Tamed by the Vault Dwellers

by Clea Kinderton

  Tamed by the Vault Dwellers

  Clea Kinderton

  Published by Red Lamp Press, 2016.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  TAMED BY THE VAULT DWELLERS

  First edition. April 2, 2016.

  Copyright © 2016 Clea Kinderton.

  Written by Clea Kinderton.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

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  Further Reading: Tamed by the Yeti

  Also By Clea Kinderton

  About the Author

  1

  “Here we are,” said Andrew.

  We were standing in front of a solid steel door set into a concrete wall.

  “Sort of anti-climactic,” said Kayla, Andrew’s girlfriend. She looked up at him with a wry smile. Her face was smudged with dirt, and stray locks of her orange hair had worked their way free of her ponytail.

  “How so?” said Will, Andrew’s best friend. He furrowed his dusty, bushy brows. There was so much dust under the city that we were all starting to look like cavemen.

  Kayla shrugged. “I don’t know. Two hours of trudging under the city ... I just expected to see more than a door.”

  “We didn’t come to see the door, Kayla,” said Will, rolling his eyes. “We came to see what’s on the other side of the door.”

  For a few moments we stood there in silence, absorbing our surroundings. A trefoil radiation symbol had been stenciled in black paint on the surface of the door. The concrete wall the door was set in was elaborately spray-painted with what appeared to be some sort of jungle scene. The other three walls of the room were made of red brick and spray-painted with less impressive graffiti. The concrete floor under our feet was covered with dust, litter, used needles, and rat droppings; the ceiling was exposed, reinforced with rusted steel beams and crisscrossed with pipes, vents, and wires. The room was located right below the heart of the city, but it might as well have been on Mars. If you listened, you could just make out the faint rumble of traffic moving on the street high overhead.

  “Are you as excited as I am?” said Will, a bright grin slashing through the thick brown scrub of his facial hair.

  “No one’s as excited as you are,” said Kayla.

  “What about you, Robyn? Are you excited?” Will turned to look at me.

  “More than you know, Will,” I said, smiling noncommittally.

  It had been Will’s idea to bring the four of us down here on the ‘ultimate urban exploration adventure’. Will had heard about the underground military facility from a friend, an urban explorer like himself who hosted his own YouTube channel. The facility had apparently been built to store radioactive materials during the Second World War but had to be abandoned when the authorities realized the full extent of the danger posed by housing radioactive waste. Since the tunnel had never been used, the government had eventually mothballed it, and — apparently — forgotten that it even existed.

  Will’s friend had written about the tunnel, but hadn’t been able to record any footage owing to technical problems with his equipment and had been forced to abort his mission. He’d intended to return for a second attempt, but a family emergency had called him back to Canada. Will was determined to finish his friend’s job and had enlisted the aid of his friend Andrew, who was a scientist. Andrew’s girlfriend Kayla, who was an old friend of mine and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, had found out about their plans and demanded to be included. Kayla had roped me into tagging along on a sort of ‘epic double date’, hoping to hook me up with Will. Will was interesting and entertaining company, but I wasn’t feeling any particular connection to him and hadn’t yet figured out how to break the news to Kayla. Above ground, Will’s enthusiasm had been infectious, however, and my imagination had been inflamed with romantic images of mysterious passages and amazing discoveries. Now that we were here, though, well below the surface of Philadelphia, after more than two hours of stomping wearily through underground railways and service tunnels occupied by homeless people, stray dogs, and heroin addicts, the tingle of excitement in my belly had turned into a cold lump of dread. For the last hour we’d been making our way through a cramped, brick tunnel and the cheerful banter that had sustained us during the first half of our journey had dissolved into a series of gruff snorts and grunts. My flashlight had also developed an unaccountable flicker and I kept hearing a faint moaning sound which the others assured me was just the wind. I felt like taking this final step — opening the imposing door with the ominous-looking radiation symbol — would be equivalent to unleashing the Curse of the Pharaoh.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” said Kayla, looking pensively at Andrew.

  Andrew nodded slowly, checking the reading on his Geiger counter. The oddly spaced ticks made my skin crawl uneasily. Images of radiation burns and strange, bulging tumors flashed through my mind, but Andrew merely shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’m not picking anything up,” he said, pushing under his glasses to rub the grit from his eyes. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any radiation inside.”

  I swept my flashlight across the door, catching falling particles of dust and a dangling cobweb. There were hand prints on the door and a chain and padlock lay piled haphazardly on the floor beside it. The authorities didn’t appear to be aware of Will’s friend’s visit.

  “Well? What are we waiting for?” said Will, slapping his hands together enthusiastically.

  Will strode toward the door and seized the handle. I expected him to sweep it open with a flourish, but instead he paused and looked back over his shoulder, an inexplicable expression on his face. We all stared at him, waiting, and then he shrugged, grinned, and jerked on the handle.

