Complete darkness gave way to a very low red light. In it, Antonio saw that he was about to run through an open doorway, and straight into a wall. Smack! Antonio still hit the wall head on. He had managed to put his hands out just in time to brace himself. Dazed, he looked around for any sign of the thing, but it was gone. Then, twenty meters to his right, a door opened. The light beyond it was blinding in comparison. Silhouetted in it momentarily was the unmistakable figure of a half-grown boy, fleeing. The metal door clanged shut behind him. It then bounced open again slightly, revealing a vertical crack of light. Its frame was curved at the corners. Antonio ran to it and pushed it open. The mysterious person was already gone. He was now in a corridor, which extended left from where he stood, around fifteen meters long. Its walls were white, its floor tiled with linoleum, and the ceiling was suspended, bearing fluorescent lights. The mysterious figure was nowhere to be seen. Antonio walked a little way, looking left and right through reinforced glass windows into what looked like disused control rooms. Their lights were off, but light that shone in through the windows gave plenty of visibility. There were dark consoles, and marks on the floors where furniture and machinery had once been. He walked along the passageway past the desolate rooms, to the other end, where it opened onto another corridor in a T shape. This was also lit, but shorter, with a door at each end. These were large, sturdy metal hatches, like the ones inside a submarine. Antonio stood for a minute, looking both ways. There was no sign of the boy. He turned right, walked to the door, and yanked on the handle. It didn’t budge. There was a numeric keypad beside it. Antonio examined it for a second, and then retraced his steps. He looked in each of the empty rooms. Some had rear doors that led into other, similar spaces. After checking all of them, Antonio made his way back out through the lit passage, back through the nearly dark one, and then through the loading dock. This time, the letterbox-shaped patch of light coming in from the street was his guide, so he got through the darkness easily. He slipped out of the loading door, not bothering to shut it, and made his way back over to the camp. Antonio paced back and forth for an hour, watching the entrance to the loading dock, while checking all around every so often. A few people passed along the center of the road. None even acknowledged him. Eventually, he sat down, cross legged, but never took his eyes off the dark recess opposite.
----
The night dragged on. Etienne eventually awoke and sat up. Antonio crouched close to her. “Shh! Your mother is still sleeping!”
“What’s for breakfast?” the little girl asked.
“Umm… I don’t know yet. Lie down!” Vivianne opened her eyes and sat up groggily.
“Maman!” Etienne stood up and hugged her. Vivianne rubbed her eyes. Annabelle began to stir.
“What time is it?” Vivianne said.
“7:10,” Antonio said. The sound of loudspeakers was heard in the distance, echoing down the tunnel that was Rue Borchal. This time, it was coming from the west, the direction they had been headed.
“Oh God, what now?” Vivianne said. The sound grew louder.
Eventually, words were discernible: “This area is being occupied by the New People’s Republic of France! You must evacuate immediately!” Bright lights could be seen coming down rapidly down the road. Then, there was a staccato burst of gunfire.
“Oh shit! Not again!” Vivianne said. “Dave, wake up! Everybody wake up! We have to move now!”
“What the?” David said. The loudspeakers were heard again. “Crap! Everybody up! Move!” People scrambled to their feet. Blankets, food, and containers were thrown back into the cart. At once, the armed convoy was upon them. “MOVE OUT NOW! MOVE OUT NOW!” Then, gunfire again.
“Who are they shooting at?!” David said. “We’re going as fast as we can!” There were bangs, followed by pew-pew sound of bullets ricocheting from the walls. Screams from the next camp, as someone fell to the ground. Bullets chipped the concrete above their heads, spraying them with gravel-sized particles.
“RUN!” David yelled. Etienne was tossed into the cart, on top of the blankets, and the group began to run west. One armored personnel carrier passed them at speed. A grinning soldier leaned out of the window, toting an automatic weapon. He sprayed more bursts of bullets. People screamed and ran in all directions.
“I know a safe place!” Antonio yelled. “Follow me!” He pointed across the road.
“How the hell are we going to get over there?” David said, eyeing the next APC in the convoy as it barreled towards them.
“Just do it! Run!” Antonio said. He darted across the road. The others followed. Vivianne nearly tipped the shopping cart over, as she pushed it off the curb onto the roadway. The cat fell out and ran for dear life. David made it just in time, as the next speeding vehicle whooshed by. Antonio led the way into the dark loading dock. “In there!” He pointed to the partly-open loading dock door.
“What?!” David said.
“I’ll explain later! Just get in! Everybody!” Kassandra leapt in and under the door, nimble as a cat, followed by Antonio. Vivianne and Etienne were helped in, before David and Annabelle scrambled inside. They all cowered in the dark, as the next vehicle blasted its message of intimidation. Screams and footfalls could be heard.
