“They’ve moved,” I said.
We stood in silence for a moment. I strained my ears to hear anything that might be coming. There was nothing.
“Maybe we should get out of here while we can, with those three roaming around,” Anna said. “And there might be more coming for all we know. Didn’t you say hundreds of people lived here?”
“Open up the outside door and close the inner,” I said. “We can always come back in later. Maybe come in through the motor pool this time.”
Anna tapped the screen a few times, frowning. “It won’t.”
“Won’t open?”
“Says ‘critical power failure’. It won’t shut.”
“What?” I asked. “It was just working a minute ago!”
“Hold on.” A new menu popped up, prompting Anna to switch to auxiliary power. She pressed ‘yes’.”
If this didn’t work…
The computer thought for a moment. It was taking way too long…
It shut completely off. The only light now came from my flashlight.
“What the…” I said.
Behind came the sound of something shuffling toward us from the bottom of the tunnel. I shined my flashlight down and nearly dropped it at what I saw.
What my light fell upon was a young woman probably in her early twenties. She gazed at us with pale blue eyes. Her blonde hair hung thick and tangled around her face, greasy and unwashed. She was thin and carried a long metal pole with a hook at its end. Some purple gunk had crusted on the hook. She merely stared, her haunting eyes sending chills down my spine.
She wasn’t one of them; I could see that much. Still, the way she was standing there, staring, not saying anything…
I realized that we weren’t saying anything, either. Maybe she was freaked out by us. She was obviously someone who had lived here, who had survived, only…
…I had no idea who she was.
Anna held her blade before her. I took a step forward, but Anna placed a hand on my shoulder, not allowing me to go any further.
I was trying to recognize this woman’s face — but either time, the darkness, or something else made recognition difficult.
“You don’t remember me, Alex?”
The voice was soft, somewhat raspy. Little-used. Coldness crept over me at the mention of my name.
The woman took a few steps forward.
“Slowly,” Anna said.
The woman paused, as if noticing Anna’s weapon for the first time. She knelt and gently laid her pole and hook on the ground, never breaking eye contact with Anna. Then, she crawled forward on her hands and knees. Just seeing her do that made me cringe for some reason.
“Look, you don’t have to…” I said.
“That’s close enough,” Anna said.
The woman stopped. Anna took a step forward, still about fifteen feet distant from the woman.
“Now, stand.”
Slowly, the woman stood. In the light of my flashlight, I could finally see her face. I recognized her now, and it was hard not to gasp. Her name was Ruth Massey. Her blue eyes, once so full of life, were now dull, pained, haunted. Blood and slime matted her hair, dirt stained her face, and hunger had hollowed her cheeks. There was a savage, dangerous intensity to those eyes that was nothing like the woman I remembered. She had been married to an Officer and had worked in storage. I didn’t think she’d had a kid. I hoped for her sake that she hadn’t.
And even after all of these thoughts passed through my mind, I still wasn’t entirely sure that it was her.
“Ruth?” I asked.
Slowly, she nodded. She did not speak; it was if she had forgotten what speech was. I didn’t think three months was long enough to do that. But if she survived here for three months, there was no telling what that could do to a person — especially someone who had been so gentle and kind before.
“Are you the only one left?”
She looked up at me with those haunting eyes, windows into a pain that went beyond anything I could ever imagine.
“The only one.”
Chapter 3
Ruth retreated, grabbing her pole once more. Anna’s grip tightened on her katana, but Ruth merely turned.
“Come on,” Ruth said. “You woke the whole Bunker up and we’ll all be dead if we don’t make it back in time.”
“Back?” I asked.
Ruth didn’t answer. She walked away into the darkness. Before I could follow her, Anna grabbed my shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Ruth is alright,” I said. “I know her.”
“You sure?”
From somewhere in the Bunker, I heard the distant yowl of a Howler. Two more Howlers took up the first one’s cry.
“Not like we have a choice, anyway,” I said.
“Come on!” Ruth called from ahead, insistent.
Anna and I ran after Ruth. More howls pierced the air. When we caught up, Ruth led us down the rest of the rock tunnel with surprising boldness, using her pole and hook as a walking stick. Her pace was brisk, but not a jog or all-out run. I wondered why she was taking her time about it.
“When it’s dark,” Ruth explained in a whisper, “they are most attracted to movement. They see well enough in the light so it does you no good to sit still. But when it’s dark, you have to give them a little help before they charge after you.”
As we entered Bunker 108’s atrium, Ruth extended her pole, pointing it outward. Feet shuffled toward us about thirty feet distant. Still, Ruth did not run. Instead she walked to the security door that led downward toward the Hydroponics. It was the same door Khloe, her parents, and I had taken during our escape. That door, normally locked, opened when Ruth pulled on it.
At this sudden movement, a few high shrieks sounded.
“Inside,” she said. “Hurry!”
As more inhuman yips came from the darkness behind, Anna and I rushed inside. Quickly, Ruth followed us and slammed the door shut. She reached toward the corner and lifted a metal bar, which she placed across the handle. Bare feet rushed into the atrium on the other side of the door. Several bodies slammed into the metal door, but it held in place with the bar.
“Too close,” I said.
Ruth nodded. “The story of my life, since that day.”
I saw that Ruth carried no light of her own. I didn’t know if she actually had one, or if she had chosen to make her way around in the dark without one. She must have known Bunker 108 better than anyone. I suppressed a shudder as I pointed my light toward the stairwell ahead, pushing back the darkness.
“Turn that off,” Ruth said. “They’ll see it.”
I snapped the light off, leaving us in pitch blackness.
“Slowly, carefully,” she said. “Put your hand on the rail. When you get to the bottom, follow the wall all the way to the end. You’ll see the light.”
Her voice was so quiet that I could barely hear. We followed her, spiraling down the stairway as more inhuman yowls sounded from the atrium.
“Usually you can make your way around the Bunker if it’s dark enough,” Ruth said. “And if you are slow and patient enough. Not that I try anymore. I have everything I need in Hydroponics. Everything.”
Neither Anna nor I responded. I saw nothing in front of me, and could only hear the breaths and steps of Ruth and Anna ahead. Of all the people to have survived the xenoviral infestation, I would have picked Ruth last. We weren’t close or anything, but I knew her well enough to know here as bubbly, happy, and innocent. I saw none of that, now. Like the rest of us citizens, she could fire and fight as well as anyone. All that latent training must have kicked into gear as soon as the Bunker fell.