but for a few bits that clung to the bones. Dani walked over to Jenny and knelt beside her.

  “Where is my dad? Where is my dad?” Jenny was screaming.

  “He must have been at work. Jenny,” Dani said, trying to keep calm.

  “No, he dropped me off at work. He should be here!” Jenny was crying hard.
>
  “Whatever happened…this thing that…it must have happened right after we went down into the cavern. He would have been driving home,” Dani said. She waited for Jenny to respond, but Jenny just kept crying.

  “Listen, you have to get your things. There’s nothing you can do for them now. Please, I'll help you.”

  Dani pulled on Jenny’s arm, but Jenny wouldn't move. She just stared at her little brother with tears rolling down her face. He’d been so young. She had fought with him all the time and now she wished she could tell him she was sorry.

  Dani got up, opened some windows, and went to the hallway, looking for the bedrooms. She wondered why the air conditioning wasn’t working. She found Jenny's room and looked around. She went back to the living room. Jenny had gotten up and was now staring at her mother, holding her hand over her nose. Dani passed her and went into the kitchen.

  She found a grocery bag and headed back to Jenny's room. She filled it with clothes and then went into the bathroom. She tried the light switch, but the lights didn’t come on. There was enough light from the window to make out the soap and shampoo. She took the liner out of the trash bin and put the toiletries into it. She took the two bags back into the living room.

  “Can we bury them?” Jenny's voice was barely above a whisper.

  Why, they look fine the way they are, Dani thought. She was glad she hadn’t said it out loud. How could she have thought that?

  She put her arm around Jenny's shoulders. “If we move them, they'll fall apart,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, God.” Jenny broke down again.

  Dani steered her towards the front door. Dani then ran back into the living room and grabbed the two bags she had packed. She closed the door and took Jenny's hand, leading her back to the car. She put Jenny in the back seat with the bags and she got into the front with Joe. She hoped Jenny would fall asleep.

  *****

  Jenny was quiet in the back seat. She hadn’t said much since leaving her house. She was keeping it to herself for now. Every so often she would look out the window, but then a car would appear with a body in it and she had to turn away. Most of the time, she slept.

  The car had a GPS built in. Dani played with it for a while until she figured out how to program it. She input her home address and the thing began to talk. As long as Joe followed it, they should be home in a few days.

  They were going across long stretches of road in the desert, so there weren't that many abandoned cars. Dani noticed how bad they smelled. The smell of human decay will cling to your clothes. It will also cling to your walls, your car, and anything else in its path.

  “We have to find a store that was closed when this thing went down. Somewhere without a dead body in it,” Dani said as they drove past a strip mall.

  They had encountered plenty of convenience stores and were well fed. There was also plenty of gasoline. Most cars they passed had gas in them and Joe had picked up a siphon at an auto parts store during one of their stops.

  Dani kept her eyes peeled for a clothing store. She saw a sign for a consignment shop that was closed on Sundays and Mondays. She told Joe to stop.

  “I think it was a Monday, wasn't it, when we came to the cavern?” Dani asked.

  “Yeah, it was,” Jenny said. She had been in a mood ever since she got a whiff of the clothes Dani had packed. She threw them out the window and now had nothing else to wear. The clothes she had on smelled bad too.

  Joe was looking for a motel; somewhere he could take a shower. He saw a billboard showing the Shady Rest Inn coming up in one mile.

  “Let's stop there,” Joe said.

  “Let's stop at the store first,” Dani said. “We'll have nothing to change into if we take a shower first.” Dani was right. Joe hated it when she was right. He would have figured it out if she had given him another minute.

  Joe turned into the consignment shop parking lot. Dani hopped out of the car and ran to the door of the store. She turned around and gave a thumbs up. That meant the door was locked.

  Joe got out of the car and looked around for a big rock. He found one in a clearing next to the consignment shop and threw it through the window in the door. An alarm went off. Dani took off her jacket and wrapped it around her arm. She pushed the glass out of the way and was able to reach in and open the door.

  The store had the musty smell of used items that looked clean but still bore the markings of their former owners. Joe ran to the back to find the source of the alarm. Dani smiled when she saw the racks of clothes. There was something for everyone.

  She hit the ladies rack while Jenny went for the juniors. The alarm stopped, and Joe returned. He was able to find some jeans and tee shirts as well as a good pair of boots. Dani found jeans and tee shirts also, and was thrilled when she found bras still in boxes. Jenny found new underwear, and she and Dani squealed with delight. Jenny also found a pair of jeans that were a little big so she would have to find a belt.

