It shouldn’t be possible for a hospital to be this deserted, but here she was, dreadfully alone in the bowels of Grady Memorial. Even in the best of times, the hospital had always been severely understaffed, but this was pushing it too far: one doctor, one nurse, and one secretary up in the phone room ignoring calls. The rest of the hospital staff was gone.
Gina Flynnt stood over the body, scalpel held steady in her right hand. Alone. It had bothered her when she’d first come in to work today to find out that everyone else had the day off to celebrate, and she would be stuck here in the morgue, but now it didn’t bother her. She had work to do.
Work was work, and money was money. Besides, it wasn’t like she had anyone to celebrate the 4th of July with, anyway. She didn’t have friends; no one she would actually hang out with outside of the hospital, so it was fine that she was here and they were out there.
The morgue was buried deep below the hospital, only reachable by going through an old door, down a rusting staircase, and finally into a hallway lined with leaky water pipes. The light down in the hallway was bad, but the morgue room was lit up like a spotlight.
The body lying in front of her was Edgar Nash. 47, from a little town a couple of hours north of Atlanta. She’d glanced at his file after she’d wheeled him into the examination room: an architect with a loving wife, two kids, a dog, and a big fenced-in backyard with a big house to match. He’d been getting ready for the celebrations tonight: cleaning the house, mowing the yard, sweeping out the gutters.
That’s what had killed him.
Well, the ladder was what had done him in really, but it was while he was cleaning out his gutters that it had happened. He’d climbed to the top, a leaf blower on his back, determined to make quick work of the leaves clogging the drains. After he’d finished, he’d tried climbing down – and the leaf blower had thrown him off balance, so down he went. Right onto his neck.
It had been instantaneous. He’d barely had time to scream before he’d landed. It was a tragic event, but now that he was gone his tissues could be harvested for a good cause, if Gina was quick. The body had been held up somewhere along the line by the local police, so instead of going to the far better-equipped, but farther away hospital in Haysberry, Edgar Nash had been brought to Grady Memorial.
It had bothered her once, long ago. When she’d first started medical school she’d been squeamish around the bodies. Now, though, it was just like any other day: work. And her work could save lives. She took pride in that, despite her working conditions.
She took a deep breath, the smell of stale air barely filtered out by her mask. She’d hardly noticed it before, but now with all of her senses at their peak efficiency before the autopsy, everything came to her. The smell of old machinery, leaking vital fluids one sludgy drip at a time. The sound of the machinery churning through the walls, a constant, dull rumble. The occasional echoing drop of water. The sound of far-off fireworks.
The feel of the warm metal underneath her gloved fingertips. The vibrations of each distant machine shaking the table ever so slightly. The chafing of her apron and doctor’s uniform, a size too small and well-worn, but all she had. She’d put in a requisition for new uniforms months ago, but she’d heard nothing back. She knew they were closing Grady Memorial down, though they would never admit it until she was out of a job.
Over the past year, staff had been transferred slowly out of the aging hospital. The most desirable were transferred to Martin Memorial in Haysberry, the rest were let go. She’d had a sinking feeling that when the hospital finally closed down, she’d be out a job. Still, she held out hope. She lived in Haysberry, and transferring to the hospital only five minutes away from her house was one of her dreams.
She couldn’t blame whoever was in charge, though. Grady Memorial was an ancient building, a relic of the past; a bygone remnant of a time long gone. Grady had been built back during the early years of the Cold War, when tensions were still high. At its inception, it had been a shining example of American pride.
Now, it was just a dilapidated hospital that had no patients and was little more than a prescription dispensary. Still, it was serviceable as a morgue.
She took another breath, this time through her mouth to try to avoid the stale taste, but it was pointless: she could taste the faint hint of oils, rotten machinery, and the body in front of her. She almost coughed, but kept the urge at bay.
Her eyes travelled over the man: every single hair on his head, a day’s worth of stubble, the bruising where his neck was broken. What a way to go, she thought. Dead on the 4th and brought to Grady. She had an inkling the man would have wanted to go anywhere else, but it didn’t matter now.
Thump thump thump. She couldn’t see the fireworks from down below where she was, but she could hear them, very faintly. The morgue was an old fallout shelter, designed to keep everyone safe when the nukes started to fall. When they hadn’t, the room was converted to what it was today. Luckily, the aesthetics of the fallout shelter perfectly matched what a morgue should look like, so it was an easy transition.
Her breath frosted as she pushed the scalpel down, cutting through Edgar Nash’s flesh with ease. She used to be squeamish, back in med school, but that was long past her now. She examined the body as she cut it open.
Gina was more than just a doctor, and it always amazed her how she’d wound up at Grady Memorial. She’d graduated med school as a forensic pathologist, one of the most promising in her class. She’d had a bright future in front of her, so many job opportunities that she couldn’t even count them all – and look where it had gotten her.
She pushed the thought away; it wasn’t something she liked to dwell on.
She focused instead on doing her job, however pointless it might be. Determining the official cause of death in this instance was definitely pointless, considering that it had already been determined. An autopsy had already been done. But regulations were regulations, and Gina was the final stop for Edgar Nash, at least until he went to the funeral home.
Thump thump thump.
She figured she would go upstairs after this was over and sit at the front of the hospital with Bobby. He was supposed to be answering the phone, but she knew exactly what he’d be doing: watching sports with his legs up on the desk, beer in hand. When she’d shown up earlier and given him a look, he’d just shrugged, as if to say, It’s the 4th. What else do you want me to do?
Maybe she would go up there and steal a beer from him. Sit down and watch the fireworks. Find Charlaine, the nurse, and chit-chat with her. If she had any friends in the hospital, Charlaine would be the closest. Still, they kept things work related and never hung out except when in the break room.
The autopsy went quick. The cause of death had already been determined, and Gina saw no reason to argue with their findings. Gina let her mind wander as she finished up: what was everyone else doing today? Were they having as much fun as she was? How was Petey dealing with the fireworks?
Boom! Boom! BOOM!
The whole room shook. What the hell?
She couldn’t be sure what kind of firework that had been, but it was big enough to swing the hanging fluorescent lights over her head. When the light swung away from her, it cast the other side of the room in a sickly half-glow and threw her temporarily into darkness. Edgar Nash looked like a zombie, lit up like that. But zombies weren’t her problem; she was done here. She bent down, unlocking the wheel blocks, and pushed the body into another room for storage. She locked him in, completing her final task with the body.
Boom! BOOM! BOOM!
She scribbled her final notes onto the clipboard. That was it - she was done with her work for the day. Still, something was definitely not right. As she left the morgue, she made sure to flip off the still-swaying lights and close the door behind her. Without that light, she realized, she was bathed in complete darkness. The lights in the hallway were off.
“What is going on?” she whispered. She opened the door back up and turned the light back on. The light didn’t even reach a quarter of the way into the hallway, but it was something. She headed forward, slowly, unsure. She’d walked down this hallway over a thousand times and could do it in her sleep, but something here just felt… wrong. She couldn’t explain it any other way.
It took only a few steps to completely leave the cold safety of the morgue light again, and she had to feel blindly to stop from stumbling. The building around her was almost silent – she couldn’t hear any of the usual sounds she had come to expect from Grady - but for one thing. Some other sound, coming from one of the rooms off of the side of the hallway. She’d never been in it before, but she stopped in front of it, wondering what it could be.
She reached out, willing herself to keep walking instead, but her curiosity was too great. She grabbed the handle, expecting it to be locked, but it turned underneath her grip. She opened the door. The sound was louder now that the door was opened. She ran her palm across the wall, feeling for a light switch.
She felt it underneath her fingers and flicked it on – nothing. With a sigh she pulled out her cell phone, and turned on the screen for a dim light. The room wasn’t large, and most of its available floor space had been taken up by stacks upon stacks of crates. She couldn’t even imagine what was wasting away inside them, but she didn’t care. She was here to find out what that sound was.
It was coming from behind a stack of crates in the far corner. A sort of buzzing, shuffling noise. She approached carefully, walking around stacks, and then came to stand at the base of the tower. Was it coming from inside a crate? She didn’t think so. She set her phone to the side on a chest high stack, screen pointing up. It cast just enough light for her to see what she was doing.
She started by removing the top crate. It was surprisingly light. She set it carefully to the side and grabbed the next one. Oof! It was much heavier than the first one, and she stumbled with it, barely setting it down onto another. But the sound was just a little bit louder, and now Gina could see where the sound was coming from.
There was some kind of metal box on the wall. She grabbed her phone, shining it at the box. It wasn’t large, six inches by six inches, but it seemed to be vibrating quickly. That was the noise she had heard: the box moving against the wall extremely fast. From her position below, she couldn’t see much of the box, so she grabbed one of the cardboard crates and pulled it close.
Carefully, she climbed on top of it, putting the metal rectangle directly in front of her face. She looked at it closely: it had originally been red, but the paint was long faded and chipped. On either side was a round, dark hole. She couldn’t fathom what those were for. She wanted to reach up and slide her hand through, but there was no telling what it could be.
The top, she saw, was smooth, except for where two small wires protruded straight up. Using her phone, she followed them. They extended half a foot above the rectangle. One entered the wall, disappearing from her view. The other had been disconnected. In the dim light, she couldn’t see much, but she could tell that the wire had adapters on either side – to put it back together, all she would have to do was push them together.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Gina steadied herself as the crates rocked to either side. A large stack on the other side of the room collapsed, and they sounded heavy. She could really get hurt in this room – she needed to leave. She started to get down from her stool, but hesitated. It wouldn’t hurt to plug in the wire and see what happened, right?
She climbed back on and without hesitating she reached out with her free hand, grasped the wires, and angled them together with deft fingers. The light from her phone was unsteady, but it was enough. Just as the wires connected, she thought: It’s an alarm. Those two holes are speakers.
And the adapters slid into place.
Immediately, there was a loud rush of air, then the siren went off: a loud klaxon noise filled the air, so loud that the shock blew her backwards off of her box. She screamed, but she couldn’t hear it. She had enough time to think, Oh great. Now I’m deaf, as she tumbled backwards through the air. Her phone flew out of her hand, and she landed on the concrete floor, feeling her head crack against it with a flash of pain, then darkness.
*
The siren was deafening, but she knew that meant she still had her hearing intact. Gina rolled to her side, head pounding, and touched it gingerly. She could feel a wet slick of blood, but she knew it wasn’t anything serious. She’d been out for a few seconds, at the most, but that was enough: the room was utterly pitch black. Her phone had turned off. She may not be deaf, but she was effectively blind.
She fumbled around in the darkness, running blind into crates, praying they wouldn’t tip. There was another BOOM and she heard a tower collapse somewhere else in the room, metal clanking loudly inside of them. She got to her hands and knees, feeling for her phone, and finally found it.
She pressed the unlock button, and nothing happened. Slowly, she ran a hand over the screen. It was shattered. Her phone was broken.
She felt around until she reached the door and left the room. To her right, at the far end where the morgue light should have been, was instead darkness. To her left was the staircase leading out, but she couldn’t see that, either. Had the power gone off? Where was the generator? Why hadn’t that siren have turned off too? And what was it for?
She looked towards the staircase that would lead to the hospital proper. She started walking slowly, her hands outstretched in front of her. She didn’t want to run face first into the door. After what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than seconds, she reached the door, heart pounding. She opened it, then closed it behind her, thankful that the siren noise was dampened, if only slightly.
She looked upward: there was a window at the top of the stairs and it gave just enough light to see where she was going. She took the steps slowly, going up all five flights, and reached the top minutes later. She was exhausted – not physically, but the situation was stressful. She had no idea what was going on.
At the top of the stairs, the siren was barely audible. The rest of the hospital was silent. She had expected to hear Bobby’s TV blaring some game, but there was nothing. Even the fireworks – and whatever else had been exploding – were silent.
“Hello?” she called. No answer. She made her way to the front of the hospital, checking the reception room. The TV was on the floor, shattered, as were a couple of beer bottles. Miraculously, one bottle had stayed upright through whatever had happened. It was half drunk. Bobby, from all of his bragging, was the kind of guy to never leave a beer behind. But he was nowhere to be found.
From behind her, she heard footsteps. She turned, seeing Charlaine, a look of panic on her face. She hardly seemed to notice Gina, who moved in front of her, asking, “Charlaine! What’s wrong?”
It took the nurse a few seconds to register her. She never stopped moving, though, and skirted around Gina, saying, “Get home and get out of here, Gina!”
Then she was out the front doors. Dread was starting to form in the pit of Gina’s stomach. Something was seriously going wrong here. She didn’t know what it was, but she was uneasy.
BOOM! The entire hospital shook. The ceiling tiles started to come down, shattering close to her. She jumped sideways to avoid one as Bobby’s last bottle toppled to the floor and shattered in an explosion of glass and beer.
Gina decided that it was time for her to leave.
*
Outside, she couldn’t see much. This time of the year the trees were in full bloom, and they covered the mountains. There were a few small houses to her left, down the road: the entirety of the town of Grady. To her right was a small supermarket. The road was deserted, though. Even the houses were empty. The cars that usually sat unmoved out front were gone.
