by Kelvin Teo
Humanity’s Bane
A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller
Kelvin Teo
Book Two of The Visitors
(Read Book One Here)
Also By Kelvin Teo
Dark Web: A Short Horror Story
After Sunset: Six Scary Short Stories
The Visitors Series
First Encounter
Available on Amazon
This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, events, organizations and incidents are either part of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2019 Kelvin Teo
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission by the author
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1
"Guys, where's Michelle?"
Randy's head snapped up as those words registered in his brain and he jumped to his feet.
"Easy there, big guy," said Ariel as she tried to get him to stay sitting. Ariel isn't the biggest woman in the place and her trying to control Randy, well, she would have had an easier time wrestling with a one ton bull.
Randy was on his feet and looking around the room he shared with his niece. He walked over and pulled the curtains aside to her private space.
She was not there.
"That son of a bitch," he said under his breath.
Mike turned to Dean and Steve and started giving them commands like they were his soldiers. And in their minds, they were.
"Dean, get to the gate and make sure it doesn't get opened for any reason. Let them know what's happened and that Simon and Calvin might try to get out. Steve, get to your room and get everything you need to go on a search and rescue mission. Bring Dean's stuff, too. We're going hunting as soon as both of you are back."
Dean and Steve took off, heading to carry out the orders they had been given.
I looked at Randy and asked, "Where would they go? Surely they're not stupid enough to go outside the gates."
"I don't know. I mean, there's nearly five miles of tunnels in these caverns and we're only using a tenth of that, so there are plenty of places for them to hide."
As the enormity of the task began to sink in, a horrifying thought came to mind.
"You still have the keys to the weapons vault, right?"
He patted his pants pocket and his face went white. I could feel the acid in my stomach begin to churn. Then he looked relieved.
"Sorry, I forgot," he said as he pointed to a peg stuck in the wall, around the corner from the door. A ring of keys hung from the peg. "Those things are heavy so I always hang them up when I come into the room."
He walked over and plucked the ring from the peg and looked through the keys.
"All here, Trev."
"Okay, so we're sure they can't get into the weapons vault, but that doesn't mean they can't get armed. If they were somewhat smart, they would have weapons stored in their rooms."
Mike said, "But, their rooms are around in the main tunnel and I'm sure if someone had seen them we'd know about it."
"That's true, but it doesn't hurt to check."
"The only other thing I can think of," said Randy, "is they may have a stash of weapons somewhere else in the tunnels. It wouldn't be hard to take a few weapons into the farthest parts of the tunnels and hide them away in those rooms."
About this time Dean and Steve came back and Mike told them to follow him. The first place they were going was to check the weapons vault and make sure it was still secure.
I told Ariel to take Randy back to the infirmary and stay there. Randy was about to argue the point, but he was still a bit wobbly on his feet and he knew he wouldn’t be of any use to anyone.
I left to follow Mike and the others and caught up with them about the time the got to the vault. They were looking the steel door over when I walked up.
"What’s up, guys? Is it still secure?"
Mike stepped aside and pointed. There were clear indications of someone trying to break into the vault, but the locks held.
"Let’s take a look inside real quick," I said. I wanted to make sure no one had been in there.
When the doors were unlocked and swung open, we walked in and could see it looked like it should. Nothing appeared to be missing.
"This doesn’t mean they aren’t armed," said Mike.
I looked at him and then at the other two.
"We need to proceed under the assumption they are armed and with more weaponry than we have. Let’s lock this place up and get started. We’re going to have to clear every single tunnel, one room at a time."
"It’s going to be a long day, boss," said Mike.
"Looks like it."
I armed myself with an AK-47 and a couple of loaded clips. Then I walked out of the vault, followed by the brothers.
"What are our rules of engagement?" asked Dean.
"Fire if fired upon, don’t worry about whether those two end up dead, but do everything in our power to make sure Michelle is rescued unharmed."
"Damn right!" said Steve.
I looked at him and Dean snickered.
"He kinda has the hots for Michelle."
Steve looked like he was turning five shades of red.
"You could do a lot worse, Steve."
He nodded and said, "Let’s go save her."
Mike came out of the vault with four pairs of night vision goggles and handed them out.
"Be careful with these. If we’re in a lighted tunnel, get them off your eyes or you will pay for it with pain and a temporary loss of vision."
He got the vault locked up and we headed for the main cross tunnel and looked into the distance. Twenty sets of two tunnels branching off from the main tunnel and each tunnel had close to one hundred rooms. Some were built with steel doors and some were just open to the tunnel.
"I’m going to guess they went deeper into the tunnels. They wouldn’t stay here in the first few tunnels were we are all located."
"That would be my guess, boss."
"So, when we reach the G tunnel, we cut the power. Put them in the dark."
