The Collapse

by E S Richards

  In amongst all the gaps on the walls, the rare ones found between old food, weapons or hunting tools, scraps of newspaper sat faded and yellowing. Each one seemed to report on some terrorist attack or natural disaster; details of armed forces or emergency aid being deployed and documented.

  Yards of rope hung from the ceiling, looping around metal poles that acted like a support against what Len realized was a handmade roof. He was merely staring up at the ground above his head, several roots hanging down confirming his suspicion. Was this entire structure manmade? Surely the old man—Harrison—hadn’t constructed it himself?

  It was clear to Len what he was now and why he seemed so mysterious and aloof about everything that was happening to the rest of Chicago. This man was a prepper; one of the people often regarded as crazy in the outside world, but merely because they are ready for any eventuality. Harrison was prepared for this mass ejection; he was probably hidden away from the moment the first radio report came through, locked in his underground hideout where he could stay for what looked like months.

  “Wow,” Len exhaled under his breath, realizing he had answered his own question with his observations. “Did you make this?”

  “Every last bit,” Harrison grinned, clearly proud of what he had accomplished. “By my calculations I could last almost a year in here, providing I ration correctly.”

  “That’s incredible…” Len paused, processing what Harrison was saying. “But then… why did you bring me here?”

  Harrison puffed out his chest slightly, clearly very proud of what he had achieved although Len could see the grin on his face fading at Len’s question. He guessed he was probably the first other person to ever make it into Harrison's bunker as well, the old man not exactly the most sociable neighbor. Although Len realized he probably hadn’t been either.

  “Thank you,” Harrison paused debating whether to answer Len’s question. He was slightly embarrassed by the real reason, his whole life designed to make him prepared for an event like this and then yet, he’d risked all his secrets to save his neighbor.

  His one weakness lay in the fact that Harrison was a father. For Len however, that appeared to be his greatest strength. As Harrison had dragged Len down to his bunker he had mumbled words about needing to save his son, his mind hazy from the smoke inhalation causing Len to hallucinate somehow. Harrison had heard, though, and was struck by how much of a determined father Len seemed to be, despite his clear stupidity and unpreparedness.

  ***

  “James! James, where are you?”

  Harrison struggled to drag the man away from the flames, his body writhing about on the floor and crying out for his son. A small wooden box was clutched tightly in his hands, his knuckles blanching from the pressure of holding onto it.

  “James! I’m coming James!”

  Sweat dripped down Harrison’s brow as he dragged Len along the ground and out of the reach of the flames. The foundations of his house were already starting the crumble; the air filled with groans and creaks of old supports giving way under the heat of the fire.

  The sound of Len crashing through glass had piqued Harrison’s attention while he was outside in his own garden; the deluded cries about the man’s son had kept it. Even on the brink of unconsciousness Harrison could hear the desperation in Len’s voice. The sheer need to find his son, even though Harrison had checked and was sure no one else had been inside the house.

  “James…”

  Len shuddered as Harrison let go of his arms, leaving the man on the ground while he pulled an old tarp off a neighbor’s wheelbarrow. He continued to mumble under his breath as Harrison pulled him further down the road, toward the direction of his own home.

  He couldn’t believe how reckless Len had been, running into a burning home for an old wooden box. Harrison could tell it clearly meant the world to him, what the contents were he could only speculate about, but from Len’s ramblings about his son he could hazard a guess. Some memories were too precious to leave behind.

  ***

  Harrison was immediately reminded of his own daughter. She would be grown up now and would maybe even have children of her own. Not that he would know. He hadn’t spoken to her in many, many years—without a doubt Harrison’s biggest regret.

  That was the real reason Harrison had brought Len down to his bunker. He’d obviously handcuffed him to keep the both of them safe; Harrison had a lot of weapons in his bunker and he didn’t need a panicked father setting them off. But he had brought him there because for once, Harrison thought he could possibly learn from someone else. He thought he could somehow find a way to live, rather than just survive.

  Shaking his head, though, Harrison couldn’t bring himself to reveal that to Len. He ultimately knew he was still in the position of power and should get as many answers from Len while he could.

  “I’m sorry for handcuffing you,” Harrison spoke slowly, “but I’m sure you understand precautions must be taken.” He pointed to the wall of weapons in the bunker, each one perhaps more deadly than the next. “Tell me about yourself Len. What’s your plan? Don’t exactly have a home to go back to anymore now do you.”

  Len winced on the camper bed, looking around the room once more. “I’m going to Michigan,” he spoke firmly, refusing to let any doubt seep into his words.

  Harrison let out a loud laugh from where he sat, slapping his palm on the desk in front of him several times.