Whatever had happened, the residents had fled. She heard the roar of a car, and Charlaine raced past her. Gina watched her car until the road wound around a huge patch of trees, and then it was gone. She was alone. She was probably the only person left in the entire town.
She ran to her car as fast as she could, getting in and slamming the door behind her. She started it up and wheeled out of the parking lot faster than she had ever before. Whatever was going on, she intended to get home, grab her dog, and hit the road – anywhere was better than here, with whatever was going on. Petey would probably be scared stiff right now.
She took a right, following the route Charlaine had taken, winding and turning down mountain roads. She’d always loved the Appalachians, especially driving through them. Most days, it was like driving through a dream. She had always felt special, felt hidden, between these ancient trees. Right now, she hated it. She couldn’t see anything but the twisting and turning road in front of her.
She tried to peer through the trees, down the mountains, hoping to see signs of what was happening in Haysberry. But the trees were oppressive and dark. The sun would be slipping behind the horizon soon, and then she wouldn’t be able to see anything, at all.
So she kept driving, muttering under her breath, “Shit, shit, shit,” over and over. The road was absolutely deserted. She had expected to see someone, anyone, but she was alone. She shivered.
Gina rolled the windows down, letting the warm breeze roll into her car and keep her focused. What was going on? There were some explosions, and that siren in the basement had gone off – she wasn’t sure what it meant, though. Explosions? Had they been attacked? Were those explosions from bombs, or from something else?
The radio told her nothing. There was nothing but static on every channel she tried. She wasn’t surprised. Gina shivered again. What was going on?
The drive down to Haysberry wasn’t long, but it was tense. As she drove down the mountain, Gina started to hear the familiar sound of sirens. Then she started to smell smoke. She still couldn’t see what was going on down below, but she had a feeling it wasn’t good.
She rounded the final bend before descending into Haysberry – and into chaos. Haysberry was on fire. She watched as cars crashed into houses, people ran across the street, and the flames raged out of control.
Petey! Instead of slowing down, Gina only pressed on the gas, heading down the mountain at a dangerous speed. She looked to the neighborhood her block was in. She was barely able to see it through the smoke, but she could tell that the fire hadn’t reached her house. At least not yet, but it would soon. She sped downwards.
The smoke quickly became so thick she could barely see through it, but she kept driving. To her left, a car sped around her, the man inside screaming and raising a fist at her. Then he crashed into another car head-on, and he was gone.
Gina looked back forward, swerving to avoid a woman running across the street.
“Watch out!” she yelled, but the woman either didn’t hear or, or paid her no mind. She followed her normal route home, swerving to avoid a burning car. Her mind raced. What is going on? What’s gotten into everyone?
She wanted to stop, to get her bearings, to figure out what was going on, but she couldn’t: Petey was depending on her, and she would never forgive herself if something happened to him. So she pushed her foot to the floor and sped off, turning into her neighborhood.
Here, besides the smoke, things didn’t look quite so bad. But a few houses on the far side of the neighborhood were on fire, and she could see the smoke and embers blowing ominously towards her house. She pulled up into the driveway, still moving forward as she jerked her car into park and yanked the keys from the ignition.
In the window, Petey was jumping and barking: happy to see her, or panicking, she couldn’t tell. Maybe a bit of both. She walked through her yard, turning around and taking everything in. Even one of the mountains above town seemed like it was on fire, but she wasn’t sure how that was possible.
She was snapped out of her reverie by the continued barking, and she went to unlock her front door. Her hands were shaking, but after a few seconds she got it open. Petey ran out immediately, running up to her legs, licking her and barking lightly. She bent down, pulling him close: he was shaking. He knew something was happening.
“Come on, Petey,” she told him, heading into the house with a final look backwards. She could see that the fire had spread to another house, but it was still a few down from hers. Gina and Petey had a few minutes of safety, at the least, and she meant to put it to good use.
She went to the pantry first, grabbing two gallons of water she’d had stashed there for emergencies. She lugged them to the car, tossed them in the back seat, then ducked back into the house. Canned food that had been sitting in the pantry for who-knows-how-long was next. She wasn’t sure how much food she would need; wasn’t sure what was going on, so she brought all of it. Grabbed Petey’s dog bed, his tub of dry food, and an extra bag just in case. Grabbed cans upon cans of wet dog food, too. When she’d grabbed every scrap of food he could eat, she went upstairs, Petey at her heels.
She went to the bedroom first. She tore the covers off of her bed, left the room, then reconsidered and grabbed a pillow, too. Outside, she saw that the house two doors down was on fire. Time was running out.
“Get in, Petey,” she told him. He obeyed, jumping up into the passenger seat. She turned the car on, putting the air to full blast, and shut him inside. She couldn’t risk him running off when the fire came closer. Gina went back into the house.
She dug through her closet, grabbing extra sets of clothes and stuffing them into a duffel bag. Then she grabbed another blanket, slinging it over her shoulder, and headed into the bathroom. She grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste, ignoring the soap and shampoo. She grabbed a few towels, just in case, and headed back outside.
The fire was burning Mr. McNeil’s house, directly next door. He was an older man, and she hoped that he was gone from his house. His car was gone, so she hoped for the best. She considered leaving then, but knew she had a few moments left. Was there anything else she needed?
She went back in, the smoke thick now, blowing through the open door. She went to a closet, grabbed a flashlight and an old first aid kit. Then the smoke was too much and she had to leave her house for the last time, coughing and knowing that in moments, it would be gone.
The flames were just licking the side of her house as she stepped out the front door. With a hand on her car door, she turned and looked back, watching as the flames really caught hold. She’d been in that house for years, had bought it with her own hard-earned money. She was conscious of money, so she had saved up enough and paid it off entirely. It was something she was proud of. She had great insurance, but still, she couldn’t believe her house would be gone, and everything in it.
Everything except her and Petey. That was the most important thing. She opened the door – and Petey jumped out and sprinted towards the house.
“Petey!” Gina screamed, chasing off after him and dropping what she had grabbed. The house was fully engulfed now, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Petey inside. Without even hesitating, she sprinted through the burning doorway. The smoke was thick inside, and already her couch was an inferno. “Petey!”
She couldn’t see anything, so she dropped to her knees, scanning for him. He was nowhere to be seen. The flames had spread to the carpet, traveling across the room, melting her TV. She didn’t have much time. She crawled forward, towards the kitchen, making her way to where his food usually was. Maybe he had gone there seeking comfort.
But there was no sign of him.
Gina was coughing now. The smoke was choking her. She could feel her head getting dizzy and knew she wouldn’t last much longer. She had to find Petey… She had to.
Then he was in her face, dropping his bone by her hands and licking her face.
“Petey!” she scolded him, but grabbed him tight. She took his bone too and stood up, running out of the blaze. Safe in the yard, she collapsed, coughing wracking her body. Petey was next to her, licking her face, making sure she was okay. She handed him his bone and rolled over on her back, feeling the cool grass on her bare skin. But the flames were spreading fast. Bushes, and then the lawns themselves started to go up in flames. The fire was relentless.
“Petey, let’s get out of here,” she told him. He followed her dutifully, his bone lodged between his teeth. “Did you really need that?”
In answer, he wagged his tail and jumped into the passenger seat.
Gina picked up her supplies, tossed them inside, and put the car in reverse and rolled down the driveway. She paused in front of her house, watching it collapse in an explosion of flames. Petey yelped beside her, and that was enough. She put the car in drive, and rolled away from what was left of her house.
She didn’t know where to go – so Gina just drove. Haysberry was slowly being destroyed, and the fire wasn’t the only thing tearing the town apart. She watched as looters threw bricks through windows, climbing in to steal whatever was inside. Crashed cars and broken glass littered the streets.
An old gentleman was shambling along the sidewalk, slowly, ignoring all of the looters around him. She looked at him, unsure if it was who she thought. The smoke was thick. But after a few seconds, she was sure. She rolled down the window. Petey was immediately leaning his head out, barking at the man.
“Mr. McNeil!” she called. The man didn’t turn towards her. “Mr. McNeil!”
He finally looked at her, his eyes glazed over, as if he wasn’t really there.
“Mr. McNeil, what’s going on? Come get in!”
Mr. McNeil was one of the nicest men she’d ever met. His wife had passed away a few months before Gina had moved in next door, but he’d always had a smile for her. He been a good neighbor.
In response, he turned to his left, walking into an alleyway, and disappeared into the darkness within.
Gina turned back to the road, dejected.
She drove out of Haysberry, heading back up towards Grady. She didn’t know where else to go. When she reached the ridge above Haysberry, she put her car in park and got out. Petey joined her on the side of the road. Together, they stood in silence, watching Haysberry burn down below. The fire lit up the night sky, as if the town she’d lived in was the sun itself.
It would all be gone, soon.
And she still had absolutely no idea what was going on. “Let’s go, Petey,” she told him, and they got back into her car and started to drive.
*
Just as she suspected, Grady was deserted. The few houses that surrounded the hospital were deserted, too. For whatever reason, unknown to her, these families had fled. Was it some sort of disease? If so, was she exposed? Were the explosions she’d heard earlier a way of containing whatever it was? She felt sick with uncertainty.
She parked around back, inside the old parking garage. It had been abandoned months ago, when most of the other hospital employees had been laid off. Now, it was covered in a fine layer of dust, leaves, and other debris that had blown in over time. She shut off her car, thinking about what to do.
After a few minutes of silence only broken by Petey gnawing on his bone, Gina made up her mind. She wasn’t ready to spend a night in her car – not yet anyway, though she suspected that soon enough, she would be. Whatever was happening seemed big, and she had a gut feeling that it wasn’t just happening around here.
“Come on, Petey,” she said, opening the car door. Petey grabbed his bone and jumped out, taking a moment to stretch before running around the parking garage. “Stay close.”
She rummaged through her bags, unsure of what to grab. In the end, she left it all behind with the exception of the flashlight. The hospital would have everything she needed.
Together, she and Petey set out, climbing up the steps and crossing the ancient walkway that connected the parking garage to the hospital. The main power was off, but sometime after she had left, the power generator had kicked in. She slid her key card through the door, the light flashing green and unlocking. She opened the door, letting Petey go in first.
The hospital was deserted, just like it had been earlier in the day. Only essential lights and systems were on, casting most of the hospital in a ghastly glow. “Hello?” she called, but there was no answer. Petey perked up to her voice’s echo, but calmed down when she scratched him behind the ears.
She retreated to the employee’s quarters, in the back of the hospital. She made sure the door was locked behind her – just in case there was someone here. Then, she found one of the rooms she would spend the night in. She kept the blinds drawn. There was no point looking outside – it was all trees, and she didn’t like the idea of someone peering in at her while she slept, though she banished that thought from her mind. That would be ridiculous.
She changed out of her dirty clothes, leaving them in a messy pile on the floor. Something told her no one would mind. Then she went into the employee restroom, turning the shower on to full blast. She got the water piping hot and stepped in, grabbing soap, shampoo, and conditioner from a shelf next to her. Petey sat at the edge of the room, standing guard. For once, she felt at ease. Petey wouldn’t let her down.
She stayed in the shower for a long time, uncaring as to whether she was sucking up the rest of the hospital’s power. That surprised her, but there it was. Before everything had spiraled out of control, she’d done everything in her power to stick to the books. She took pride in her job. She never would have left dirty clothes on the hospital floor, or used up all of the hot water. Now, it didn’t matter.
When she was finally done, completely pruned up, she grabbed one of the hospital’s supplied towels and started to dry off. As she did so, she thought of what her next move would be.
Tomorrow morning, at first light, she would gather up as many hospital supplies – medicine, pills, IVs, first aid kits, gauze – all she could think of, and stuff it into her car. She would bring more clean clothes and towels, tools, anything she could get her hands on and that would fit in the car. She had a bad feeling that she would need all of these things in the near future. If not, then she would just return it all when all of this blew over.
Then she would hunt down the gas that powered the generators and some of the other machines here. She knew there were a few barrels and cans of the stuff, hidden out back behind a fence. She would need that to get where she had finally decided on going.
Her destination wasn’t great, but at least she had one now: her stepfather’s house, four hours north of Haysberry. They had never been friendly towards each other, and after her mother had passed away, they’d gladly never spoken to each other again. But he was the only family Gina had left. She might even recognize some people in her hometown. It would be better than being alone, anyway.
So with that in mind, she pulled on some clean scrubs and crawled into a bed. Petey jumped up next to her, leaving the bone on the floor. He snuggled up close, and Gina wrapped her arms around him. Together, they fell into an uneasy sleep.
*
Gina awoke to light streaming through the window. Petey was still sleeping next to her. She lay in silence for a few minutes, straining to hear anything else in the hospital – but she heard nothing. Slowly, she got up. Petey jumped down, then started jumping against her legs. She knew he was hungry, but she’d left all of his food in the car.
“We’ll get you some food soon,” she told him. He gave her a wary look, but stopped jumping on her and seemed to accept that.
Gina wasted no time in ransacking the hospital. Petey followed closely, keeping an eye on her. She filled up duffel bag after duffel bag full of everything she thought she, or anyone else she met, might need sometime down the road. If this thing was widespread, this stuff would soon be in short supply. She ferried the bags back and forth from the hospital to her car.
