Go-Ready

by Ryan Husk

  When the men had gone down to the gate, Janet and the others went back down the freight elevator. The temperature dropped drastically. The darkness was down below, waiting on her. Gordon led the way with a flashlight. They reassembled in the main kitchen and helped Greta with the dishes.

  Janet pricked her finger and checked her blood-sugar: 70 mg/dL. Low, but not dangerous. Still, her vision was only getting blurrier. Probably time to eat something else or take a pill, maybe an epi.

  After she finished helping Greta with the washing, Janet picked up one of the candles and started out of the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” asked Greta.

  “Just going for a walk.”

  “Through the corridors? Alone?”

  “Yeah. Is that okay?”

  Greta looked uncomfortable. A second later, Janet realized why. She had just asked an adult that was neither her parent nor a teacher for permission to do something. And from talking to the O’Hares, she knew they had children all grown up and moved away. Greta and her husband were both worried about their kids, wondering if they were alive or dead, and where they were at. Janet had just placed herself under the guidance of a guardian figure, and said guardian hadn’t had to guard anyone in a while. Was Janet technically supposed to listen to any of the adults around her now? Could they reasonably make her do anything? Could she have gone off with Edward, even though he told her no? At what age did she have to stop listening to anyone else? And was it fair to ask Greta to be the one to give her permission to go for a walk?

  This whole situation had put them all in weird moral predicaments.

  “Sure, I guess,” Greta said. “Just take one of the cigarette lighters with you.” She handed her lighter to Janet. “In case the candle goes out, you know.”

  “Oh. Sure. Thanks.” The cigarette lighters were super important to them, they had to keep track of each one. Edward had matches but those could run out, too, or get damp and become useless. They wanted to use the actual lights in the tunnels as little as possible. Like Edward said, it all might have to last them forever.

  “And please be careful,” Greta said, watching her go.

  “I will.”

  Janet had been exploring a few times already. She had helped Gordon map the corridors of D and E Wing. They had discovered a cask of wine. Gordon’s guess was, it was left by someone who had been an initial investor and had planned on using the place for personal storage of expensive collector’s items until Doomsday finally came. Made sense. If you were expending exorbitant amounts of money renting the space, might as well put it to use in the meantime. They also found a coin collection, about fifty first-edition novels, some of them signed, and a few pieces of artwork held in frames and wrapped in blankets and plastic seals.

  Janet went down a set of metal stairs to F Wing, her flickering candle illuminating passages that looked to have no reason for being, just hollowed-out rooms waiting for a purpose. She heard something dripping, and followed the sound to a leaky pipe. She made a mental note to tell someone about it later. Might be a big deal. Edward had stressed that any sort of leaks or damages down here ought to be reported immediately.

  It wasn’t as terrifying down here as it had been her first few. That first day, she had kept close to Margery, frightened of the dark passages, mistrustful of the silence all around her. The echoes of their footsteps had been strange, almost muted too quickly. She had never been inside a cave before, the sound carried differently than inside a house.

  Some of these passages she had seen, but hadn’t mapped. There were doors here and there, usually the type that slid to one side rather than swung open. Inside almost all of them was nothing. Nothing but dust. Behind one door, though, she found a pallet wrapped in plastic, and when she ripped the plastic off she found reams of printing paper, computer monitors, and surge protectors, all still in their original packaging.

  She made another mental note to let the others know about it, then continued exploring.

  If it weren’t for the signs posted on every wall, Janet might have been afraid of getting lost. Room after room she passed, all looking the same. She ran her hands along the cold limestone walls. She stepped into a large chamber that was empty except for a stack of rubber tires of various sizes. She crossed the chamber into another, and was surprised when she found several large cases, each one the size of a coffin, some of them stacked five high.

  “Whoa.”

  She walked over to inspect them. She saw a label on one. She wiped dust off it and read it: PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

  “Whoa.”

