The idea of the apocalypse had always been some esoteric, in-the-future what-if. Despite her full belief it was coming, there was never a hard date. Even the vague sense that she’d somehow lived through disasters before never made the end of the world real. She’d always believed there would be plenty of time to work out the kinks, to improve her methodologies, to be ready.
With the end coming in the form of some superbug, she wasn’t so sure she was ready. She hadn’t worked out all of the kinks. Her methods weren’t quite where she wanted them to be. Until this moment, she’d thought this might be a drill. This illness would force them to fully test their capabilities. They’d be underground for a few weeks, possibly a month or two. She could fine-tune her deficiencies. That was what she’d thought.
Sitting in the bunker’s kitchen four days after moving underground, her mind wasn’t on her job. Instead, Gilda tightened the blond ponytail atop her head and drilled her ice blue eyes into the man in front of her. She’d heard him, but didn’t believe him. If he flinched, if he twitched, maybe that would be a sign he was kidding.
“I’m not kidding,” said Steven Konkoly, a man better known as Doc. “Everything we’re hearing from the surface is that this disease…is…unstoppable. It makes Ebola look like child’s play. The mortality rate is ridiculous.”
“Is that your medical opinion, Doc?” asked Gilda with one eyebrow arched higher than the other. “The mortality rate is ridiculous?”
She was as much frustrated by the situation report as she was with the deliberate, thoughtful pattern of Doc’s speech. She wanted to hurry him up.
“It’s not my opinion,” he said, unlocking her gaze and scanning the faces of the others gathered in the space. “It’s what we’re hearing on the radio. It’s what we’re seeing on television news reports. Like you, Gilda…and…everyone else here with us, I’m not on the surface to come to any medical opinion on my own.”
Doc exhaled and put his hands on his hips. He was tall and thin and always wore the tense expression of someone concerned about everything all of the time. He looked at the assembled survivors over the tops of his omnipresent reading glasses. They were gathered in the kitchen of their underground bunker.
Along with Doc and Gilda were the bunker’s receptionist and operational secretary, Betty; the man in charge of radio communications, Victor; a firefighter nicknamed Ritz; and two married couples—Barbie and Hal, and Sam and Loretta. There were others in the bunker who hadn’t joined the impromptu meeting in the kitchen, and there were those present who weren’t officially part of the group, but who’d found their way there by happenstance or casual invitation.
One of those guests was a woman named Claudia, a waitress whom Gilda had invited to join her. They’d been at Claudia’s restaurant when Gilda received an alert suggesting she move to the bunker and bring along a “plus one” if possible.
Claudia had been topping off Gilda’s fourth cup of coffee and leaving the check. She’d thanked Gilda and lamented the lack of diner traffic because of an illness the news was calling the Super Flu, even though it wasn’t any known strain of influenza.
She pointed at the thirty-two-inch wall-mounted flat-screen television in the corner of the diner. Closed-captioning populated along the bottom of the display while an impeccably styled reporter named Lane Turner read the news.
“That guy on the news said people should go home and lock their doors,” Claudia informed Gilda. “He said to shut off the air-conditioning and close all of the windows. The Super Flu, that’s not a flu, is airborne.”
Lane Turner earnestly delivered the latest breaking information on the developing story about the untreatable bug killing people across the Golden State.
The waitress waved the coffee pot in a circle as she spoke. The black, muddy drink swooshed like a tidal pool in the glass carafe. “I wish I had somewhere to go.” Claudia sighed. “I’d dig a hole and stay there.”
Gilda placed her hands flat on the laminate table, the condensation from the coffee cup wetting her palms. She narrowed her gaze at Claudia and bit her lower lip before taking a leap. Her stomach tightened. A cramp intensified in her gut and she winced. But it passed and she exhaled. “I could offer you a place. I have a hole in the ground. There’s food, water, a bed.”
Claudia shook her head with an embarrassed smile. “I couldn’t. You don’t know me. I brought you a plate of egg whites and three cups of coffee.”
