“How did those guys end up?” I asked her.
“Most of the time, they died on their own terms,” Mel told me.
I wasn’t the only one who could listen and follow more than one conversation at a time.
“That sucks,” I told her, for lack of anything else to say.
That hit Mel as funny, and she snorted.
“What sucks is having what we did for dinner last night,” Mel told me.
“I thought it was pretty good, better than those MREs that your dad put in our get-me-home bags,” Jamie said, rejoining our conversation.
“Yeah, but that was like… a Rottweiler or something, wasn’t it?” Mel asked, “He could have made a good guard dog.”
“It was too late for that,” I told them. “He got into the snare and was dead in less than a minute. The wire pinched off the blood flow to his brain and he just went to sleep.”
“We’ve done it, Mom and I… the first time was horrible, and the second time was a little bit easier,” Mel said.
“Yeah, it’s one thing to have a get-me-home bag packed for everything, but not having enough food and water wasn’t something we planned on.”
“Where were you both at, when the EMP was let off?” I asked them.
“Staying with a friend in Michigan. She’d set up a new farm and we were helping her and her husband move in.”
“Why didn’t you stay there?” I asked her.
“It’s… I don’t know if you would believe me. Michigan is bad. It’s going to be bad here too, soon.” Jamie said, “That’s why we were so anxious to move and not wanting to wait things out. It's why we cut through Chicago when we should have spent an extra week avoiding it.”
“What do you mean it’s bad? I haven’t heard anything.”
“You remember the riots in LA a bunch of years ago?” she asked me.
I sat up; the cold concrete had worked like a charm on my sore muscles. I was stiff, but the cool had hopefully kept any of the muscles from tightening the wrong way and had given my spine some time to stay straight. Jamie offered me a hand, and I was surprised that the raven-haired woman was as strong as she was. I was pulled upright and I sat down next to them.
“Yeah, I was out of the country when that happened. Saw news footage, though. Was that what happened up north?” I asked her, curious.
“Pretty much,” Mel said, “but then there were small groups blowing things up and shooting at people from a long ways off.”
“Why, what?” I asked them, confused.
Things had gone to shit, and I’d been in countries where the government had fallen, or their monetary system had collapsed, but to go from looting to total hunting and killing people? For what?
“There were rumors…” Jamie said, “People who had student visas who just never left. Terrorists. When the people in the cities found out, it was horrible. Like… and all-out war zone.”
“Terrorists?” I asked them, unbelieving.
“Why not? They kept saying our borders are porous in the southwest. To think we had them in the country all along isn’t all that surprising, is it?”
“I guess not,” I admitted, “What happened to them? Your friends, I mean. You left. There had to be a reason.”
Mel looked at me and shook her head, but it was Jamie who answered me. “There wasn’t even that much food on the farm,” she said, tears forming in her eyes, “we had gotten away into the woods, hidden out. They… there was nothing left when they moved on… it was a large group of people from the city who were hungry. Our friends didn’t have a chance.”
“Your friends were killed?” I asked her, and they both nodded. “I’m sorry. What about your husband, why didn’t he come on the trip?” I asked.
“He had a work thing. He was going to join us in a week, but… that didn’t happen. We waited around a while, hoping he’d come and get us. I knew if things got bad we’d have to move. He had talked about it, he kept telling us something bad would happen someday, and I didn’t want to bring the packs,” her words sped up as a fat tear slid down her cheek. “And I used to think he was crazy, all this prepping, putting up so much food… getting ready for something that I never thought would happen. I even called him crazy, right before we left, for making us pack those bags. I figured it was too much.”
Mel wrapped an arm around her mom and rested her head against her shoulder. Jamie either had to put an arm around her teenaged daughter or risk losing balance, so she did the former. I smiled, noting that it was a move that Mouse would have approved of. As it was, I rose and looked around. I saw Mouse making a face and then sticking her tongue out at Danielle, shaking her head.
“Looks like Mouse doesn’t want to take her medicine,” I said, stretching again.
“What’s her story?” Mel asked, “I mean... her name isn’t really Mouse is it?”
“I doubt it. Says she can’t remember. Pauly, her brother, won’t tell us, or doesn’t know himself.” I explained.
“How can that be?” Jamie asked me.
“I… Oh, hell, they’ll tell you. I got them out of a… house of ill repute. They’d been there a week, been used pretty badly. I wasn’t sure Mouse was going to make it. She’s had a delicate immune system ever since. This air down here isn’t any good for her or any of them.”
“Why down here?” Mel asked.
“Well, it’s familiar,” I told her, “I know these tunnels better than most people nowadays. I can move around the city without having to go topside until the last minute, and when the fires happened, and the planes crashed, I was safe from the fire and toxic fumes.”
“Planes crashed?” Mel asked.
“Yeah, I don’t know if the EMP knocked out their electronics, or they just tried to land without instruments and a control tower, but we had two or three plane crashes in the city. A couple of gas stations went up like bombs. I guess in some places, the asphalt was burning for days. Pretty horrible stuff.”
