Tamed by the Vault Dwellers

by Clea Kinderton

  Must be a problem with the wiring.

  I tucked the lighter into my jeans pocket so that it would be easy to find should the lights go back out, stuffed the weird book back into the bag, and then slung the backpack over my shoulder. I got up and began searching for the flashlight.

  The bright yellow handle was easy to spot. I scooped it up and wiped off the dusty bits of mold and flicked it on. It lit up, flickered, and then held its light. I turned it off. I didn’t know how much longer the battery would last.

  I heard a sound in the distance behind me and turned with a start, my heart thudding in my breast.

  I looked between the row of vats, but there was nothing there.

  The noise had been a hollow clunking sound. Perhaps it was connected to the wiring as well?

  I took the backpack off my back again and opened it and took out the first aid kit. I unzipped it and dug through the contents looking for the scissors. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be better than nothing.

  Unfortunately, the scissors were worse than useless as a weapon. The blades were small, bent on an angle toward the tips, and the tips were rounded. They’d be useless for anything but cutting open the beef jerky. I zipped the kit back up with a huff, put it back in the backpack, and slung the backpack over my shoulder. I looked around for something else I could use as a weapon. I wasn’t sure why I thought I might need one — if there was anything down here it couldn’t be worse than a rat, surely — but the idea of being armed suddenly seemed very important to me.

  It was then that I noticed the graffiti on the wall below the catwalk. A lot of graffiti.

  A chill went down my spine. I moved closer to examine the markings. This graffiti was different somehow. The circles had a number of lines radiating from them. Some of the lines had other lines extending from them, giving them the appearance of stick figures. Other circles were actually more oval in shape and had four or five lines coming out of them and looked vaguely like beetles. There were a number of other lines as well, and the whole scene stretched for a good twenty or so feet across the concrete wall. The paint, I noticed on closer inspection, was a very dark crimson color.

  Like dried blood.

  I gasped and flinched away from the wall.

  It can’t be.

  The whole thing looked like one of those cave paintings I’d seen in an anthropology book once. Paintings from tens of thousands of years ago. Stone Age paintings by cavemen. But those had been drawn in red ochre.

  I heard the same hollow clunking sound behind me again and had to stifle a gasp of fear.

  I turned, looking around wildly, but there was nothing there.

  “H—hello?” I said in a quiet voice.

  The sound repeated.

  By this point I was overcome with terror. The sound had come from one of the enormous vats.

  “Who’s there?” I said in a louder voice.

  There was no reply.

  I looked around again for a weapon.

  Maybe over by the cluster of canisters and the control panel, I thought.

  I ran to the nearest assemblage and began searching it. Everything was covered in a layer of mold. The top of the control panel had a bump on it. I brushed the mold aside and found what appeared to be an odd sort of wrench. I seized it, gripping it tightly in my fist.

  There was a movement in the corner of my eye.

  I swung around, holding the wrench up like a club, scanning the shadows around the vats.

  “D-don’t come any closer,” I said, my voice trembling.

  I realized that talking wasn’t going to do me any good if I was dealing with some kind of animal, but the sound of my own voice was reassuring.

  I watched for a minute or two, until my arm began to tire, but there was no more movement.

  You’re imagining things, Robyn. You heard a noise. Your eyes are playing tricks on you. It’s just the weird underground facility getting to you.

  But what about the strange graffiti? I queried myself.

  Just some stupid kids. They probably made it look like cave paintings on purpose.

  There was nothing there. Nothing moving, no more sounds. It suddenly occurred to me that the sound coming from the vat might very well have been a rat.

  I lowered my arm and sighed. I couldn’t wait for the others to get back.

  I felt a wave of fatigue wash over me. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take. I tucked the wrench into the waistband of my jeans and checked my phone to see what time it was. I stared at the blank screen for a moment, then remembered that it was dead. I put it back in my pocket, dropped the backpack on the ground, and sat down with my back against the control panel, utterly exhausted.

  I dug through the backpack and found a bottle of water and a granola bar.

  I’ll have to remember to thank Andrew for leaving the backpack the next time I see him, I thought, munching on the sticky, sweet almond and raisin bar.

  I almost tossed the wrapper on the floor then remembered to put it back in the backpack. Will would have been furious. I wasn’t going to be that type of person.

  I unscrewed the cap on the water bottle and took a long drink and then fished the weird book back out of the bag. There were a number of illustrations in black ink, including one with creatures shaped like men with webbed hands and bestial faces. The picture was unsettling.

  Why is he carrying around something like this? I wondered. It’s weird and creepy.

  I put the book away and finished the water, then deposited the empty bottle back in the backpack. I leaned back against the panel and shut my eyes, trying to relax, but less than a minute later I felt a strong urge to pee.

  Great. Fantastic. So much for not desecrating a historic site.

  I opened my eyes and got up, looking around for someplace to relieve myself that wouldn’t be too far from where I’d set up camp, but far enough away that I wouldn’t have to smell my own urine.

  I decided to do it behind the next vat. I left the backpack where it was, but brought the flashlight and wrench with me just in case.