When her car could fit no more supplies without the need to sacrifice her own seat, she turned her attention to getting gas for her trip. She found the key to the back door in the security office where it always was, mercifully left behind. Already tired and aching, she went towards the back of the hospital.
The smell of smoke was strong in the air when she opened the door, but the fire didn’t appear to be anywhere close to the hospital. For that, she was thankful. She wandered around, looking at all of the stuff laying outside in the maintenance area: gas cans, bottles of oil, a small tool shed packed full of tools. It was all enclosed in a chain link fence, topped with barbed wire. They’d had a few break-ins in the past, but she hadn’t been here when they’d happened, luckily.
She bent down to pick up the twin gas cans, but stopped short as Petey started barking. Gina jumped up, watching Petey sprint towards the fence. Standing there was a man, a pistol outstretched in his hand. His eyes were wide, crazed, and they never left Gina’s face.
“Hello,” she said hesitantly. The gun was trained directly on her chest. Petey was at the fence, snapping at the man, but he couldn’t get his snout through the fence enough to score a bite. “Can I help you?”
The man didn’t answer at first, but then said in a low, reedy voice, “What are ya doin’ in there?”
“I’m a doctor, sir. I work here.”
“Well, ain’t that so. Let me in,” he said, waving the pistol towards the gate in the fence. There was a heavy padlock on it. It had deterred most thieves, but she didn’t know how well it would hold up to gunfire.
“I can’t, sir. The hospital’s closed.”
“Mmm,” the man hummed. He licked his lips. His crazed eyes looked to the gate, then dropped to his pistol, and she knew that he was considering it. “I’m gonna have to ask again, ma’am. Let me in.”
“Sir –”
“LET ME IN!!” he roared. Gina flinched at his outburst, and Petey whined in surprise. The man kicked out, lashing at Petey, but he was quickly back between Gina’s legs, growling.
The man was running towards the gate, the gun outstretched, so Gina turned and ran. She reached the door, turned back and saw the gas cans that she had left. She made a move to get them, but heard a gunshot and the gate swing open, so she fled back inside the building.
Petey was right behind her, barking and yelping as they went, running down the hospital hallway. Behind her, Gina heard another gunshot ring out and the wall next to her exploded in a burst of plaster. The gunshot echoed throughout the hall, and Gina covered her ears without slowing.
She didn’t hear another shot the entire length of the hallway, and soon Petey and she were passing the welcome desk. She flung the door to the walkway open, Petey hot on her heels. Then they were in the garage.
Gina flung the door open, dropping into the driver’s seat immediately. Petey jumped across her lap, taking up residence in the passenger seat, standing and looking out the window, growling. She slammed the door, turned the key in the ignition, and they squealed out of the parking garage in a few short seconds.
“Oh, my God,” she said, as much to Petey as to herself. That had been close. Luckily, she had ditched the man in the hospital. What had been wrong with him?
She didn’t have to try to remember him for long; with a bang he burst out of a side door to her rear, waving the gun wildly. She heard the gun firing, loud even this far away. There were a couple of dull thunks as the bullets penetrated the body of the car, but both she and Petey seemed to have escaped unscathed.
She turned out of the drive and into the road as the man fired one last shot. She ducked her head instinctively, another dull thunk in the side of the car, and there was a burst of fire in her leg. She screamed in pain, swerving, but managed to keep to the road.
Gina looked down at her thigh. As she watched, a deep red bloomed on her bright pink scrubs. She’d been hit. She’d been shot. That man had shot her. She could barely believe what had happened. The pain had been a flash of brightness, but had dulled considerably – she knew it was the adrenaline coursing through her.
It hadn’t hit the artery, or else she knew she would be close to dead already. Still, she was bleeding badly. She could feel the warm wetness running down her thigh, soaking her seat. She could hear the drip of her blood falling on the floor mat. Beside her, Petey whined.
Gritting her teeth, with one hand on the wheel, she reached in the backseat, fumbling for a first aid kit, gauze, styptic powder – anything that could slow down the bleeding. She knew that she would need stitches too, but first, she had to get out of this area. She couldn’t risk that man running up on her while she was sewing herself shut.
Gina found a first aid kit, stacked among the bags in the back, and tossed it into the seat next to Petey. He jumped out of the way. “Sorry, Petey,” she told him, unzipping the bag with one hand, only half paying attention to the road.
She switched hands on the wheel, used her free one to rip the scrubs apart where the bullet had entered her left thigh. Then she switched hands again, grabbing some styptic powder and ripping it open with her teeth. She covered the wound with it, hoping it would be enough – but knowing it wouldn’t.
She was going to have to pull over. There was no other choice. She glanced in the mirror, hoping that she had put enough distance between her and Grady. She started to pull over to the side of the road, but as she did so, she noticed a beat-up black truck coming towards her.
The truck started to slow, to pull up next to her – and Gina gunned it. In her mirror, she saw the door swing open, and a man in frayed cut-offs climbed out. He aimed a rifle at her, but didn’t fire. He paused, then shook his head, and climbed back in.
What in the hell? she thought. What is going on?
She was so wired up that she couldn’t even imagine stopping. But she was really starting to get woozy. She would have to stop soon, whether she wanted to or not. Thoughts echoed and repeated.
What in the hell?
What is going on?
What in the-
Gina’s head slumped against the wheel and she listed to one side. Her car slid from the right lane into the left. She came to and sucked in a breath, jerking the wheel to the right. Petey let out a yelp of alarm as he was pitched to the side. Gina blinked rapidly, trying to clear her dimming vision, but it was useless.
“Wha-”
She couldn’t even form a complete word, and darkness started to close in.
What is going on?
Petey.
Then her head fell against the wheel again and jerked the car to one side. With a crunch and the sound of Petey’s desperate whining, Gina’s car careened off the road.
*
There was a loud noise, loud enough to shake the ground underneath Dean’s feet. He looked up from his meal pack and at the swinging lights above him. Something had just hit, right near the shelter. Another bomb? It was a possibility, but he hoped that yesterday was the first and last of them.
He considered his options for a few moments, then got up out of the metal chair and set his meal pack down on the table, half unfinished. He’d had them before, but he hadn’t remembered just how vile they were. Still, it was food, and he was lucky enough to have a surplus. He could choke it down.
Should he go outside and check out what had happened? The answer was a resounding no, but he found himself leaving his kitchen anyway. He was curious; he could at least peer through the peephole in the door. That couldn’t hurt.
He entered the hallway, if you could call it that. It was 60 feet of solid, cold concrete. The kitchen was at the far end of it, a staircase leading upwards to the surface on the other. To his left was the small bathroom, to his right the generator room, full of everything that kept this place going. Before he quite knew what he was doing, he was closing in on the staircase. Now to his left was his bedroom: a small, quaint room with a table for work, a recliner for reading, and a cot for sleeping. To his right was the storeroom, packed full of gasoline, oil, tools, and all of the extra food that he couldn’t fit into the kitchen.
The stairs were ancient steel, built to last. He clambered up them slowly, heart beating in his chest. The door was built of solid steel, too. It was thick, pure metal, with reinforcing bars running through it to lock it into the concrete door frame. There was no way this door was getting opened if he didn’t want it open.
And now, for some reason, he did.
The peephole was small, unnoticeable from the outside door. Hell, the whole bunker was unnoticeable: it was built into the cliff face that made up half of a massive stone gully. The side the bunker was on was sheer rock, straight up for nearly a hundred feet. The other side was part of a mountain, covered in thick overgrowth and giant trees. The slope was nearly 70 degrees, so it had seen few visitors over the years.
As one last precaution, thanks to nature, the rock wall and bunker, were covered in a mass of creeping vines. Unless you were standing right in front of the door, it was invisible, and no one was stupid enough to climb down the slope. After all, what was the point of climbing all the way down, and then back up, for nothing?
His little part of paradise.
Or, rather, it had been.
About 20 feet to the left of the shelter, there was a huge patch of crushed undergrowth. Even one of the smaller trees had been knocked down.
“What the hell?” Dean muttered to himself. He decided that he had to go check it out, even if he hadn’t wanted to. He turned and ran swiftly down the stairs. His shoulders brushed each side of the hallway, but he didn’t notice the claustrophobia, for once. He had to figure out what was going on. His survival could depend on it.
He went into the storeroom and flipped on the light. The energy-saving lightbulb took a few seconds to come on. By the time it had, he’d already grabbed what he needed and was back out the door. In one hand, he held one of his grandfather’s old Geiger counters. In the other, his grandfather’s .357 Magnum. Whatever was out there, he intended to make short work of it and be back inside before he was in any real danger.
He stopped at the door, aiming the Geiger counter forward. He flipped it on, relieved to find that the area was clean. He breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t even known he’d been holding in. No bomb, then. The area was clear of radiation.
But there was something out there. Something he had to deal with. He steeled himself for whatever was coming next. Dean set the counter down on the stair under his feet and wrenched the massive wheel open on the door, spinning it until the hinges unlocked. Then he pulled with all of his might, swinging the door inwards. He peeked the magnum out first, then swung his head out.
The sun was high in the sky, but between the cliff face, the mountain looming over him, and the foliage, it was still gloomy. That didn’t bother him, though.
He went slowly, taking care to avoid any fallen leaves and twigs, moving silently. To his right was the broken path of vegetation. To his left, against the cliff, was a small red car - totaled. He looked at it for a few seconds, but no one moved inside. Could someone have even survived that? He didn’t know, but he was going to take no chances. He took another glance up the mountain. He would have to figure out a way to head up to the road and disguise where the car had swerved off. He couldn’t risk drawing any attention to himself.
But first, he had to deal with whoever was in the car. He crouched low, gun outstretched in his hand. He imagined how ludicrous he must look – his massive body hunched over, gripping a tiny gun. Still, there was no one to see him, except whoever was in the car, and they weren’t moving.
He got to the car, gun at the ready. Inside the car was a woman, hair dark with blood, leaning against the steering wheel. “Hey,” he growled, but she didn’t answer. Was she dead? He tapped the gun against the door frame. Bits of glass fell to the forest floor.
The door was dented in. He peered at it closer. Was that a bullet hole? He grabbed the handle and started to pull, but it was jammed tight. With a massive yank, it popped free and swung out. His earlier suspicion was right: her leg was a bloody mess and he could see where a bullet had entered her thigh.
Carefully, he leaned her head backwards, and there was a flash of movement from the passenger footwell. Dean felt a flash of pain in his left hand, saw blood – his blood – spraying across the car, and he jumped backwards, gun outstretched. A small dog, some kind of terrier, was on the woman’s lap, growling and snapping at him. Dean lowered his gun.
“Whoa, hold on, buddy,” he said to it, but the dog didn’t back down. If anything, he growled even louder. Was the woman even alive? Should he put her out of her misery? The scent of blood was filling his nostrils, driving him into a bloodlust. It was overwhelming. But he couldn’t kill her. That wouldn’t be fair.
Should he leave her? Every bone in his body told him to. Other people were dangerous. She could be dangerous. She didn’t look like it, but she could be. He took a glance in the back of the car: jam-packed full of bags. Probably useless stuff.
He couldn’t leave her, no matter what he was telling himself. It wasn’t right. His emotions were warring: what he’d been taught, what was right; did any of it matter?
“Back up,” he told the dog. “I’m here to help!”
The dog’s throat still rumbled with a low growl, but it didn’t move. Dean glared at it, expecting some kind of trap, but when he bent down and undid the seatbelt the dog didn’t attack. His head in the car, Dean surveyed the situation better. Blood was everywhere, but on the floor where the dog had attacked from was a first aid kit. And it wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill, cheap store-bought one: this was a hospital issued, real one.
“Where did you get this?” he asked her, though he knew there would be no answer. He pulled back, and the dog started to growl, as if telling him, Come back. “Hold on, buddy.”
Dean opened the back door and rifled through a duffel bag. What he saw surprised him. Most were packed full of hospital supplies: pills, IVs... anything he could think of. That along with her scrubs. Was she a nurse? Or had she just raided the nearest hospital? The closest one would be Grady Memorial, about 10 miles back. If she’d raided that, then the country was in a bad spot. Grady wasn’t a shining example of what a hospital should be, but if it was shut down, things were bad out there.
He went back to the woman, placing a finger against her neck. There was a pulse, but it was extremely weak. She didn’t have much time. The amount of blood she had lost was staggering. He didn’t have enough supplies in his bunker to save her, but maybe she did.
“Let’s get her inside,” he said to the dog. He looped an arm underneath her legs, feeling her slick blood soaking him, and another around her back. He lifted her easily, mindful of her head on the door frame, and then he was running inside. The dog was hot at his heels; silent, but always there.
He took her down the stairs two at a time. He ran down the hallway and deposited her onto the table in his room, where he had the most light. He hesitated for a split second, but then ripped the scrubs off of her: he had to check for more wounds. After a quick look, he was sure that she’d only taken one bullet, deep in her upper thigh. It had missed the artery or she’d be dead already, but it was still causing some serious damage.
