Petey was happily running around the man’s ankles. She narrowed her eyes at him. Traitor. He was supposed to be on her side. Instead, this man had fed and watered him, and he was his new best friend.
“Where are we?” she asked.
The man grunted, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned and walked back into the room he had come from. Gina followed him, limping. The room was massive, much larger than the one she had been in. On one side, closest to the entrance, was a small kitchenette and a table. Boxes of food, stacks of cans, and all sorts of other food supplies were stacked in every free place.
The back of the room was completely different. It looked to be some sort of gym. In the dim light, she could see she was partially right. There was a squat rack and a bench press, stacks of plates next to each one of them. Massive dumbbells littered the floor in varying locations. But there were other things that caught her eyes: there was a huge upright log, like a tree without any branches that reached the ceiling. There were scratch marks in it. There was also some sort of wooden climbing apparatus. It reminded her of something she would see on an obstacle course – but much, much larger.
By her quick estimation, this room was easily as long as the hallway had been. It made sense, though. This man would have to have some way to stay in shape if he kept to this bunker.
“What’s your name?” she asked, sitting down at the table. He was rummaging through a box. Gina watched as he pulled out some kind of foil packet and ripped into it. He tossed it into a microwave without a word.
Gina sat in silence, just watching. After about a minute, the microwave beeped and he pulled the pack out. He dropped it in front of her on the table and sat a fork down. Then he sat down across from her, but still he didn’t say anything.
The meal didn’t look appetizing, but she knew she had to eat. It was some type of meat, maybe a chicken fried steak, covered in gravy with a side of fake mashed potatoes. Not her favorite, even in the best of times, but she dug in all the same. It was gross, but what could she do?
“I’m Gina,” she told him after she had swallowed a large mouthful of food. In answer, he got up and grabbed a glass from a cupboard, filled it up from the faucet and handed it to her. Gina took it and drank gratefully. She had been parched.
“What’s your name?” she asked again. When he didn’t answer, she nodded. “Okay, then. Thank you for saving my life.”
She thought she saw the slightest sign of a nod, but she couldn’t be sure. The minutes passed in silence, with the exception of her scraping the last of the food out of the pack. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she had been. When was the last time she had had any food? She thought back to two days ago, before she had gone in for her shift.
Two days ago. She did the math in her head: she had gone in on the 4th for her shift in the hospital and left when things went bad. She’d spent the night in Grady, then left in the morning, fleeing her attacker. She’d crashed her car and spent the night in this bunker, with the man who had taken care of her.
Only two days. Already, the memory of her life seemed so far away. What had happened? She still had no idea.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked the Shifter. He didn’t look up from staring at the table. “Do you even know?”
Still no response. Was it possible that he didn’t know either? He had to know what was going on, didn’t he? She’d heard of people like this. Survivalists. They had hidden bunkers, packed to the gills with food, water, and supplies, ready in case of an emergency.
But had this man been staying in the bunker before everything had happened?
That was preposterous, but…
His hair and beard were out of control. He was washed, but his demeanor left much to be desired. She’d barely gotten so much as a grunt out of him. What was his deal?
On the counter behind him, she noticed a radio. She was still weak, but she had to know what was going on. She simply couldn’t go on with not knowing what was happening to the world outside. She got up, slowly, and made her way to the radio. If the man gave any indication that he even cared, he didn’t show it.
Her vision went blurry when she reached the radio, but she steadied herself on the counter. When she thought she was okay, she flipped the power knob on. There was a brutally loud burst of static – her mind flashed back to the siren in the basement of Grady – and then she heard movement behind her.
There was a roar of fury, and Gina turned back to see the man getting out of his chair. No, getting out wasn’t the right way to describe it. The chair had been flung halfway across the room, loud metal clanging against the concrete floor. He pushed away from the table, which instead pushed the table across the floor – her glass of water fell to the floor, shattering.
Then he was on her, pushing her back against the counter, rage burning in his eyes. She could smell him this close. He had a primal smell, something that was both dangerous and intriguing. Something about his scent fought through the terror she felt from his sudden outburst.
She could practically see his body bristling; his hackles rising. He closed his blazing golden eyes, a look of pain crossing his face. He put out his hands to either side of her, gripping the countertop, and she saw that he didn’t have hands any longer; not exactly. They were claws. Horror started to take over her as she realized what was happening. He was shifting.
