Torn (25 page)

Darius nodded. Bret went straight, he
turned
with Blain.

“Over here,” Blain walked to the file cabinet.

From the other room, echoing, they heard Bret. “This is weird.”

“It’
s a latrine. They pretty much did away with them,” Darius answered for her, speaking loudly. “It’s a bit of history.”

“No, Darius, the wall is off. Why is this room short?” she asked.

Darius looked at Blain. “What is she talking about?”

Blain whispered. “I haven’t a clue.”

“
So strange,” Bret said. “Something is behind this wall.”

Darius shook his head, and nodded to Blain. “Markings.”

“Over here.”

Bret called out. “Like anybody cares what I’m
discovering
.”

Darius
huffed
. “You’re discovering a badly designed bathroom.”

“Markings.” Blain pointed.

To the right of the fil
e cabinet on the concrete floor
was an engraved and painted picture, no bigger than four inches
, of four horses with
a
mushroom cloud
behind them.

“Wow,” Darius crouched down. “This is it. This floor is concrete.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“
So
. . .
where’s the entrance?”

Bret’s voice hollowed some. “What the fuck. This is the
weirdest
shower stall.”

“God!” Darius called out. “It’s old, Bret!” he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Jesus Christ.”

“Hey, she’s amusing herself,” Blain said.

“True.”

“Where the fuck is the shower head?”
she questioned out loud. “I know I’m
gonna
get wet when I turn it on.”

Blain
looked
at Darius and they both laughed.

“Sorry,” Blain
snickered.
“From what I heard she didn’t get turned on.”

“Shh.” He held his finger to his mouth. “May
be if she gets wet now, t
hings might change.”

“Boy this thing is stuck. It’s hard,” she said.

They laughed again.

“She’s making progress,” Darius joked.

“Hopefully,” Blain tilted his head. “We may be the only civilization for a while. Virginia is married. Bret’s cute
. . .
”

“If you guys he
ar
me scream,
it’ll be because
I get hit with something slimy!” Bret yelled.

“We’re ready!” Darius replied then shook his h
ead at Blain. “Holy shit. I can
not believe you’re
worrying
about getting laid in the
future
.”

“You’re not.”

“No.” H
e
paused
. “Besides, I have dibs on Bret.”

“What!
You can’t call dibs on someone. You don’t even like her.”

“Yeah, I do. Not that way, yet, I don’t think.
But
.
It makes sense," Darius said.

“No. Chuck
or Bruce make more sense.”

“What! No way.”

“Let’s ask.”

“No,
you can’t
. . .
”

“Bret!” Blain called. “Can we pull you away from the hard, turning
-
on task of getting wet?” he snickered.

“What?” Bret came into the office,
confused
. “What are you talking about?’

“Whatever you’re working on there that might make you wet and slimy,” Blain said.

“Oh, the shower,” Bret replied.

“Yeah, anyhow, hypothetic
al
question for you,” Blain said. “End of the world. We for some reason get no other people but us. For a long time. You want to have sex. Which man, out of our group, do you pick?”

“Why are you asking this?” Bret questioned.

Darius nudged him. “See, I told you. She doesn’t answer questions about things she doesn’t know about.”

“I’ll have you know I have four children,” Bret said.

“Ok, so that’s four times you have sex that we can prove. Some people do that in a week,”
Darius
commented.

Bret gasped. “That’s wrong. And just so you know, if I wanted to have
sex
. . .
it wouldn’t be with you
,
Blain.” she said.

“Why not?” Blain asked.

“Too young.” She faced a smug Darius. “
Nor
you, it would be too selfish.” She exhaled. “I know exactly who I’d pick.”

The
y
waited.

“Colin,” Bret stated.

“Colin!” Darius snapped. “Oh my God. Why?”

“Well, he’s older, mature. Experienced. Probably very unselfish and partner
-
oriented
. And he’d make me laugh.”

Darius snickered. “He’d make you laugh all right. I’m not sure he even has a penis anymore.”

Bret gasped.
“Oh my God, are you rude. I can
not believe you are insulting Colin’s penis. Wait until I tell him.” She turned and walked out.

Darius laughed. “Let’s find
the switch to open the passage
way.”

“Are we sure there’s a passageway?” Blain asked.

“Well, this obviously isn’t it.”