  There was a ear-splitting screech from the hinges and the door slowly swung open. Will paused, wiped his hand on his shirt, put both hands on the door, and gave it another pull, grunting. The metallic screech continued and then finally fell silent. After the sound, the absolute silence was deafening.

  We stared together into the pitch black maw of the tunnel, four friends on the very edge of the abyss.

  2

  The passage was perhaps ten feet in height and no more than six feet wide. What lay within? Anything? Was it an empty tomb, filled only with imaginary horrors? Or were the hairs on my arms prickling for a reason?

  “Who wants to go first?” said Will, waving his hand toward the door.

  “Ladies first,” said Andrew, looking at me and Kayla. He chuckled nervously.

  “You’re such a gentleman,” said Kayla sarcastically.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll go,” I said, more from the need to escape the intolerable tension of uncertainty than out of courage.

  “After you,” said Will, stepping aside with a smile.

  I stepped to the door and aimed the flashlight around at the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel, looking for cracks and fallen debris. We we
ren’t wearing hardhats and I didn’t want to get hit in the head with a big chunk of stone. Not that hardhats would protect us if the whole tunnel collapsed. The concrete, though dotted here and there with small, regular holes, appeared to be in good repair.

  “It should be safe,” said Andrew, checking the reading on the Geiger counter.

  I nodded and stepped across the threshold.

  A part of me expected something to happen — a portal to hell opening up in front of me, the wail of a banshee, the grasping hands of an army of undead — but only the echoes of my boots broke the utter silence. There was a faint gummy odor, like tar or rubber, and I noticed that the air felt perceptibly warmer, almost stuffy. My flashlight flickered, making my heart skip a beat, but it immediately came back as strong as before.

  “How far does it go?” I said, turning back to look at Will. The others were all huddled behind me.

  Will shrugged. “My friend said he made it a few hundred yards, but then he had to turn back. But he passed a lot of side passages, so who knows how big it is. It could go on for miles.”

  “I can’t believe it hasn’t been explored already. This is, like, major,” said Kayla.

  “I doubt we’ll find anything interesting,” said Andrew. “The government wouldn’t just abandon it if there was anything worth hiding here.”

  “Maybe they’re counting on people to think that,” said Will, undaunted. “Hiding in plain sight. It’s called misinformation.”

  Andrew snorted. “It’s not misinformation—”

  “Guys, please,” I said, interrupting their disagreement before it could turn into an argument. “Can we just focus?” I felt so anxious the sound of their voices was setting my nerves on edge.

  The men fell silent and Kayla smiled at me approvingly.

  I turned my attention back to the tunnel and started walking. I moved slowly, eyes alert for any sign of danger, ears straining for the slightest sound. I doubted we’d find anything worse than rats in the tunnel — and I wasn’t even sure about that — but I didn’t want to take any chances. My footsteps echoed weirdly inside my ears.

  “What’s that?” said Kayla.

  I turned to look at her and saw that she was pointing at a mark on the wall. We focused our flashlights on it and huddled around the patch of illumination. There was a dark red circle painted on the wall, about the size of a dinner plate, and a crooked line extending from the bottom of the circle. The mark was irregular and obviously painted by hand. For some reason, it made me feel even more anxious.

  “It’s just graffiti,” said Andrew.

  “But no one’s been in here except your friend, right?” I said, turning to Will.

  Will shrugged. “As far as he knows.”

  “Did he put it there?” said Andrew.

  Will shook his head. “He’s not the kind of guy who would deface a historic site.”

  “Well, then, somebody else has obviously been here,” said Andrew.

  “Or is still here,” said Kayla, pointing her flashlight down the hall, her brows arched with worry.

  “I should document this,” said Will. He took out his phone and snapped a picture.

  Andrew leaned forward, inspecting the mark. “It looks fairly old,” he said. “I’m sure Will’s friend isn’t the first person to cut the lock. This place has been here for over half a century.”

  I wasn’t sure if Andrew’s observation was reassuring or not. It meant that there was a good chance that whoever had made the mark was long gone, but what if they weren’t? What if someone was living down here? Like Kayla, I found myself staring down into the dark gullet of the tunnel, trying to push away the images that rose in my mind of all the deformed, mutant cannibals I’d seen in horror movies over the years.

  “Come on,” said Will, undeterred. “Let’s see what else we can find.” He motioned for me to continue.

  Swallowing hard, I led them down the tunnel for another twenty yards and then the hall turned abruptly.

  “Whoa, watch your step,” said Will, grabbing my arm. His flashlight was pointed down.

  I looked down and saw that I was perched at the top of a long flight of concrete steps leading down into the darkness. I’d been so busy scanning the walls for more of the strange symbols that I hadn’t even noticed them. There was a handrail covered in flaking yellow paint bolted to the wall.