“This is absolutely bloody insane!” David said. “They aren’t even giving people a chance to get out, unlike the ones yesterday.” He walked back to the shutter door and pushed it down, sealing them in utter darkness. Their heavy breathing could be heard over the chaos outside. It gradually subsided, as more vehicles came past.
“I think one stopped,” Annabelle said. “I can hear the soldiers yelling.”
“Yep,” David said. “I just hope they don’t look in here.”
“Our stuff’s still outside,” Vivianne said.
“Forget it, it’s too dangerous,” David said.
“Come back this way,” Antonio said. “There’s light back here.”
“Okay.” The group followed Antonio, until they entered the area with low red lighting. “Turn right.” Antonio opened the first metal door at the end, and light flooded the corridor. The others covered their eyes, which were now dark adjusted.
“What is this place?” David said.
“I don’t know.”
“Wow…” Annabelle said, once she was through the door.
Once they were all there, Antonio said: “There’s a bunch of empty rooms where we can camp out.” He led them through the first door on the left, which led into one of the partially-dark disused control rooms. They went through it, and out of a door at the back. They were then in another room, which was very similar—about the size of a small living room. The lights came on as they entered, revealing white walls dotted with gray control panels. There were buttons, switches and displays on them, but they were all dark. Gray wiring conduits connected them.
David ran his fingers through his hair. “At least bullets can’t penetrate into here.” Nods from the others.
“It’s totally silent,” Annabelle said.
“Yes.”
“Now what?” Kassandra said, looking at each of the others in turn.
“I don’t know,” Vivianne said.
“I guess we just wait it out,” Annabelle said. “We can’t go back out again if they’ve got control of this area. We’d probably be shot on sight.”
David nodded. “Let’s just try and make the best of it for now. There could be others hiding in here too. Come with me, Tony. Let’s see what all there is here. And possibly who there is, too. How did you know about this place, anyway?” Antonio related the events of the night before, to stunned expressions from the others.
“Wow…” Annabelle said. “I wonder who, or what, it was?”
“Don’t know,” Antonio said. “I do think it was human though. It might come back again. We should probably try and hide out in this room as much as possible so can’t be seen from the main corridor.”
“Can I come and explore with you?” Kassandra said.
> “Sure.” They exited back to the corridor, and then entered the next room.
“So, four rooms off this corridor, two on either side, and each one has another room behind it,” Kassandra said, after the short excursion. “All pretty much the same.”
“Nobody here, and no signs of recent occupation,” David said, “though someone’s keeping the lights on here.”
“Hmm,” Antonio said. “The big problem is there’s no food or water. Anywhere.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Excluded
“Oh God, why does this have to be?” Vivianne cried. It was now evening. She held Etienne in her arms. The child was tired and red-faced from having cried for hours from hunger and thirst. “She’s getting dehydrated fast,” Vivianne said. “I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think kids can go much more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours without water. We’ve been in here twelve hours now, and she hasn’t had a drink since last night, so it’s already been twenty-four.”
All six sat with their backs against the walls, lining both sides of the room they had entered that morning. David shook his head. “It’s much too dangerous to go out.” He buried his face in his palms. “We can’t even get to the stuff in the cart. Someone might be lurking in the dock.”
“But Dave, she could be dead within a day!” Vivianne said.
Annabelle’s eyes widened. “We’ve got to catch it!” she said. “That thing or person you saw last night, Antonio, that’s stealing stuff. It might come back tonight.”
“My God, you’re right!” David said. “At the very least, we might be able to steal from it. Tony, you and I should lie in wait.”
Antonio nodded. “I wish I could have caught it last night. It may not know what happened out there today, so it may think it’s still safe to go out.”
“It could be our only chance,” David said.
“Yes,” Annabelle said. “Otherwise, I really don’t know what we’ll do. Although, we could just go out and surrender…”
“We could end up dead if we do that,” Kassandra said. “You saw what they were like.”
David nodded. “Well, let’s try and catch the thing tonight. I doubt it could do much damage to two grown men. If it can’t lead us to food and water, we’ll go out and give ourselves up tomorrow.”
----
The corridor was silent. The door to the rear room, in which they were camped, was closed, and everybody had been instructed to remain absolutely quiet. David crouched behind the doorway to the front room, leading out into the corridor, ready to spring forward at a moment’s notice. He would have been visible through the window in any other position. Antonio was poised similarly in the doorway on the opposite side of the passage, one room closer to the exit out to the dock, ready to pounce if the enigma managed to slip past David.
David checked the time. One AM. Etienne began to whimper again. The sound carried easily out to the corridor. “Shut up!” David growled to himself. He half rose and turned to go back into the rear room, then stopped and returned to his squat by the exit to the corridor.
“She needs to be quiet,” came Antonio’s whisper, from three meters to David’s right.