“Wait here,” he told the dog. Dean was back outside in seconds, grabbing four duffel bags in each arm. He didn’t know what was in each, and he hoped that he wouldn’t have to make a second trip back out. He dropped them on the floor of his bedroom. Blood was all over the table already.
He started tearing through the bags, looking for what he needed. He found some IV bags, then found the tubes he would need to connect them to her. There was a rusty IV pole in the storeroom. He ran and got it, along with his medical bag of tools: scissors, scalpels, needles, and thread for the stitches.
He left the room, running across the hallway, and looked to his right: the doorway was still wide open. Every bone in his body told him that he needed to close it, close it right now, but this woman was on the verge of death. Every second mattered. Against every survivalist bone in his body, especially now with what was going on, he ran back into his room and got to work.
*
It had taken him a while, but Dean had done all he could, and he hoped that it would be enough. She seemed as though she would live. He’d started by hooking her up to the IV, replenishing the fluids she’d lost. Then he had to dig the bullet out of her thigh. She’d stirred once while he was doing it, so he’d given her a shot of one of the various drugs she’d brought. It had knocked her right out.
He’d had to clean her wound and stitch her up. There wouldn’t be any serious damage, assuming that she survived. These things were tricky, especially working on a table buried deep in a war shelter. He’d given her antibiotics to fight off any infection, covered her with a blanket, and had gone back outside. The dog would protect her.
He had climbed up to the top of the slope, carefully walking out onto the road. The road ran halfway up the mountain, twisting and turning as it went. He saw where she had driven into the ditch on the far side of the road, then the car had jerked to the left and gone right off the road and down the mountain. He kicked through the dirt, erasing any trace of her tire tracks in it.
That was the least of his problems, though. She’d driven straight through the metal barrier. It was twisted and broken. There wasn’t much he could do about it except to bend it back into shape, so that it resembled what it had been before. With any luck, people speeding along this road wouldn’t notice.
What were the chances that someone would notice that a car went off the road here? Probably slim. But if they did, and they were desperate for supplies, then following the trail would lead them right to his front door. That was something he couldn’t have. But he had done all he could do.
Standing on the edge of the road, looking down, he could barely tell that a car had sliced through the undergrowth, even with his superior vision, and the knowledge that the offending car was down there even now. Looking down the steep slope, it was a wonder she hadn’t flipped the vehicle. If she had, even with all of her supplies, he wouldn’t have been able to save her.
He took one last look at the road. Nothing else I can do, he thought, so I’d better get back. And so back he went, deciding on the way that he would move all of her supplies into his bunker. For the time being, at least.
It wasn’t like she was going anywhere any time soon.
*
There was pain, at first. Everywhere. Not just her thigh, though that felt like it was on fire and broken in a thousand places. Her head hurt, too, though she couldn’t remember why that would be. It couldn’t have been a gunshot, or she would be dead. She tried to move, but a lightning bolt of pain wracked through her body and she gasped.
Gina felt Petey licking her face, heard something – someone – speaking nearby, and then Petey’s tongue was gone. She opened her eyes, but everything was blurry. She could make out a light above her, but she couldn’t focus on anything. Then, a shadow loomed over her, blotting out the light. It was definitely another person, but if she knew them she couldn’t tell.
Slowly, hey came into focus. It was a man. He had a ragged beard, long, unkempt hair, and golden eyes. Golden eyes? That couldn’t be. She must be seeing things. But as her sight started to return, she saw she wasn’t mistaken.
Shifter.
She’d met some Shifters over her medical career, though not often. They were famously brutish, crass, and dangerous, but she’d never seen that kind of thing up close. Then again, she’d never been this close to a Shifter.
“Be still,” he ordered. His voice was rough and his speech was clipped – like he hadn’t talked to anyone in a long time. Where was she?
She tried to ask, but she couldn’t form any words.
The man leaned down, and a cup of water pressed against her dry and cracked lips. She sipped gratefully. The water helped, but her mouth still felt dry and the words wouldn’t come out.
“You crashed your vehicle. Came down the mountain. You’re lucky to be alive.”
That explained the pounding pain in her head. She knew the man was right, though. Before she’d lost consciousness, she was bleeding out, badly. She knew it was bad. How was she alive? She turned her head, ignoring the pain, and saw that her right arm was hooked up to an IV. Carefully observing it showed it to be from Grady.
So this man had raided her car. For a second, she felt a flash of anger. He’d looted her stuff? Then, as quickly as it had come on, it faded. After all, he had used her supplies to save her life. She couldn’t be mad at that.
“Petey,” she breathed. Talking hurt. Instantly he was next to her, lying down underneath her left arm. She felt his warmth, his chin resting on her arm.
“He’s fine. Got a mean bite, too,” the man said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him holding up a bandaged hand. It was stained with blood.
“Good boy.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“He wouldn’t leave your side the entire time.”
The entire time? Gina reached her hand down, feeling along her thigh. The first thing she noticed was that her scrub bottoms were gone. Then she realized her shirt was gone, too. She lay there, clad only in her bra and her underwear, under a sheer sheet. What had this man seen? Then she felt the stitching where the bullet had gone into her leg. The wound was warm, but the pain had faded into a dull throb.
“What did you do?” she managed.
“Got you hooked up to the IV. Checked you for wounds. Extracted the bullet. Sewed you shut.”
“I need...” she said, pausing and catching her breath, “some antibiotics to fight off the infection. They’re in...”
“This bag here?” the man asked, lifting one up. “I’ve already administered them to you. I even read the label.”
“Thanks.”
Gina took another deep breath. How did this man know to do all that? Was he a doctor? Where were they? None of this looked familiar.
“Where?”
The man hesitated. “It’s not important.”
Gina could tell that there was something this man didn’t want to tell her. What could it be? Why did it matter?
“Please.”
“You’re safe, and that’s all that matters. Now, you need to get some rest.”
With that, the man walked away from her and flipped the light off. She was bathed in darkness. Then she heard the sound of a door closing and she was alone with Petey, who snuggled up even closer. He was still here, and that was the important thing.
“It’s going to be okay, Petey,” she told him, even though she knew that might not be true. It was as much to reassure herself as it was to reassure her dog. Of course, he didn’t answer her, but he listened, and that was enough. Slowly, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep, thankful to be alive but afraid of what was to come next.
*
Dean shut the door behind him and made it only two steps before he nearly collapsed. He held his hand out in front of him, watching it shake. What had he done?
Undeniably, he’d done what was right. But one of the things he’d always had drilled into his head by his grandfather was not getting involved with other people in these situations. Especially in these situations. People, no matter who they are, were dangerous. That was something that, since birth, he had been told never to forget.
And he’d broken that code on just the second day of the apocalypse. He retreated to the kitchen, intent on finishing his meal pack.
*
Gina awoke slowly. Petey was still curled up by her arm. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep. There were no windows, wherever she was. She did feel noticeably better, though. There was a dull throb in her leg, but the pain wasn’t anything but an annoyance at this point. Her head hurt, but a few aspirin should clear that up.
She sat up, noticing that sometime while she was asleep, the Shifter had changed her IV out to a new one. She disconnected it and peeled the sheet off of her body. Petey jumped down to the floor and ran to his bowl, lapping up some water. Whoever this man was, he had enough sense to feed and water Petey. She found herself with a slight smile on her face, despite the situation.
Gina found she was no longer on the table. Instead, she had been lying on a cot. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed she’d been on, but it was better than the table.
Carefully, fighting off a flash of pain, she swung her legs over the edge of the cot. Her vision went fuzzy for a few moments, but she took a few deep breaths, and slowly, everything cleared up again. She looked down at her body: her leg was wrapped tightly in gauze. There was still some dried blood on her, but whoever the man was, he’d taken the time to clean her up as best he could. She was still in her bra and panties. She may have known why he had done it, but it still made her blush.
And from what she had seen – despite him being a Shifter – he was actually quite handsome, in a rugged, unkempt way. But no. That wasn’t something she could afford to think about right now. She had to figure out what was going on.
With great care, Gina lowered herself onto the floor. Her first step was wobbly; painful. Laid out on the table was a set of her clothes. She pulled the shirt over her head and grabbed the pair of sleep pants he had set out for her. She made her way back to the cot and sat down, putting one foot in at a time. It was slow going, but she finally managed to pull them up over her wound and get them on completely.
Dressed, she felt like a new person. The pain was still there, but it was distant. The unease of unknowing was still there, and it was oppressive, but for now, she thought she was safe. Whoever this man was, he’d saved her life. There was no denying that.
Petey was at her feet as she stood up and went towards the door. She opened it carefully, struggling against the heavy weight before peeking out, unsure of what she would find. Petey, on the other hand, just rushed out into the hallway and trotted off to the right.
“Petey!” she hissed, but he paid her no mind. He went into a room at the far end of the hallway. To her left, she noticed, was a long staircase leading upwards. To the surface? Were they underground? It would make sense: it looked like some type of bunker.
She started down the hallway, following Petey, and as she reached the room he’d disappeared into, a massive shape came out of the shadows. Gina barely stifled a scream, but relaxed when she saw it was only the Shifter. Clearly she was jumpy, but that was to be expected.
“Sorry,” was all he said.
Petey was happily running around the man’s ankles. She narrowed her eyes at him. Traitor. He was supposed to be on her side. Instead, this man had fed and watered him, and he was his new best friend.
“Where are we?” she asked.
The man grunted, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned and walked back into the room he had come from. Gina followed him, limping. The room was massive, much larger than the one she had been in. On one side, closest to the entrance, was a small kitchenette and a table. Boxes of food, stacks of cans, and all sorts of other food supplies were stacked in every free place.
The back of the room was completely different. It looked to be some sort of gym. In the dim light, she could see she was partially right. There was a squat rack and a bench press, stacks of plates next to each one of them. Massive dumbbells littered the floor in varying locations. But there were other things that caught her eyes: there was a huge upright log, like a tree without any branches that reached the ceiling. There were scratch marks in it. There was also some sort of wooden climbing apparatus. It reminded her of something she would see on an obstacle course – but much, much larger.
By her quick estimation, this room was easily as long as the hallway had been. It made sense, though. This man would have to have some way to stay in shape if he kept to this bunker.
“What’s your name?” she asked, sitting down at the table. He was rummaging through a box. Gina watched as he pulled out some kind of foil packet and ripped into it. He tossed it into a microwave without a word.
Gina sat in silence, just watching. After about a minute, the microwave beeped and he pulled the pack out. He dropped it in front of her on the table and sat a fork down. Then he sat down across from her, but still he didn’t say anything.
The meal didn’t look appetizing, but she knew she had to eat. It was some type of meat, maybe a chicken fried steak, covered in gravy with a side of fake mashed potatoes. Not her favorite, even in the best of times, but she dug in all the same. It was gross, but what could she do?
“I’m Gina,” she told him after she had swallowed a large mouthful of food. In answer, he got up and grabbed a glass from a cupboard, filled it up from the faucet and handed it to her. Gina took it and drank gratefully. She had been parched.
“What’s your name?” she asked again. When he didn’t answer, she nodded. “Okay, then. Thank you for saving my life.”
She thought she saw the slightest sign of a nod, but she couldn’t be sure. The minutes passed in silence, with the exception of her scraping the last of the food out of the pack. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she had been. When was the last time she had had any food? She thought back to two days ago, before she had gone in for her shift.
Two days ago. She did the math in her head: she had gone in on the 4th for her shift in the hospital and left when things went bad. She’d spent the night in Grady, then left in the morning, fleeing her attacker. She’d crashed her car and spent the night in this bunker, with the man who had taken care of her.
Only two days. Already, the memory of her life seemed so far away. What had happened? She still had no idea.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked the Shifter. He didn’t look up from staring at the table. “Do you even know?”
Still no response. Was it possible that he didn’t know either? He had to know what was going on, didn’t he? She’d heard of people like this. Survivalists. They had hidden bunkers, packed to the gills with food, water, and supplies, ready in case of an emergency.
But had this man been staying in the bunker before everything had happened?
That was preposterous, but…
His hair and beard were out of control. He was washed, but his demeanor left much to be desired. She’d barely gotten so much as a grunt out of him. What was his deal?
On the counter behind him, she noticed a radio. She was still weak, but she had to know what was going on. She simply couldn’t go on with not knowing what was happening to the world outside. She got up, slowly, and made her way to the radio. If the man gave any indication that he even cared, he didn’t show it.
Her vision went blurry when she reached the radio, but she steadied herself on the counter. When she thought she was okay, she flipped the power knob on. There was a brutally loud burst of static – her mind flashed back to the siren in the basement of Grady – and then she heard movement behind her.
There was a roar of fury, and Gina turned back to see the man getting out of his chair. No, getting out wasn’t the right way to describe it. The chair had been flung halfway across the room, loud metal clanging against the concrete floor. He pushed away from the table, which instead pushed the table across the floor – her glass of water fell to the floor, shattering.
Then he was on her, pushing her back against the counter, rage burning in his eyes. She could smell him this close. He had a primal smell, something that was both dangerous and intriguing. Something about his scent fought through the terror she felt from his sudden outburst.