“So, you didn’t really have a choice of going topside?” Jamie asked, wiping her eyes.
“Well, I’d already been down here, living,” I admitted, “but topside, things are even more dangerous than they were before. There's three gangs that I know of, operating around the outside edges of downtown. There’s somebody near the shipping docks that’s buying up all the ladies and kids they can… but I can’t get anywhere close to there.”
“How come?” Mel asked.
“They’re near the docks, not at them, and they always seem to move. Lots of men, lots of guns. More than the idiots who snatched you. These guys know what they are doing.”
“So do you,” Mel said, letting her mom go and standing up.
“Yeah, but I’m just a broken-down homeless bum,” I told her.
“You weren’t always. What you did for us yesterday… I don’t know how many people would do that.”
“That’s because you don’t know many people,” her mom said, nudging her and standing herself.
I smiled, they hadn’t been broken, they still had their playful natures. I’d often wondered what would happen to a family that was suddenly thrust together, having to work, live and depend on each other if something happened.
“There’s a nice lady topside, a doctor, who has been bugging me for a long time now to get Mouse topside. The poor girl is terrified of going up, so I had the doc come down with me. She… well… the doc is claustrophobic. So we’re kind of at a standstill.”
“She’s your buddy, though, calls you Uncle Dick,” Danielle reminded me, walking up, “you want her to leave?”
“I don’t want her to go so much as I want her to live,” I said softly. “There’s something broken inside of Mouse, more than her bad immune system. It’s broke up here,” I said pointing to my head. “Plus, I know she’s never going to get completely better if I keep her down here. I’ve been trying to convince her to come up with me and meet the doctor again…”
“Maybe we can help with that,” Jamie said and turned to walk t
owards the cooking area, where the smells of warm food had started permeating the air.
Mel gave me a shrug and followed her.
I knew I should be resting, but I was restless. I had to move. It’d been a long time since I’d had a proper shower or bath, but I was going towards what I considered the next best thing. It was a little bit outside of the tunnel and room we called ‘home’, but it held something that was priceless. A pipe that ran from the big lake and supplied water to the city had a small leak. Someday, the pipe would rust out, and it would become a big leak or a big flood. I wasn’t worried about that so much as getting the stink off of me when it finally happened.
I closed the hatch and turned the lock, so somebody didn’t walk in, and
I stripped, putting a bar of soap near the small LED flashlight. It wasn’t aimed at the little spray of water, but it was enough light for me to see what I was doing. This time of year, the lake wasn’t horribly cold, but cold is a relative term. When the water is sixty degrees in the lower thermal layers where the pipes are, that’s what comes out in the spray. I grabbed the bar of soap and stepped in.
I washed up, taking several minutes to check out any bumps, bruises, and scrapes. I could probably get antibiotics all day long, but preventing an infection would be the most important thing I could think of. Still…
Somebody knocked on the hatch behind me.
“Hold on, I’m in here,” I shouted back.
We’d left the flood control valve on the other side open, so people could hear beyond the waterproof hatch.
“k……” I heard faintly.
I finished up and dried off. Not having a good laundromat, the sun and wind would dry my clothing, and it made for some interesting ways of keeping clean clothes, but it was a constant battle. If you lived underground, you’d take on the musty, wet smell of damp concrete. A fact of life. When I was done, I undid the hatch and stepped out.
Leaning against the wall was Danielle, her leg behind her, flat against the wall. I could tell by the look she was giving me that she was up to no good.
“So… what’s with you and the new girl?” she asked.
That stopped me cold. Mel? Jamie? What?
“What are you talking about?” I asked her.
“Oh, I don’t know. I figured that since you seemed to want to point out the obvious to me, I should do some of the same to you,” she said, her lips and nose twitching into a smirk.
“Oh, there’s nothing between us,” I told her. “She’s married. Besides, someday Mary and I will…”
“Oh God, don’t do this again,” she said throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. “We all know that isn’t going to happen.”
“Just because I still love her, doesn’t mean I have to get back together with her. I’ve had a lot of time to think, to see how much I’ve screwed up. If I could find her and Maggie, and tell them how sorry I am…”
“You really miss them, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Badly.”
“Why don’t you go find them? I know you’re as good as anybody topside, better probably.”
“But I’ve got responsibilities here. I’ve got to take care of you guys… and Mouse is sick, and there’s those sick fucks that need to be dealt with.”
“So deal with them,” Danielle said. “Then, go find your family. I swear this is what’s driving you crazy, Dick.”
“But who’ll take care of you guys? I mean, it’s not as if— “
“I’ve been talking to Jeremy about this for a long time now. I don’t want to live down here forever, most of us don’t. I don’t think you do either.”
“No….?” I said not knowing where she was going, not sure if I wanted to hear.
“All of us have family somewhere… But look at it this way. What would happen to us if you got hurt and couldn’t go topside or go out?”
“Well, you and Jeremy have handled those situations before.”