“So do you!” No more was said. The minutes ticked by. Then they became hours. Etienne’s crying stopped again. David rubbed his eyes, and then began to stand slowly, in order to stretch. There came a soft click from around the corner, to his left. David crouched again as quickly as he dared. Then, he craned his neck up just far enough to see anything of even half-human height out in the corridor.
Silence again. Then: there it was! A blur came dashing past. “Yarrrrgh!” David simultaneously yelled and lunged. He missed. He sprawled into the opposite room. The confusing shape turned and flattened itself against the wall two meters to David’s right. It was human in outline, if not color. It then spun and made to flee. Antonio sprang from his doorway and caught it in a full tackle. He and it crashed to the ground. David immediately jumped on them both, and pressed down with all his weight. Neither of them was going anywhere.
“I can’t breathe!” A pair of small, frightened human eyes looked at them through holes in the strange gray and black static pattern. David let up part of his weight. “Who are you?” A moan was the only answer. “Lift up a bit, Tony.” The thing breathed in deeply, and exhaled. David grabbed at its head, and yanked off what appeared to be a ski mask. They were looking into the face of a blonde-haired boy. “I’m dead! I’m dead!” he whimpered.
“No you’re not,” David said. “Who are you, and where did you come from?”
“If I tell you they’ll kill me!”
“Who will?”
“Uhh…”
“Put it this way. If you don’t lead us to food and water, I’ll kill you,” David said. Antonio turned and looked at David, wide-eyed, but stayed silent. The boy’s terrified eyes moved from David’s face to Antonio’s, and back again. He stayed silent. A long, tense moment went by. Then, David turned to Antonio. “Get a knife.”
Antonio nodded, slid out from underneath David, got up, and headed to the back room. David shifted his weight so he was astride the boy, and grabbed both his arms, pinning them out to the side. Antonio came back. “They’re in the cart, outside…”
“Crap. Then I’m going to have to use my bare hands.” David slowly and deliberately let go with his right hand and moved it to the boy’s throat, gripping his neck firmly, with his thumb pressed against the windpipe below the Adam’s apple. David’s glare bored into his prisoner’s frantic face. David then brought his left hand, in cold, deliberate moves, and interlocked it with his right. Antonio looked on in terror. “Slow strangulation, or a quick broken neck?” David asked the boy.
“Ugchhk…”
David released the pressure slightly. The boy inhaled deeply. “This is not a game,” David said. “I have a child who’s going to be dead before long. If it comes down to her life or yours, it won’t be her that perishes. Are we clear about that?” The captive nodded vigorously. David released his hold slightly more. “So this is how it’s going to work. You’re going to take me to supplies. Don’t bother trying anything.”
The boy exhaled. “Okay.”
“Get up.” David released him and got up. The boy was halfway to his feet, his clothes still shimmering in the strange pattern, when David put a hand on his shoulder from behind and forced his right arm up behind his back. “You go in front of him, Tony.”
“Okay.”
David frog-marched the boy slowly back the way he had come, turning right at the T intersection. They were soon at the large hatch-like metal door. The boy punched in a code. “Five-four-six-two,” Antonio muttered, watching the boy’s fingers. Antonio pushed the door inwards. It opened onto an almost unbelievable scene: a metal grate, half the size of a tennis court, at the inner wall of a vast concrete silo, maybe 250 meters across. The drop below extended farther than they could see. Rising up from the depths was another gray silo, in the center of that one, whose outer wall was perhaps fifty meters away.
“Holy crap!” David said, wide-eyed. A walkway extended straight, across the void, towards the inner silo. There was another platform that encircled its girth like a ring, with halogen lights shining down on it. David still had the boy’s right arm up behind his back, and his left hand on his shoulder.
“There are others like this,” Antonio said, pointing across the silo. He had now gone through the hatch, and was standing on the platform. Spaced at intervals around the wall were other similar platforms, also sporting catwalks to the inner silo. Each was lit from above. This pattern was repeated both above and below where they stood, at roughly twenty meter intervals. Stairs at a roughly forty-five degree angle connected them. On some of the suspended levels were people, especially on the inner ring. Many laid down, while others sat. The air smelled bad.
A figure darted out from behind the open door. At once, a knife was at Antonio’s throat. Holding it was a man with dark skin, wearing a pair of dirty blue jeans an
d a worn leather jacket. “Who comes here?” he said, in an African accent. The man then spun around behind Antonio and restrained him with his left arm, while keeping the blade in place.
“Uhh…”
“Outsiders!” the man said.
“I swear! They forced me!” the boy spat.
“It’s true,” David said calmly. “We caught him. He had no part in it.”
“Josiah, go to your unit. You will be dealt with severely,” the man said.
“He’s not going anywhere,” David said, tightening his grip on the boy. His eyes narrowed. “Not until you release my friend, and provide some food and water for my family. Then, we’ll go away and forget this ever happened.”
The Extinction Switch: Book three of the Kato's War series Page 8
