Diary of the Displaced Box Set

by Glynn James

  I got to the other side of the bridge and saw that it opened up into what appeared to be a canteen area. There were dozens and dozens of tables and chairs dotted all over the place in a grid. Every one of them was covered in dust, unused for decades – or so I thought. As I made my way around I saw some of the tables had cups and plates on them that had been there as long as the dust, but on one table in the very corner was a small stack of plates and cups that looked like they had been put there more recently, and next to them was a pile of ration packs.

  They’d all been eaten.

  I stood looking down at the table, frowning at the forty or so empty ration boxes, and an equal amount of plates, and wondered if my mother had used this table.

  She must have been in the area for quite a while, because the footprints are all over the place, but not many sets lead back out to where I parked my APV. Something interesting had to be down here. Interesting enough for her to be in this area long enough to eat forty rations.

  At the far end of the canteen was a large serving area. As I walked over and peered through, I could see kitchens beyond that. No footprints in there, and it was dark. I moved on.

  The footprints mostly went to the table and then headed off into one of the corridors at the other side of the canteen, so I headed that way, stepping carefully over a section of fallen ceiling and into an unlit corridor.

  I could see further ahead, maybe forty or fifty yards into the darkness, where the corridor was lit once more. I wasn’t sure why this particular section was unlit, I guess the lights bulbs must have failed after the long years, especially if they'd been left on all that time. They were there a lot of doors off the corridor, but none of them were open, and the first few that I tried were locked, so I ignored them. Eventually, the corridor led down some stairs and I realised I was heading quite deep into the facility, away from my vehicle. I did consider going back but I wanted to know why my mother came down here. Further on I saw something leaning against the wall, and stopped to draw a gun. As I reached it, the outline of a tall box of some kind became visible.

  It was a drinks machine, and it was still powered from somewhere. Well, I couldn't resist that. I jabbed hard on a few of the buttons, but they just flashed red, until finally I spotted a cheap cola variant at the very bottom and saw that the button was already lit up green. I pressed the button and heard a satisfying click, followed by thump as a tin can dropped into the bucket at the foot of the machine. I picked up the can, grinning. It was just a cheap cola, but who can argue with that if you're thirsty? I jabbed the button a second time and another can fell into the bucket, but that was it, empty, no matter how many times I used the button.

  With the tins safely in my pack, I continued down the corridor, still ignoring closed doors, until I came to a two sets of doors, opposite each other on the corridor, that were open. One of the doors was large, and led into a tall vaulted room. I peered in, squinting at the bright light that hung near the entrance. What I saw there puzzled me. Apart from the bright light near the entrance, the room was massive and not very well lit. Some sections of it still had lights embedded in the ceiling, but in other places the ceiling had collapsed. But it was what was in the room that was puzzling.

  Machines. Dozens of them. They were spread apart all over the floor, and each one seemed to be different in some way. I didn’t recognise any of them. Not a single clue. Most were no bigger than a car engine, and all of them had a power cylinder at the top, attached to cabling that snaked across the floor in all directions and eventually leading to a bunch of power generators that line one wall – all of which were switched off.

  It was puzzling. I really couldn't make a guess at what they were. Maybe some sort of experimental machines? I've certainly not seen anything like them, and I wouldn’t want to switch one on just to find out. I’m not that adventurous.

  But my mother came in here.

  Maybe she knew what they were?

  I look down on the ground, and followed the footprints around, and saw that my mother had been near most of these machines at some point or other. The footprints trail all round in a grid, going to nearly every machine, and I could see that there were impressions in the dust where she must've knelt down to investigate, so I did the same, but couldn't guess what I was looking at.

  There were no desks in the place or lockers that could contain documents that might give me a clue.

  I was baffled. Eventually I gave up and headed back out into the corridor. I hoped the other door would be an office, but it was small and empty.

  I was about to leave, to head back to the APV, but I noticed a set of footprints heading further down the corridor and back, running along one side and barely visible.

  But I’d been side-tracked too long, I thought. I was wasting time. I followed the new set of footprints but sped up, walking briskly down the corridor. There was a set of steep stairs that went down another hundred feet or so.

  Then the smell hit me, causing me to almost reel back. I wanted to flee, run away from the stench, but I still pushed on, covering my face with my kerchief and trying not to breathe through my nose.

  I hoped that it wasn’t something dead.

  I found the source of the smell at the bottom of the stairs and no, it wasn’t a body.

  A large pair of double doors stood next to a long line of windows along the left-hand side of the corridor, and the sharp, musty smell was even stronger as stood between them, looking into the darkness.

  Damn, it was making my eyes water.

  It was a familiar smell, somehow, but I couldn't place it, so rather than going inside, I peered through the first window trying to make out what was beyond.

  It was a large area, very large, I thought, but it was so dark I couldn’t see how big. I looked along the wall for any sign of the light panel or a switch, and found neither. Finally, I went to the door and opened it, and I regretted it immediately. I thought the smell had been strong before, but then I nearly retched.

  Still no light switch, but my maglight lit up far enough into the dark for me to see what was making the smell.