  That surprised her at first, but then she recalled Edward saying that after the bank foreclosed on Collinsworth, the Army purchased this place and had planned to stockpile oil reserves, maybe other supplies, and that they hadn’t gone through with it. But it looks like they had started.

  She ran her fingers along the sides, found a set of clasps. She flipped them open and raised the lid. Her eyes went wide when she saw what to her eyes looked like a bazooka, a rocket launcher, whatever you called it. Her father had lots of guns, but she had only ever seen these kinds of things in movies.

  “Whoa.”

  She opened more of the cases. Some of the things she recognized—machine guns, magazines, another rocket launcher—but other things she didn’t. Some cylindrical things, palm-sized. Maybe hand grenades, but she saw no pins or clips. One of the rocket launchers came with an instruction manual, and she looked it over.

  Then she looked at another case, this one twice as big as the other coffins. On it was a weird label, mostly gobbledygook.

  NO. 818-A/1

  PROPERTY UNITED STATES MILITARY – OFFICE OF DARPA

  FEN #18497981552-003

  LRAD / GRANT

  The clasps on this one were a little tighter, but she couldn’t open it anyway because there was a huge lock on it. Not a combination lock, some kind of digital lock with a keypad. She left it alone and opened one of the smaller cases, and found another rocket launcher. She looked at it all, taking it all in.

  “Whoa. No shit?”

  “NO. SHIT.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It emanated from the walls and rang her ears. It was deep, thrumming. It vibrated everything, like when a car drove by blasted a rap song with too much bass. She felt it in her chest. The voice was masculine, but had also sounded like it was gurgling.

  Janet nearly dropped the candle. She backed out of the room, running back the way she came.

  “NO. SHIT.”

  The voice was right behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw it. A thing peeking at her through a hole in the air. An egg-shaped hole. Two blue eyes, glittering. And a hand, long and tenebrous, reaching out to her. Janet screamed and ran. The candleflame flickered, almost went out. She fought the urge to drop the candle and run. If she did that, she would be trapped down here forever. Down here with it.

  “NO. SHIT.”

  The voice followed her down every corridor. She made a wrong turn twice, got turned around for a second, then remembered to follow the signs. It sounded like something was moving behind her. Fast feet scuttling no rock floors. It might have only been her imagination but she didn’t think so.

  She no longer heard the voice. She heard only the sound of her own panting. She found the metal stairs going up. Gasping for breath, feeling herself go through a spike, she ran screaming for help. Up ahead, she saw Margery appear around a corner, waving her flashlight around. “Janet? Janet girl, what is it?”

  She flung herself at Margery’s waist, hugged her tight, and said, “Something’s in here! We have to get out!”

  III.

  The F-150 had juddered when cranked, which worried Wade at first because it hadn’t been started up in over two weeks. But once it got warmed up, the engine hummed and the steering responded just fine. Jeb had slid into the passenger seat awkwardly and the truck squeaked a little under their joined weight. But neither of them were quite as large as they were two w
eeks ago. Wade had noticed that. His own pants were a little looser, and Jeb’s belly didn’t protrude as much as it once did. They were all losing weight due to rationing and a supreme lack of Waffle House visits.

  “Can we swing by Walmart?” Jeb joked. “I need to pick up a few things.”

  Wade chuckled as he followed in behind Edward and Colt, driving the O’Hares’ blue Chevy. “Whassamatter, run out of Depends?”

  “Shit, if we keep eatin’ soup an’ beans I might need some. I’ve had the runs the past couple o’ days. I swear it’s from not eatin’ enough solids.”

  “Thanks for sharing, Jeb.”

  “I know how you like to keep well apprised of my bowels and their movements.”

  “They laughed and cut up as they followed Edward back through the hills from whence they came, then followed him as he took some dirt roads that splintered of from the main. They passed a large truck with a giant plastic container on the back and a pump and hose leading out from it. They stopped for a second to let Edward check it out. He reported that it looked like someone had abandoned a truckload of pesticides. Had to be a while, weeds were growing up around the tires.