"How many of the secured rooms do we think were locked and they can’t get into?"
Mike looked at me and said, "Maybe half. The rest, maybe ten percent had doors that were damaged and can’t close and the rest have no doors at all."
"So, we have about two thousand rooms, about half they probably can’t get into."
"Not necessarily," said Dean. "Unless the space was leased out to someone, those doors were generally left unlocked. No one took the time to go and close and secure all the rooms."
"Obviously, we don’t have all the keys for those rooms," I said.
"They were kept in a locker in Simon’s room."
"I think we should start the search in Simon’s room, then."
I started walking toward the two rooms closest to the dining room. The locks had been pried open on both of the rooms and the doors stood open. As we walked into Simon’s room, I could see most of the furnishings had been removed.
I didn’t feel bad for Simon and Calvin losing their things, but it did cause me some concern that these people would fall into looting so easily. I knew it was true that once the social structure fell apart, it would be every person for themselves. I was just hoping we could hold on a little longer.
I could see the locker near the back of the room and it looked untouched, but when I got closer I could see it was unlocked. Not a good sign.
Looking inside it was cl
ear most of the keys were there, but there were a couple of rings missing. There were rings with about twenty keys each, hanging from hooks labeled by tunnel and then by a range of room numbers. If Simon and Calvin had taken the missing rings in order to hide themselves in the tunnels, their plan was a losing plan from the beginning.
They had taken the keys for the rooms that were farthest from the gate and at the end of a dead end tunnel. Looking at the map taped inside the locker showed they had no place to go, if they did indeed go to these rooms. I couldn’t believe they were going to make it this easy to find them.
We were missing something.
Mike looked at me and said, "If they lock themselves into one of the rooms and we can’t open the door, there’s no telling what could happen."
"We need to catch them outside the room, then."
"We need to find them first," said Dean.
"Okay, let’s go. We’ll do a quick sweep of the tunnels going that way, but I’m thinking we’re going to find them in the last tunnel."
We left the room and I looked toward the gate. All four machine guns were manned by two people each and Mike was confident in their abilities. Even so, I felt a little apprehensive about going to the farthest reaches of the tunnels and leaving the gates in their hands.
I stepped into the infirmary and looked at Randy. Ariel was just finishing up with some stitches to his head.
"We’re heading into the tunnels to look for them. I need you to stay up here and watch over the gate and gun crews."
He nodded at me and said, "You got it. Bring her back safe."
"You know we will."
Moving to the main cross tunnel, we started with the B tunnel and checked it as fast as we could. It took us about four hours to clear tunnels B through S, leaving only the T tunnel. I was still having a hard time believing they were stupid enough to box themselves into this last tunnel.
Moving to the crossing of the T tunnel, we could hear some noise coming from the right and it sounded like some angry voices, one of which was Michelle’s and she did not sound happy.
Dean and Steve were ready to make an all-out assault on the tunnel, but Mike reigned them in.
"I will go first," he whispered. "You will follow and do it as quietly as you can. Trev, you bring up the rear."
He laid down on the ground near the corner and poked his head around trying to get a lay of the land. When he got back up, I did the same thing. Calvin and Michelle were about halfway down the tunnel. The tunnel was full of crates and boxes that would provide us with cover as we moved closer. As long as Calvin or Simon weren’t looking directly at us as we moved.
Only about a third of the lights were working in the tunnel, so it was pretty dark. Moving would be easier in the near dark.
Mike went around the corner and ducked in behind a set of boxes. After he moved up a couple more stacks, he signaled us to begin moving into the tunnel. We were being extremely quiet and had moved to within about fifty yards from Calvin and Michelle.
"What makes you think I would ever want to be with you?" I could hear Michelle snarl.
"Come on," said Calvin, "there aren’t that many guys my age in the tunnels and I would be good for you."
"Good for me! You killed my uncle!"
We were just about to make another move closer when Mike held up his fist, signaling us to stop. He wasn’t looking toward the two of them. He was looking down near his feet. He started moving his head and looking across the tunnel and then along the wall toward me.
Then I saw it. A thin, fish line glistened in the low light and it was stretched across the tunnel and then back along the wall. I looked along the wall and discovered, hidden under a pile of rubbish, a Claymore mine. I pointed to it and Mike nodded, but then mouthed, "Don’t move."
He looked around the corner of the boxes and then when he saw Calvin had his back to us, he moved backwards and got us all out of the tunnel.
"What are we going to do?" whispered Steve.
"Well, we’re not going to go charging down the tunnel, that’s for damn sure."
"Okay," I said, "we have one Claymore. Can we disarm it?"
"I don’t know how to tell you this, Trev, but there at least three mines in that tunnel. You were almost sitting on one. There was the one directly across the tunnel from you and there is one just forward of where I was. I’m pretty sure that’s all of them."
