by Phil Maxey
“Not everyone,” Corey stood a few feet behind Zach, his blue flannel shirt hanging over his stomach and jeans. “We don’t have enough bedding for everyone.”
Travis looked as if a small child had just broken his favourite possession. “Look in the storage rooms, there should be more in there.” Corey nodded and disappeared further into the large room, walking between tightly packed racks of shelves into well lit areas beyond. “Corey was our on sight engineer, it was his idea for all of us to come here, as he practically lived down here anyway. If you’re wondering how safe we are down here, I can tell you very safe. Apart from the building above our heads being almost impenetrable, there’s only one way in and out of this basement and that’s the way you came. It was partially built as a vault to protect the museums valuable items. Because of that we have a room, perhaps there will be time to show you later, that allows us to monitor the museum above and the outside.”
“What do you do for electricity and water?” said Zach putting his coffee down.
“The museum run’s on it’s own generator, it also has cold storage, which originally was used for samples now it’s where our food goes…water is a problem. There are streams, which run through the town, but they are not clean enough to drink so we have to forage, and as you probably know that’s not a safe endeavor. We currently have enough to last a few weeks. I apologize if any of us don’t smell too good!”
Zach smiled. “All I smell is the coffee.”
“Okay, I’m sure you are both very tired. Sleep wherever you want. We can make up some beds on the floor near the tree if the children would prefer that, for the rest of you, there is more space at the back of this room. Corey should be back soon with some more blankets. I will be here at this desk, or in my sleeping area in that direction,” he pointed over his shoulder, “Wake me if you need anything.”
Zach stood. “Actually I wouldn’t mind seeing that surveillance you mentioned.”
“Sure, follow me.”
Zach followed Travis in the same direction that Corey went, while Abbey returned to where Fiona, Cal, Mary, Irene and most of the kids were sitting.
Corey emerged once more from the gaps in the shelves weighed down with multicolored sheets, dumping them on the floor near the brightly decorated tree. “Here you go.”
The kids started yelling and pulling the sheets, Mary’s expression changed to one of disapproval and they sat back.
Travis slid between the cold metal rivets and shelving without resistance, but Zach had to untangle himself a few times until he emerged on the other side. This was similar to the area he had just come from, but here the storage racks had less shelves.
Travis smiled. “Once you remove one or two of their shelves, these racks make surprisingly good beds,” his attention then turned to a small room, behind them on their left. Pushing it open, they walked into a space around ten by ten feet, with a wall of computer equipment and another wall of monitors. The images on them, kept switching after a few seconds.
Travis leaned on the back of a well-worn chair. “This is our security room. A good friend of mine called Mike Dandridge used to work down here. Twenty three years he sat in this very spot looking at these screens, and I don’t think he had one burglary or act of vandalism to deal with.”
Zach went to say something then stopped.
“You want to know what happened to him? Honestly I don’t know, anyway as you can see, these feeds watch each room of the museum and the surrounding grounds.”
A part of Zach didn’t want to watch the exterior view, if there was something out there he would rather not know. The buses and the Humvee popped into view for a few seconds before the scene switched to one of a quiet grass area with a bench.
“We take turns to keep an eye on things,” Travis then leaned in to whisper, “but Corey is in here the most and we are happy for him to be.”
Zach got the impression that the four of them living down here for all this time was starting to cause friction.
Cal sat with his back against a smooth concrete wall with only the occasional ground out hole or impression. He had hoped that after he purged the insane visions that had plagued him for over a week, Fiona would treat him differently, but if anything she was treating him with more caution than before. You killed a man. “I know!” the words escaped his throat and were free before he could pull them back and now he was sitting with most in the small sleeping area looking at him. Their curiosity only lasted a few seconds though before they returned to their previous state. He tried not to look at Fiona who was sitting next to him. She put her hand on his. He wanted to pull his hand away, he wasn’t disabled, he didn’t need special help, but the warmth of her touch calmed something inside of him that he was thankful for regardless.
Before she could ask he spoke. “I’m okay, just need to get some sleep,” he feigned a smile, before placing his backpack behind his head and sliding lower to try to achieve some kind of sleeping position. His hand automatically slid out of hers.
Zach left the room of monitors and returned to the area where the rest of the group were situated. Cal’s eyes were closed, and Fiona’s looked soon to be the same. Most of the kids where under an assortment of blankets making the area near the tree look like one large bed. Faith and her daughter shared the sofa with Hanna and Megan. Rob and Tyler were close to the door where they came in, with their jackets being used as pillows. The others were using any available floor space they could.
For a moment Zach couldn’t see where Abbey had got too, but then he spotted some more blankets behind the sofa and walked around finding Abbey lying under a large flimsy looking dark blue sheet with a number of moth holes.
He lowered himself to the floor and awkwardly slid under the blanket, which was already warm by Abbey’s body heat. He lay there looking at the tiny Christmas lights that permeated the area when his mind gave up resisting sleep.