  Joe looked through the bins of men's boxers and found some new ones in the bottom. He also grabbed some socks that didn't look too worn. When the girls saw his socks, they began rooting around for some too.

  Dani and Jenny then hit the shoe racks and found almost-new sneakers. Jenny finally found a belt, and both she and Dani found new handbags. Then they went behind the counter for plastic bags and filled them up with their treasures.

  “Where will we put them? The car has that...smell,” Dani said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Jenny replied.

  “We could hang the bags out the windows.” Joe suggested. “It's only a mile to the hotel.”

  Dani's eyebrows went up. She smiled at Joe.

  “What, you're surprised I came up with a good idea?” She patted his butt and they left the store. Jenny held her bag out the window while Dani held the others. She asked Joe to drive slowly.

  “I'm afraid of losing the boots,” she said. They were the heaviest thing in the bags.

  Joe pulled into the hotel parking lot. Before they brought the things in, they checked the hotel for bad smells. There were none in the hotel itself, but when Joe went around to the back by the attached house, he smelled decaying flesh.

  When he came back, he told them to put the bags down until they checked out the room farthest from the house. He also took the suitcases out of the back and dumped them by the side of the hotel.

  Joe kicked the door open. The room was far enough away from the house that it had avoided the awful smell. They each took turns using the bathroom while the others waited outside.

  They had to take their clothes off outside and throw them away. Dani held a blanket up while Jenny stripped and Jenny did the same for her. Jenny looked the other way when Joe stripped, but Dani watched him. She still got hot and bothered by the sight of him. Despite their constant bickering, this was one area of their marriage that had always worked.

  When they were all dressed and felt really good, they decided to spend the night and walked into town to look around. They’d been driving for three days and were about halfway home. They looked in the store windows of the little town. They hadn’t seen anyone, not even any bodies, and the town didn't smell too bad.

  Joe began to look for another car, one that didn't smell like death. Jenny walked ahead because she thought she’d seen a library. She thought a book would help her get through the trip. Dani watched Jenny walk away. She felt so sad for the girl.

  “What do you think happened, Joe? Why did they all die?” Dani looked at Joe. He knew she was thinking of Mindy.

  “Maybe a biological weapon. Maybe somebody got so pissed off they just…” Joe used his hands to indicate an explosion.

  “But everything is still intact. This isn’t like a bomb going off.” Dani said.

  “Then it would be some kind of poison.”

  Dani put her arms around Joe’s waist and pulled him close. They stood there for a long time.

  “I wanted to tell you something,” Dani said. “I’m very proud of you.”

&
nbsp; “Why?” Joe asked.

  “I know you haven’t had a cigarette since the cavern.”

  “It hasn’t been easy,” he said.

  “Why? I mean, you’ve had plenty of opportunities to grab a pack. What made you stop?”

  Joe thought about the question.

  “It just seemed like the right time. I don’t know. Not having them for three days, then seeing all those dead people…I wanna live.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did. I want you to live, too.” She kissed Joe passionately, and he responded. Then she took his hand and they continued to look for a car.

  Jenny found the library. It looked really small from the outside, but it had books and maybe she could find something to distract her.

  When she opened the door she noticed it didn't smell bad in there. She began to think that this town had somehow survived and the people were all in church or something. But why would they leave the door of the library open?

  Jenny headed to the bookshelves and found the fiction section. She noticed a kids section to the left. Then she heard someone giggling.

  Chapter 47

  Jenny waked over to the kids section. She peaked around the corner and saw three little boys playing a board game. They hadn’t heard Jenny come in. She kept watching them. She then tiptoed to the front door and quietly exited the library. Dani and Joe were holding hands and looking in a store window. Jenny ran over to them.

  “Hey guys. Listen, I found three kids in the library,” said Jenny.

  “Oh, no!” Dani looked like she would cry.

  “No, no,” Jenny said, “they're alive.” She looked from Dani to Joe.

  “Kids, live kids?” Joe sounded skeptical.

  “Yeah, live kids. Why would I make something like that up?”

  “Let's go,” Dani said as she dragged Joe towards the library.

  Jenny went in first and tiptoed to the kids section. She saw three boys sitting on the floor. When Joe and Dani came in, the boys looked up and saw Jenny. Then they looked at each other. They got up off the floor and ran over to Jenny, encircled her with their arms and jumped up and down.