Chokehold

by David Moody

  A woman wearing a headlamp is trying to plug up the worst leak with an old T-shirt.

  “Any good?” Darren asks.

  “Seems to be working,” she tells him, though the silt-filled water’s still coming, trickling through her fingers and down her arms.

  “I don’t think it’s going to hold,” a voice says from deeper in the shelter.

  No one reacts. He clears his throat and speaks again.

  “The noise that filled this place just now … that water must be under a hell of a lot of pressure to be forced through the brickwork like that.”

  “We’re fine,” Darren tells him. “It’s under control.”

  “You might want to start thinking about getting essential supplies away from this part of the building. Move yourselves up toward the entrance. There are no leaks up there yet. We need to consider the possibility that we might have to evacuate and—”

  Darren snaps. He turns and marches over to Matthew Dunne, then backs him up against a recently emptied storage rack. “You’re going to freak people out with that kind of talk. Keep it to yourself, and let me get on with making the shelter safe.”

  Matt doesn’t react. Doesn’t fight. Doesn’t have the energy.

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not. You’re doing the exact opposite. Scaring the shit out of people … how’s that supposed to be helping?”

  Matt lowers his voice. “I get that, but telling people everything’s gonna be all right when it isn’t won’t help anyone, either. By that logic, if you’d shut your eyes and put your fingers in your ears when they dropped the bomb, you’d have been okay.”

  Jason pulls Darren away from him. “It’s not worth it, Darren,” he says. “Come on, mate, we need your help.”

  Darren goes back to help those working on the leaks. They’ve moved empty racks across the width of the area where the water’s getting through and are now building a protective wall with whatever they can lay their hands on. Darren coordinates the work, piling up sacks of garbage and nonessentials: redundant electrical equipment and the like. A human chain has been formed to move the improvised building blocks from one end of the bunker to the other.

  “Will this work?” Jason asks, watching by yellow flashlight.

  “It has to,” Darren tells him.

  * * *

  The bunker is formed of two distinct spaces with a single connecting door. Despite the leaks, the group still congregates in the larger second room, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and what’s left of the outside world. The smaller room tends only to have one regular occupant. He’s back there again now, sitting cocooned in a sleeping bag at the bottom of the steps leading out, back against the wall with a pile of surreptitiously scavenged supplies close to hand. His heart sinks when the door opens and someone invades his space. He’s become adept at seeing without using his eyes. He listens more than looks and uses his knowledge of human nature to fill in the blanks. He knows who this is before she sits down. But then again, it doesn’t take a genius. She’s just about the only one who still gives him the time of day.

  “It’s me, Kara,” she says, whispering though there’s no need.

  “I know.”

  “You okay?”

  “Fine and dandy.”

  “Did Darren hurt you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

  Much as he’d like to be alone, Matt knows he can be himself with Kara. She’s the only person he’s close to down here. The only one who shares his frustration with the way Darren and Jason run things.

  “He’s taking a hell of a risk. I reckon it’s fifty-fifty as to whether that wall holds.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “You’ll need to talk to the boss about that.”

  “Come on, Matt…”

  “No, seriously, every time I try to help, he shuts me down. He doesn’t want to know. None of them do.”

  “They don’t trust you.”

  “We’ve been buried down here together for months.”

  “In group, out group, remember? You’re still a stranger. He sees you as a threat. None of us had clapped eyes on you until you turned up with the truck and shipped us out.”

  “Yeah, you’d have thought I’d get a little gratitude for saving your necks and risking mine.”

  “You went back out again, though, didn’t you?”

  “I had to. I needed to.”

  “Look, you don’t need to persuade me; I get it. You needed to try to get back to Jen. Thing is, though, all this lot remember is you dumping them, then heading back out and leaving them vulnerable when the bomb dropped and the shit really hit the fan.”

  Matt has nothing to say. They’ve had this conversation too many times before. He wishes he could redirect it into safer waters, but he can’t; it’s too painful to talk about the past, too confined and unpredictable in here to try to make sense of the present, and there’s no point talking about the future because it’s doubtful any of them have one.

  Kara’s not going anywhere, though.

  “It’s not going to hold, is it? And for the record, I already tried talking to Darren about it.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said everything’ll be fine.”

  “There you go, then. Panic over. If the boss tells you you’re safe, you’re safe.”

  “He’s full of shit.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “That’s why I came to talk to you. It’s why I always talk to you. What do you think’s going to happen?”

  Matt wishes he could give her a little hope to cling to, but he can’t, and he knows she’d see straight through any bullshit. “You need to take the emotion out of the situation and look at the facts, focus on the physics. Even if the water that’s getting in is slowed up, there’s no reason to think it won’t keep coming. It might be a slow flood, but it’ll be a flood all the same. So we can wait patiently to drown or be poisoned by whatever shit’s going to be brought in with that stuff, or we can cut our losses and leave here now and take our chances with whatever’s left aboveground. The end result will probably be the same. So yeah, it’s looking pretty grim whichever way you look at it.”