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling back at Will. He smiled back warmly.

  I took the rail and made my way down the steps.

  “This couldn’t have been a main entrance,” I said. “Not with a small door, a narrow tunnel, and steep steps. There must have been a bigger entrance somewhere. Maybe some way to drive in a truck or a train. How else would they move heavy equipment in and out of here?”

  “My friend said the same thing,” said Will, who was thumping down the steps behind me. “We figure the main entrance was probably bricked over. Probably attached to one of the main rail lines that run under the city. This must have been more like an emergency exit.”

  We came to the bottom of the stairs and found ourselves in another hall. This one was much wider than the one above — at least fifteen or twenty feet across — and the ceiling was arched about ten feet overhead. This wider hall ended to our right in a blank wall after ten or so feet.

  “Only one way to go,” said Kayla, shining her flashlight down toward the other end of the hall.

  Andrew was checking the reading on the Geiger counter again. The hard clicking sound echoed eerily from the walls. In spite of the unusual warmth of the tunnel, I felt goosebumps on my arms.

  “All clear,” he said, clicking it off again.

  “Check this out,” said Will, sweeping the floor with his flashlight. He was holding his cellphone over the ground, recording. “Some kind of moss or something.”

  Andrew crouched down to examine it. “Mold or lichen maybe. There’s no sunlight down here.”

  “Figures. We’re standing in the middle of an abandoned military installation and the guys are jizzing their pants over some weird mold.” Kayla popped a stick of gum in her mouth, letting the wrapper fall to the floor.

  “Hey!” Will snapped. “What are you doing?” He leaned over and snatched up the wrapper. “No littering.”

  “Sorry, dad,” Kayla retorted, taking the wrapper from him. She stuffed it in the front pocket of her jeans, blew a bubble, and popped it.

  “Shall we?” I said, waving the flashlight into the darkness ahead of us.

  “Yeah. Let’s keep going,” said Andrew.

  We proceeded down the hall side by side, our feet clomping loudly on the concrete floor. After a dozen yards, we came to a blue steel door in the left wall. The number nine was painted on it in white.

  Will walked over to it and tried the handle. It didn’t even rattle.

  “It’s locked. Or stuck.”

  “Let’s keep going,” said Andrew.

  We came to another blue door, this one on the opposite wall. The number eight was painted on it.

  This time Andrew yanked on the handle, with similar ineffectiveness.

  “I doubt any of these are going to open,” he said. “They’re probably all rusted shut.”

  “Or welded,” said Will, somewhat disappointed.

  We kept going.

  “This used to be lighted,” said Andrew, whisking his beam over the ceiling. There was a wire running down the center with rusted fixtures holding bare light bulbs.

  “I wonder if they still work?” said Will.

  “There’s no power anyway,” said Andrew.

  “There might be a generator,” said Kayla, smacking her gum.

  “But no fuel,” said Will.

  “Unless they’re plugged into the city grid,” I said.

  “Unlikely, but possible,” said Andrew.

  We came to a door marked seven.

  “Look, more graffiti,” said Kayla, scanning the wall with the beam from her flashlight.

  We approached the wall and examined it
. More random markings. Just a handful of lines intersecting and another circle. It didn’t look like writing. It didn’t look like anything, really. Just random scribbling. Will was getting it all on his phone.

  “Let’s just keep going,” said Kayla. “I want to see where the tunnel goes.” She was recording our progress on her phone, too.

  We passed doors numbered six, five, four, three, two, and one and the hall came to abrupt end. There was another door in the center of the wall directly ahead of us, but it was already partially open. There was no number or other marking on it.

  “This must have been where your friend went through,” I said, approaching the door.

  “Looks like it,” said Will, stepping beside me.

  I could hear the click, click, clicking of the Geiger counter again. It still sounded the same.

  “There’s more of that mold,” said Kayla, pointing her flashlight down at the floor in front of the door. Some of the mold had been scraped away from the floor when the door had been opened.

  I walked closer, peering through the door. The flashlight flickered and then fixed itself and I found myself looking at red metal grating and a railing. It was some kind of catwalk, with pitch darkness beyond.

  I slipped around the half-open door and stepped onto the walkway with a metallic clank. The air felt somewhat cooler and less stuffy, and the sound of my feet on the metal had a hollow ring to it. I was in a large room.

  I waved my flashlight around. The walkway extended to either side as far as I could see and the ceiling was at least twenty feet over my head. I tilted the light down into the abyss. The floor was at least thirty feet down and oddly textured.

  I tried to make out what all the odd shapes were and felt my heart skip a beat.

  Something’s moving down there.

  3

  I swept the flashlight around frantically.

  Nothing.

  “What?” said Will, alarmed.

  Everything was still and dark in the chamber, aside from the dust falling through the beam of light from above. Andrew’s Geiger counter ticked away sporadically.