“Four,” Gilda corrected. “You brought me four. And I’d like to help you. Let me.”
Claudia looked over one shoulder and then the other, her gaze lingering on the muscular black man working the grill behind the counter. “Could I bring my friend Arthur?” she asked. “He’s a cook. And he’s…we’re…I like him.”
Gilda motioned toward the thin young man working next to Arthur. There was something familiar about him, something comfortable. “What about him?” she asked. “The other cook.”
“Danny?” asked Claudia in a voice above a whisper. “What about him?”
Gilda pursed her lips to consider how her own question had sounded. Why had she felt compelled to ask about the cook? It was odd. She admitted that to herself and then decided asking Claudia to join her was odd too. It had been impulsive but somehow compulsory. She’d known that she was to invite people who could contribute, who had special skills or an impressive desire to survive. Had Claudia done any of those things? No. She’d served her coffee and made small talk. But Gilda reasoned that being at work, venturing out into the world when so much of it was already recoiling into dark corners with fear, was something admirable. She could sell that to the rest of the group without a problem. There were rules, yes. But this wasn’t a drill. This was the real thing.
What were they going to do? Kick Claudia out? They wouldn’t do that. She could defend her decision. There was something that told her Claudia belonged with her.
Gilda realized she was staring at Danny and hadn’t answered Claudia’s question. A commiserating smile spread to her high, narrow cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can only bring one person. If I said yes to…?”
“Arthur.”
“Yes, Arthur.” Gilda straightened her head. “If I said yes to Arthur, then might Danny be next? Or the man sitting two booths over? It can only be you.”
Claudia ran her thumb along the long black handle of the carafe. She puffed her cheeks in and out and rolled her eyes, mulling the possibilities.
“How long would we be gone?” she asked. “Not gone, but in the bunker?”
“As long as it takes to make sure we survive.”
Claudia glanced back at Arthur one more time and then nodded, her eyes glistening. She swallowed hard. “I’m in,” she said, “I just need to get a few things. I’ll catch the next bus and meet you back here.”
“No need to get the bus,” Gilda said. “I have a truck. You live around here?”
Claudia laughed. It was a laugh that suggested that as much as Gilda might have a sense about knowing her, she clearly didn’t know enough.
“I can’t afford to live around here,” she said. “I’m east about forty-five minutes.”
“Not a problem,” Gilda offered. “I gotcha.”
Now Claudia sat in the kitchen amongst the others. Her arms were folded across her chest, her face squeezed tight with concern. Gilda looked over at her and Claudia met her gaze. Then the waitress raised her hand.
“Yes?” said Victor. He nodded toward Claudia and rubbed his thumb along the side of a porcelain mug. Its rim was coffee stained.
He was soft-spoken and regal in appearance. Tall and kind-eyed, Victor had a way of making everyone around him feel important. He was in charge even if nothing written or spoken gave him that authority. It was merely understood.
Claudia lowered her hand. She opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything. She scanned the room, checking with everyone seated or standing around her. She cleared her throat and put both hands onto the table. They we
re balled into fists. Her thin aging skin stretched across her thick protruding knuckles.
“Go ahead,” encouraged Victor. “The floor is yours.”
Her mouth curled into a frown. It wasn’t so much a scowl but rather the natural resting position of her face. Deep lines stretched downward from the corners of her mouth, giving her face the appearance of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“How long are we going to be here?” she asked, her eyes darting around the room. “I don’t want to be here forever. I thought it might be a week or two. I have a life up there. This whole thing seems a little fishy.”
Victor drew the mug to his lips and took a healthy sip from it. He searched the others, perhaps waiting to see if anyone else wanted to field the loaded question. When nobody did, he took it. “Fishy how?” he asked, cradling the mug in his sizable hands.
Claudia shrugged. “I haven’t seen any of these news reports saying that everyone is dying. I watched the news. I didn’t see that. They said it was bad. They didn’t say people died.”