  They got back on the move and crossed a field of tall grass and sludgy mud and sparse saplings.

  “Keep yer eye on the skies,” Wade said.

  “You know it, brother,” Jeb said. In his lap, he had his own Glock.

  Wade looked out across the field. “Hey, you remember Tom Gilmore’s field?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember all that land that butted up against it? We went out there that time…when was it? Winter of oh-two? Oh-three? Went huntin’ and nearly got fuckin’ lost.”

  “Nearly?”

  Wade laughed. “Okay, so, my compass skills weren’t what they are now. But this field kinda reminds me o’ that. Wonder whatever happened to ol’ Tom Gilmore.”

  “Married one o’ the Sadler girls.”

  “No shit! Which one?”

  “Debbie.”

  “Was Debbie the fat one or the not-so-fat one?”

  “She was…you know, I don’t remember.”

  They both kept glancing up at the sky, and kept talking because that’s how they kept their minds off the world coming to an end. They had been cooped up for weeks and wondering how all this was going to turn out, swapping stories by candlelight down in that cave, wondering if at any moment some creatures were going to come down in the darkness and eat them.

  “I remember Ricky Dalton tried to set me up with one o’ them Sadler girls,” Wade said.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was this before or after Linda died?”

  “After. Rick said he thought it’d be good for me, but Marshall said ‘No way Jose’ on account the girl had been known to go after men on the rebound or after their wives had died. So I tol’ Ricky, I said—”

  “Hold up, Wade. I think I see somethin’.” He turned in his seat, rolled down his window, and stuck his head out to look at something in the distance. “Honk the horn, get Edward to stop.”

  Wade’s focus became dead serious, and he touched his revolver at the same time he pumped the brake and honked. He looked up at the sky. No Face. He looked around the field but saw none of the roly-polies, and no tentacle-shaped swarms descended from the sky. Then he looked where Jeb was looking, at a wooded hill off to their right. Looked like two men coming out from behind a tree, one of them leaning on the other. Hard to tell, they were about a hundred yards out.

  When they got out, Edward came out with his automatic shotgun at low-ready position. Colt kept way behind him. Jeb had his Glock pointed right at the strangers. One of them was waving. As they got closer, the one waving looked like he had something large on his back. A guitar? No. A sword. And as they got even closer, they saw that the man leaning on the other guy had a on military fatigues. The pattern of the camo was MARPAT.

  “That one’s a Marine,” Wade said, hiking up his pants.

  Edward nodded, but didn’t relax his AA-12 and Wade knew why. Two weeks ago they had been shot at by the military, and someone on the ham radio had tried to trick them all into revealing their location. Ed was not a trusting fella, no sir. His dog had gotten out of the truck and moved forward to sniff at the two strangers walking up, but a hand signal from Ed brought Atlas to a halt.

  Wade walked a few steps out to meet them. “Hey there, friends. Help you?”

  “This one’s got a broken leg,” said the guy with a sword. He was tall. Tall, red-haired, and athletic in build, looked like he could both sprint and swing that sword like an ax. He had more than a week’s worth of stubble fast becoming a beard. Pale skin. And he was smiling. The son of a bitch was smiling like he’d just come across old friends.

  Wade looked at the Marine. He was covered in blood, but it didn’t look like his. There were no open wounds on him. He saw the Marine’s rank in all that blood. Staff Sergeant. “Sergeant, what’s yer name?” That part of his uniform was heavily covered in someone else’s blood.

  The sergeant looked up wearily. He looked exhausted, maybe dehydrated. Latino, bald, with an old scar under his left eye. No older than twenty-five. He must’ve enlisted early, Wade figured, and kept his foot on the gas throughout his career. “Lopez. First tanks.” Wade was pretty sure that meant 1st Tank Battalion.

  “Staff Sergeant Lopez,” Edward said, stepping forward, “where are you coming from, and what’s the situation?”