I poked my head around the corner and sure enough, there was a Claymore right where I had been crouched. A couple of inches backward and I would have set it off.
"We are going to use the mines to our advantage," he said.
He reached down and picked up a wad of discarded fish line and began untangling it. After a couple of minutes he had about twenty yards of clear fish line. He handed me his rifle and then low crawled around the corner and headed for the place he had stopped before.
I watched him from the corner as he crawled to the fish line that was strung from the forward mine. When he got there, he gently tied the line he had to the trip wire going to the mine and then began backing out. He stopped to move a crate and placed it near the trip wire for the other two mines. When he was finished, he moved back to us and the cover of the corner. He had the end of the line in his hand and I could tell what his intentions were.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked. "Michelle is down there."
"That’s true," he said, "but the mines are angled this way, so the most she’s going to get is some ringing in the ears.
He looked at the others and whispered, "Alright guys, there will be three explosions. Do not go around this corner until they are finished."
Everyone nodded they understood and watched as he tightened his grip on the line in his hand. He gave a quick three count and then pulled on the line.
The first explosion was deafening and was quickly followed by two more. Above the sound of the explosions we could hear the ball bearings slamming into the walls and shooting down the tunnel past us. The smell of the blown C-4 assaulted our noses and we could taste it in the air.
As soon as the third explosion hit and the ball bearings finished wreaking havoc through the air, Mike moved around the corner with his weapon raised, ready to fire if needed.
The three of us followed him and had a bit of trouble seeing through the haze of smoke left by the mines. I could barely see Mike in front of me and saw he was staying to the far side of the tunnel. The brothers and I chose sides and stayed out of the middle. If Calvin started firing, he would probably shoot down the middle and we wanted to be out of his firing line.
The lights had been blown out by the blasts and I pulled my night vision goggles down to see if it would help. It helped a little. Mike became clearer in my field of vision and I could see the laser from his sight projecting into the smoke.
"Get off me, you pig!"
From the sound of it, Michelle was not having any of whatever Calvin was selling. Having only known her for a few days, I began to wonder how Calvin thought he would ever tame her.
We moved through the smoke and the scene began to clear in front of us. I saw Calvin and Michelle standing near an open door. I could tell he was feeling the effects of the blasts and was having a hard time focusing his thoughts. She kept trying to pull away from him, but he had a firm grip with an arm around her shoulders from behind.
That was the Calvin I knew. He was using her as a shield.
Mike had stopped and had put the red dot from his laser sight right between Calvin's eyes, but he was hesitant to pull the trigger because she was so close.
"Let her go, Calvin!"
"And if I don't?" he yelled.
"Then I'll drop you like a cow in a slaughterhouse," said Mike.
I moved out from behind Mike and could see Calvin had a pistol pressed against Michelle's temple.
"I think you need to turn around and head back the way you came," said Calvin. "This will be our little area of the tunnels."
"Turn Michelle loose," said Mike.
"It should be her choice whether she wants to stay here or not."
"Me, stay with this jackass? Not hardly!"
I wanted to shake my head. She wasn't making it easy to save her. If she kept talking, Calvin might shoot her just to shut her up.
Then she did something no one was expecting. Not even Mike. She just dropped. Calvin wasn’t expecting it and she fell right out of his hands and he went to point his gun at her.
He never got the chance.
The sound of Mike’s rifle roaring to life in the enclosed tunnel was enough to knock out the ear drums of anyone around.
Calvin didn’t have time to register the sound of the weapon. His head snapped back and he fell backwards to the ground.
"No!"
Simon came running out of the room with a pistol in his own hand and when he saw his son laying dead on the ground, he swung around and brought his hand up. Dean wasted no time in shooting him.
Unlike Mike, Dean didn’t aim for the head. His shot hit Simon in the shoulder, spinning him around and up against the wall. The pistol clattered to the ground as he slid down the wall.
Mike moved toward Simon and kicked the pistol away from him, keeping his rifle trained on him the whole time.
The sound of the explosions and the gunfire brought Ariel and Randy running from the A tunnel. When they came around the corner and into the tunnel, Michelle saw the big guy and just about fell over. She jumped up and ran to Randy, who put his arm around her. She had no words to describe seeing him there, thinking Calvin had killed him.
Ariel had her medical bag over her shoulder and when she came through the smoke, she saw Simon sitting on the ground.
"Back off, Mike," she said.
When he moved back, she knelt down in front of Simon and began working to stop the bleeding from the wound in his shoulder.
"He killed my son," cried Simon. "He killed my Calvin."
Ariel knew enough to keep her mouth shut. She just kept working on the wound, which appeared to be a clean exit wound and didn’t hit anything vital. Simon was going to live.
