Darkness (3 page)

“We could proceed just partway in,” Anna said. “There’s no way we can find out anything standing here.”

That much was true. And it seemed a huge waste to fly all the way down here just to turn back. Why would Makara send us if she didn’t plan on...

“Go ahead and proceed with the recon,” Makara said.
“Odin
should be there late afternoon after it drops the last of the food. That gives you guys six hours to find out what you can. And if anything jumps out at you...run away. Don’t fight. Run to that creature and get in the air first thing.”

“Copy that. I’m turning the radio off, but we’ll update you soon. Over and out.”

I clicked the radio off and clipped it to my belt. I set my pack on the ground, fumbling in its largest pocket for my flashlight. I withdrew it and clicked it on, pointing it into the dark Bunker with my left hand. I threw on my pack once more, drawing my Beretta from its holster with my right, all the while pointing the flashlight into the empty rock tunnel. Anna unsheathed her katana, a metallic ring sounding in the cold air.

“Alright,” I said. “Ready?”

Anna shrugged. “As much as I’ll ever be.”

It was the best either of us was going to get. I walked toward the dark entrance and crossed the threshold.

***

The darkness deepened as we left the open entrance behind. It warmed somewhat out of the wind. I almost wanted to close the door for the sake of warmth, but I knew that this was a bad idea. It was dark enough in here and I didn’t want to compound the problem.

The rock tunnel sloped away from the entrance. Being inside brought on a surreal feeling. On one hand, it felt like coming home – after stripping it of everything that felt like home and replacing it with something hostile and dark. Bunker 108 would be completely empty of human life by now, and filled with something...else.

I didn’t pause in my advance down the tunnel, even when I
knew
what my first sight would be. Khloe’s parents would be somewhere up ahead, lying dead in the darkness, ripped and torn and likely still rotting from their deaths three months ago

Or, at least, I thought they would be. I scanned my flashlight beam down the tunnel, finding absolutely nothing. It was as if the tunnel had been cleared by someone – or
something.
Even the remains of Chan’s ruptured corpse were absent.

“There should be bodies here,” I said softly. “Chan. Khloe’s parents. They’re all gone, now.”

“Where do you think they went?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. “I have no idea.”

We reached the end of the tunnel and stopped before the inner vault door. Why or how
that
was closed, I had, again, no idea. Khloe and I had left it open. Maybe we weren’t the last ones out. I didn’t think Howlers were intelligent enough to close a door. A person had to have done it. Could someone have survived the infection and come out of hiding, escaping the Bunker days after it had been first infected? They would have closed the inner door, and perhaps left the outer one open in their panic to escape.

There was no way we could speculate from this position. We would have to go further into the Bunker.

“What now?” Anna whispered.

I cautiously stepped forward, pressing my ear against the cold metal. I heard nothing but my own pulse thrumming in my ear. I waited a moment longer. Silence.

“Should we go in?” Anna asked.

This was the only way in available, not counting the motor pool entrance. The latch was just inches from my hand. But I made no move to open it. It could lead to both of our deaths just an instant later if something was waiting on the other side.

But that wasn’t all.
Something
about this place wasn’t adding up. I had expected bodies. I had expected Howlers. But so far, none of these things had appeared. We would know nothing for sure until we opened this door. And I wasn’t sure if we should do even that. So far, there had been no bodies, no threats. For all we knew, Bunker 108 really
was
safe.

My own intuition, however, said the opposite. If only there were some way to see inside without risking ourselves...

“What’s that?” Anna asked.

She was pointing back toward the entrance. Sitting to the side of the door was a computer station. It was what the guards used to watch outside the Bunker. Maybe it was also connected to the rest of Bunker 108’s security network. If so, we might even be able to see
inside
the Bunker.

“We could see if it still works,” I said. “The power probably went off months ago.”

Then again, I thought of Bunker One and how one of its fusion reactors still ran twelve years after the Bunker had gone offline. As long as there was water for fuel and no kinks in the machinery, I knew the power could run for a long time. The U.S. had planned for these things to run for decades, if not centuries.

We walked back to the front of the tunnel, the natural light of the open door lighting the way. Anna stood in front of the computer station. She hit the “Enter” key. To my surprise, the screen came out of hibernation, flashing blue. A keyboard appeared on the touchscreen along with several buttons, listing, “Camera 1,” “Camera 2,” all the way up to “Camera 6.” After all of these months, Bunker 108’s security system
was
online. Maybe even the doors had power, along with the lights. Maybe we could get the entire Bunker running again.

But first, we had to make sure it was safe. And that meant looking at the cameras.

Anna touched the “Camera 1” tab. It showed the view directly in front of the Bunker door. It was a bit weird, because the way the camera was pointing showed us standing in front of the computer station. She quickly switched between cameras. Two and Three were both dark. Four showed a shot of the cafeteria. The lights were off; the camera view itself was illuminated green with night vision. The Caf was apparently empty, but tables and chairs were all overturned. There were no bodies. I stared at the screen intently. This was where the Bunker residents had gathered to make their final stand against the Howlers. Even if there were no bodies in the entrance tunnel, it seemed there
should
be bodies here.

“Something is really, really wrong,” I said.

