The Darwin Effect
Page 18
Cromartie and Sanders set up tents outside one of the buildings until they could get at least one of the buildings in livable condition again. They didn’t want to sleep down in the simulator anymore … they wanted to sleep outside in the air, on the ground, and under the sky.
FORTY-NINE
Two months later
Cromartie and Sanders dug out an area to grow crops, and they built a pen for the animals that MAC released from cryosleep down in the storage area of their simulator. It wasn’t easy getting some of the goats, pigs, and chickens up and out of the hatch, but they managed it. There was a hand pump that pulled water up from an aquifer underneath the ground. They found books about farming and raising animals among their boxes of supplies in the cavern above the simulator, but Cromartie still wished every day that Abraham was still alive to help them with this.
Cromartie didn’t feel too comfortable going back down into the simulator after they got the animals, seeds, and many of the other supplies they needed from down there. He still couldn’t help suspecting that MAC wasn’t working properly even though he didn’t really have any proof. He had panicky thoughts about MAC closing the hatch door that led down into the simulator and sealing him in there so the computer wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.
But maybe it’s me, Cromartie thought. Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I’m still having some side effects.
At nights Cromartie thought about his wife and children. He had fantasies that they had somehow survived the nuclear holocaust, that there were other compounds like this one all over America. But deep down inside he knew it wasn’t true. He knew they were gone and he cried himself to sleep sometimes. He couldn’t picture their faces that well anymore, but he still saw them in his dreams.
Sometimes he had the same dream that he’d had down in the Darwin. It was Sunday morning again and they were making pancakes. Carrie had a plate of pancakes for him with the steam rising up off of them in the sunlight flooding in from the bay windows. Julie scolded him about reading the newspaper, and he tucked it down beside him on the bench seat. It was all bad news in the paper these days anyway.
The dream wasn’t always the same. Sometimes he saw the flash of light outside the windows, the tidal wave of bright death that was coming to vaporize them. But other times he spent more time with his family. He would wake up thinking that he was back home again for a split second, and his face would be wet with tears.
Sanders wouldn’t ask if he was okay because she knew what he’d been dreaming about. She would just hold him until they fell asleep again in front of the fire.
Little by little they survived and they carried on. They were busy all day and tired at night. He and Sanders grew closer and closer together. And eventually they made love, both of them feeling that they had an obligation to procreate and carry on the human species.
“Why should we carry on the human race?” Sanders had asked one night while Cromartie held her. The night sky above them was dotted with thousands of stars; the air was chilly, but the fire they’d built was keeping them warm. “We messed everything up once. What’s to keep us from doing it again?”
Cromartie didn’t have a good answer for her.
They found other hatches around the gigantic fenced-in compound that they now called home. They couldn’t get the hatches open, and MAC told them that they weren’t allowed to tamper with them. If the people in the other simulators below the ground found the answer, if they could work together and get along, then they would find their own way out in the next four months. If not, when the onboard computer in each simulator blew the hatch open at the programmed time, then there might be nothing except rotting bodies below inside the simulators.
They had counted six other hatches altogether. All of the hatches had an array of solar panels constructed onto metal poles all around them … the solar panels that were keeping them alive. There were six hatches altogether, six simulators with six more people in each one below the ground; a possible total of thirty-six more people who could join them.
But maybe all of them wouldn’t make it.
Maybe none of them would.
All Cromartie and Sanders could do was wait to see if those people emerged, and in the meantime they would keep on living, keep on surviving, keep on raising crops and livestock. They talked about eventually exploring farther beyond their compound. But the desert was a formidable obstacle at this moment and they wanted to see who, if any, would emerge out of those holes in the ground when the hatches blew.
They waited every day for one of the hatches to open. They waited every day for someone down there in one of those simulators to see the answers in their dreams, in their lost memories, or to somehow figure out the truth. They waited, but the hatches never blew.
As the days crept by, Cromartie often pondered Sanders’ words from a few weeks ago: Why should they carry on the human race?
Do we even deserve this? he wondered. Do we deserve to carry on?
Who knew?
Cromartie tried not to think about it; he tried to keep his mind on their daily tasks … and on surviving … and carrying on.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Thank you so much for reading my book! I hope you enjoyed it. It’s readers like you who have made my dream of being a writer come true!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’ve been writing since the second grade when my teacher called my parents in for a conference because the ghost story I’d written had her a little concerned. By the time I was fourteen years old I was reading every Stephen King book I could find at the local public library. I was hooked—I knew I wanted to be a writer.
Since that time, I’ve had several stories published and four screenplays optioned by producers in Hollywood, one of which is in development to be a film. I’m the author of Ancient Enemy, Descendants of Magic, The Summoning, Night Terrors, Sightings, The Exorcist’s Apprentice, What Lies Below, Devil’s Island, Ghost Town: a novella, and A Dark Collection: 12 Scary Stories. I’m a member of The Horror Writers Association.
I grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. But after many travels and adventures, I settled back down in Florida, near Tampa Bay. I live with my wonderful wife and son, and a stray cat we adopted.
You can find me on Facebook at MarkLukensBooks, on Twitter @marklukensbooks, on my blog: www.marklukensbooks.wordpress.com and you can contact me by email at: marklukensbooks@yahoo.com. I love hearing from readers, and I would love to hear from you!!
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