“And?” prompted Victor. He set the mug on the table in front of him.
“And this is weird,” said Claudia. “Gilda randomly invites me down here. Says I can’t bring anybody else. Then all of a sudden, after four days, the world is coming to an end?”
“Is that a question?” asked Victor.
Claudia shrugged again. “No offense, but I get a very creepy vibe down here. It’s like you all want it to be, like, the apocalypse or something.”
Victor eyed Gilda. Gilda sighed and nodded.
“Claudia,” she said, “nobody forced you to come here. Nobody will force you to stay. When I met you, you told me you would dig a hole and stay in it if you could. So I offered you a place here. Again, nobody forced you.”
The room was silent for a moment. Claudia shifted in her seat. She leaned back and adjusted her blouse, picking lint from her chest. “Why did you offer me a place here?” she asked. “Why me? What is it you want from me? I get the sense that you want something from me. I don’t have any money; I don’t have any property. I work double shifts at a diner for minimum and tips. That’s it.”
“Why would you think we want something from you?” asked Gilda. “We haven’t asked anything of you since we arrived. We’ve given you a bed, food, a safe place to stay.”
Claudia pointed at Doc. “That one poked and prodded me when we showed up,” she said. “It was like an alien probe or something.”
“I poked and prodded Gilda too,” said Doc. “And Victor and Ritz. I check everyone who comes here to make sure they’re not bringing disease with them. I’m sorry if that was—”
“I think I want to leave,” Claudia cut in. “I’m not buying what you’re selling. I never should have come here.”
Before anyone could respond, Claudia pushed away from the table and wound her way through the assembled people, from the kitchen, and into the corkscrew. Vic held up a hand to stop Gilda from chasing after her.
“Look,” he said to everyone, “it’s fine. She can leave if she wants. Or, if she calms down, she can stay.”
“I’m sorry,” said Gilda, clearing phlegm from her throat. “Bringing her here was a bad decision.”
Victor shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. Her behavior just now is not completely unexpected. Think about it. We’ve had years now to plan for this. We expected it. We’ve been running drills. We’ve even participated in testing with Interllayar to better understand how we should attack a variety of end-game scenarios. This is nothing new to us.”
He paused and raised the mug. He drew another slug from the cup and held it at his chest, motioning with it as he spoke. “Think about it from her perspective, though.” His dark eyes worked the room as he spoke, drawing nods from those gathered in the room. “She’s not prepared. She’s not expectant. Imagine being Claudia right now. She’s in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. She’s underground. There’s no sunlight. There’s no fresh air.”
“Cabin fever,” offered Ritz, the firefighter.
“Stir-crazy,” added Hal, of Barbie and Hal.
“Exactly,” said Victor. “Add to it that we don’t know her background. She’s an older woman, single, working a difficult job on her feet every day. I can’t imagine life has been as kind to her as it’s been to others. She might suffer from trust issues.”
“That’s a leap,” said Gilda. “I’m all for defending my choice, Victor, but suggesting she has trust issues is—”
“Probably accurate,” said Doc. “She sounded a little paranoid to go with everything else.”
“Another clinical diagnosis?” countered Gilda.
Doc’s jaw clenched. His eyes narrowed.
“Enough,” said Victor, his omnipresent half smile still there. “No need for this right now. Gilda, why don’t you go talk to her? See if you can get to the root of it. If she still wants to leave, we let her go. But it happens with the understanding she cannot come back.”
“That’s fine,” Gilda said, suppressing a cough. “I’ll meet you in the radio room after I talk with her.”
Victor set his mug on the table and pushed it toward the center. “I think we’re done here for now. Let’s meet again tomorrow. Regular shifts apply. Stay calm. If this is the real thing, we’re prepared. If our guest Claudia is right, and it’s not, more good practice.”