  “I respect your boldness, but how exactly do you expect to get there? And why? Forgive me for being crude but no more than a few hours ago I witnessed you running into a burning house to rescue an old box. Not exactly the most responsible way to survive, is it?”

  “Perhaps not,” Len shook his head in a slight display of shame, “but that’s where my family is. I can’t stay here without knowing they’re okay.”

  “Amy and James?” Harrison questioned, his expression softening. He had suspected as much from Len’s smoke-induced mumbling, but it was something else to hear it come from Len in his right mind.

  “Yeah,” Len’s voice grew soft, “I need to find them.”

  “Well,” Harrison cleared his throat, “along with your boldness, that’s another thing I can respect about you, Len. But my question still stands, how do you expect to get there?”

  “I’ll walk if I have to,” Len shrugged, “they’re in South Haven, so it’d be easier if I could get a boat and cross Lake Michigan, but I don’t really care how I get there. Just so long as I do.”

  Harrison stared at Len for a moment, taking in the man and slowly allowing his opinion of him to change. Where previously he’d seen a man who didn’t know the value of his own life, now he saw a survivor. Someone who was willing to risk everything he had to save those he loved. Harrison fell silent. He knew all about that. He also knew the consequences of not risking enough.

  “It could take weeks to get there,” Harrison contemplated out loud.

  “I don’t care,” Len felt more confident than ever in his words, “I’m going.”

  “Well then,” Harrison finally pushed himself up from his seat, revealing the old satellite radio he’d been tinkering with at his desk. He started walking toward the camper bed, withdrawing a set of keys from his pants pocket. “I’m coming with you.”

  South Haven was one step closer to Canada and suddenly Harrison couldn’t resist the chance to go. He had hoped—when he’d dragged Len to his bunker—that he was referring to the South Haven in Michigan and now that had been confirmed. As much as Harrison valued his safety, his bunker and everything he’d worked for years to achieve, there was something in Canada he instantly realized he valued more. His daughter.

  Len stared at the old man, his mouth slightly hanging open at the suggestion. He didn’t know Harrison at all, save for the brief time they had just spent together in his bunker. Why the old man wanted to come with Len on his journey when he had possibly the safest home in all of Chicago exactly where he stood was beyond him.

  But
as Len rubbed his wrist, finally free of the metal from the handcuffs he couldn’t deny how much of a valuable asset Harrison would be. Not only in the wealth of supplies he had packed down in his bunker, but also in the wealth of knowledge Len imagined he had stored in his head. The newspaper cut outs were evidence enough; this man had studied his whole life for an eventuality like this. Why waste all that knowledge sitting underground in a bunker?

  It was a risky decision, Len knew Harrison could be crazy, or dangerous or a liability on his journey, but something told him to trust the man. He needed to get to South Haven and Harrison could just be the answer to getting him there quicker.

  “Okay,” Len nodded after his moment’s deliberation. “We better get moving.”

  Chapter 17

  “Call the head office, we need to get this power back on now!”

  Georgia pulled on the zipper of her jacket, wrapping the thick fur lining closer to her body. The heating had only been off for a couple of minutes but in the unforgiving arctic climate even seconds without heating made it harder to breathe in the research facility.

  It was the very early hours of Saturday morning, which meant RF2 was on skeleton staff, almost all of the other researchers retiring to the main facility to relax for a couple of days. Georgia and Matt were the only two left behind to monitor the research over the weekend, both woken up by the feeling of cold air permeating their bones.

  The stem cells they were growing needed a certain temperature to maintain the growth process and Georgia knew they wouldn’t last more than ten minutes without the proper care. Her first thought was always with the research, she had given up so much to be a part of this team. The opportunity to potentially find a cure to Alzheimer’s had become her sole focus after both of her parents had been taken from her.

  It was a cruel disease and one that Georgia was willing to do anything to try and stop. If she could save one family from the fate she’d had to endure that would count as a successful career to her. Ultimately that was why she’d applied for the research expedition to Antarctica, leaving her comfortable home in Buenos Aires behind in exchange for six years in one of the coldest places on Earth.

  She knew sometimes it made her come across to her fellow scientists as rude and short-tempered, but it was only because she’d had to watch both her parents gradually forget about her that she felt so passionate about finding a cure. It was impossible to describe the pain of being forgotten, of looking into someone’s eyes and knowing they didn’t recognize you. For it to happen once in a lifetime was bad enough, but Georgia had lost first her mother and then her father only two years later to the disease. If she didn’t have her research she would have very little left to cling onto.

  “I can’t get through,” Matt’s teeth chattered together as he spoke, the temperature in the research lab slowly dropping. It was already below zero and pretty soon the reinforced walls wouldn’t be able to keep out the blistering cold and blowing gales from outside.

