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Two weeks after the quakes…
Fun time’s over
The never-ending sound of static crawled under my skin even in my sleep. The white noise bounced off the cement brick walls, echoing down the hall. There was no escaping it inside the compact bunker Adam’s family had built.
Shifting on the narrow, lower bunk I’d claimed as my own, I forced my gaze to sweep the empty beds that Adam’s parents, brother, and uncle were meant to occupy. The perfectly tucked in blankets and untouched, pristine white pillows were a reminder of why Adam still listened to the radio.
Even after all this time, he was hoping to hear something from his family. I held that same hope. But it was dying the longer we went without hearing from anyone.
When we’d first turned on the radio, it had filled the bunker with chatter, not the white noise of static. The voices we heard were from the other people holed up like us. When we’d been clueless, they’d been the ones who helped piece together what was happening.
Adam and I had listened to them talk about the hellhounds and the spreading zombie infection. It had been hard to believe it at first, despite seeing the woman on the road and Adam’s uncle. The infection spread with a bite, killing and reanimating a person within minutes.
Then our radio friends started describing the other things running loose out there. Hearing about grey-skinned creatures that walked on two legs, hid from the light, and could rip the head off of a man in two seconds had terrified me. It still did. Hell, so did the hounds with glowing red eyes and the idea that Adam and I were in a bunker riding out the apocalypse. None of it seemed real. But we’d both come to terms with just how real it was when the ground had shaken with the detonation of bombs in the nearest cities. The chatter said it was to stop the spread of the infection, but there’d also been speculation that it was meant to stop the grey creatures.
After the bombs, though, things didn’t get better. They got far worse.
We’d all been unsure of what would be left after the dust settled, but hearing the voices had reassured Adam and me that we still weren’t alone. Then “Chatty Kathy” had gone quiet. “Bitter man” had told the rest of us he was going to check on her since they’d known each other prior to the world going dark. He’d never reported back.
“Big Jonah” said he’d check on “Bitter man.” A few hours later, we learned it wasn’t a new threat but an old one.
The sound of the old man’s tear-choked voice still haunted my dreams.
“The world isn’t full of good people anymore. If it ever was. Don’t tell anyone where you are. And if you leave, cover your tracks. Your shelter and your supplies are today’s currency, and those who have are always damned by those who haven’t. They killed Becky and Katie and took everything. I’m done, folks. I’m going to go bury my dogs and sit on my porch for a spell.”
That was the last we’d heard from him.
After that, the radio had been silent except for the occasional emergency broadcast that talked about evacuee camps. Adam clung to the hope that his family had gone to one of them instead of heading here. I wanted to believe that New York was completely unscathed and that my parents were waiting for me there. But, all of the surrounding cities had been bombed. I doubted a place as big as New York had been spared. If it had been, that would have meant there was somewhere safe to go, and they would have come looking for survivors by now. But there’d been no broadcast, no sounds of vehicles or planes overhead, no sign of rescue.
Part of me was starting to wonder if Adam and I were all that remained of humanity. The fear that we were made it difficult every time Adam and I had to leave the safety of the bunker to clear away the dead, or rather, the undead, from the barn.
As soon as I had that thought, I started to panic, and I threw back my blankets. What if Adam had gone outside without me?
A brief moment of silence filled the bunker as Adam switched channels.
Breathing easier, I checked the time on my watch and saw it was past two in the morning. I shivered at the chill of the concrete and put on my slippers before leaving the bunk room.
Down the hall, the utilitarian bathroom with two toilet stalls, a urinal, two showers, and a sink was just another reminder of how many people were meant to be here. I gently knocked on the holding tank for the wash water and marked a new line to indicate the level.
In addition to the bathroom, the bunker housed an aquaponics room, an exercise room, a supply room, a kitchen, and finally the control room with the monitors. That was where I headed when I finished using the bathroom.
Adam sat in the chair before the monitors, keeping an eye on the livestock, which had somehow managed to escape the notice of the infected that roamed in occasionally. Well, escaping their notice wasn’t quite accurate. The infected would look at the cows, seemingly understand that they were the source of the sounds that drew them in, then shamble around uninterested in them.
Adam figured, since the cows weren’t human, the infected didn’t care. It scared me to think he was right, since it showed the infected had some level of intelligence. I would prefer it if they were brainless zombies.
“Everything quiet?” I asked softly.
“Yeah. For now.”
“Why don’t you go to bed? I can watch for a while.”
He nodded and stood. The weary set of his shoulders broke my heart, and I wrapped my arms around his waist to comfort him.
“I love you, Adam,” I breathed against his chest. Considering everything we’d endured the past few weeks and our separate beds, sex had been the last thing on either of our minds. But maybe it was what we both needed.
I let my hand wander down to his butt.
He hugged me tightly, then lifted me and started walking. I grinned and looked up at him.