  “If you mean originally, I came from Fort Bragg. If you mean where was I when this happened,” he pointed at his shirt, “about twenty miles back over those hills. Got smashed by those rolling slugs. Everybody…everybody got eaten. By the slugs or by the swarm that came down afterward. Ate the grass, ate the flesh and meat right off everybody’s bones.”

  “How’d you survive?” Jeb asked.

  “I don’t know. Pure fucking luck, I guess. The swarms lifted back up into the air, and the slugs went rolling off into the woods. They did it at the exact same time, like it was planned.”

  Edward started to ask something else, but Wade cut him off when he asked the sword fella, “And you?”

  “Name’s Jake,” he said, beaming like a model on a catalogue magazine. “Jake Marler. I’m just out and about.”

  “Just out an’ about?” Jeb said, looking at the others. “The hell’s that mean?”

  “Means I was just headed this way looking for something when I came across the guy this morning. Found tanks, and a bloody mess. Lopez here ain’t lying, the whole regiment was wrecked. Or, platoon. Whatever.” He smiled again.

  To Wade, Jake looked like the kind of guy with a cushy desk job and who paid to go to the gym, and stuck to it. He also seemed strangely blasé and yet humored by everything else around him. And I thought Ed over there was a little eager about the end of the world, he thought. No one commented on the sword on the guy’s back, though Wade knew there had to be some story behind that. It was gigantic, the handle large enough for three fists to hold it.

  “Where you comin’ from, Jake?” asked Wade.

  “Polk County. Georgia. I was a nine-one-one operator up there when the shit hit the fan.”

  “You’re a long way from Polk.”

  “I started driving away as soon I saw things going south. But my tires got shot out by…well, by the military,” Jake laughed, looking over at the wounded man in his arms. “Life’s little ironies, eh?”

  “You said you were looking for something,” Edward said. “What’re you looking for way out here?”

  Jake Marler sighed. “Shelter. A little place called Silvid Valley. It’s supposed to be out here somewhere. Bunch o’ limestone caves the Army was using, bought it off some rich guy who tried to make money leasing space to end-of-the-world preppers.”

  They all exchanged looks.

  Jake caught it. “You boys wouldn’t happen to be from Silvid Valley, would you?”

  No one said anything.

  Then, Colt blurted out, �
��We are.”

  Edward flashed a look at Colt. It was quick, but Wade caught it. The man would guard their underground fortress jealously, and Wade could understand where he was coming from. The military was not on their side, and leading this Lopez there might not be in all their best interests.

  “Is there an infirmary there?” Jake asked. “Someplace we can get this man the medical attention he needs?”

  Wade looked at the two men, gauging their mien. The Marine seemed sincere. This Jake guy looked like a kook. That’s just how he saw him. Wade had dealt with one serial killer before—not a big famous one that made all the news outlets, but a guy who had killed on occasion. A college kid, studying to be a mortician. Killed his girlfriend and her best friend, and buried their bodies in cemeteries in freshly dug graves. Kind of a clever guy. Knew how the body worked, how to break the bones at each joint, make the body easier to stuff into a suitcase. When he killed his father and put his body into a freezer, a search warrant did him in. Wade was one of the detectives that took him in. He remembered the guy’s face. Smiling like it was all no big deal, just a misunderstanding that would get sorted out later. That’s how Jake Marler looked. Didn’t mean he was a serial killer, just meant the man didn’t process information the way others did. And maybe he was a sociopath, too.

  “What were you doing out here, Sergeant Lopez?” asked Edward.

  “My tank battalion…” He winced as he tried and failed to put any weight on his left leg. “My battalion came down to establish the perimeter, but we got recalled to Fort Bishop. Our new orders were to surveil the New Agent, and we were headed back there when the slugs and swarms got us—”

  Edward took a quick step forward. “What do you mean, New Ag—?”

  “Establish a perimeter fer what?” Jeb said.

  “To keep people from the affected zones from getting out.”

  “Why?”

  Lopez winced again, looked frustrated by this game. “Because the fucking brass think they might be infected!”