“What does all that mean?” Delores asked.
Vo, who was still hugging Ellis, smiled. “Mean that the darkness still rules up-top,” he said.
“What’s the deal with these tunnels,” Chuck asked. “And what are you doing down here?”
Vo sighed. “Down here? This is my home. I lived down here before the world collapsed up in your world.
“My old friend Mr. Jim and I built most of these tunnels,” Vo said.
Chuck interrupted. “Most of them?”
“A lot of them,” Vo said with a nod. “They connect with county utility tunnels near the cities, but we built most of these tunnels ourselves.
“Sometime, I don’t know, in the 90’s I think, we’d stolen enough from the bankers and robbers and white-collar criminals to buy us a tunnel machine. Like they used to dig wine tunnels and caves out in California.”
“What’d you do with the dirt?” Chuck asked.
“We were good at this, young man, now shut up and listen while Mr. Vo talk.
“So we got tunnel to go all the way up past Hagersville up north. Got tunnel to go into WonderSoft! That was a fun one. And the old military base too. And the prison, and out to the Scrap. We got tunnel going everywhere!”
“And you were bad men?” Delores asked. “You robbed from people?”
Vo laughed. “Man rob from bad men not always bad, but you can say that. We cowboys that wore the black hat, me and Mr. Jim.”
“Where is Mr. Jim now?” Chuck asked.
Vo grunted, almost as if he’d taken offense. “I bury him up that way,” lied the tiny Asian man who smoked like a dragon. “Up the tunnel there. In the wall. He die before up-top went crazy. But not before he got it all back. Bought back his farm too. Mr. Jim was a good man. Good friend.”
Chuck looked at Delores who was shivering, still cold from the swim.
“I need to get back,” he said.
“Not ‘til Ellis is ok, Chuck.”
“But—”
“No but.”
Mr. Vo’s head popped up and his hand came out from under the blanket.
“Wait…”
“What?” Chuck said.
“Shhh…”
The silence was interrupted by a low rumble, far in the distance but growing louder.
Delores grabbed for Chuck’s arm. “What is that?”
Just then, Ellis’s eyes popped open. All of them could feel the tremor coming through the ground, down from above and into the dark tunnels. Like a cattle drive passing overhead.
“Horde,” Vo whispered.
Chapter 30
Delores and Chuck ran. Almost as if they were one person. They dove into the pond and in seconds were surfacing on the other side.
Chuck grabbed his headlight where he’d dropped it and pulled it onto his head, flicking on the light.
When they got to the point on the ladder where the horizontal tunnel broke off and headed toward the barn, Chuck looked down at Delores, her face showing fear and cold in the beam of the headlight.
“Head to the barn. The family should be assembling there. I’ll go up to Utah so I can blow the bridge if they haven’t already done it.”
~~~
Up-Top.
After sprinting back over the bridge, Shooter collected Patrick from behind the rock where the boy was hidden.
“Get to the barn!” Shooter shouted at Patrick. “Get everyone into the tunnel!”
Patrick started to run, but stopped, and with fear on his face grabbed Shooter’s arm. “Why?” he asked.
“Horde!” Shooter said. “I’m gonna get Neil from the pillbox. Get to the barn and blow the bridge! We’ll be right behind you!”
~~~
Chuck pushed open the huge rock that sealed the passage from the Utah stone formation to the big drop. Once he’d cleared the entrance, he looked down through the valley, and that’s when he saw it.
No dream or nightmare could ever match what he saw coming toward them up the rise toward the thin metal span of the bridge. Thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands of things, humans, monsters, surging like water toward Fontana’s bridge.
Chuck had heard of hordes before, and he’d seen signs of their passing; dust in the sky that darkened the sun, rooted up vegetation a quarter mile wide where the things had passed, but nothing could have prepared him for seeing a full-on horde coming straight at him.
Before he could fully comprehend the sight, or pull out the hidden “clicker” that was connected by wires to the bombs on the bridge, hundreds of the creatures had already reached the structure and were barreling across it. Some had cleared the bridge and were racing up the draw into the green valley.
He reached down to crank the detonating switch and then remembered this clicker was battery powered. He shifted the fail safe guard with his thumb, and without thinking or praying about it, he flipped the switch.
He’d already turned and was back through the stone entrance when he heard the deafening booms and rumble from the mouth of the valley. He pushed the heavy stone closed, sealing the passage, then scurried down the ladder. He needed to get to the barn to make sure everyone else in the family had made it into the tunnels.
Ten minutes later, all of them, including the body of their dead brother Karl, were through the water lock and up in Vo’s quarters. Chuck and Shooter had worked together to swim Karl’s body down through the submerged tunnel, and up the other side.
Vo was gone. Ellis was awake and partially dressed, and as the family gathered, chilled and in shock, the elder young man stood. He walked over to where Karl’s body lay, wrapped and tied in blankets, and he put his hand on the young boy’s chest.