“Yeah, we have. That’s the point. If finding Mary and Maggie is going to make you whole again, why not try it? I mean, you can always come back.”
It hit me then, why I’d been making excuses. Why I hadn’t gone sooner. Yes, what I was doing was necessary and important work, but Danielle was also right. I was doing small hit and grab jobs. If I really wanted to make a difference in the city above, I had to do more than that. I had to bring the war to them - and in a big way. I’d been afraid. My own fear had crippled me. My own fear had kept me from finally wiping out the guys who were preying on others. Who knew what it would be like to do it, and then get on the road to go see Maggie, the real Maggie… not every fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl who somewhat resembled her?
“I’ll think about it,” was what I told her, but she smiled and handed me a dirty plastic bag.
“What is that?” I asked her.
“Open it up. Maybe a new you will make you feel better. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Just a thought.”
With that, she walked away from me, whistling some video game tune. I opened the bag and let out a surprised bark of a laugh. A can of shaving cream, scissors, a straight razor and a small pedestal makeup mirror, large enough to show the person's whole face. Maybe the kid was right. Maybe there was a lot of bullshit I’d kept feeding myself, making excuses.
I headed back into the room with the water spray and took care of getting rid of the almost three-year-old beard that had started going gray in long streaks.
5
I walked back towards our camp, the pen light illuminating the path for me. I hadn’t had a smooth face in a long time, and even though I’d thought Danielle had wanted to play matchmaker for me, I hadn’t shaved off my beard for Jamie or for Danielle. I’d done it because a new me could be anything and anyone. The fact that it took away one of my most memorable features and made me harder to identify was a bonus.
A new face would give me a chance to start over, but did I want to start over? I’d been living this way for so long now. I didn't know if I ever wanted to go back to the way I was. I did know that I had the capability of stopping the game, even if it was only one at a time. I could pick them off little by little. I could end the reign of terror that they held over the city. I had a few somethings they didn't: knowledge, determination, and experience.
All I had to do was swallow my own fears. I had to keep it together long enough to make a difference. I knew the kids down here thought I was something special, but I wasn’t half the man they believed me to be. I needed to be the man that I used to be once again. I needed to be the man that was willing to fight and die for his country. But… I also needed to be the father that I’d never been. To fix my life, my mind, my soul, I needed to make things right with everything and everyone.
Jeremy was the first one to see me as I came out of the tunnel and into the soft glow of the lanterns in our main room. He did a double take at first, his face showing signs of alarm and then he smiled at me and relaxed. Danielle was the next one to notice, and she gave me a grin and a quick thumbs up. What I didn't expect was for Mouse to take one look at me, scream, and go running in the other direction.
"Is there…?" asked Jamie. "Don't worry, I'll go get her… You just… Yeah. Never mind. I've got her."
"Mouse!" The word coming out of my mouth was loud, sharp and commanding.
She must've recognized something because she faltered and then looked over her shoulder. The questioning look in her eyes was mixed with the fear she held for all men.
"Don't worry, that's Uncle Dick," said Mel.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." Mouse started to say, and then she paused, and looked back up at me.
"It really is me, little dormouse," I told her, staying rooted to the spot so I wouldn't scare her. “I just had to trim my beard, and I needed to shave it off."
She had still been moving at that point, but Mel caught up with her and held her hand out. Mouse took it reluctantly and slowed to a walk. She turned around and looked at me a
gain. Mel knelt down close to her and whispered into her ear. Mouse’s look of fear melted into a grin and when Mel whispered something else, the little girl started to giggle. She shyly started walking in my direction.
"Well, well, well," Danielle said. "Looks like you clean up good, sir."
"Don't call me sir, I used to work for a living," I said to her, grinning.
"Yeah, that is a new look for you," Jeremy said. "Almost like you plan on going incognito topside."
"Yeah, about that… I've been hiding down here for a long time. Instead of trying to catch the guys before it's too late, I think it's time to bring the fight to them," I said, looking around at the group of kids standing before me. Some of them were playing, some of them sitting. Some of them were reading the books they’d brought down in the tunnels with them. "I don't think it's feasible to get rid of all of them, but the ones who are trying to take the women and children… those I can do something about. If we break the backs of the biggest gangs topside, then we can move around in the open more."
"Uncle Dick, is it really you?" Mouse asked as Mel brought her close to me.
I knelt down. "It's really me, little dormouse. Who did you think I was? The boogeyman?"
"It really is you!” she exclaimed, letting go of Mel's hand, and running and jumping at the last moment, so I was forced to catch her. I did, and I almost crumbled immediately.
The twinge in my back was something horrible, and even catching a small girl put a strain on it. I felt like screaming. Instead, I put down Mouse. I got down on one knee, feeling everything in my body crack and pop. It sounded like a cross between a bone breaking and glass shattering, but it felt good despite the pain.
"Yeah little one, it's really me. What you think of my new look?" I asked her, pulling her tight and giving her a hug.
The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark Page 5