CHAPTER 22
Zach sat with his back up against the exhibition stand. The mammoth’s huge tusks forming a natural alcove above his head. He had slept for a few hours, and then his mind wouldn’t shut off. Taking one of the candles they seemed to have plenty of, he excused himself from the basement and retraced his steps back up into the museum. Up here in the reverberant halls and galleries he felt he could reflect on what he had to do, and how he could do it. The cold that hung in the air had other ideas, and his single candle, and jacket weren’t providing warmth to allow his mind to settle long enough, for him to formulate a plan.
He swigged from his water bottle like it was something much more potent and looked across at the glass cabinet’s opposite him, and that lined the small room at intervals. The pots and fabrics hinted at exotic creatures and a life not that much different from the world he was now surviving in. Humankind was just one of many creatures that had a right to the earth, and there survival was never guaranteed. Perhaps we can live in harmony with these things as well.
Downstairs Abbey woke abruptly and instantly grabbed to her side for Zach, who wasn’t there. She sat up and looked around, he wasn’t anywhere around her. Drowsiness started to kick back in but her heartbeat was in disagreement and she got to her knees and then stood up and looked over the sofa. He wasn’t there either. A slight draft hit her neck and she turned looking at the door to the corridor. Walking to it, she pulled the door wider, and took a quick glance at everyone sleeping and noticed a dim neon light emanating from the room that Zach had briefly told her about. She then walked into the corridor pulling the door closed, and followed the primary colored lights back upstairs to the museum floor. It wasn’t difficult to see where Zach was by the flickering shadows produced by his candle.
She walked across the solid floor, her boots making a knocking noise despite her attempts to dull the sound and entered the ancient items gallery. Zach was sitting on the floor lost in his own thoughts. He looked up at her and gave a tired smile. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
Abbey smiled back. “Got a few hours, no idea
what time it is.”
Zach looked at his radio. “Just gone 3 am.”
She looked up at the Mammoth. “I always loved Mammoths as a child. Makes you think that maybe these E.L.F’s are not as strange as we think, it’s just the change was sudden, not something that happened over millions of years.”
“Yeah.”
“Was there anything specific that stopped you from sleeping?” she asked tentatively while sitting next to him.
“Just got a lot on my mind.”
“Makes me angry thinking about the other convoy, we could have helped them.”
Zach’s faced contorted, but he remained silent.
“You can talk to me, about anything. I’ve gotten the feeling over the last few days that there’s something you’re not telling me, something that happened in the Portland camp?”
Zach’s face tightened and grew red, his brow lowered until his eyes became afterthoughts, and he started shaking.
Abbey put her hand on his shoulder with concern. “What is it?”
“It was him! He did it! He has to pay!” Zach’s words burst out of him with such force that Abbey jumped back.
Noticing tears were running down his cheeks, she moved back in and held his hands, which seemed locked in anguish. “Who?”
Zach looked at her with the eyes of a child. “Tinley…he killed my family.”
“What?” Abbey’s question was one filled with confusion. “I don’t understand, the guy who was in charge of the Portland camp, how?” her words felt inappropriate and intrusive but the sheer absurdity of what Zach had just told her needed some explanation.
“Remember I told you that I was investigating the murders of the local girls in different towns? And that I thought it was an officer doing it?”
“You think it’s him?” Abbey’s words emanated from her, still shrouded in shock.
“He was the officer I thought was doing it. All my evidence led back to him. He was in his thirties at the time, and traveled from base to base. He was the only person I could find that was in the bases when the murders took place nearby.”
Abbey sat back, as her mind tried to incorporate this surreal information into her worldview.
“It was shortly after I visited the base where he was stationed, that what happened, happened to my family.”
“Does he know you know?” she asked, and then continued without getting an answer. “But he’s in charge of all those people, and he’s a murderer…and many of them are dying and…”
It was now Zach’s turn to be the comforter, and pulled Abbey into his chest.
After a short while, he cleared his throat. “I’m going to kill him.”
Abbey sat up. “How? He’s got an army protecting him,” her voice trembled slightly. “Zach, you will die, we, I need…”
“Abbey, he has to be stopped, if he makes it back to Bravo, even with only half of the people, he will spin it as a victory, and he will be second in command only to Trow.”
Abbey swallowed, and wiped away at the wetness on her face. Tinley’s smug face boiled up from her subconscious, and anger grew inside her. She wanted to harm him too, but the task seemed impossible.
She looked back at Zach. “We will find a way. But right now we need to return downstairs, we need sleep for what comes next.”
Zach nodded and they got to their feet and returned as quietly as they could.
* * * * *
Fiona’s legs dangled over a precipice. Below were tentacles. Thousands of them flailing in an oily blackness that had no end. She tried to pull herself up, and by doing so, she slipped further over the edge. Her legs scrambled to take hold on the ledge, but they just scrapped around causing dust to fall. She tried not to look down, tried not to accept her fate. She wouldn’t give up. She looked at her arm, and it was a tentacle, one that was now turning on her, sliding around her neck.
Fiona’s eyes flicked opened. In front of her in the dim light, a man in his thirties with a strong dark beard stood looking anxious.
“Sorry to wake you.”
“What do you want? Who are you?” Fiona’s memory hadn’t fully returned from the pit.