  There, twenty feet away, was the biggest mushroom I've ever seen in my life.

  Mushrooms.

  Mushroom! Something clicked. There had been mushrooms this size in The Corridor! Now, here they were again, growing in his facility. I took a few steps into the room, double checking the door didn't swing shut behind me, and pointed the maglight around. There were hundreds of the damn things, spread out into the darkness.

  A strange thought struck me. Was I in The Corridor now? Was this door an entrance of some kind?

  No. It was a stupid idea. I remembered reading about when Rudy and Adler had stepped out of the corridor. JH even wrote about seeing it. Daylight. They had been at ground level, not down some dark bunker. There was no way this was The Corridor.

  I contemplated cutting a chunk from one of the mushrooms, but after little thought I realised I wasn’t as desperate as JH had been, especially when they were that odd, pale purplish colour. I don’t remember if JH even mentioned the colour in his journal?

  No. I looked at them, wondering if it was worth a try.

  But. No.

  I wasn’t that hungry.

  At least, not yet.

  I left the mushroom room and glanced along the corridor. The footprints didn’t lead any further, but I could clearly see the end about a hundred yards away. Another set of double doors.

  Curiosity won.

  The doors were locked tight, and I tried both pass codes I had used so far on the keypad on the wall next to them – SilverSwift and Turningpoint – but neither worked.

  I guessed that my key codes weren't a generic all-access thing.

  But I could still see in through the small window on the left door. It looked like some sort of hospital wing. A wide, long corridor led away from the doors, with dozens of small bays off it. There were beds tucked inside some of the bays and, a few feet from the entrance, a drip machine sto
od gathering dust. Other than that, there was only one more detail, but that one thing was enough to send shivers down my back. About four bays along, on the right side of the wing, I could vaguely make out some dark red stains on the floor tiles, splashed out across the floor as though someone had thrown a bucket of paint down. But my instincts told me differently. That was dried blood, I was sure of it.

  It was enough for me. I decided that it was probably best that I couldn't get in there. There might have been some useful medical gear in there, if I broke in and searched, and I did have my guns, but something about that stain made me uneasy.

  Time to head back.

  I was all the way back to the chasm and halfway across the covered bridge that led away from the canteen when I spotted GhostThing once more.

  It was up by the APV, floating, hovering, whatever it did, around the entrance.

  I'd left the damn vehicle open. Stupid.

  I jogged across the bridge as quickly as I could, stooping low, keeping myself hidden behind the metre-high panels that line side of the bridge, hoping the GhostThing wouldn’t spot me.

  Hell, I didn’t even know if the thing could see.

  I stopped at the end of the bridge, peering round. Why had I rushed over there? What was I even thinking? I didn’t even know if my gun would affect the thing.

  I crouched low and crawled towards the reception area, then peered through a crack in the wood. The gaseous form was still floating next to the entrance to the APV.

  Was it waiting for me?

  Was it even a living thing?

  For ten minutes I lay there, undecided, wondering if I should shoot at the thing. Just as I decided I had to, and reached for my rifle, GhostThing seemed to get bored and floated off across the bridge in the direction the APV faced.

  Once it had disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, I rushed back to the APV, slammed the access panel, ran to the front cab, and switched on the headlights.

  Nothing.

  It was gone.

  Ahead of me, lit up by the bright headlights, was two, maybe three hundred feet of tunnel with no apparent exits.

  And the thing was gone. Vanished.

  Could it move that fast? Or could it just go through walls? If it was further down the tunnel, then I would have to pass it at some point. Or pass through it.

  Somehow I didn’t want to go forward, and I didn’t want to go back. I certainly couldn’t stay there, just because of some strange GhostThing, but I didn’t like it. It wasn’t right.

  I wonder. If I was driving fast, and it was in the middle of the path, would I drive right through it?

  :: Record Date 30:06:4787 21:11

  I didn’t see GhostThing at all in the tunnel.

  I pulled over, about halfway through the day, at another terminal on the side of the tunnel. This one hadn’t been used previously, and was coated in dust that wafted up in a cloud when I brushed at it with my hand. Fortunately, I was wearing gloves. It took a minute or so to settle and drift away before I could switch on the screen.

  The same password worked there, which was handy and a relief, and it only took me a minute or two to bring up the camera display of the Vehicle Bay and the office, the large front entrance that was already open, and then, finally the inner bunker door.

  There was a huge dent in it.

  At first I thought it was just my eyes, or a shadow cast over the doors, but no. That was a dent. A big one. I don’t know what they used on a door that thick that could make a dent, but it worked.

  :: Record Date 30:06:4787 21:22

  Found another stop off. An area that may be offices, so I’m going to go take a look.

  :: Record Date 30:06:4787 22:46

  Okay, that scared the hell out of me.

  The entrance to the area looked undisturbed, and there were no footprints, but for some reason I decided to go in there anyway.

  It wasn’t offices, but some sort of storage depot. A large platform opened out on the other side of the entrance with multiple large doors leading from it. There was a rail track leading between the two, which sloped gradually down into the earth, but no sign of a train or cart.

  On either side, next to the large doors, were signs.