“
Guy
s
!” Bret called out.

“Ignore her,” Darius instructed.
“
Look behind the file cabinet.”

“OK, check behind that shelf.”

Darius agreed.

“Guys!
”

“Jesus Christ, Bret!” Darius yelled. “What!”

“I think you
should
come here.”

After a huff, and a wave of his hand to Blain, Darius walked out.
He
went into the latrine. “Where are
you?
”

No
answer.

“Bret?” Darius called out.

“Where is she?” Blain asked.

“I don’t know.” Darius looked left
t
o right. “Bret!”

There
was
the
slightest
of squeaks, and the entire tile wall, which looked as if it were a shower area, lowered to the floor.

B
ret stood there, hand against
the ten by ten foot doorway. “Do you
remember the
show Let’s Make a Deal?
Does
this remind you of it?” she asked.

“Holy shit.” Darius rushed
forward
. “
How
did you find this?”

“I turned
on the shower to see if it worked
,” she said.
“
But
it wasn’t a shower stall. Check this out.
” She turned, grabbed the flash
light
from her belt and
turned
it on. “
Emergency
lighting. Needs
batteries
.” She
shined
the
light
to the ceiling. “But check out this ramp. I didn’t go down, but it goes down far.”

Blain yelled down it. “Hello
!”

His voice echoed back.

Darius took the flash
light. The doorway was actually an entranceway to a tunnel
;
they stood at the top of what seemed to be a long concrete ramp that ran downward. “Let’s go,” Darius led the way. ‘I’m betting the
other
end
of
this is big enough for trucks to pass
through
,” h
e commented as he walked.

How far did they journey?
A quarter mile, a h
alf mile? They
didn’t
know, but each step they
took
drew them deeper underground until
the
tunnel leveled out.

“Look at this,”
Darius
allowed the beam to reflect of
f
the left and right sides of the wall. “Boxes of food.”

“If it’s been here that long,” Bret said.
“
I’m not so sure I’ll wanna eat it.”

Darius laughed. “Me either. Oh, wow.” He
stopped
. “Look ahead.”

“Is this for real?” Bret asked.

“
Did
we really find it?” Blain questioned.

“I believe,” Darius
illuminated
the huge round,
vault
style door. “This is it.”

Harry Hart worked for the
government
.
He
was also a journalist
and
novelist. Not many people had heard of him, but Darius had. Harry H
art wrote
under
the pen n
ame Pat Frank.  Pat Frank was
synonymous
with atomic war stories
and survival. His book,
Alas Babylon
, was always a favorite of Darius, and that book
prompted
him to locate
the
out of print, and hard to find
over
-priced book,
How to Survive the H Bomb
, by Pat.

Darius remembe
red when Colin found that book in his room. He chuckled at the outdated tale
, but even though s
ome things in the book were out
date
d, the over
all feel and message w
ere
not.

In fact, it held true to the situation they
faced
and could be
used as a guidebook.
H
ow to Survive the H-Bomb
was what prompted Darius to look for the
F
our
H
orseman of the
A
pocalypse
complexes
.

In the non
fiction book, Pat
Frank
discusses a
privately
-
funded
bomb
shelter
built in Florida, and designed to house a hundred families.

The bomb shelter was
described
as self
-
sufficient, with dorms, a cafeteria, its own water supply,
diesel
generators, reserve tanks, and so forth.

Catacombs
constructed
for the survivors of the future.

Darius read about
t
hem when he read the book
at
the age of fifteen and thought no more about it.

Until it snowed one day.

It snowed so hard that the cable was out and Darius decided to
clean
out the basement to pass time.

It was there he found the book and read it again.

During that
reading
he read the passages about
the
S
ylvan Shores b
omb shelter. But unlike when he was fifteen, the internet provided him the means to research it.

The next day when the cable and internet were back up, he began his research.

He
was never
able to locat
e any information about Sylvan S
hores, but
he
found
other information
. Across the
United
States there were many government
installations
built underground, bigger than
Sylvan
S
hores.
They were
built for thousands, not hundred
s
. Complete with streets, hospitals,
and
television rooms.

Two were nearby. In
Virginia
, there was
Mt Weather. It was a well
-
known bunker for
top members of the federal government
.
The other was at a fancy hotel in West Virginia
,
a
secret installation revealed to the public in the 1990’s.