“I’m Corey. Your friend, the guy who was sleeping next to you, he’s in the Observatory.”
“What?” Fiona looked to her right, as the night before, a rumpled sheet had replaced Cal.
“The observatory, he’s in there, doing something, he seems to have changed the position of the telescope, although I’m not sure how he’s done that.”
Fiona sat up, wiping her eyes. “This observatory, is it far?”
“No, but it’s above us, we access it on the east side of the building.”
Fiona looked around her, some were stirring in their sleep, but most were silent as statues. “What time is it?”
“An hour before sun up.”
“Why are you awake?” she wasn’t sure why she asked this, but it felt a natural thing to ask.
“When I can’t sleep I monitor the cam’s.”
Fiona, pulled her boots on, and got to her feet. “I need you to take me to this, observatory.” As Corey walked to the corridor entrance, she grabbed her rifle.
Corey walked fast through the halls, past exhibits that were surprisingly pristine in their condition.
Fiona stumbled forward trying to keep the light of his candle focused in her eyes, while taking her own flashlight out of her pocket. “Slow down, you’re going too fast.”
Corey continued his impatient rush to the outer reaches of the building until he stopped at a door, with the sign “Observatory” above it. He went to open it, but Fiona stopped him before it was more than a few inches open.
“It is just at the top of these stairs?”
“Yes, but…”
“I’ll go first. Actually you should go back, you can see what’s happening from those monitors of yours anyway.”
Corey looked as if he had been scolded, and walked away.
Fiona walked into the stairwell. The cold air inside took her by surprise, and the mist created by her heavy breathing slowly drifted away. She pointed her flashlight up the stairs, then leaned forward to see what she could, but the stairs above were empty. What if he’s totally lost it? What if he’s got his gun with him? Shit, I should have checked before I came up here. Harming him was no option, unless it had to be.
Fiona ascended the stairs, keeping the beam of her flashlight focused ten feet in front of her. Quickly she got to the top, where another door was. She looked through the grilled glass and into an impressive domed room, with a large telescope in the center. The curved silver plates, which made up the roof were partially open revealing tiny specks of starlight. All of this was lit by a single candle that sat flickering on the floor near a small ramp at the base of the telescope. Cal was nowhere to be seen.
She pressed her shoulder on the door and it opened easily. As soon as she was partially inside she was hit by the intense cold, and the whimpering sound of a man. It was coming from across the area, on the opposite side to where she stood. She stepped further inside, and swept her flashlights beam across the large cylindrical instrument, which dominated the scene and just caught a glimpse of someone huddled against the back wall.
She bent over slightly as she walked forward to try and see with better clarity through the obstructions in front of her. “Cal?”
The man’s whimpering’s turned to talking, but if it was directed at her she wasn’t sure.
As she walked around the outside ring, she grew ever closer, and pointed her beam on the unfortunate who lay, arms and feet huddled together. It was Cal.
She ran towards him and then stopped realizing she needed to check if his gun was nearby, it wasn’t. She finished her movement, and knelt down close to him.
Cal was rocking back and forth. “Why, me. Why, me,” his words coming so fast they were one long sentence. Fiona put her hand on his arm, and he recoiled looking at her with horror. “No, you mustn’t touch me, I might change you.”
> She went to reply, when she heard a commotion outside the door she had just passed through. The flickering light of candles then appeared. “Cal, you can’t stay here, the others are coming, they might think you’re a threat.”
He blinked a few times as if coming to a realization, and started to get to his feet, this time allowing her to help him. Just as he was fully upright, the observatory door opened and Zach, Abbey, Travis and Caroline appeared, all holding candles.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Travis’s words echoed around the chamber.
“He’s fine, he just had a nightmare, you know we all get them,” Fiona said this last part with a smile, as Cal leaned on her.
“The telescope has been moved, did he do that? Why did he do that?”
“How the hell should I know, he was dreaming.”
Zach walked forward and placed his old shoulder below Cal’s. “He’s had a bad time of it lately, he just needs some rest. It looks like your telescope hasn’t been damaged.”
“Okay, fine, let’s get downstairs, Corey needs to get the shutters closed, who knows what might fly in.”
They all filed slowly out. Abbey lingered. She was always fascinated with astronomy as a kid, and looking at the twenty-eight inch reflector telescope she couldn’t help but be excited. The rest were now halfway down the stairs outside as she drifted towards the observing deck, directly below the instrument. Bending over she put her face on the finder scope. Her eyes took a while to adjust, until something came into sharp focus. She stood up and looked toward where the telescope was pointing. The subtle hint of blue was starting to emerge from the rising sun, but the rest of the sky was still intensely dark with pinpoints of twinkling light.
She bent and looked again. It was still there. What she was looking at made no sense. Dark ellipses, like pieces of the sky were missing. One large, with two smaller, and what were those things moving inside? The metal dome started to rotate, and the shutters started to close, making her jump. She looked up at them domed ceiling readjusting and the gap onto the night sky growing smaller. No, No. She looked again, straining her eyes to see as much detail as possible. The strange object was still there, and then it was gone, replaced with a blank greyness.