She could practically see his body bristling; his hackles rising. He closed his blazing golden eyes, a look of pain crossing his face. He put out his hands to either side of her, gripping the countertop, and she saw that he didn’t have hands any longer; not exactly. They were claws. Horror started to take over her as she realized what was happening. He was shifting.
He tilted his head back and roared, echoing painfully in the room. Petey was at his ankle, growling and tearing at the man’s flesh.
“No! Petey, no!”
But the dog didn’t listen. The Shifter looked down, saw Petey on his leg, and Gina’s blood ran cold. She’d been afraid for herself, but now that Petey was involved, she could hardly breathe.
Thankfully, though, the man seemed to relax, his whole body going limp, and he took a few steps back and collapsed onto the cold floor. Gina’s breaths came in short, ragged bursts. Petey was standing between the two of them, growling softly, ready to attack at any second.
“Don’t...” the man began. His head was down, buried in his hands – no longer claws. “Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Sorry,” Gina said. All of that because she had turned the radio on?
Now that the danger had passed, Gina felt anger boiling up inside of her. All she had done was turn on his radio, just hoping to figure out what was going on, and he had exploded. What was wrong with this man?
“If you would have just told me what was going on…”
He growled, getting back to his feet. “Don’t touch my stuff,” he repeated.
“Then tell me what’s going on!”
He slammed his hands on the table flat, an explosively loud sound in the bunker. Petey was growling again.
“Just tell me!”
“The government. Dropped bombs on its own cities,” he said, as if each word hurt coming out.
“What? That’s ridiculous. You have to be wrong.”
He growled again. She could tell that she was pushing him, and she decided it would be best to lay off. “Don’t touch my stuff,” he said. Then he walked out of the kitchen, leaving her and Petey alone in the silence.
“The hell with that,” Gina muttered to Petey. The radio was still on behind her, blaring static. She turned back towards it, lowered the volume, and started tuning through channels. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Could he be telling the truth? Could the government really have dropped bombs on itself? She almost couldn’t believe it. How could they be so inept? And how would this man know, anyway? He lived in a bunker. He had to be lying.
Still, it was an explanation. Not a very good one, she thought. But it was one.
“Come on, Petey,” she told him. “Let’s explore.”
*
Their first stop was the rest of the enormous kitchen – taking care not to touch anything, of course. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Everything she had seen of the bunker so far had been function over form, and this was the first area in here that had gone against that. Probably the only part.
But maybe he needed it. To be honest, she didn’t know a lot about Shifters. They kept to themselves, didn’t go to public hospitals often, and so she’d never had the opportunity to deal with one while working. It made sense. He would need to blow off steam, especially in his animal form. A large rec room would be the perfect place to do it, since he couldn’t go outside. She had a feeling that even though the back part of the kitchen was huge to her, it would be small to him.
Whoever he was. She still hadn’t been able to get a name out of him. That irritated her more than she would like to admit.
She knew she shouldn’t touch anything, but she couldn’t resist touching the massive pole in the middle of the room. She took a quick glance backwards to make sure that he wasn’t in the room, and then she ran her hands along it. There were deep gashes in the wood: claw marks. It was good he could take his fury out on the wooden post instead of the room around him. Gina wondered how long something like this could last. She shuddered and hoped that it would be long enough. She would hate to see him truly take his anger out on something else.
As she walked around the weight benches, she wondered what her next step would be. She couldn’t stay in here forever. She didn’t want to stay in here forever, either. Especially not with this man, if he was as unstable as he’d shown so far. Still, she was weak. Even walking slowly around the bunker hurt, now that she had done it for a while. She would never survive outdoors, at least not yet.
And do I even want to go outdoors? She asked herself the question, but she couldn’t tell herself the answer. If bombs had really been dropped, then the whole country could be in chaos right now. She thought back to Haysberry. By now, it had undoubtedly burned completely to the ground. How many people had died? Was Mr. McNeil still alive? She hoped so, but in her heart, she knew the answer.
If things were that bad in Haysberry, then what were they like in a larger city? By most standards, Haysberry was only a small town. It had a decent sized grocery store, a post office, and a swimming pool. The hospital was nice – had been nice, she corrected – but it just wasn’t that big. It seemed like everyone had just gone completely crazy.
The larger cities were probably hundreds of times worse. If they hadn’t been nuked off of the map. The thought of that actually happening made her shudder. She lowered herself to a weight bench and thought about it. As long as she could remember, nukes going off had been one of those fears that had always been in the back of her mind. Had been in the backs of everyone’s minds. It had seemed so ludicrous, but it had always been there.
And now, had it happened? Were they nukes, or were they smaller bombs? Would that even be better? Had bombs even been dropped at all? She had heard explosions, though she hadn’t seen any. If anything, hearing from the Shifter that bombs had been dropped, by the government no less, had confused her even more. She didn’t know what to think, so she got back up and pushed it from her mind. No use dwelling on it now.
The rest of the kitchen was pretty standard, as far as kitchens went. She quietly opened the cabinets, checking what was inside. They were stuffed full of nonperishable foods. A lot of it, too, but not enough to survive indefinitely.
She shivered. What would happen to her and Petey if they had to go back out there? She couldn’t be sure, and she didn’t want to find out. Things would probably work themselves out shortly, and go back to normal. She hoped.
She left the kitchen and peered into the room on her left. She couldn’t see much, so she went inside and felt along the wall until she found the light switch. She turned it on and gasped at what she saw. She was in a bathroom. An actual, real bathroom. She had expected it to be some sort of rudimentary room with a shower, toilet, and sink, but this bathroom was actually nice.
It had all of those things, of course, but instead of a small, stand up shower, there was a huge tub that filled half of the room. Even though it took up the majority of the space, there was enough room for everything else to sit comfortably as well.
Come to think of it, it made sense: if this bunker had been specifically made with Shifters in mind, everything inside would need to be just a bit larger than necessary. For her, it was the perfect size. She imagined herself lounging in the tub, candles lit on the side and bubbles covering the warm water. She felt ashamed. The world had gone to hell only two days ago and here she was fantasizing about taking a long, luxurious bath.
She flipped the light off and went across the hall. The sound of machinery running, familiar from her time spent in the underbelly of Grady, filled this part of the bunker. She turned the light on and saw a couple of generators, larger than any she had ever seen. They seemed even more powerful than the ones at Grady, if that was even possible. There were also other machines and tanks. She spotted a hot water heater and felt herself grinning. That bath might not be so far off, if she could figure out how to reason with the Shifter.
She moved down the hallway until the bedroom was to her left. To the right was another room, currently occupied by the Shifter himself, crouched in front of a massive metal rack. He was poking around in it, shifting boxes to the side. There was all sorts of useful stuff in here, Gina noticed: extra gas, oil, more and more food, and useful-looking tool boxes on top of shelves. She saw soaps, shampoos, old cans of shaving creams, even a stack of books in the far corner.
And even more food. She did some quick mental calculations and reasoned that one person alone could live for at least three years, including the food in the kitchen, maybe more if they rationed. Add another person, and a dog, and that timeline shortened considerably. Still, it was more than she had expected, or even hoped for.
“What are you looking for?” she asked him. Petey moved past her, going towards the man’s ankles. Instead of biting this time, he licked carefully.
The man surprised her by saying, “Another cup.”
Another cup? Oh, that’s right. He broke it.
Gina started looking around, peering into the shelves, careful not to touch anything. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the man warily looking at her out of the corner of his eye, but he said nothing. After a few moments, Gina spotted a stack of cups hidden behind a stack of medical kits.
“I think they’re back here,” she offered. He gave her another look, but stood up and dug through to where she was pointing. He reached his arm back and pulled out a stack of cups, all identical to the one that had shattered earlier.
She waited for his thanks. When he didn’t say anything, she bit off, “You’re welcome,” a bit harsher than she had meant. He flinched under her tone.
“Thanks,” was all he said.
“You’re welcome,” she repeated. “See, that’s how it works.”
He grunted.
“I’m Gina,” she tried for the second time.
He grunted again.
“Now, you tell me your name. That’s how it works.”
“Dean,” he said, and left the room. He flipped the light off on his way out, leaving her in darkness. Petey followed him out.
“Petey!” she hissed. They really were friends now. What the hell was going on here?
Then she followed them out of the storage room.
*
Dean didn’t know what to think. For the longest time, he thought he had everything under control: his life, his bunker, everything in it. He’d effectively dropped off the grid. He hadn’t seen another person, let alone talked to one, in nearly two years. And he had been fine.
Or so he had thought.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to talk to this woman - Gina, he corrected himself - it wasn’t just that he didn’t want to talk to Gina; it was also that he didn’t know how. His own voice sounded foreign to him. It sounded wrong. Words were hard to come by.
Sure, he had muttered a few What the hell?s Occasionally a Shit! when something went wrong in the bunker. But real sentences? Those had been silent for a long, long time.
If he had it his way, he wouldn’t talk to this woman at all. If he had his way, he would kick her out this instant. Then again, he could. She was in no position to stop him. She had her dog, of course. Petey. He was vicious and had a lot of heart, but in the end, he wouldn’t be able to stop Dean from kicking them out.
It would be the smart thing to do. It would have been what his grandfather would have done, if his grandfather would had risked his life to save hers in the first place. But Dean didn’t think he had it in him to make her leave. Even though he kept himself away from other people, he had a soft spot in his heart for them.
He had vowed that he would never harm another person again, no matter the reasons or consequences. And yet he had already let his rage get the best of him, if only for a few moments, just a few minutes ago.
That was something he would have to work on, and soon. It had been a long time since he’d shifted. It was always there in the back of his mind, that feeling that he should shift, but he refused it. And he’d almost lost control today. He’d have to do better, especially with another person in the bunker.
He heard her following him back into the kitchen, Petey hot on his heels. He wanted her to leave him alone, to go into his room, to go into the bathroom, anywhere – just away from him. He didn’t want to talk to her.
Well, that was a lie. He did want to talk to her. Who wouldn’t? He didn’t know much about her besides her name, but he could tell that she was a strong woman. She would have to be, after all. He had found her medical kit laying in her car, ready for her to use it to stitch herself up. Most people out there couldn’t do that, no matter what the consequences.
So, she was tough. Strong. Determined. He could also tell that she was smart: probably one of the smartest people he’d ever met. She had the foresight to load up a carload of important stuff. Most people would panic and grab their valuables. This woman had grabbed the essentials to survival. In a way, it resonated with him.
She was also beautiful, though he tried his hardest not to focus on that. He hadn’t seen a person for years, let alone seen a woman. He hadn’t been with one, or even talked with one, for even longer than that. Finding her in her car yesterday had been a surprise.
He’d almost frozen up when he had to cut her scrubs off of her body. It felt wrong. But it had been the only way he could be sure she wasn’t hurt any more, and the only way he could patch her up and save her life. Still, he had seen her almost completely naked, and he didn’t like what he was feeling towards her.
He was attracted to her. That was dangerous. He needed to set some ground rules; not for her, but for himself. If he let himself get attached to her, his survival could be at stake.
What should he do?
There was only one choice. Once she was back to full health, he would send her on her
way. He felt horrible thinking about it, but it was what he had to do. She simply couldn’t stay here. It wasn’t safe for him. He stood in front of the cabinet then, rolling the glass on the counter. Could he do it? Kick her out?
He turned and looked at her. Gina was sitting at the table, playing with Petey. There was a smile on her face. She was kind, too, he realized. Too kind. Too trustworthy. She should be scared stiff right now, he thought. Trapped in a fallout bunker with a Shifter who hasn’t talked to anyone in over two years and looks like a mountain man. She should be scared, but she’s not.
He sat down at the table, unsure of what to say. How did these things go, again? Conversation had never been his strong suit, even before his life had turned bad, but now, it was ten times worse. He thought of plenty of words: Sorry. You need to leave. How are you feeling? That dog sure likes you. You’re beautiful. You’re lucky to be alive. I’m dangerous.
But none of them left his lips.
“So how long have you been in here?” she asked. The dog jumped up into her lap and she stroked him behind the ears.
He opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it. How long had it been? Over two years, but how long, exactly? That’s what she wanted to know, right?
“Two years. Two months. And…” he answered. And how many days?
“Two years and two months, huh? That’s a long time. Why have you been in here so long?”
Dean felt a fresh surge of anger rising up in him. How could she ask him that? It was none of her business! He pushed it away. It wasn’t her fault; she couldn’t have known. Still, flushed emotion must have been evident on his face. She looked surprised.
“I don’t want to talk,” he said. About it, he wanted to say. He still wanted to talk, but the words wouldn’t come out. She nodded at him.
“I’m going to go lay down, then,” she said.
I don’t want to talk about it, but we can talk about something else. The thought was intrusive and he wanted to say it so bad, but the words just wouldn’t come out. But she was almost gone and he had to say something.
“Don’t touch anything.”
She shot him a glare and left the room. Petey hesitated for a second, but when she called him, he followed her dutifully out of the room. Dean sat alone, the silence so loud that he pounded his hands on the table to block it out.
*
Gina heard the banging from the hallway. She faltered for a few steps and stopped. Should she go back and try to calm him down? Try to figure out what was going on? She considered it, but then went into the bedroom. She didn’t want to push the man – Dean – any more than she had to.