The gathering dispersed, and Gilda moved along the hallway, running a hand along the rough-hewn stone walls of the spiral descent. The ambient hum of the generator was more audible in the corkscrew hallway. The farther she traveled down the path, the stronger she felt its rumble in her boots. It was always noticeable until it became like white noise. By the time she’d reached Claudia’s room, she’d forgotten about it completely. She knocked on the door.
“Claudia?”
From beyond the thick door, the waitress responded, “That you, Gilda?”
“Yes. May I come in? We need to talk.”
Claudia didn’t respond, but inside the room, the shuffle of feet growing louder told Gilda her charge would let her into the room. The metal click and slide of the lock preceded the creak of the door as Claudia pulled it inward.
She looked up at Gilda and motioned for her to enter the modest space. Gilda stepped past her and immediately felt the cool rush of air that filled every bedroom.
The rooms, which were cut from the rock, were of course windowless, and the lack of natural light or surface heating from the sun kept them at an even, comfortable temperature. Gilda’s skin pimpled at the cooler climate, and she found the empty chair at Claudia’s desk.
“May I sit?” she asked.
“Be my guest.”
“Thanks,” said Gilda. She spun the chair around and sat on it backwards. She leaned on the low molded plastic back, trying to affect a relaxed, collegial posture. It wasn’t easy for Gilda. She hoped the effort didn’t appear as forced as it felt. She panned the room. It was nearly identical to her own.
The walls were a mixture of stone and plaster, bare except for a small photograph above the bed. It was a candid shot of Claudia with a man Gilda recognized as the cook at the diner. His name was Arthur, she recalled, and she wondered how much he was playing a role in her desire to get back to the surface.
The bed itself was a thin twin mattress atop a piece of plywood cut to fit an array of cinderblocks. It was pressed against the corner opposite the door. It was the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room. In reality, it was the only comfortable piece of furniture in the room. The bed was adorned with a single foam pillow, sheets, and a wool-blend blanket, all military surplus.
Next to the bed on what amounted to the back wall of the room was a simple desk. There were no drawers or cabinets. It was four legs and a tabletop. The chair was foldable plastic.
There was an open wardrobe with shelves on the wall to the right of the entry. It had a bar with a few wire hangers atop the shelves. Gilda noticed Claudia’s clothing still hung there. On one of the wardrobe s
helves, a collection of toiletries sat neatly in a small plastic container: a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, deodorant, baby powder, and some body lotion. Her suitcases were at the foot of the bed. They were closed.
Claudia moved to the bed, plopped down on the mattress, and slid her back against the wall. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped them with her arms. She looked like a little girl who’d been sent to her room for playing with her food at the table.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” said Gilda.
Claudia’s face soured. She rounded her shoulders.
“I should rephrase that,” Gilda said. “I hope you’re not leaving, are you?”
“I don’t know,” said Claudia. Her eyes flitted to the photo to her left. Her wizened eyes moistened. “This is a lot to take in, you know? And I’m alone.”
“You’re not alone,” said Gilda.
“Not physically,” said Claudia. “Emotionally, I mean. I don’t know any of you. You seem nice and all. Maybe a little weird, like too nice. I’m still spooked by this place. All of you are strangers. I’m alone.”
Claudia swallowed the last couple of words, her voice warbling as she appeared to fight back the emotion she’d lamented. She blinked at the tears that had swelled and began streaming down her cheeks.
“I understand,” said Gilda. “We are strangers. And conventional wisdom would tell you that if something seems too good to be true, like a stranger offering you refuge, it probably is.”
Claudia dabbed at her tears with her fingertips. “Exactly,” she said. “And I miss Arthur. I shouldn’t have left him up there. If people aren’t dying, I’m a fool for leaving him. If people are dying, I’m a horrible person for leaving him.”
Gilda stood from the chair and spun it around to slide it into its place under the desk. She crossed the floor, stepping on the round rug at the center of it, to sit on the bed. She eased onto the mattress next to Claudia and sat on its edge.
The Alt Apocalypse (Book 4): Affliction Page 4
