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“Hey, Earth to Gavin. You still with us, bud?”
Gavin blinked and realized that Andrea had finished scaling the fence, and the three of them now waited for him to follow. He reddened and said, "Yeah. Hold on."
He climbed the fence slowly, hating the way it bowed and shook as he scaled the chainlink. He wasn’t exactly huge, but he was, as his mother liked to put it, husky, and he had doubts about the fence’s ability to hold his weight.
The razor wire presented another problem. The loop was wide and almost lazily installed, but athleticism wasn’t Gavin’s strong suit and he doubted he could flip his body over without tearing a half dozen new holes in his skin.
“Just jump!” Parker called. “The grass is soft on the other side!”
Gavin looked down at the razor wire, hating this, hating the entire trip, hating that once more he had allowed Parker to talk him into something stupid.
But then he looked at Andrea and saw her watching him. He remembered the feeling of her hand on his shoulder, and summoned up all of his courage, then all of his strength. With a cry of effort, he leaped over the fence.
He missed the razor wire. That was the good news. The bad news was that the grass on the other side of the fence wasn’t nearly as soft as Parker made it out to be. The moment he landed, he felt his chest seize up and knew the wind had been knocked out of him.
Andrea gasped and brought her hand to her mouth. Sarah started giggling but stopped when Parker flashed her a disapproving look. The older boy jogged over to Gavin and extended his hand. “Hey, man, are you all right?”
Gavin managed a nod, then regained his breath. He sucked in a huge lungful of air and accepted Parker’s outstretched hand. The older boy helped him to his feet and clapped him on the shoulder. Andrea smiled at him, and Gavin felt his cheeks burn. Sarah made a face, and he grinned and flipped her the bird. She giggled at that and returned the gesture.
The group continued up a shallow hill that rose about eighty feet over the next half mile. When they reached the top, Gavin could see their destination. From the outside, it didn't look like much, just a vault-style door that opened into another hill about a quarter-mile further.
“See?” Parker said exuberantly. “What did I tell you?”
“Those look like the vaults from that old video game my uncle used to play,” Sarah said. “That one about the nuclear wasteland.”
“That’s basically what this is,” Parker explained. “I mean, it’s a storm shelter, not a fallout bunker, but it’s basically the same thing. Except this one…” he paused for dramatic effect. “Ishaunted!”
Sarah rolled her eyes. Andrea pursed her lips and whined, “Don’t say that, Parker! I’m freaked out already.”
Parker smiled and put a comforting arm around her, and Gavin felt a pure rush of hate for him. “You’ll be okay, baby. I’ll protect you.”
Andrea shoved him off of her and said, “Hands to yourself, mister,” but she blushed crimson and grinned like she had just been given a puppy.
Gavin felt another rush of hate, but it wasn’t Parker’s fault. He didn’t know that Gavin liked her, and even if he did, what would it matter? Parker was tall and strong and confident and cool and Gavin…
Well, Gavin was the type of person you stepped on to climb to someone better.
“Come on,” Parker said. “Let’s go see some ghosts!”
“You’re a jerk, Parker,” Sarah said.
Gavin noticed that Andrea walked much closer to Parker as the group approached the storm shelter. He tried not to dwell on that, but it wasn’t until they reached the entrance to the storm shelter, and he came face to face with exactly what they were dealing with that his jealousy faded.
The door was much larger than it appeared from the top of the hill. It was nearly eighteen feet tall and consisted of two massive concrete slabs shackled by a steel bolt that looked to weigh at least forty pounds.
The bolt, thankfully, was left open, and the doors were slightly ajar. Whoever had been here last didn’t seem to care about keeping it safe from trespassers when they decided to abandon it.
“Maybe they were running from the ghosts,” Parker said, “and that’s why they didn’t close the door behind them.”
“Stop it, Parker!” Sarah cried. “Enough with the ghosts.”
She took a step closer to Gavin without seeming to notice that she was doing so. Gavin’s brow furrowed. Why would she go to him and not Parker? Gavin would feel a lot safer with Parker than he would with himself.
“Oh, come on," Parker whined. "Don't be wimps, guys. This is going to be the experience of a lifetime!"
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Sarah retorted.
Parker sighed exaggeratedly and shook his head. He looked at Gavin and said, “You know, I try with these girls. I really do.”