I was beginning to wonder if we were even in the right Bunker. I stared at the open vault door.
108.
There was no denying it. We were in the right place.

Anna switched over to Camera 5. It showed an elevated view of the Hydroponics Lab. The large room was dim, but the grow lights were still on. The plants were wild, green, overgrown. No one had been tending them for the past few months, which dashed any possibility of survivors living here. They were still getting water and light, though. If there had been any survivors, they would surely be in this room because of the constant supply of food and water. But I saw nothing in those tangled plants. By the grow lights, I could see tomatoes, apples, and other fruits piled on the floors, rotting.

Finally, Anna switched over to the final camera, Camera 6. Immediately, the screen flicked to the Officers’ Wing. I felt coldness overtake me when I saw three Howlers standing upright, still and silent. Their white eyes stared vacantly ahead, apparently dormant.

“Well,” Anna said. “There’s our answer.”

So the Bunker was still overrun by Howlers. But who had cleaned the entrance tunnel and the Caf? It was hard to imagine the Howlers doing this themselves. Maybe there
were
survivors, and they had only reclaimed certain parts of the Bunker. If that were the case, then why had the Hydroponics Lab remained untended?

“Maybe there
are
still survivors,” I said. “They could have just locked themselves in one area of the Bunker. Perhaps near the reactor. That would explain why the power is still on.”

“Or maybe near the kitchen,” Anna said. “There would be food there.”

“Maybe,” I said.

In my mind’s eye, I pictured the schematic of Bunker 108. It had three levels, and I knew how to access each area. On top was the largest area – the main floor. The main corridor made a square shape. It contained all the social areas – offices, the Caf, the Officers’ Wing, the medical bay, the Rec. The Mids, the area directly beneath the top floor, contained apartments, mostly. The bottom level contained the power plant, the Hydroponics Lab, and the recycling tanks. I had come out of Bunker 108 through the Hydroponics Lab, using a spiral stair that could be accessed by the atrium.

We merely had to open the inner door, enter that security tunnel, go down the stairs, and walk the rest of the way to the Hydroponics Lab. If there were any survivors, I thought that was where they would most likely be. It would also be fairly easy to access, if the security door leading to the stairs was unlocked.

“I know a way we can get to the Hydro Lab,” I said. “We wouldn’t have to go too far in.”

“Maybe we should just watch for a while, first.” Anna switched back to Camera 5, showing the verdant growth overtaking the lab.

“Watching is a fine idea,” I said. “But at least from where the camera is sitting, it’s too high and the vegetation too thick to see anything. We have to actually
go
there to find out if anyone made it.”

“I still think they’d be in the kitchen,” Anna said. “It’s where I would go.”

Anna and I watched the screen a moment longer. Going inside the atrium meant putting ourselves in danger. Cameras 2 and 3, which were now dark, likely would have showed a view of that area. Anna cycled between the defunct cameras once again. But these cameras were gone, and we would have to be alright with going in blind.

“Are we doing it?” Anna asked. “I can open the door from here. I see the command.”

I hesitated. Worst case, Howlers came spilling out of that door as soon as it was opened. If that happened, we could quickly shut the door and deal with whatever came. There was the danger of those Howlers exploding and infecting Anna – I would be safe because the
Elekai
virus protected me. At least, I
thought
it did. If we brought them down quick enough we could run out the entrance of the Bunker and probably escape the blasts.

I wanted to find out what had happened here, and that entailed risks. We had come too far to back out now.

“Do it,” I said.

Anna paused, giving me the opportunity to change my mind. Finally, she pressed the button. A sudden crash caused us both to jump. The door to the inner part of the Bunker slowly rolled back.

Just as the door to the outside swung inward. It was closing on us.

Anna and I ran toward it, but the vault door of 108 slammed shut and thundered in the close confines of the tunnel. The lock wheel twisted shut of its own avail, leaving us in a darkness broken only by my flashlight and the blue screen of the monitor. At the same time I could hear the creak of the inner door opening.

The inner part of the Bunker was open, but we had shut ourselves in at the same time.

***

Anna breathed beside me, but it was the only sound. Howlers, if there were any, had not reacted to the outside Bunker door closing. That in itself seemed impossible. Where
were
these things? We had seen them in the Officers’ Wing, but they couldn’t be the only three Howlers in this place...

“Can you try getting the door open again?” I asked.

Anna was already on the directory. “It appears it doesn’t allow the inner door and the outer door to be open at the same time. It’s one or the other.”

The people who had built Bunker 108 had probably done this for security reasons. Now, however, it was biting us in the butt.

“Maybe...we should actually check this place out,” Anna said. “Nothing’s coming out at us, anyway. Not yet.”

I was inclined to agree. My flashlight had enough juice to last several hours. It was plenty of time to have a look around.

“I know this place like the back of my hand,” I said. “It would probably be best to start with Hydroponics. If we go by the security stairwell, it’s pretty close and should be safe.”

Anna went back to the computer screen. She flipped through the various cameras once again – outside, cafeteria, Officers’ Wing...

“Hey.”

“What?”

I looked over her shoulder at the shot of the Officers’ Wings. The three Howlers that had been standing there earlier were now gone.

“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...