The Mountain and The City: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (35 page)

“We need to get out of here in one piece.”

“That's the plan regardless.”

“I mean it, Isaac, we need to protect this. Right now we're the only lab working off an original sample.”

Mom and dad, arguing in the dark. It's like being back home again. I know it's weird, but in a way it makes me calm to hear them fight.

“You know you have to call him.”

“You'll wake up Silvia.”

“Don't drag her into this.”

“Look who's talking.”

“What was I supposed to do, leave her home? I didn't know it would be like this, with those things. Jesus Christ, did you see what they did to Hope?”

“I asked you not to do that.”

“You have to call him. You know you do.”

Quiet. Mom and dad breathing. Me breathing, trying not to move, trying not to make a sound on the red couch.

Phone sounds. Dad says, “It's me...You already know about it?...I didn't realize it was that...Then the serial interval doesn't give us much time.” He talks for a while, and as he does his voice gets quieter and quieter. Finally he says, “Alright, dad, I have to go.”

“What did he say?”

“It's already in Berlin and Hong Kong, and they suspect Mexico City and Quebec.”

“That's not possible. That's way too fast.”

“Their best guess is the international press, the reporters at the dig. They could have carried it onto planes back home or wherever their next assignments were.”

“Fucking Phillip. He had to have his big show.”

“You were also right about the immunity. The infection rate might as well be a hundred.”

“What did he say about our synthetic?”

“That they have it covered.”

“Idiots.”

“Apparently they're setting up a lab at the old mountain base. Very secretive, I had to pry it out of him, and even then he wouldn't say it by name over the phone.”

“That's only an hour from here.”

“I suspect he needs me more than he's letting on. He could have set up that lab anywhere in the world.”

“Maybe he's worried about you.”

“Doubt it.”

It's quiet. Then mom says, “We need to get out of here as soon as possible. I have a feeling we have a very bumpy road ahead.”

**

Mom and dad have on their plastic suits. That means it's time to go.

“Let's keep this as simple as possible,” mom says. “Simple is good. First thing, does this elevator go all the way to the basement?”

“To the garage, yes.”

It's still dark outside the windows.

“Good. Elliot took my keys, do you have yours?”

Dad shakes his head. “I always leave them at the guard booth. He has both sets, we'll have to see him first.”

“Come on, think this through. There won't be a guard, everyone is either home sick, ran off or...”

They both look at me.

Dad says, “Right. So we take the elevator down, go to the booth, get the keys- which car should we take?”

“Mine is bigger.”

“But I know where mine is parked, and it's right by the elevator. The only problem is the guard booth is across the lot.”

“Then we go to the booth, get the keys and double back.”

“No, you and Silvia wait by the car while I get the keys.”

“I don't think we should split up.”

Dad says, “Sure, now you say that.”

“Isaac...”

Mom and dad stop talking and look at me. Dad comes over holding something in his hand but I can't stop staring at the big hole in his suit where I can see his shoulder and the red rag around it. He puts a rubber string around my head and pulls something soft over my mouth.

Over his torn shoulder, mom tries her phone. “Until your father or I tell you otherwise, don't take that mask off. You live in it now. Got it?”

I nod.

“Don't touch anything without gloves, don't breathe without a mask, don't trust anything or anyone until we sort this all out.”

**

In the elevator no one says anything. All three of us stand in masks watching the lights change, dad checking his watch, the numbers going lower and lower, eleven, ten, nine, and there's so much to say it's like there's nothing to say at all, eight, then seven.

The lights shut off and KA-JUNG the elevator stops so hard we have to put our hands out to keep from falling.

It's quiet. No elevator sounds at all. Then the lights come back on, but this time they're blue and coming out of a different place in the ceiling and saying BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

“
Please
tell me we aren't stuck in here.”

“The city grid must have gone down.” Dad unzips his plastic suit. “The generator kicked in, but for safety the elevator doesn't run.”

Dad takes keys out of his pocket. “There's a crowbar in there.” He points to a box on the wall. Mom pulls the handle and it swings open. “When we built the lab the extra power drain kept bringing down the grid, so I had a few additions put in.” He puts a funny key into a little hole by the buttons and turns it. The door goes CLACK. “I was tired of spending my lunch hour trapped in a tin box.”

Mom takes the crowbar. “You should have pointed this out before we went to the lab.”

He puts his hand out to ask for it. “We didn't need it then.” 

“Well we need it now.” Instead of giving it to him, mom takes it to the doors and jams it into the space between. Dad tries to grab onto it but she pushes him off. I can tell they're about to fight, so I slip between them and put my fingers in the doors and start to pull. Mom and dad help, and together we pull the doors open until we're looking at the middle of the floors, one up and one down. Dad sticks his head out into the bottom one, he doesn't say why but I know it's to check for monsters. They lower me down until my feet touch the floor and they tell me to stay still.

The building is dark as nighttime except for the little, blue lights that flash on the walls every few feet. Normally I like being in the dark, but this time it gives me goosebumps knowing there could be things in it. I stay really quiet and I listen for any sounds, any at all, but especially the croaking. There's no croaking, which makes me glad, but there is something there. A small sound, a barely-there sound I can't hear unless I'm perfectly still.

Breathing.

Mom and dad get off the elevator, take my hand and lead me away without saying a word.