  She pauses. Gets up. “Thank you, Matt. Just wanted to hear you say it. You’re the only one who’s ever honest with me.”

  4

  Matt wakes up with a start when the connecting door flies open. He thinks, This is it, this is the big one, but it’s immediately clear that it isn’t. Not yet. He pulls his feet up to his chest and gathers his belongings close as this anteroom rapidly begins to fill up. Lamps are used to illuminate the space, and another chain of people start shifting supplies, stacking them up against the wall opposite. “Just a precaution,” Jason tells Matt when he catches his eye.

  “You’ve not stopped the leaks yet, then?”

  “We’ve got it under control.”

  “Good,” Matt says, and he half shuts his eyes and feigns sleep.

  On the whole, from what Matt can currently see, the group appears to be reasonably calm. There’s plenty of emotion in their muted voices, and some people are cooperating and others aren’t, and some are sitting watching while others get overly involved … and it’s no different from usual. But Matt’s uneasy. The stale air down here has a different taste to it since the leaks were discovered. The ventilation in this place is rudimentary—it was never designed to be used for this purpose—so fresh air is a distant memory, but there’s a muddy dampness to each lungful that wasn’t there before. And he can feel a background pressure building, too, like before a storm. Maybe that’s it. Who knows what’s going on with the atmospherics up there? He remembers watching Cold War–era movies about nuclear attacks when he was a kid. Most of the focus was on the blast and the radiation, but the medium- to long-term prospects they portrayed were equally terrifying. All that toxic crap being thrown up into the air, blockin
g out the sun and causing the temperature to plummet … Matt can’t even begin to imagine what the outside world will be like if they ever leave here. When he thinks about those movies he watched, which traumatized him at the time, they seem quaint and rose-tinted.

  There’s no privacy down here in the bunker. Toilets are improvised and shared. Discretion and confidentiality are long-lost luxuries. Matt’s used to catching sleep when and where he can, and though he watches the essential supplies being stockpiled for a while longer, it’s not long before he drifts off again.

  * * *

  When he next wakes up, the anteroom is well lit and is rapidly filling with people. He’s on his feet in seconds, and he looks down at his boots, expecting to see water rising. He’s relieved they’re still dry.

  Even though this part of the bunker is now overfull, a quick count of heads reveals this is only part of the group. He looks for Darren or Jason, the self-appointed chiefs, but the only face he sees worth talking to is Kara. She’s right alongside him. “Trouble?” he asks.

  “A precaution,” she whispers. “More leaks. They’re moving the kids up here, trying to get people into the dry areas.”

  “They do realize there won’t be any dry areas soon?”

  “It might not get that bad.”

  He just looks at her.

  “Where’s the big man?”

  “What, Darren? I don’t know. Somewhere in there.”

  Matt wishes he could go back to sleep and keep his mouth shut, but this time he can’t. He makes sure his stuff is safe at the top of the steps up to the exit, then pushes his way through the tightly packed bodies. Kara’s hanging on to his jacket. “What?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Stay here. There’s no point.”

  “What are you going to say to him?”

  “Nothing.”

  There’s a lot of work going on at the far end of the bunker; many men and women, all pulling in the same direction. All the spare lamps are lit, and Matt can already see that an area around a third of the total bunker length has been cordoned off. The remaining two-thirds are chaotic, with people, beds, metal racking, and other less easily identifiable shapes all competing for the rapidly reducing floor space. Matt steps over and around things and bodies to get to the business end of the room.

  He seems to be moving in the opposite direction of everyone else. When he reaches the cordon, he uses his flashlight to scan the wall up ahead. More water. No longer trickling. Hissing in places. More worryingly, it’s also dripping through the ceiling.

  Matt’s seen enough.

  He retraces his steps and walks straight into Darren coming the other way. Darren goes to speak, but Matt gets in first. He keeps his voice low. No need to cause panic. Yet. “We can’t stay here, Darren. You need to evacuate.”

  “Don’t be so fucking stupid. We can’t leave, you know that.”

  “Lesser of two evils. You might die outside; you definitely will die in here. I’m taking my chances.”

  “You do that. You must be crazy.”

  “Quite the opposite.”

  This is a pointless conversation Matt can’t afford to prolong. He goes to walk away, but Darren grabs his arm and pulls him back. “If you go out there, you need to understand two things. One, you go alone. Two, there’s no way you’re coming back in when you realize you’ve fucked up. Got it?”

  Matt doesn’t answer. He pulls his arm away and keeps walking. He forces his way back out into the anteroom and picks up his belongings from the top of the steps.

  “Don’t be fucking stupid!” he hears Darren shouting at him. “It’s suicide!”

  There are a thousand things he could say in reply, but instead he says nothing. He knows there must be some safe space out there, because the bottom of the door to the outside world is dry, and right now anything is better than waiting in here for the inevitable.

  “Matt, wait!”

  He looks around for her, but Kara’s separated from him by everyone else, and now Jason and a couple of others are moving closer, intent on helping him make his decision quickly and with the minimum of disruption.