  I trudged through the mold — which reminded me vaguely of stale gray candy floss — crossed the space between my vat and the next one, and walked around the side to a spot which was out of view of the door. Not that I was expecting my friends to suddenly reappear, but I didn’t know how long they would be or how many times I would need to pee and it made sense to pick a good location from the get-go.

  I set the wrench and flashlight down on a small ledge provided by the base of the vat, unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, and pushed them down along with my underwear. I squatted over the mold.

  I hope it’s absorbent, I thought with a silent chuckle.

  Halfway through emptying my bladder, the lights went out, plunging me for a second time into complete darkness.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I cursed.

  I reached behind me and fumbled for the flashlight. It rolled off the ledge into the mold.

  Still squatting with my pants around my knees, I groped in the darkness for the flashlight. I found it easily enough and flicked it on.

  There was a figure standing in front of me.

  6

  I screamed and stood up, scrambling to pull up my jeans and underwear with one hand while holding the flashlight out in front of me defensively, like a weapon.

  The flashlight went out.

  “No no no no no!” I shouted.

  I struggled to squirm into my pants. My heart was hammering inside my chest so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack. In the blackness, an image of the man flashed in my mind’s eye.

  It’s impossible. Please God let me have imagined it.

  The man had been naked, very broad of shoulder and hunched over, with bent legs and very long arms. His skin had been a sort of dark, charcoal gray color and almost hairless. He’d been about thirty feet away.

  Without even taking time to zip up, I reached for the wrench on the ledge. I felt the cold steel and snatch
ed it up.

  “Stay away from me,” I shouted.

  I banged the flashlight on my leg several times and the light came back on.

  The man — perhaps creature was a better word, for it was like no human I’d ever seen before — was standing right in front of me now, reaching for me with its broad hand. It’s face, though human, was almost bestial, with a heavy, beetling brow, a small flat nose, wide jaws, and large white teeth gleaming between black gums. But its eyes — it’s horrible eyes! — were dead and white and its pupils were clouded over with a silvery gray film.

  The flashlight went out.

  I let out a wild scream. Some dim part of me realized that the screams that I’d heard countless times in bad horror movies — the screams that I and my friends had always found so hysterical — were real.

  I swung the wrench with all my might at where the creature’s head had been and felt it connect with arm-jarring force. There was a sickening thunk.

  A blood-curdling bellow — the kind of sound that an enraged gorilla might make — shattered the darkness.

  I swung again, but I felt an incredibly large hand and powerful fingers close around my wrist, pinning it in midair.

  I swung the flashlight with my other hand and felt the beast’s other hand close around my other wrist. Whatever it was, it could see in the dark.

  I kicked the beast in the groin with all of my strength and felt it connect. There was a grunt and the hands released me.

  I ran blindly and hit my shoulder against a canister with a resounding, hollow clunk.

  The force of my momentum spun me around. I stumbled and fell, landing on my back in the carpet of mold.

  The huge overhead lights of the facility hummed back into life.

  Why couldn’t you have come on five seconds ago? I grumbled inwardly, spitting out mold.

  The great beast-man was loping toward me. My shoulder was throbbing, but I rolled myself over onto my belly and tried to crawl away.

  A giant hand grabbed the back of my shirt and lifted me straight up into the air. I kicked my feet, but it was holding me at the end of its monstrously long arm.

  I felt myself slip out of my shirt and landed on my behind and fell backward, hitting my head against the soft blanket of mold between its legs. I was looking straight up at the creature’s...

  Good God!

  I’d never seen anything like it. It was hung like a horse.

  I rolled over and scrambled between its legs. I didn’t get very far.

  I felt its hands close around my ankles and jerk me back. I shook my legs frantically and my shoes popped off in its hands. I lunged to a standing position and ran in my socked feet to the only possibility of freedom I could see: a ladder on the side of a vat.

  I jumped onto the ladder and began to haul myself up.

  I made it up three rungs before fingers closed around my ankles. The creature tried to pull me down from the ladder but I hung on with all of my strength, trying to shake the beast loose. My pants, which I’d never had time to zip up, slipped down over my legs.

  The beast held onto my empty jeans, momentarily confused, and I used the opportunity to scale the ladder, moving as quickly as a monkey. I had no idea what I thought I would accomplish by climbing to the top of the vat; there was nowhere for me to go. I found myself standing on a narrow ledge around a depression shaped like a funnel. The vat was empty save for a layer of the ever-present mold.

  The beast-man was climbing the ladder, snarling, blood running down the side of its face from where I’d struck it with the wrench. In my extreme terror I lost my balance. I fell face first into the vat. The mold underneath me broke free of the smooth metallic surface of the funnel and I slid down toward the center on a gray carpet, like I was on a water slide.

  There was a hole in the bottom of the funnel.

  With a scream, I fell straight down a tube.

  7

  I landed on a very thick layer of mold.

  I groaned and rolled over, looking up. I’d fallen over a dozen feet; there was no way I could climb back up. I looked around in a panic.

  Am I trapped?!

  I breathed a sigh of relief. There was a dark hole beside me, big enough to crawl through.