After all, if she pissed him off enough, he would just kick her out. That was definitely not what she wanted, especially with her strength so low. She would do her best to get along with him, though she wasn’t sure if that would happen any time soon.
Once she was recovered, what would happen, though? Would he let her stick around here? Would she want to? Would she leave willingly? There was just so much she wasn’t sure of.
She could be stuck with worse, though. Yes, he was crass, brutish, and uncivilized. His speech and actions left much to be desired. But he was good looking, as well. If he would cut his unruly hair and thick beard, he would be a very handsome man.
Stop, Gina! Don’t start thinking about that kind of stuff now! She knew she shouldn’t, not right now. Maybe not ever again. Still, it didn’t hurt to look, right?
Gina had no idea what time it was. In the bunker, time was irrelevant. There were no open windows, no clocks, no way to tell what time of day it was outside. No way to tell what the weather was like. No way to tell if the forest was on fire above them, or bombs had wiped away the face of the earth. In a way, it didn’t matter down here; not right now, anyway. She took comfort in knowing that, for the time being, she was safe.
She lay down on the cot with Petey curled up between her feet, trying to get comfortable. She had a feeling it was going to be a rough night for both of them. Now that her pain was fading away and she didn’t need to rest to heal, Gina noticed all of the downsides of this damn cot. It had been made with efficiency in mind, not comfort. The pillows were hard, and the blanket was itchy wool from some era past.
Still, Gina found herself drifting off, despite everything. As she was dozing off, she saw Dean come into the room and pull a chair up to the table. He leaned back in it, kicked his feet up on the table, and was asleep before she was. It was astonishing to her that he could be so relaxed like that, but soon she too was drifting off into a much-needed sleep.
*
With the major exception of the lessening pain in Gina’s thigh, the next day was much like the one before. Dean wasn’t in the bedroom when she woke up, so she took the time to peel off her pants and examine the wound. It was still tender, but there was no infection and it seemed to be healing nicely. She was thankful. In a few short days, she would need to cut the stitches out, but that was a worry for another time.
As she was sitting there, examining the wound, Dean came into the room and made her jump.. Scrambling to covering herself as best she could with the blanket, she glanced up at him, cheeks blazing, and had to avert her eyes: he had just come from a shower. Water was still dripping down his chiseled chest, and his beard and hair were still soaked through. He had a towel wrapped tightly around his midsection, which left little to the imagination. Gina risked one more quick peek at him as he stood looking down at her.
“There’s towels in the bathroom,” he told her as he moved towards the back of the room, seemingly oblivious to her wide-eyed embarrassment. She couldn’t help but watch him as he reached a cabinet and opened it wide to reveal piles of his clothes. With no trepidation, he dropped the towel to the floor. Gina’s eyes widened even further. If possible, his ass was even more toned than his chest. She knew how he spent his spare time.
Her face on fire, Gina managed to get out of bed. “Come on, Petey,” She said as she quickly left the room, sparing a final glance at Dean’s backside as she went. Outside she leaned against the wall, getting her bearings. Her face was still red hot; she was thankful he hadn’t noticed her reaction to his naked body.
That was something she hadn’t expected to see. With a grin, she realized it wasn’t unwelcome, though. Carefully, together with Petey, Gina made her way down the concrete hallway towards the bathroom. Once inside, she shut the door behind her and eagerly slid the huge deadbolt into place, locking it. She wasn’t afraid of Dean bursting in on her, but the comfort of a locked door was one she hadn’t even realized she’d been missing.
She turned the handles, watching with awe as water sprayed out of the faucet. She turned the hot water to full blast. Within a minute, the bathroom was filled with warm, thick steam. She took her clothes off, rummaged through the cabinets for some soap, shampoo, and bubble bath that she thought she would like, and dove in.
Gina sprayed the bubble bath underneath the faucet, watching the bubbles expand as the water rose up around her battered body and washed away all the aches and pains she hadn’t even noticed were there. Petey sat on the floor beside the tub, content.
“All we need is a little bit of wine, eh Petey?” she asked. He looked up at her, clearly happy and relaxed with his eyes slowly closing. She decided to do the same. She couldn’t be sure how often she would get to take a relaxing bubble bath, but she vowed to take advantage of it every day while it lasted.
Gina turned the faucet off once the tub was full, and lay back in it until the water turned cold. Then she drained it and refilled it, with another squirt of bubble bath. It was luxurious and she never wanted it to end. When the water started to cool a second time, Gina washed her hair and body, rinsed off, and climbed out of the tub.
She drained it and grabbed a towel, taking care to be easy on her sore body. Her head was still tender from where she had hit it and her thigh ached. The rest of her body was a mass of small bruises and tender spots, but that was to be expected after her car wreck.
She wrapped the towel tightly around herself and left the bathroom to go down the hall towards the bedroom. Dean was nowhere to be seen when she reached it, so she closed the door behind her and found a change of clothes. For a few minutes she sat and rebandaged her thigh. Finally dressed and clean, she felt like a new woman.
But now what? You can only take so many baths, she told herself. There were a few books stacked up in the bedroom, but nothing that caught her eye. There were a lot of survival manuals, outdoor reports, and geographical data books that didn’t look interesting to her. Plus, they all appeared to be extremely outdated. Most of them had been published back in the 60s.
Had Dean’s family been in this bunker for that long? That would be ridiculous.
She made her way to the kitchen, where Dean was sitting at the table. He was snacking on another one of those survival meals, and now that she wasn’t starving anymore, she realized just how unappetizing they looked.
“You can have some of my food,” she offered. “It might be better than what you’ve been eating in here.”
A grunt was all she got in return.
Gina threw up her hands and sighed before collapsing in a chair. She couldn’t help it. This man was so frustrating. Typical, really, that out of all of the people in the world, she was stuck in here with this brute of a man who hardly spoke.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Dean,” she said, emphasizing his name. Obviously, her tone came through, because he put down his fork with a look of alarm on his face. He didn’t say anything; didn’t even grunt, so she knew she had gotten through to him. “I didn’t choose to wreck my car down the mountain. I didn’t choose for you to rescue me. I didn’t choose to be stuck in here with you, but I am. We’re in this together, for now. Just humor me for a week and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“No.”
“No? You can’t even be friendly for a week? What is your problem?”
Gina found herself getting back out of the chair. She was leaning forward on the table, arms outstretched, anger evident. This man was unbelievable.
“No,” he said, pausing, as if to find the words.
“No! Fine! Petey and I will leave in the morning. I’m sorry for inconveniencing you,” she said, standing up to storm back to the bedroom. She felt the world spin for a second: all of the exertion had taken its toll on her. One moment she was taking a step, and the next she felt herself falling.
The ground was rushing up at her, and there was nothing she could do. She closed her eyes, bracing for impact – and felt thick, warm arms wrap around her instead. Her eyes fluttered open and she felt herself being lifted up and gently carried. Was that Dean? Everything went black.
*
Dean had scooped her up easily. For a man of his size, he moved fast. He had wanted to tell her that he didn’t particularly want her to leave even when she was better, but once again the words just wouldn’t come out. So all he could tell her was, “No. No. No, no, no.”
And then she had overdone it all and fainted.
He deposited her carefully into the bed. Petey had been by his side the entire time. Although they’d had a rough introduction, Dean thought that on some level, he and Petey respected each other. Petey understood that Dean was looking out for Gina, and Dean understood Petey was doing the same.
In a way, Petey seemed to understand Dean better than he understood himself. So what did that say about Dean?
He sat in his chair and leaned his head on his hand. He felt tired. It wasn’t because of Gina – far from it. He’d been raised for an event like this, and now that it had happened… he didn’t know. He just didn’t know.
Everything his grandfather had taught him was now warring with what Dean knew was right. He wouldn’t kick Gina out of the bunker. It wouldn’t be right, and Dean would never throw away another life like that. Especially someone that was as vivacious and alive as she was.
*
There was a light scraping noise, echoing from some far-off place. Whatever it was, it didn’t fit in well with Gina’s dreams, and she found herself slowly coming to. She felt the familiar feeling of the cot at her back, a thick blanket over her body, a semi-soft pillow under her head. Petey was moving beside her.
So, she was in bed. How had she gotten here? She remembered getting worked up at Dean, turning to walk away, and then… nothing. Had she fainted? She must have. She filed a mental note to take it easier next time, no matter how well she was feeling. Obviously, she wasn’t at peak strength just yet.
Had she told Dean she would leave in the morning? Was it morning, now? What had she been thinking? Gina knew she had jumped the gun; there was no way she was ready to leave the safety of the bunker.
And what was that scraping noise? Now that she was awake, it was much more than just a light noise. It was filling the bunker entirely. Gina leaned out of the bed and saw Dean walking backwards, pulling something. As she watched, he moved past the doorway and one of the huge metal shelves appeared in his place. He was pulling a shelf down the hallway. But why?
Gina got to her feet, taking extra care to make sure that she was okay to stand, and followed Dean out into the hallway. The shelf was large, but he was making good time with it. She followed him until he pulled it into the generator room and pushed it heavily against a wall.
“What are you doing?” she asked when the task was done.
“Making you a room,” he said. A room? But she had promised to leave. Why would he be cleaning out a room for her?
“Why?”
“You’ve got to stay somewhere.”
“I’m leaving, Dean. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
“No,” he said, and pushed past her back into the hallway. Gina stood silent for a few moments, looking at the generator room. He’d only moved one shelf into the room. There was still plenty of room for the rest of their supplies, if they got creative in stuffing them everywhere there wasn’t a hot water heater, generator, or any of the other machines Gina didn’t recognize.
Back at the storage room, Gina was greeted by a huge mess. There were still two more large shelves to the back and left walls, plus a small shelf to the right of the door. They were filled with supplies, plus there were some laying on the floor from the shelf Dean had already emptied.
Gina bent down, picked up two medical kits, and headed for the new storage room.
“Don’t,” Dean said from behind her, but Gina ignored him and carried the kits to the room and placed them on the shelf. She was feeling weak, but she wasn’t going to let her injury slow her down. Besides, she was taking it nice and slow, taking care not to exert herself.
She dropped the kits off and made her way back to the storage room. Dean was unloading the next shelf, placing a bundle of blankets, sheets, and pillows in the corner where the old shelf has been.
“I don’t need help,” Dean told her.
“I’m fine,” Gina said, defiant. “If you’re going to make me a room to stay in, the least I can do is help you do it.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Instead, he went back to unloading the shelves. Gina grabbed some of the blankets and carried them to the other room, making sure to drop off a couple in Dean’s bedroom for when she would need them herself.
It was a long and slow process, made even tougher by her injury. She took a few breaks in the kitchen to down a glass of water at the table. Once Dean had emptied the shelves and hauled them to the generator room, the process speed up considerably. He was able to grab whole armfuls of supplies: four gas cans a trip, two massive toolboxes, and boxes upon boxes of food.
The cot had been wedged behind one of the shelves. The next time Gina had gone into the old storage room, Dean had set the cot up and covered it with her chosen blankets. It was big for a cot, specifically designed for a Shifter, and it looked luxurious. Combined with the many blankets and pillows she had laid out, the cot wasn’t that uncomfortable.
Dean came in to grab more items and saw her lying down.
“It’s comfortable,” she told him, sitting up. “Thank you for this, Dean.”
He grunted his assurance. Then he was back to taking supplies into the other room. Gina followed, wheeling some sort of small generator behind him. After what seemed like hours of work – though she couldn’t tell without the sun or a clock – they were finally finished.
“Thank you again, Dean,” she told him, once they’d carried the last box into the new storage room. It was cramped in there, but they had worked some kind of mojo, and everything fit. Together, they had freed up a room specifically for Gina. She wondered if Dean meant for this arrangement to last. No matter how long she stayed here, she hoped he knew it was much appreciated.
*
It was the right thing to do, even though Dean knew it was something he shouldn’t have done. Gina had told him she planned to leave today, so why was it his problem to stop her? His life would be a lot easier if she left. Hers might not be, but why was that his problem?
Still, he couldn’t let her just up and leave, especially when she was so weak. So, against his better judgment, he had decided to make her her own room. A place where she could feel comfortable. Plus, it would give him some space. It would give him his own room back. So it wasn’t all downsides.
He was initially skeptical that the generator room would be too full. But he had managed to organize everything the way he had wanted. Most of the time, he’d had to rearrange everything Gina had put onto the shelves. She didn’t know how he kept everything organized. It had to be perfect: in a survival situation, you had to know exactly where everything was, and this was one of those situations.
Now, she was in her bedroom and Dean was in his new storage room/generator room, taking inventory of everything they had. With Gina’s supplies, they were well stocked on the medical front. He had extra gas to run the emergency generator she’d wheeled into the corner. Of course, he’d moved it to behind the hot water heater, where it was better placed.
He’d also found a few extra things he didn’t even know were there, much like the cups from the other day. He chastised himself for that; not knowing you had supplies was a good way to make a mistake, and get killed. He had found a few repair manuals written in his grandfather’s sprawling hand, perfectly written to tell Dean how to repair anything in the entire bunker.