We go through a door with a big five over it that goes into a stairway. If I walk too fast down them mom puts her hand out and slows me down, telling me I'm making too much noise. Whenever we come to a door we go even slower. Dad checks that it's closed and mom keeps the crowbar above her head ready to smash anything she sees, but her hand shakes like it doesn't want that to happen, like she just wants a closed door, or at least an empty door.

Almost at the bottom dad says, “You see that? That's a G. G stands for garage.”

“I'm not five, dad.”

“Sorry.” He acts like I'm impossible to talk to, but he just hasn't tried before.

We walk around the final bend of stairs ready to go through the door and into the garage so we can get our car and get out of here, far away from here, anywhere but here, but out of nowhere dad stops fast, pushing mom and I back so hard it's like he wants to knock us down, like the elevator all over again. I start to tell him that but he puts his finger out to shut me up. Then I see why: at the very bottom of the stairs, pushed up against the wall and into the corner, a small body hides in the dark. Legs lit up by the dark blue lights. The back of a head I'm not sure is breathing.

Without a word dad takes the crowbar from mom's hand. This time, she doesn't fight him.

He tip-toes down the last set of steps with the crowbar out in front of him. It reminds me of the way people hold crosses in scary movies, just a piece of wood but so much more, it's like the answer to their problems and the saver of their lives all in one.

At the bottom of the steps he stops, looking for breath in the body, and I can't breathe myself, my heart hurting me and my ears pounding and squishing. I try so hard to see if the body is moving, breathing, doing anything at all, but I don't see it, none of us sees it. Without a word none of us think the body is alive.

Dad uses the crowbar anyway.

Mom and I flinch as he swings it down and hits the body in its head. It makes a weird gurgle sound so he hits it again, once. Twice. Three times on top and then from the left once. Twice. Breathing heavy now from the right side once. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times. Six times, and mom tells him to stop and finally he stops with red all over him and on the wall and on the floor. It spreads so fast he has to step away so he doesn't get it on his shoes.

Dad points to the sneakers on the body's feet and says, “That's Peter. One of the interns. He just joined us last week.”

Mom says, “He was dead already. He was dead when you found him.”

“I don't know, I thought I heard-”

“Isaac,” she says, “he was dead when you found him.”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Alright.” He makes a face I've never seen him make before and puts his hand on his shoulder. Mom asks if he's okay, but he doesn't answer.

We step around the big, dark puddle, open the door to the garage and go through.

**

The blue light-bulbs barely light up the garage. All I can see is the car in front of us and then after that it's all black, except way off at the other end a little bit of outside light comes in. Really quiet, dad tells mom that's where the booth with the keys is. It's hard to tell with so much dark, but it feels like forever away.

Mom hits into a car's bumper with her leg. She curses at it in whispers.

“Your phone has a light,” dad tells her.

“I don't want to attract attention. We don't know who else is in here.”

Her saying that makes it so much worse. Staring into the black, just tires and mirrors looking back, pieces of metal and rubber and shiny glass, right now they all feel like they want to wake up and come after me, which is crazy and not possible, but sometimes things that are crazy and not possible happen anyway.

Without any words we tip-toe through the dark garage toward the little bit of moonlight at the other end. It's so quiet, I can hear dad's breath in his nose-hairs.

All of a sudden, a little too loud, mom says, “Elliot?”

The white shirt looks like it's floating in the dark toward us. When it gets closer the big man's face is above it, sweaty and with big, wide eyes. I don't know what he's going to do, if he's our friend or not, but then he brings his shaky hand up to his mouth, and in barely a whisper, barely something we can hear, he says three words.

“Under...the...car.”

My arms and legs go cold. Dad slowly squats down to look under the car next to us and Elliot shakes his head to tell dad he shouldn't do that. I don't know if dad sees anything underneath, but he stands back up without saying anything and moves us all away from it.

When we're in the middle, where all we can see is the dark, Elliot says, “What are you wearing those suits for? What the goddamn hell is going on?”

Dad says, “We'll explain later.”

“Explain now!”

“Be quiet.”

“Those people are
eating
-”

“Elliot,” mom says. “Stop. Making. Noise.” He nods to say okay. “We need the keys to my car, are they in the booth?”

He looks confused. “Why do you want those?”

“So we can get the hell out of here, what do you think?”

His face gets serious. “You haven't been outside yet.”

Dad says, “What's outside?”

Elliot starts making a weird sound in his throat. He bends over trying not to cough, but it's so hard to hold in it's like he's choking on it. Mom asks if he's okay. Dad stops her from touching him.

Elliot stops choking. He nods his head and tries to say sorry, or excuse me, or any of the things people say when they cough around other people. But instead of making words, he makes a low, scratchy sound.

Mom takes my hand and starts walking us backward. Elliot sees and says, “What are you doing?”

“Stay back, Elliot. We don't want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” He looks from mom to dad, then at the crowbar in dad's hand. “I'm not one of them, I'm just sick. What's wrong with you people? Has everyone gone mad?”

“Maybe,” dad says, “maybe we've lost our minds, maybe we have no right to act this way, but until we get a handle on whatever this is, that's how it has to be.”

Elliot breathes heavier and heavier, his eyes wider, his mouth angry. “You don't,” he says, “I can't,” spit dribbling, moving toward dad.