He then walked silently to a box Vo had shown him shortly after Delores and Chuck had rushed off to get the family.
“I am done fighting,” Vo had said before disappearing northward through the tunnels. “But I’ll be down here. I’ll find you when you need me.”
Ellis opened the box and pulled out four Claymore mines. He pushed the family back around to the far side of the small fire, then bent and armed the directional mines, pointing them out toward the water.
Above them, the ground thundered and shook as dust rained down in sudden waterfalls from uncertain places in the ceiling.
“Someday we’ll take the farm back. But that someday is not today.
~~~
They came on in waves. Waves following waves. Like running, dusty starving vultures scouring the land. Walter, the Stranger in Black had run alongside them whispering his temptations, driving them on toward the little valley. But now he stood on a small and distant hill, looking upward at one-hundred-thousand Slenderex junkies, almost-zombies, racing across the bridge and streaming up into the tiny hidden valley. The ground shook like it was being beaten by all the war drums the world had left. A scream of moaning white noise, groaning for relief from a constant hunger for calories rose like a white squall, and there were occasional punctuations of tormented screams and shrieks erupting within the mindless chorus.
Trees fell as the maddened riot pushed in on the little farm and the few animals there. The Man in Black delighted in imagining what would happen to the yokel farmers that must’ve once thought they’d be safe in their “hidey hole”. He cackled with delight envisioning what it would be like as they were ripped to pieces by his children. He imagined what it would be like to watch it all happen, live. But now it would be too dangerous to get too close. It would be a shark feed now.
The bridge collapsed as a massive press of Slenderex cannibals surged onto it like a man trying to swallow a wad of meat or a chicken bone. It collapsed into the river, drowning some and spilling others into the racing waters who, undeterred continued across. Climbing over their own dead. Scrambling up the far embankment. Using their drowning, trampled own as a ladder to reach the hoped for treasure of promised calories. A few were carried away by the current. Others lay trapped within the wreckage. Mayhem, the Stranger in Black, chuckled with glee at
all the terrible things he’d made.
For an hour he continued to watch the Horde. By now they would have found their victims and the feasting and fighting and sexing would have begun. Then the precious sleep they’d catch for an hour or two, at most, before the insatiable hunger for more drove them on to their next meal. But none of these things were happening. The Horde had raced up and across the hidden valley, even spilling off the high cliffs to perish in the river below, like angry and unsated hornets. Frantic. Desperate.
The Stranger in Black knew, had known, there were survivors here. Or the potential for survivors. And survivors represented the greatest threat to his Queen. All survivors, anyone who clung to the good and tried to build something despite the destruction, were to be eliminated. Destroyed. Erased by any means.
Terminated.
But the Horde was doing none of the things it did when it found fresh calories. Which meant fresh calories were not to be found. Angry now, and cursing, the Stranger in Black strode toward the bridge and watched as the front runners began to re-cross the river, mindlessly convinced that the calories they’d been promised were somewhere other than here.
Mumbling, sweating, cursing, eyes crazed, the Stranger in Black stood before the ruined bridge. He sniffed at the changing wind, his head turning and twisting in new directions as he did so. Then he snarled, stamped his foot, and started to scream at the top of his lungs. He’d planned a maddening, blood-curdling roar that would have sent every Slenderex cannibal scrambling away from him in fear… but he stopped. He didn’t scream.
He stamped one of his hobnailed boots again, pounding it into the dust. And again. And again. And when he was satisfied of something, he began to smile and the smile turned into a laugh.
He was on his knees, laughing uncontrollably, “hysterically” as people used to say, slapping his large hands into the dusty Earth and repeating, “I know you’re down there!”
“I know you’re down there!”
“I know you’re down there!”
“I know you’re down there!”
“I know you’re down there!”
“I know you’re down there!”
“I know you’re down there!”
His voice was a croak and a rusty wheeze as the cannibals fled past him, leaving the valley of undelivered caloric promises.
“I know you’re down there!” he whispered. “I know.”
At that moment the earth began to shake, back and forth, and the Stranger in Black fell over on his side, and rolling onto his back and laughing like a stuck pig that had it all wrong. Then there was a sudden “drop”.
And silence followed.
Yes, the horde, the Slenderex cannibals were still racing past him seeking youth, beauty, and fame in a bottle they’d opened years ago. Yes, all those things. But the Stranger in Black knew something wonderful had just happened in the earthquake. Something he’d been waiting for… for a long time.
He got to his knees wiping away the tears of laughter that had caused streaks to form on his dusty face. He sniffed again, cast his eyes wildly and knowingly about, and when he was sure of what was known, he spoke the words he knew he’d speak when first he’d been promised the dreams of a madman.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore.” And, “Oh no, we are most definitely not in Kansas anymore.”