  Maintenance Depot and Mineral Deposit.

  Some kind of mining system?

  After I’d visited the labs, a strange thought had been creeping into the back of my mind. What if JH hadn’t built this place? What if it had been here already? I don’t know who could have built it, but this world was destroyed by The Horde long before The Resistance came to it. It was at least possible that the bunker had been built long before.

  I took my maglight out again, and walked through the door marked Maintenance Bay. Inside I found a huge open hanger with parking bays along all three facing walls. There were no vehicles there but there were certainly platforms to put them on.

  Finding nothing of use, I headed out and crossed the track to the Mineral Deposit. Inside, rows and rows of huge trolleys, all of them automated, or they would be if they were switched on, were crammed into various large rooms. Beyond that, further down the corridor – which, by the way, seemed to go on forever – was a massive arched vault room with piles and piles of grey rocks. I examined some of the rocks from the nearest pile and thought it may be coal, but they seemed more solid, and there are flecks inside the rocks the looked silver, or maybe a lighter metal. Maybe even crystal.

  I couldn’t be sure in the dim light provided by the maglight. So I took one of the rocks with me; I'm not sure why. Was I expecting to learn something from a rock? Not without the right equipment.

  Curiosity, I guess.

  I was just leaving when I heard the hissing noise coming from down the corridor.

  I’d just reached the entrance, and was heading back towards the APV, when the hiss, faint, but still audible, came from the darkness behind me. I spun around, pointing my weapon into the darkness. About a hundred feet away, where the light from my maglight faded out, I saw the dark wafting shape of the GhostThing floating out from the wall.

  I ran, blundering out of the doors towards the APV, jumped in, slammed the door shut – I seem to be doing that a lot – fired up the APV and headed off along the tunnel, glad to be away from whatever the thing was.

  I didn’t even want to know to know what it was.

  Leave it for the Vigilants to discover.

  It may be harmless, of course, but it gives me the creeps. I'm not sure how I could possibly defend myself from such a thing. I don't even know how it would react to being shot at, and if the blasts from my shredder had no effect on it, then what?

  It occurred to me as I was driving away – how could it attack me? Maybe I should grab one of those re-breather masks that I saw underneath the shelf at the back of the APV. Would wearing one of those stop it? Though I saw the way it slithered out of the vehicle, and I think I just saw it go through a wall.

  I don't like the thought of it going into my ears or my eyes.

  I wonder if my mother knew about this GhostThing.

  :: Record Date 31:06:4787 22:52

  I’ve spent the last day ignoring the areas that I keep passing, but it all looks so interesting. I’d love to stop and discover what secrets lie within, but the tracks of the previous APV don’t stop anywhere, and haven’t for quite a while. So, reluctantly, I’m just following. Also, I want to put some distance between me and the GhostThing. If I just keep going, surely it will be that far behind that it won’t be able to catch up with me?

  I did stop at another security booth to check the situation at the entrance, and found just what I’d expected. The debris from the blast had been cleared away and the entranceway, where the vehicle bay was, was still crawling with people, still, and they aren’t all Vigilants. Before the video stream was cut off, I saw techs and admin uniforms. I think I also caught a view of some Outriders.

  The inner door still hasn’t budged, though, so they are still stuck outside. They will undoubtedly get throu
gh and inside the bunker soon.

  I really am running out of time very rapidly.

  :: Record Date 01:07:4787 19:48

  End of the line for the APV, it would seem.

  Just when I was starting to consider ditching the APV and attempting to head into one of the areas that I keep passing in the hope of finding some way out, or at least somewhere to hide, I saw the missing APV up ahead.

  I’d noticed during the last few miles of tunnels that the walls were starting to look a lot more degraded. There was still no lighting in any of the areas, but at least the ground wasn’t broken up, but the last two stations looked like some of the buildings in the ruined cities that we run missions in. It hadn’t occurred to me that JH could have had this facility built centuries ago; he was certainly old enough to have done that. Some of these areas, just like the ones I’ve been passing, could be so old that entire generations had passed as they lay there, unused.

  The last stop off, where I pulled up behind the APV that my mother (I hope) had used, looked older still.

  The station platform was larger than most that I’d seen, and the front panel windows had been smashed long ago. Dirt and grime lay inches thick on the broken concrete platform, and as I stepped out, handguns ready, something small scuttled away into the darkness between the cracks in the ground.

  The other APV was parked right in the middle of the platform, and its side doors were wide open. Dust had gathered over the last decade or more, since my mother had been here, but there were those same footprints that I recognised. The smaller ones that I still hoped were hers.

  I checked inside the vehicle and found it just as dusty. Cobwebs, which I avoided, clung in large clusters in the corners. I’ve no idea what kind of spider can make webs that size, but I don’t want to go anywhere near it.

  The APV was pretty much empty anyway. My mother, if indeed it was her, had taken everything with her.

  Out on the platform, I looked back up the tunnel from where I had come, my stomach churning as I dreaded seeing lights flickering over the walls, but there was nothing.

  Water dripped constantly from the ceiling above the station platform, and the trickle formed a small stream that had worn away a path leading to a drain a few dozen yards away.