This bunker was his grandfather’s obsession, and it had shown. Everything needed to survive was in here. Dean just hoped that he wouldn’t mess anything up.
There were a couple of spare Geiger counters as well, plus the spare batteries to keep them running. The one he had always used worked fine, but extras were always good. His grandfather had planned well. Now it was up to him to put that planning to good use.
Still, he had to wonder what his grandfather would think of this situation. He would undoubtedly be disappointed in Dean. After all, he had broken the number one rule. Dean pushed that thought from his mind. His grandfather had been a hard man. Dean was nothing like him.
I hope, he thought. Then he went into the kitchen and decided to make himself dinner. The important question now was: chicken fried rice or chili cheese mac? His stomach grumbled, but neither sounded good.
*
Gina had to admit, having her own room brought her unbelievable happiness. She hadn’t minded sleeping in Dean’s room; not exactly – but having her own, it just couldn’t be beat. The only thing in there currently was the cot, loaded down, and Petey’s food and water. She didn’t think there would be a spare table laying around anywhere, but she didn’t need that, anyway.
A bed was enough. “Right, Petey?” she asked him. He was curled up under the covers and barely looked at her. She didn’t blame him, she could feel sleep nagging at her. She didn’t know how much she’d slept these past few days, but it never seemed to be enough.
She got out of bed. Petey didn’t move, content where he was. As she made her way towards the kitchen, she stopped in the new storage room. They had done a fine job in getting everything in the room in a neat and organized manner.
She flipped the light on and took the room in. There was the stack of her medical kits – except they weren’t where she left them. The rolling generator was moved, as well, stuffed back between the wall and hot water heater. Even the boxes of dried oatmeal had been shifted from the shelf at the front of the room to the back, up against some pipes.
She went into the kitchen. “My help wasn’t good enough?”
Dean looked up from his meal. He didn’t say anything.
“Everything – literally everything – I put into the storage room, you moved. Why? I didn’t do everything ‘right’?” She dramatically put up air quotes. If he knew what they meant, he didn’t give any indication.
“They weren’t in the right spots,” Dean said it simply, as if it was the most obvious statement in the world.
“The right spots? The right spots?? The oatmeal was there for a reason. So we could get it easily in the morning, since that’s what our morning meal is going to consist of. Now, it’s all the way in the back. To get to it, I’m going to have to climb over the generator, which you also moved, every morning. The medical kits, which were out of the way, are now closer to the door than most of our food. It doesn’t make any sense!”
“It makes sense to me!” Dean growled.
“Well, it doesn’t make any sense to a normal person!” Gina yelled. After she said it, she immediately regretted it. She could tell that it stung Dean, even if he didn’t say anything. There had been no reason to blow up on him like that. Maybe isolation was taking its toll on her more than she thought.
He got up out of his seat and tossed the meal pack down the garbage chute. He walked up close to her and said, “My bunker. My rules.”
He went back to his room. Gina made herself a bowl of microwaved spaghetti, pilfered from her own pantry. She wouldn’t give in and eat any of Dean’s food. He might freak out that she’d shifted another can to the side, so she decided she would stick with her own food as long as she could.
That man!
After she had eaten and washed the dishes, she made her way back to her new room. She stopped at Dean’s room and peered in. He was lying in bed, for the first time that she had seen, with a book in his hand. For all of his brutishness, he had plenty of books to read.
“I’m sorry, Dean. Goodnight.”
He grunted at her. Gina rolled her eyes and went off to her room.
*
Gina awoke to another loud siren noise filling her head. The noise was similar to what she had heard in the hospital, yet it seemed louder than it had then. She sat up quickly, throwing the covers off of her. Where was she? Then she remembered that she was laying in her own bed, in her own room, in Dean’s bunker. Petey was jumping up and down at the side of the bed, barking loudly.
The lights were flashing, going from their regular dim glow to a sickly, red color. What was going on? Was it another bombing?
Soon she was stumbling out of the bed, disoriented, her heart pounding in her chest. Could this bunker survive a direct hit? Would they survive a direct hit? She didn’t think so.
The hallway was exactly the same as her room: the siren was deafening and the lights were blinding. She stumbled down the hall, barely registering what was going on. Dean wasn’t in his room, so she ran towards the end of the hallway.
The lights were off - if she could even tell in all the flashing, anyway - in the kitchen and bathroom. But she noticed the new generator/storeroom was lit up like a Christmas tree. What was he doing in there with the lights on? Especially now?
As she neared the storeroom, she started to smell smoke. Smoke? Oh, no. She reached the doorway, feeling an intense wave of heat wash over her body: the storeroom was engulfed in flames. Boxes of food, medical supplies, all of her stuff that had been moved into the room, was going up in flames.
“Dean!” Gina screamed, looking into the smoky room. Dean was on his knees, a fire extinguisher in his hands, spraying it everywhere, but to no avail. Wherever he aimed the extinguisher, the flames would die, but roar up again in another part of the room. “Dean!”
He heard her the second time, the roar of the flames drowning out even the siren blare. “Under the sink!” Then he was turning back towards the blaze, doing his best to keep it at bay.
Gina turned and ran as fast as she could on her injured leg. Dropping to her knees in front of the sink, she ripped open the cabinet and started rummaging inside of it, unsure of what she was even looking for. There, at the back: another fire extinguisher. She grabbed it and sprinted back to the storeroom, heedless of the pain.
She started dousing the flames closest to Dean immediately, keeping him from being roasted alive. She could see that his skin was already burnt and his hair was smoking. Still, he was spraying the flames, trying to save as much food and supplies as he could.
“Dean! Get back, it’s not worth it!” she screamed at him. He looked at her, his eyes wide with panic, as if he was weighing up the options here, but then he was retreating. She covered him with foam, knowing she shouldn’t but needing to douse the flames, and then she turned back towards the fire. He was gone from her side, then he was back, two more extinguishers in his hands.
Gina wasn’t sure if they would be able to put the flames out, especially with how light her extinguisher was getting. When it was empty, she grabbed the other, and together, they worked on the flames until they were out. She wasn’t sure how long it had taken, but it was done, and they were alive.
The same couldn’t be said for anything in the storeroom, however. All of the extra food, medical supplies, and tools were a ruined mass of black ash. That was the least of their worries, though. The spare generator was done for, the hot water heater was a melted chunk of metal, and all of the other boxes were ruined beyond repair. Dean dropped the extinguisher and slid down the wall, his hands over his eyes.
He looked like he was crying. Gina found herself crouching next to him, grabbing his hand. He didn’t even acknowledge her. “Shit,” was all he said.
“Dean, it’s okay,” she told him. She knew that was an outright lie. It wasn’t okay in the slightest. They’d lost probably 90 percent of their food and nearly all of their medical supplies, with the exception of what they still had in the bedroom from when they’d taken care of Gina’s gunshot wound. Most extra clothes were gone, as were the tools.
But none of that mattered at all when compared to all of the vital systems that had been ruined. Gina didn’t know a lot about any of the mechanical workings of the bunker, but she knew enough to know that this place was probably close to useless now.
“I shouldn’t have put everything in the same room,” he said. Gina squeezed his hand. It was a simple mistake. He couldn’t have predicted a fire would take out everything at once.
“That’s the most you’ve said to me since you took me in,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. Dean looked up, his eyes wet, and he gave her a sad smile. It was something, at least.
“Let’s get you to the kitchen,” Gina said, helping him up. He reluctantly let himself be pulled to his feet and lead down the hallway. Petey, for once, was silent and stayed out of their way. Once back in the kitchen, Gina lowered him into a chair. Dean deflated.
She turned towards the kitchen and started surveying their stock. What had happened had shortened their supplies from three years to less than three months. Maybe not even that. Shit was right.
“What do we do, Dean?” she asked, but he didn’t answer. Gina pulled a chair up next to him and grabbed his face in her hands. He looked absently at her face. “Dean. This is serious.”
He didn’t answer. Without even thinking, she reached a hand back and brought it across his face, hard. She felt her hand sting at the impact and suddenly Dean was up, anger coloring his face. The chair was thrown back with ease. He grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her up, dropping her on the table. His golden eyes shone with fury.
“This is all your fault!” he yelled. Gina’s mouth gaped open. What? How could he say that? “I should never have moved all of that stuff into the room to please you!”
“Don’t try to put that on me!” she shot back. She knew he was angry, lashing out. But hearing him say it still hurt. “I had nothing to do with that!”
Dean sat back in the chair heavily, resigned to his fate.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. The anger drained from his face as he thought. Gina hoped that it would fade away completely soon so he could focus on what they were going to do to survive.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Gina told him. She had to snap him out of this funk. “Dean. What are we going to do?”
“I… don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You never had a backup plan in place?”
“No. Not with a bunker failure this catastrophic.”
“We have to figure this out, Dean. Things are bad.”
Gina looked up at the ceiling: smoke was floating at the top of the room. Soon, the air would be too toxic and smoky to breathe safely.
“Okay, Dean. First thing’s first: what do we do about the smoke?”
“The air system should take care of it.”
“Should,” Gina repeated. “What’s that mean?”
“There’s an air filter that cycles out all of the toxins: smoke, mold spores, carbon dioxide.”
“Let’s go take a look at it and make sure it’s working,” Gina said. She didn’t know much about that, but she had to get Dean back on track. She had to get him working; had to get him focused on the thing he did best: surviving.
Together, the two of them went into the generator room. Dean stepped around the still hot masses of melting supplies and metal. The filter system was built into the far wall. He reached out hesitantly, making sure that it wasn’t too hot to touch, and opened it up. He poked around for a few moments, then replaced the cover without a word.
“What, Dean?”
“The filter itself is in good enough shape. A bit burnt and melted, but it’ll do fine,” he said, but he didn’t seem happy about it.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The filter itself is fine. But the replacement air filters burnt up in the fire.”
“And what’s that mean?”
“It means we have to leave, and soon. The filter can handle most of the smoke, but after that, we won’t have any clean air afterwards.”
Gina leaned against a wall and thought. “Could we just open the door? Get some fresh air in here?”
Dean shrugged. “Yeah, if it’s safe out there. But that defeats the whole idea of a sealed bunker.”
“Would you rather be dead in here, or alive out there?”
Dean didn’t answer.
“Okay, let’s check the food situation,” Gina offered. Dean went into the kitchen and started taking supply counts. There truly wasn’t much left – a lot of meal packs that Gina didn’t relish eating. But they would have no choice soon. Their hand had been forced.
“We have enough for two weeks between the two of us,” Dean said. He didn’t say it with any kind of anger, or conviction; just simple truth. “Then we’ll starve.”
“That’s not going to happen, Dean,” she told him. “I’m sorry that this happened to you. I’m sorry that I was forced onto you like this. But we have got to figure out what our next move is. I don’t intend to die in here and I don’t intend to die out there,” she continued, motioning towards the front door. “But I’ll need your help.”
“I don’t know,” Dean said, and she knew he meant it. He hesitated. “I don’t know much else besides this.”
“I won’t survive out there, Dean. Not alone. And you won’t survive in here for much longer. We need each other, whether you like it or not.”
He nodded slowly. “It makes sense.”
“Great. Then let’s get some rest and we’ll figure out our plan when we wake up in the morning.”
*
Dean was back in his chair, unable to sleep. Before he’d retired to his room, he’d peeked in on Gina. Somehow, despite the fire and everything going to hell, she was able to get back to sleep almost immediately. He didn’t know how she did it. He wished he could.
Things were bad. There weren’t a lot of options left.
It was true that they could open a door, if the outside air was clean. But what they couldn’t get more of was clean water. When the fire had raged out of control, it had ruined the water purifiers, too. And he knew this area: there wasn’t a clean stream within two miles. Two miles was just too far away to transport water back and forth, especially the amount they would need to keep the bunker operational. And definitely not with her injured leg.
After Gina had gone to sleep, Dean had checked the water supply. It would be empty within three days, no matter how much they rationed it. They had three days and then they would have to leave. There was no other choice.
He slammed his hand on the table, not caring if he woke Gina. He felt irrational anger towards her: he had gone out of his way to conform to her needs, to make her comfortable here. What he had done - putting all of his vital supplies in one area - was a rookie mistake. His grandfather would have never forgiven him. That thought stung.
He never should have tried to help her. Maybe he should have left her in her car. Or he should have forced her out when she could walk. He never should have done what he did.
And the worst part of it all? She had been right. He knew what had started the fire: it was that damn rolling generator he had pushed to the back. He had pushed it too close to some of the pipes and hot water heater. The pilot light had lit the gasoline in the generator on fire. It had exploded like a bomb.
It was his fault, of course, but he couldn’t help but feel like it was also Gina’s, in a way. Because of her, he’d put things in that room. Because of where she had placed the generator in the first place, he had felt the need to move it more to his liking. And he had been wrong. Still, he blamed her. He blamed himself. He slammed his hand on the table again, sleep eluding him.
*
“So. What supplies do we have left?”
Dean sat in the chair, silent. He was still feeling anger towards Gina. He knew it wasn’t fair, but he couldn’t help it. His conversation skills were lacking, he knew, and so was his ability to deal with everyone else. He was having trouble accepting the blame lay with him, even though he knew it was true.
