Life had changed drastically and for the worse in such a short span of time. That happy go lucky woman, holding her teenage son, was gone.
Would she ever return?
After finishing the work, I decided to turn in. It wasn’t late and almost everyone was still awake. I was hungry, and decided to go for a snack. A fresh sheet of paper was on the cupboards. Even though Melissa felt we didn’t need to track what we used in the kitchen, Nelly did. So out of courtesy, I marked down that granola bar, then opened the cupboard to retrieve it.
It struck me as odd because Skyler had written down that he stocked ten boxes of bars when clearly he did not. I wasn’t going to fuss about it. I’d make my adjustments in the morning, yet I noted it on the checklist.
I read from a history book in my room until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. That was how I wanted it. To fall asleep without taking a chance of tossing and turning with thoughts of Jackson and Gil.
I woke at the rooster crow of the alarm, and as I did, I felt a tickle to my nose.
Believing some bug made it into the bunker and was crawling on me, I jumped up to discover the reason. The wayward long dark hair danced across my pillow.
Joie was sleeping in my bed and her hair was the nose tickle culprit.
I wasn’t going to wake her, but she rolled over.
“Hey,” I said. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“You’re sleeping in my bed.”
“Daddy put me in here. He said you wouldn’t mind. He had an emergency.”
“Daddy had an emergency?” I sprang up.
“Are you mad I am in bed? He didn’t want me along.”
“No, that’s fine. I’m not mad at all. It was nice. When Jack… Jackson was a little boy, he’d always slip in bed with me.” Hearing my own words made me stop. The reality slap hit me. It was a daily occurrence when I woke up. A chest punch of pain that reminded me every day my son was gone. I pulled myself together and slipped from bed. “How long has daddy been gone?”
“The window picture was dark.”
That told me he was gone long enough for his daughter to fall back to sleep. I got dressed and asked Joie if she wanted to go to the ladies room with me. She did.
I figured I would freshen up, then get coffee and find Tony. I didn’t know whether to be concerned or pissed about the fact that he didn’t wake me.
On our return trip back to my room, I spotted Tony opening my door. I called for him and hurried his way.
He handed me a cup of coffee and lifted Joie.
“Oh, wow.” I looked at the cup. “You brought me caffeine. What’s up?”
He motioned his head to my room and we stepped inside. After setting Joie down, he told her, “Hey sweetie, why don’t you go get some clothes and get out of your pajamas? Daddy needs to speak to Anna.”
Once Joie made her way through the adjoining door, I asked Tony. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Honestly, you were sleeping and there was nothing you could do.”
Tony released a soft growl as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Hating to say so, but I think I was right.”
“You never hate saying you’re right. What’s going on?”
“During our little campfire pow-wow, one of our fire hall disappeared into the darkness.”
My mind immediately went in a different direction. “Oh my God. You were worried about that happening. Tell me it wasn’t a child or one of the women.”
“No, Anna, they didn’t get lost in the dark, they slipped into the dark. Snatched up a flashlight from the bay, and we don’t know what else. They took off unnoticed.”
“Who?”
“Our bad boy Lenny.”
I suddenly felt tense and angry with myself. My insides twisted and turned. Tony was right, he called it all along. One of them would leave. He said it and I refused to believe it. “Do you think they went to get others?”
“Yeah, we are the only means they will have to beat this cold front.”
“Maybe he just wants to get them help,” I suggested.
“At some point you need to stop looking for the good. This survival shit isn’t the time to search for the good in humanity. Not now.”
“That’s not fair,” I defended.
“I’m sorry. But if he was worried about the others at the fire hall, why not ask for our help? He didn’t. He took from us and slipped away. This isn’t good.”
“So you think they’re coming here.”
“Without a doubt. It’s not a matter of if, but rather, when. And in my opinion, knowing the impending weather.” Tony exhaled slowly from his mouth. “We’re looking at soon. Real soon.”
32 – STALLED
I felt bad for Joie. She didn’t ask to be bounced around like a ping pong ball. Yet it seemed as if life wasn’t much different for her. I had learned that the entire month that Tony pretended to date me in Texas, he had flown back and forth to see her. Joie stayed with a relative while Daddy worked out of town.
Now ‘Daddy’ seemed to be working again and the child was getting bounced around from person to person in the shelter. From Nelly to Spencer to Melissa.
Even to me. I didn’t mind. They always said it takes a village to raise a child. We were the new village in a pretty bad world.
After Tony briefed me on what he knew, he went back out again to look for more information. He called for a switch room meeting at ten. What about Joie?
I asked Nelly if she minded taking Joie while we had our meeting and she didn’t mind. She told me that Joie and the fire hall boy and girl were working on collages of life before the comet. Plus, she was fast falling in love with Joie.
I didn’t blame her.
After I had my coffee, I began to process everything a little better and my mind wandered in my ‘see the good in people’ way.
At the meeting was Tony, Peter, Tom, Abe and myself.
Not that we were the ‘big wigs’, but the office was small and Tony had acquired all the information he needed.
We finished watching some of the interior security footage. In it, Lenny walked round very blasé. Because our bunker was so big, no one saw him walking around with the backpack. The footage didn’t capture him doing everything, which made me suspicious. It did however catch him climbing up the hatch shaft with the black bag and returning without it. He also walked right by the switch office at the same time as Tony and I were there.
He walked right by us and we never knew.
“So,” Tony said. “According to Skyler, everything he took was taken from general consumption. He didn’t touch storage. Only unsecured areas. When we checked the hatch this morning, it was locked.”
I asked. “So he secured the hatch?”
“Looks that way,” Tony said.
Peter questioned. “Do we know what all he took?”
Tony, like some sort of detective, whipped out a little notebook. “Two flashlights from the bay. The remaining boxes of matches that were there. Three cartons of granola and one case of five ounce water packets. He left the boxes. He also took two large beef packs of jerky and a case of twelve vials of morphine.” He closed the notebook and snapped his fingers. “Oh, and the ‘you are here’ map down near the generator areas.
Tom mumbled. “And we know why he took that.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Obviously, to get back in.” Tom said.
“What if it was just to find his way around topside in the dark?”
“Anna, please.” Tony said.
“Please, what? I am just throwing out suggestions. Isn’t that why we’re here?”
Tony exhaled and stared at me for a moment. “Yes. But realistic suggestions. I think one man on foot made it those four miles pretty quickly. He had two spotlights and if he was familiar with the area, he knew the way. My guess is they are coming before the weather gets uninhabitable topside. Pete, when will that be?”