Epilogue
The Baron stood atop the wall of wrecked cars, watching the night. Again he played the report of his scout over in his mind.
“A horde took the high valley.”
The Baron doubled the guard and watched the night. He knew the Stranger in Black, the Madman of Casperville, was somehow behind every bad thing that happened recently. And he knew there was no fleeing now.
The Baron watched the night and wondered what evil had come into his world.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nick Cole is a working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can often be found as a guard for King Phillip the Second of Spain in the Opera Don Carlo at Los Angeles Opera or some similar role. Nick Cole has been writing for most of his life and acting in Hollywood after serving in the U.S. Army. For more information about Nick Cole, check out his website: http://nickcolebooks.com
Michael Bunker is a USA Today Bestselling author, off-gridder, husband, and father of four children. He lives with his family in a "plain" community in Central Texas, where he reads and writes books...and occasionally tilts at windmills.
Michael is the author of several popular and acclaimed works of dystopian sci-fi, including the Amazon top 20 bestselling Amish Sci-fi thriller the Pennsylvania Omnibus, the groundbreaking dystopian vision Hugh Howey called "a brilliant tale of extra-planetary colonization." He also has written the epic post-apocalyptic WICK series, The Silo Archipelago (set in Hugh Howey's World of WOOL,) as well as many nonfiction works, including the non-fiction Amazon overall top 30 bestseller Surviving Off Off-Grid. Michael was commissioned by Amazon.com through their Kindle Worlds program to write the first commissioned novel set in the World of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. That book is entitled Osage Two Diamonds, and it debuted on Dec. 17, 2013. Michael has been featured on NPR, HuffPost Live, and The Guardian, and was recently interviewed in a Medium.com article that will give you more background and insight into his life and works... http://bit.ly/17YbE63.
On November 21st, 2014 Tales From Pennsylvania, a fanfic short story anthology featuring 10 top speculative fiction authors writing fanfic short stories in the world of Michael Bunker's Pennsylvania, was released in paperback and e-book format. There are more than twenty authors currently writing fan fiction in the world of Michael's Pennsylvania.
Michael recently joined with hybrid bestselling author Nick Cole (author of The Wasteland Saga and Soda Pop Soldier,) book marketing guru and author coach Tim Grahl (author of Your First 1,000 Copies,) and Internet entrepreneur Rob McLellan (owner of ThirdScribe.com,) to form a new company called Wonderment Media. Wonderment has launched a new apocalyptic world called Apocalypse Weird and is bringing on dozens of the best and brightest authors in speculative fiction to write books in the Apocalypse Weird world, attempting something that has never been done before in digital publishing. Readers who subscribe to Michael's newsletter get free copies of his books, usually before they're published: http://michaelbunker.com/newsletter
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19
Texocalypse
1985.
Jim Howard was down tunnel. Way down. Deep inside the telecom tunnels beneath Central City. He was threading the main conduit, looking for the junction that would lead away from City Hall and down toward the college.
The week before, he and Mr. Vo had robbed the Savings and Loan. They hadn’t robbed it of money. Instead, they’d robbed it of one safety deposit box in particular.
A box they’d heard about in Mexico from their “friend” Escobar. Learned about it at the Haciendado on one of Escobar’s legendary “Miami Vice” weekends. The box was linked to the secret bank account of the Chief Financial Officer of WonderSoft, the big tech startup that was making interactive learning software and had opened their state of the art headquarters in the Basin. Cutting edge CD ROM stuff.
The word was, that whatever was in the box would be worth a big ransom. A hefty ransom. That’s what some junior exec who liked coke a lot and had to cross over the border to get as much as he wanted had intimated to Escobar.
A hefty ransom.
After the robbery, Jim had hidden the box in the tunnels and gone back topside to start a brushfire out on McCain road at a grain silo. A diversion.
Now, a week later, he had the box
and was heading back to the hideout. All he needed was to get out to the limits of Central City and come up through a tunnel in the old junkyard and then he could drive back out to the valley.
He passed traps and signal trips he’d set up, threading them carefully. No one ever came down here. So, everything looked pretty good. Or at least that was what Jim kept telling himself.
The problem was, he felt uneasy. Real uneasy.
He had that “Cong’s in the tunnel” feeling. He had it real bad.
He pulled out his pearl-handled .45 with the cartoon mongoose he’d had made down in Mexico, and kept it at his side as he made his way further down tunnel. Ahead, he could see the junction leading to “his” tunnels, and safety.
Keeping the gun at his side was the mistake. One he’d never have made in-country. Back in ‘Nam.
They grabbed him from behind. He couldn’t get the gun up and he didn’t even squeeze off a shot as he felt his arms instantly turn to ice water.
They drugged me, was his thought as he slid to the cold floor of the tunnel. With something in a needle...
As if knowing mattered.
As if anything mattered.
Later, he regained consciousness for a moment.
Digger 1.0 Page 17