  “It’s okay!” he shouts back to her, and he genuinely believes it will be. It has to be.

  The key has been left in the padlock in case of emergencies. As Matt turns it, he becomes aware of everyone else moving back, terrified what he might let in when the door that has kept them secure since the day the world ended is finally opened. The click of the padlock is at once both liberating and terrifying, but Matt knows he has no choice. He opens it and takes a step out into the unknown.

  No building. The walls and roof are gone. The inside is outside now.

  Fading daylight.

  Black skies overhead; clouds so low he could touch them.

  The slam and lock of the door behind him are the loudest noises he’s ever heard. Louder even than the bomb.

  5

  The rain never stops. Not even for a second.

  It’s two days later when the wall in the corner and a section of the ceiling at the far end of the bunker finally give way. Though the water has kept coming all this time, until now its flow has largely been stemmed, and as each hour has passed, so the mole-like refugees have become accustomed to their further degraded confines. They’ve spent months making do in the darkness, resigned to the fact that what they’ve got is the best they’ll get, and the loss of almost half their remaining space has been met with a collective shrug of inevitability. It’s either misplaced optimism or the fact they’ve lost so much already that’s resulted in them continuing as they were until now, business as usual, but there’s utter pandemonium when part of the roof caves in, sheer terror, because they know that no amount of shifting, bracing, and packing is going to preserve the integrity of their precious shelter now.

  The main room begins to fill, gallons of turgid water pouring in with remarkable speed. The makeshift dams the group spent hours constructing are swept aside in seconds. The surge of water has an almost awe-inspiring power behind it, picking up bulky metal furniture that took many people to maneuver and casting it aside as if it were made from twigs.

  The entire floor of the bunker is awash. The only thing moving faster than the water is the wave of panicked people now surging toward the anteroom. Darren pauses to try to help a man who’s been pinned against a wall by a mass of equipment that’s been picked up by the flood. He’s yelling in pain, one of his legs broken, and even though he and Darren are just meters apart, the roar of the deluge completely drowns out his noise. Darren knows there’s nothing he can do, and he hates himself for it. In the few seconds he’s delayed, the water level has risen to above his knees. If he doesn’t leave now, they’ll both die. He keeps moving, glad the rush of water is loud enough to drown out the terrified screams.

  He gets through into the anteroom, then turns back to look for the others, only about half of them having escaped the main room so far. He can see many people still weaving through the flooded chaos, illuminated by their own flashlights and lamps. But then there’s an almighty cracking noise, and another massive section of ceiling caves in. Some are crushed by falling masonry, others swept away by an unprecedented amount of water that drops like a vertical tidal wave. From knee-deep to chest-deep in a heartbeat. The force of the sudden inundation catches the door between the two rooms and slams it shut in Darren’s face. There’s no way they’ll be able to open it again from the other side, but the way the water’s now hissing through the gaps between the door and the frame leaves no one in any doubt that it’s not going to hold for long. In the anteroom itself, the water level is already such that many of the supplies they’d moved into this space for safety are floating at waist height. The few kids who’ve made it out, those who aren’t already in other people’s arms, are up to their chins.

  “Get us out of here!” someone pleads.

  Kara’s at the front of the line, and though she’s doing everything she can, the pressure of the floodwaters on this s
ide means she can’t get the outer door open. Jason pushes his way through along with another man who’s found a hand ax from somewhere. He starts chopping at the latch, the lock, the hinges, the frame … anything that might help them get out. Someone else has a crowbar, and they start working on the opposite side.

  Between them all, they work hard and fast, exerting more effort in the space of a couple of minutes than anyone’s needed to in the entire time they’ve been incarcerated. The man with the ax is breathless, arms like lead, but he keeps on chopping. He’s desperate to get out but is petrified at the thought of what might be out there. The fear of the unknown is almost enough to make him stop, but the fear of drowning keeps him moving.

  Under pressure from the crowbar, the top hinge gives way. At the other end of the water- and body-filled room, Darren is being pushed back by the weight of the crowds. Jesus, he can feel the door bulging behind him under the pressure of the flood, water continuing to hiss at high pressure through the narrow gaps around the parts of the frame that are above the fill. He thinks about the others who didn’t get out and convinces himself they’re still trying to escape—banging against the door he’s praying will hold firm. His mind is filled with nightmare images of it finally giving way and this rapidly disappearing space filling to the ceiling with polluted water in a heartbeat.

  The outer door latch is submerged now. The guy with the crowbar exerts as much pressure on the padlock as he can until it finally gives, but the water level is preventing them from getting out, keeping the door shut. Jason now has the ax and is working frantically to chip away the top corner of the hardwood timber door, trying to do enough damage. It begins to splinter. A few more ax blows and it starts to split. Now there are grabbing hands everywhere, ripping, yanking, and pulling at the damaged wood.

  Gray daylight starts trickling in from outside.

  They work on the door with increased speed until there’s a big enough gap up top. Jason’s immediately given a leg up so he can scramble through. No one gives any thought as to what he’s scrambling through into, because all that any of them care about now is escaping the toxic water.