He tilted his head back and roared, echoing painfully in the room. Petey was at his ankle, growling and tearing at the man’s flesh.
“No! Petey, no!”
But the dog didn’t listen. The Shifter looked down, saw Petey on his leg, and Gina’s blood ran cold. She’d been afraid for herself, but now that Petey was involved, she could hardly breathe.
Thankfully, though, the man seemed to relax, his whole body going limp, and he took a few steps back and collapsed onto the cold floor. Gina’s breaths came in short, ragged bursts. Petey was standing between the two of them, growling softly, ready to attack at any second.
“Don’t...” the man began. His head was down, buried in his hands – no longer claws. “Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Sorry,” Gina said. All of that because she had turned the radio on?
Now that the danger had passed, Gina felt anger boiling up inside of her. All she had done was turn on his radio, just hoping to figure out what was going on, and he had exploded. What was wrong with this man?
“If you would have just told me what was going on…”
He growled, getting back to his feet. “Don’t touch my stuff,” he repeated.
“Then tell me what’s going on!”
He slammed his hands on the table flat, an explosively loud sound in the bunker. Petey was growling again.
“Just tell me!”
“The government. Dropped bombs on its own cities,” he said, as if each word hurt coming out.
“What? That’s ridiculous. You have to be wrong.”
He growled again. She could tell that she was pushing him, and she decided it would be best to lay off. “Don’t touch my stuff,” he said. Then he walked out of the kitchen, leaving her and Petey alone in the silence.
“The hell with that,” Gina muttered to Petey. The radio was still on behind her, blaring static. She turned back towards it, lowered the volume, and started tuning through channels. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Could he be telling the truth? Could the government really have dropped bombs on itself? She almost couldn’t believe it. How could they be so inept? And how would this man know, anyway? He lived in a bunker. He had to be lying.
Still, it was an explanation. Not a very good one, she thought. But it was one.
“Come on, Petey,” she told him. “Let’s explore.”
*
Their first stop was the rest of the enormous kitchen – taking care not to touch anything, of course. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Everything she had seen of the bunker so far had been function over form, and this was the first area in here that h
ad gone against that. Probably the only part.
But maybe he needed it. To be honest, she didn’t know a lot about Shifters. They kept to themselves, didn’t go to public hospitals often, and so she’d never had the opportunity to deal with one while working. It made sense. He would need to blow off steam, especially in his animal form. A large rec room would be the perfect place to do it, since he couldn’t go outside. She had a feeling that even though the back part of the kitchen was huge to her, it would be small to him.
Whoever he was. She still hadn’t been able to get a name out of him. That irritated her more than she would like to admit.
She knew she shouldn’t touch anything, but she couldn’t resist touching the massive pole in the middle of the room. She took a quick glance backwards to make sure that he wasn’t in the room, and then she ran her hands along it. There were deep gashes in the wood: claw marks. It was good he could take his fury out on the wooden post instead of the room around him. Gina wondered how long something like this could last. She shuddered and hoped that it would be long enough. She would hate to see him truly take his anger out on something else.
As she walked around the weight benches, she wondered what her next step would be. She couldn’t stay in here forever. She didn’t want to stay in here forever, either. Especially not with this man, if he was as unstable as he’d shown so far. Still, she was weak. Even walking slowly around the bunker hurt, now that she had done it for a while. She would never survive outdoors, at least not yet.
And do I even want to go outdoors? She asked herself the question, but she couldn’t tell herself the answer. If bombs had really been dropped, then the whole country could be in chaos right now. She thought back to Haysberry. By now, it had undoubtedly burned completely to the ground. How many people had died? Was Mr. McNeil still alive? She hoped so, but in her heart, she knew the answer.
If things were that bad in Haysberry, then what were they like in a larger city? By most standards, Haysberry was only a small town. It had a decent sized grocery store, a post office, and a swimming pool. The hospital was nice – had been nice, she corrected – but it just wasn’t that big. It seemed like everyone had just gone completely crazy.
The larger cities were probably hundreds of times worse. If they hadn’t been nuked off of the map. The thought of that actually happening made her shudder. She lowered herself to a weight bench and thought about it. As long as she could remember, nukes going off had been one of those fears that had always been in the back of her mind. Had been in the backs of everyone’s minds. It had seemed so ludicrous, but it had always been there.
