Page 2 of His to Take

“I really don’t know, honey. I can only think that we’ll be safe up there, and hope.” John patted his wife’s knee and that was when Amanda, Rex’s mother, spoke up. She wasn’t a geologist, or a volcanologist, but she was a science teacher at the local two-year college and knew a thing or two about Earth sciences.

“It sounds like the planet, or at least the mantel, is going through a sudden major shift, something that has never been recorded in human history. All of these volcanoes going off at once, and Yellowstone? Something’s happening, and being underground might not be safe, but it will be safer than being above ground. Especially since we’ll likely have something similar to a nuclear winter for years to come. Is there food there, John?”

“We’ll have everything we need, Amanda, don’t worry. We’ll all be safe.”

Ann glanced at her father and decided to try and block the world out for a little while longer. She put her earbuds in and lost herself in one of Stevie Nicks’ tracks that she released without the band. It always soothed Ann, and it did so now.

* * *

Aweek later, the new routine of being in the bunker was broken. The Wolfson family had started to… change.

“We’ll have to lock them out of our section until they either calm down or… you know.” Ann heard her father whisper to her mother.

At 15, Ann was a very intelligent young woman and had learned to listen for whispers from her parents. They wanted to protect her, to keep the truth from her, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew they’d be down in the bunker for at least two years. At first, she’d been delighted. They were safe, there was ventilation, food, and the place wasn’t that different from being in a house.

There were several levels, one for maintenance and the machinery needed to keep the bunker liveable, with several different technologies for energy sources. There was enough food stored for ten people to live on for 20 years on that level, as well. The level they lived on, the second level, had bedrooms for the same amount of people, three bathrooms, a living room area, a kitchen, an infirmary, and several other rooms that had different purposes. All were fitted with lights that mimicked sunlight, and there was even an outdoor area with fake grass, sun loungers, and a picnic table.

Below that was a level that had space for more rooms and a long track that could be used to walk or run for exercise. That level wasn’t really complete, and Ann didn’t go down there often because it was the darkest level of them all.

At first, the whole place was a little scary, but over the days Ann had become used to it, and now it felt like a sanctuary. Or had, up until the point when Rex snarled at her and his face started to sprout long, blond fur. She’d stared at him in horror as his face continued to change, and her scream had alerted her father that something was wrong.

John Adams had wrestled the young man out of the living room area and had taken him back to the left wing of the level that the Wolfsons called home. John had closed them off with the help of a heavy steel door. He’d turned on the locking system that could only be opened with a code that he knew, and he’d watched through the 4-inch tall, thick pane of glass as Rex had… become something else.

John had then come to Ann and Mary, who had rushed to Ann’s side, and made sure his daughter wasn’t harmed. When Ann assured him she was fine and just wanted to lie down, he’d drawn his wife over to a long black sofa on the other side of the room. Ann had sprawled out on the couch and covered her head with one of the thick green blankets they’d found piled in a storage closet. She’d put in her earbuds, but she hadn’t turned on her music, yet. She knew her parents would whisper to each other now.

“Did you know this might happen?” Mary whispered to John, and Ann strained her ears to hear her father’s reply.

“I’d heard a few things on the radio, but I didn’t believe them. I mean, humans can’t turn into wolves now, can they?”

Ann’s father was a very powerful entertainment lawyer, and he knew the dark side of Hollywood and glamor. He knew that people could be evil and do stupid things. That’s how he’d ended up with this bunker. A really famous actor, known as a beloved father-figure on a long-running program, had screwed up majorly and was caught in a prostitution sting down in Florida. The actor had lost everything and gave her Dad the bunker as payment for his services. Dad had kept it secret from her mom because he thought she’d be angry about the trade, but, as it turned out, he was smart to do it.

“Apparently, they can, John!” Mary hissed angrily. “We shouldn’t have allowed them down here; they’re dangerous.”

“It’s not like we knew this would happen! They’ve been our neighbors Ann’s entire life, Mary, what could I do? Leave them to die up there? You don’t know what it’s like… the things I’ve heard about.” John ran the communications room in the bunker and often spoke with others with the devices left in there. Something called a ham radio or something.

Ann had no idea what a ham radio was, and she couldn’t get wi-fi down in the bunker, so she couldn’t Google it either when her dad whispered about it. She imagined a ham with two wires stuck into it, bouncing around on a table as electricity ran through it. The idea was stupid, and she knew it had to be an acronym or something.

“What did you hear?” Mary asked quietly, as if afraid to hear the answer.

“This has been happening from day one. There are theories that something either melted out of an ice cap or something was kept in a pocket underground, some… I don’t know, organism that can change DNA, a bacterium, or a virus maybe, or maybe even a fungus. Nobody knows, they just know that it only started to happen after the events started. People started to turn into wolves.”

“That can’t be true, John! Werewolves? No, I refuse to believe it!” Mary laughed, and Ann winced on the couch. She’d seen what Rex had started to become, her mother hadn’t.

John pulled Mary up and guided her to the door outside the living room and showed her the small window in the door. “John! There’s a wolf in there! It will kill the Wolfsons!”

“No, Mary, that’s Rex. That’s our new reality.”

“But John…” Mary started, but let the words die off. What could she say?

“They’ll calm down in a day or two, go back to their normal selves. We just have to keep them locked up until they change again. Then, we’ll see what happens from there.”

Ann, still on the couch, knew her parents would go quiet now as her father comforted her mother. For a moment, she longed to be back at home, with her small circle of friends, Elizabeth and Maria. They were likely dead, Ann thought, but she didn’t know. They might have survived. But for what? To be slaughtered by werewolves? The thought disturbed her far too much and she did the only thing she could do now. She hit play and let the world slip away.