  A shadow fell over me and I looked up: the beast-man was staring down at me through the tube, growling. I wasn’t sure if it could fit in the hole, or if it would even try, but I wasn’t about to find out.

  I crawled into the side tube and once again found myself in darkness.

  This is insane.

  I was all but naked — down to my bra and underwear and socks — and I’d lost the flashlight and the wrench. I’d lost the backpack with the water and snacks. I’d lost my phone, too. Not that it worked anymore. I’d even lost the lighter. And I was climbing blind through a tube filled with fuzzy mold leading only God knew where. With a naked, rampaging man-ape in hot pursuit. I had a feeling my day wasn’t going to end well.

  I wanted to stop. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. I didn’t want to die there, alone in a tube. No one would even find my body. I couldn’t imagine what my disappearance would do to my family.

  Get ahold of yourself, Robyn. Your parents didn’t raise any quitters.

  If I could survive until my friends returned — if I could stay out of the beast’s clutches — the rescue party would no doubt scare the beast away. I just had to bide my time. My friends knew I was down here. They were returning with help. Firemen, or paramedics. Maybe even police with guns. As soon as I heard them, I would make some noise, draw some attention to myself. Assuming I could hear them from inside the tube. And they could hear me. If my calculations were correct, the funnel descended to almost the bottom of the vat, which meant that I was now below the concrete floor.

  I continued to crawl, determined to at least try to find a way out, and suddenly the bottom of the tube wasn’t there anymore.

  I lost my balance and fell headfirst into a second tube, screaming. I was certain that this time I was going to die. A person’s luck has to run out sooner or later.

  A few agonizing seconds of free fall abruptly ended with a splash.

  I sank deep into what felt like warm, salty water. Liquid rushed into my lungs. I hadn’t had time to catch my breath. I kicked my legs, twisting, praying that I was going the right direction.

  I broke through the surface.

  I coughed, expelling water, and paddled, struggling to keep my head above the surface. It was completely dark. When I’d caught my breath, I began swimming in an arbitrary direction. My hands found the smooth, warm surface of concrete and I felt along it. I found a ledge and pulled myself onto it, still coughing up water. When my lungs had cleared, I lay on my back in the darkness.

  I was not having a good day.

  After a short break, I forced myself to slowly get to my feet, feeling up the wall to avoid cracking my head on the ceiling. The chamber was fully high enough for me to walk in, but I could feel where the wall began to slope again toward the ceiling, so it couldn’t have been much more than about seven or eight feet high in total.

  I could hear the water lapping gently against the ledge, and judging by the relative lack of odor coming from the water — which implied that it wasn’t stagnant — there must have been some kind of current. And if there was a current, there was a way out.

  I proceeded cautiously, keeping one hand on the wall and testing ahead with my toes, seeking a firm foothold before taking a step. I didn’t want to take any more nasty falls.

  My socks were soaking, and squished uncomfortably around my feet, so I stopped and peeled them off and left them on the ledge. My bare feet felt much better on the concrete.

  I was amazed, once again, at how warm I was inside the facility; even after taking a dip and climbing out of the water and walking a bit, I wasn’t the least bit chilled. It was almost warm enough to be a sauna.

  After several minutes of patient creeping, the wall came to an end. I felt the corner of the concrete and
heard a subtle change in the echo created by the lapping of the water. I peered around the corner, staring into the darkness, and after a few seconds I became aware of something. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, but there was a faint glow. It was somewhat bluish-white, and oval in shape. I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks on me and closed them and opened them several times, moving my head from side to side to see if the oval moved. It remained stationary and I gradually convinced myself that I wasn’t hallucinating.

  Any sign of light was better than absolute darkness, so I felt carefully with my toes ahead of me to ensure that the ledge continued around the corner. Satisfied that it did, I made my way cautiously around the edge of the concrete and continued my slow, patient journey toward the distant oval.

  After several minutes, the oval became more distinct. It had grown in size and the edges had become clear. I could even see a faint reflection on the water beneath it, which helped me realize that what I was seeing was a hole in the ceiling of the tunnel. The light appeared to be fluorescent, not natural, and as I drew closer I detected light being reflected from metal attaching the oval to the water. It was a ladder!

  I felt a sudden surge of hope welling up in my breast. It was so powerful that I almost wept with joy. I had no idea how afraid I’d been until that very moment.

  I proceeded a little more quickly, desperate to escape my predicament, and in no time I found myself standing beside the ladder. It was only now, in the light emerging from the shaft in the ceiling, that I realized that the tunnel I’d fallen into was only about a dozen feet across. The water channel itself was only about eight feet wide. There was a small wire mesh catwalk joining the ledge I was standing on to an identical ledge on the opposite side of the water, though there was a gap in the middle where the ladder continued down into the inky liquid.

  I grabbed the rungs of the ladder and looked up. The shaft did not appear to be very long, ascending perhaps twenty feet above the tunnel, and at the top of the shaft was a bright, fluorescent light.

  I began climbing and soon found myself looking over the ledge at a small service tunnel. Stranger still, I found a plastic bucket with a rope tied around the handle sitting on the floor beside the shaft.