And now, had it happened? Were they nukes, or were they smaller bombs? Would that even be better? Had bombs even been dropped at all? She had heard explosions, though she hadn’t seen any. If anything, hearing from the Shifter that bombs had been dropped, by the government no less, had confused her even more. She didn’t know what to think, so she got back up and pushed it from her mind. No use dwelling on it now.
The rest of the kitchen was pretty standard, as far as kitchens went. She quietly opened the cabinets, checking what was inside. They were stuffed full of nonperishable foods. A lot of it, too, but not enough to survive indefinitely.
She shivered. What would happen to her and Petey if they had to go back out there? She couldn’t be sure, and she didn’t want to find out. Things would probably work themselves out shortly, and go back to normal. She hoped.
She left the kitchen and peered into the room on her left. She couldn’t see much, so she went inside and felt along the wall until she found the light switch. She turned it on and gasped at what she saw. She was in a bathroom. An actual, real bathroom. She had expected it to be some sort of rudimentary room with a shower, toilet, and sink, but this bathroom was actually nice.
It had all of those things, of course, but instead of a small, stand up shower, there was a huge tub that filled half of the room. Even though it took up the majority of the space, there was enough room for everything else to sit comfortably as well.
Come to think of it, it made sense: if this bunker had been specifically made with Shifters in mind, everything inside would need to be just a bit larger than necessary. For her, it was the perfect size. She imagined herself lounging in the tub, candles lit on the side and bubbles covering the warm water. She felt ashamed. The world had gone to hell only two days ago and here she was fantasizing about taking a long, luxurious bath.
She flipped the light off and went across the hall. The sound of machinery running, familiar from her time spent in the underbelly of Grady, filled this part of the bunker. She turned the light on and saw a couple of generators, larger than any she had ever seen. They seemed even more powerful than the ones at Grady, if that was even possible. There were also other machines and tanks. She spotted a hot water heater and felt herself grinning. That bath might not be so far off, if she could figure out how to reason with the Shifter.
She moved down the hallway until the bedroom was to her left. To the right was another room, currently occupied by the Shifter himself, crouched in front of a massive metal rack. He was poking around in it, shifting boxes to the side. There was all sorts of useful stuff in here, Gina noticed: extra gas, oil, more and more food, and useful-looking tool boxes on top of shelves. She saw soaps, shampoos, old cans of shaving creams, even a stack of books in the far corner.
And even more food. She did some quick mental calculations and reasoned that one person alone could live for at least three years, including the food in the kitchen, maybe more if they rationed. Add another person, and a dog, and that timeline shortened considerably. Still, it was more than she had expected, or even hoped for.
“What are you looking for?” she asked him. Petey moved past her, going towards the man’s ankles. Instead of biting this time, he licked carefully.
The man surprised her by saying, “Another cup.”
Another cup? Oh, that’s right. He broke it.
Gina started looking around, peering into the shelves, careful not to touch anything. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the man warily looking at her out of the corner of his eye, but he said nothing. After a few moments, Gina spotted a stack of cups hidden behind a stack of medical kits.
“I think they’re back here,” she offered. He gave her another look, but stood up and dug through to where she was pointing. He reached his arm back and pulled out a stack of cups, all identical to the one that had shattered earlier.
She waited for his thanks. When he didn’t say anything, she bit off, “You’re welcome,” a bit harsher than she had meant. He flinched under her tone.
“Thanks,” was all he said.
“You’re welcome,” she repeated. “See, that’s how it works.”
He grunted.
“I’m Gina,” she tried for the second time.
He grunted again.
“Now, you tell me your name. That’s how it works.”
“Dean,” he said, and left the room. He flipped the light off on his way out, leaving her in darkness. Petey followed him out.
“Petey!” she hissed. They really were friends now. What the hell was going on here?
Then she followed them out of the storage room.
*
Dean didn’t know what to think. For the longest time, he thought he had everything under control: his life, his bunker, everything in it. He’d effectively dropped off the grid. He hadn’t seen another person, let alone talked to one, in nearly two years. And he had been fine.
Or so he had thought.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to talk to this woman - Gina, he corrected himself - it wasn’t just that he didn’t want to talk to Gina; it was also that he didn’t know how. His own voice sounded foreign to him. It sounded wrong. Words were hard to come by.
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 79