  “What?” Georgia heard Matt clearly, nothing but silence in the lab aside from their voices, but still she couldn’t believe him. “Try again!”

  “There’s no signal,” Matt shook his head as he put the phone back down, “all the power’s gone out.”

  “The power can’t just go out!” Georgia’s voice steadily started to rise both in panic and anger. “There’s millions of dollars of research in here, we’re already on the clock for how much longer it can survive without power.”

  “Try if you want,” Matt picked the phone up again and held it out to Georgia, “I need to get another jacket.”

  Georgia barely waited for Matt to finish speaking before she had the phone in her hand. It was only designed to connect to the other buildings on the base, but it was still specially made to function in the extreme weather and there was no way it could just fail like that.

  But as she held the receiver to her ear and jabbed at the numbers on the base she was just greeted with more silence. Matt was right, the phone wasn’t working and neither was the heating. It looked like all the power had failed in RF2 and the reality of that was something Georgia didn’t even want to consider.

  “The main facility will pick up the power failure,” Georgia spoke quietly, trying to reassure herself. “It can’t be out for long.”

  “I don’t know, look at this, George.”

  Matt was staring out of a window, reinforced glass that was several inches thick to keep out the cold. Georgia moved to his side and looked out over the rest of Orcadas Base. Not a single light was on over the entire of the base, only the thousands of stars in the sky above illuminating the few buildings that formed the Argentine research facility.

  “I think the whole base has failed.”

  Georgia let Matt’s words wash over her, sinking into every pore with the reality of what he was saying. If the whole base had lost power then that was beyond bad. Not only would the stem cells gradually die and all their years of hard work would be lost, but they wouldn’t be able to get out of RF2. The airlock doors wouldn’t function without power, designed and built with reinforced metal to protect everyone and everything inside from the harsh weather of the Antarctic. That meant they wouldn’t be able to try to manually restart the power cells and they wouldn’t be able to get the heating going again.

  “We’ll be stuck in here,” Georgia murmured, barely whispering the words out loud.

  Matt turned his head slowly to look at his companion. He and Georgia didn’t really get along, or at least they certainly wouldn’t if they both lived anywhere else. She was short tempered and cared more about the research than anyone she worked with; sometimes it was a quality that Matt admired, but more often than not it just made her difficult to communicate with.

  Working in such a hostile environment, though, Matt was forced to interact with her on a daily basis and that meant he let her behavior slide more often than not. The work was time consuming and exhausting, but like everyone else on the base they had willingly signed up to it and couldn’t leave just because of a small colleague disagreement.

  “They’ll get it back on.” Matt spoke confidently, refusing to believe that the whole base would be in the same situation as them. “The base is built for incidents like this George, it might take a little longer than it should but there’s no way the power just won’t come back on.”

  “We need to monitor the cells,” Georgia replied with a shiver, “do everything we can to keep them functioning until then.”

  Matt nodded, following Georgia over to the right of the lab where their research was. Tiny stem cells were steadily maturing, found in the coldest part of Antarctica, which had allowed them to mutate into something that could possibly cure Alzheimer’s. Matt didn’t have the same familial connection with the research that he knew Georgia had, but he still cared greatly about what they were trying to achieve. If they could somehow figure out a way to cure this disease then not only would millions of lives be saved, but also those who made it happen would go down in history. His research would be up there with the likes of the discovery of penicillin and the eradication of small pox.

  “Oh no… they’re already failing!”

  Georgia’s cry was laced with concern, her figure hunched over a microscope and desperately trying to remain in place despite the shivers that constantly shook her body.

  “The regeneration process is slowing down,” Georgia continued to speak, never pulling her face away from the microscope. “The growth hormones are splitting away from the nucleus of the cells; they can’t function in this temperature. Try that phone again!”

  Matt moved over to the phone as instructed, rubbing his hands together to try to keep his fingers from seizing up in the cold. From seeing the rest of the base still in darkness he knew the phone wouldn’t be working. The power was still out and slowly the thought started to creep into Matt’s head that it wouldn’t be coming back on again any time soon.

  “Nothing,” Matt swore under this breath. “How long do we ha
ve?”

  “Minutes,” Georgia’s defeated voice carried from the other side of the lab, her eyes glued to the stem cells as she watched years of research falling apart in front of her. “The regeneration has slowed way down, the movement is sluggish and the culture is starting to freeze. Matt,” Georgia finally sat up and looked away from the microscope, “we can’t lose this.”

  Matt moved back through the lab and positioned himself above another microscope. Pulling the collar of his jacket further up around his neck to protect from the cold he leaned down and pressed his forehead against the cold metal headrest of the microscope. He took a moment to focus the lens, making sure what he was seeing was correct.