“Dean. What’s your problem?”
He didn’t answer at first. He didn’t know how he could tell her that it was her fault, when it so clearly wasn’t. Maybe the problem was that he couldn’t admit he was wrong.
“You still blame me for this,” Gina said. She sat her clipboard down on the table. Dean looked up in surprise. How had she known? “You’re not real good at hiding your feelings, either.”
“I let you cloud my judgment.”
Gina’s laugh was harsh and bitter. “Think what you want, Dean. I don’t care, anymore. I’m interested in surviving, and if you’re not going to help, then get out of the way. Blame me, don’t blame me. It’s all the same to me.”
Some of the anger Dean was feeling faded. She was right. He started looking everything over. They had moved all of the surviving food, water, and supplies into the bedroom. It was a pretty meager assortment.
Gina paced around the room, picking up the clipboard. She was all business now. Did it really not bother her, what he’d said?
“Okay,” Dean started. Where to begin? “Thirty four meal packs. A dozen boxes of ration bars. About fifteen cans of assorted fruits.”
“About?” Gina asked. “How many, exactly?”
Dean counted them out. “Thirteen. Four peaches, eight cans of fruit cocktail, and a can of pineapple chunks.”
“Any other food?”
“Four cans of your ravioli survived, and all of Petey’s food,” he told her, looking at the stack of the dog’s food in the corner. He had never seen the point of moving it into the storage room, since Petey had eaten in his bedroom. He was thankful for that.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, what about clothing? Blankets, all of that good stuff?”
Dean got up out of the chair and went to what they had piled onto the bed. He sorted through it. “Most of your clothes survived, as did a week’s worth of mine. We have a couple of blankets, but only one heavy one, and the rest burned up in the storage room. Your pillows.”
“Plus your pillow and a sheet.”
“Plus a pillow and a sheet,” he agreed. Then he went back to the table and started digging through what was there. “We also have half of one of your med kits. A couple of wrenches. That’s about it.”
He watched as Gina blanched. They had lost so much in the fire, it hurt to think about. He couldn’t believe it. Gina had the forethought to grab so many necessary supplies that could save lives – and had saved hers – and now they were all gone.
“We’ll get through this,” she said. He knew she was saying it to reassure herself. Then she turned towards him and asked, “Dean, what’s really going on out there? Were they bombs? Nukes? What’s going on? I saw some bad things out there before you saved my life.”
“I don’t know the whole deal,” Dean admitted. “But the government dropped bombs on some of their major city centers. They feared some kind of attack and moved to preemptively stop it. Only their intelligence was wrong. There was no attack – the attack was caused by their own bombs.”
“That’s horrible.”
“A lot of the major cities are gone. New York, Boston, L.A. Atlanta is half leveled. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I heard all of this information from the radio before it cut out. What did you see out there?”
“I’m from a town called Haysberry,” Gina told him. Dean nodded. He’d never been there before, but he knew where it was. “I went back there to rescue Petey. The town was burning up. People were going crazy. Looting the place. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.”
“That’s one of the things you can always expect,” Dean said simply. His grandfather had taught him a lot. One of the things he’d been sure to teach was that when the world went to hell, people would quickly follow it.
“What else can we expect?” Gina asked. Her voice was shaking ever so slightly. She was scared.
“Well, the major city centers – the ones that have survived so far, anyway, will go next. The government is trying to hold them and keep them safe, but it’ll all fail before long. That’s where we need to avoid, no matter what the cost.”
“And then what?”
“Well, the government will collapse entirely. The survivors in the cities will disperse into the countryside. That’s when things get really dangerous, especially now. The laws will be meaningless. We’ll be out on the road, alone. It’s going to be bad.”
Gina sat down in the chair. “Is there any hope for us?”
Dean considered. His grandfather was a hard man, and a realist. In his estimation, the answer was no. There was no way civilization could rebuild after it collapsed. “Yeah, there is. Bastions of humanity will form again and we’ll begin to rebuild.”
“Are things really that bad out there? Truthfully?”
Dean nodded. He had intended to live out the next three to four years in the shelter alone. The surface wouldn’t be safe until then. Now, he had no choice. No, they had no choice.
“Dean, how do you know all of this?”
“My grandfather taught me. He was a survivalist to the core. He taught me everything I know.”
“And was he always right?”
Dean nodded sadly. “He was.”
*
They stashed everything they were going to take into two duffel bags. Dean took the heaviest one and dropped it at the doorway. Gina’s was a little bit lighter, stuffed full of clothes, the thick blanket, and some of their food. It was a lot to carry, but Gina knew it still wasn’t enough.
They had decided to stay in the bunker for one more night. Everything smelled of smoke and they were running low on water, so there were no showers for them. Gina was bummed, but there was nothing she could do. She had been looking forward to baths and showers, and now, she might not get one for who knows how long.
On the other side, things with Dean weren’t so bad. What he had said to her still hurt. She knew it wasn’t fair for him to blame her, and she thought he knew that, too. She understood why he did it, though. She had come into his life, turned it upside down, and look where it had gotten him. He was angry. She hoped that, in time, his anger would fade away and he would be able to forgive himself. And by extension, forgive her.
So, that still stung. At least he had opened up to her ever so slightly; it was a welcome change. He still didn’t talk much, but at least now he talked at all, and had explained a little bit about his grandfather and his upbringing. He’d told her the situation outside the day before, and she was thankful to know a little bit about what was going on. Thankful to know a little bit about what they were getting themselves into.
They had just a small amount of water left, so Gina had taken Dean into the bathroom and forced him to shave and cut his hair. He hadn’t wanted to at first, but Gina had been persuasive. Plus, it was still singed and looked ridiculous.
“Look, Dean. It’s going to be tough out there and we’re going to run into other people,” she’d told him. “I can’t have you scaring off anyone that could potentially help us.”
“But maybe I’ll scare off some people that are looking to harm us,” he had shot back. Gina had shot him a look, and Dean had nodded in agreement. “Maybe you’re right.”
She was, of course. Dean looking like a wild man would definitely have its perks, but she couldn’t risk him scaring other people away. It wasn’t just going to be them out there. And if anyone did end up posing a threat, hopefully Dean and Petey could fight them off.
She hoped it would never come to that, but she wasn’t stupid. Ideally she would use her people skills, and skills as a doctor, to help others and keep them safe. Maybe it was a pipe dream, but it was what she had to offer, and maybe it would be enough.
Now, they stood at the door, ready to step outside and leave the safety of the bunker forever. Gina stood and looked over at Dean: he was truly huge, and with a new haircut and a clean face, he actually looked good. He looked like a normal person. Gina knew his conversation skills were lacking, but she was going to make up for that.
Petey barked at their feet. It was time for them to go.
“Well, here it goes,” Gina said. He hesitated. “Dean? What’s wrong?”
“I’m a little bit…unsure.”
Gina didn’t blame him. He’d lived his life here for two years. She would be unsure if she were in his position, too. Hell, she was scared anyway. Neither one of them had any idea of what was truly going on outside of the door.
Gina reached out and turned the handle, flooding the doorway with bright sunlight. Both of them shielded their eyes against the sunlight. And then they stepped out.
Gina hadn’t seen the sunlight for days, but it wasn’t what she was focused on. Both Petey and Dean were growling, their hackles up, looking at where she had crashed her car. Still shielding her eyes, she turned to look – and saw another person.
It was a man in his late 40s, gray hair at his temples. He was rummaging through the remains of Gina’s car. She knew he wouldn’t find anything; Dean had cleared it out completely after her wreck. Still, the man was climbing into the car. In a way, Gina felt violated. That was her car, no matter that it had been destroyed and abandoned.
Gina opened her mouth to say something to the man, but Dean came up behind her, pressing a hand over her mouth. She closed it. Even Petey was silent, though he was ready to attack at any second. Dean started to back into the bunker, pulling Gina along silently. Petey ran back inside too.
They were just reaching the door when Gina felt a tree branch under her foot as she brought it down – crunch!
Her breath caught in her throat and Dean froze. The man in the car immediately spun around, gun held out in front of him. His eyes went wide when he saw them, but to her surprise he quickly holstered it, and smiled.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think I would be seeing anyone else out here!”
“Hello,” Gina stammered. Up against Dean’s body, she could feel a growl reverberating in his throat, but he didn’t unleash it – yet.
“Where are my manners?” the man asked, coming close and extending his hand.
Reflexively, Gina took another step back, bumping into Dean, who had held his ground. The man’s face was one of confusion for a brief second, then the smile came back. He dropped his hand and stepped away.
“I understand how it is. Things aren’t good, I don’t blame you. The name’s Jayce.”
“Nice to meet you, Jayce. I’m Gina,” she told him. She was uneasy, caught off guard, and Dean was even more so.
“What’s your name, big fella?” Jayce asked. Gina couldn’t help but eye the gun at the man’s waist. He had put it away, but it was still there, within his reach. It made her uneasy, but she tried to give him her best smile regardless.
Dean just grunted.
“This is Dean,” she told Jayce. “He’s not much of a talker.”
“Huh, I can tell,” the man said. “What are you guys doing down here?”
As he asked that, his gaze moved past the two for the first time, seeing the open doorway. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” Dean growled. A louder rumble was forming in his throat.
“Nothing, huh? Sure doesn’t look like nothing,” the man stated. He was moving closer to them, in a half circle to get a better look at the door. As he moved around, Dean pulled Gina behind him and spun to stay between Jayce and the door.
Please leave, she thought to herself. Please don’t make things bad here. Just go.
“Looks like some sort of bunker,” Jayce said. “Some survival bunker. My kids are real hungry. Got any food in there?”
“No,” Dean said at the same time Gina said, “Yes.”
Dean stiffened at her answer, but he didn’t turn towards her. If this man had kids… they had to help him. They just had to.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Look, mister. My wife and my kids are just up on the road. We saw that a car went off the road down here and I was just looking for some food. We haven’t eaten in days. Could we come in, rest, and get some food? It would be much appreciated.”
“No,” Dean repeated.
The man turned towards Gina. She turned towards Dean.
“Dean, please,” she whispered. “We can help him out, right? We’ll be able to get more food out here. You know how to hunt. They’re worse off than us. And they have kids.”
“No, they don’t,” Dean said. His eyes were blazing again, and Gina knew that his anger was growing. “This man is a liar.”
“How do you know?” Gina asked. “Just give him some food and we can all go our separate ways.”
“I can smell it on him. He’s lying. He’s dangerous.”
“So what’s the verdict?” Jayce asked.
Gina turned around with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Jayce. We don’t have much left over. All of our food was burned in a fire.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It is. You’re more than welcome to go into the bunker, though.”
“No, he’s not,” Dean cut in.
“Dean, it’s useless to us.”
“It was my grandfather’s.”
“Just give me your food,” the man commanded. Gina looked up at him, only to see that at some point he had drawn his gun. Her blood ran cold.
“Jayce, what’s going on?”
“Maybe you should have listened to your man here.”
Gina opened her mouth to tell him that Dean definitely wasn’t her man, but she closed it.
“Get out of here,” Dean ordered.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to make threats, buddy. I’m only going to ask one more time. Then I’m going to shoot you, right in the face, and my buddies are going to come down this hill, and we’re going to do whatever we want. We’ll take your food, take your home, and take your girl. Even that little dog down there.”
“If you want to live, you’ll walk away right now,” Dean said.
The man sighed, dropped his gun to his side, and then brought it back up. There was a deafening noise as the gun went off, only feet from Gina, and she screamed. She wasn’t sure where Dean was hit, but blood sprayed her and the rock wall behind them. Petey was barking, and Dean was roaring – in anger or pain, or both, Gina couldn’t be sure.
Gina dropped to the ground and crawled towards the door with Petey guarding her. Dean stumbled a step forward, then dropped to his knees. She saw a bloody exit wound in his left shoulder; she wasn’t sure where the entry wound had been.
Then Dean climbed back to his feet, if a little unsteadily.
“Holy shit, you just won’t go down, will you?” Jayce asked, and fired again. This bullet caught Dean in the stomach. He started moving forward, then dropped to all fours. “Looks like that’s all you can take, friend.”
Dean roared, louder and more bestial than she’d ever heard, and she watched as he started to shift. Jayce froze up, unsure of what to do. Either he had never dealt with a Shifter before and had no idea what was going on, or he did know what was going on and realized how much trouble he was in. Whichever it was, he seemed to be unable to act or move from his spot..
Gina couldn’t take her eyes off of Dean. She watched as his limbs lengthened, growing thick fur that sprouted through his clothes, ripping them to shreds as his body expanded. The process took only seconds. Gina was in awe: she had never even seen a bear this up close before, let alone a Shifter shifting.
And then he attacked.
Jayce finally sprang into action as the bear sprang forward. He fired, but his first shot went wide, hitting the stone wall next to Gina’s face. Dean raked a claw out, swiping at the man, who dodged out of the way with blind luck and sprinted towards the car. Dean was right behind him, roaring.
Jayce managed to get halfway into the car before Dean caught up to him. Dean’s jaws clamped around Jayce’s ankle, yanking him hard out of the car. His hand caught the steering wheel and he gripped it for dear life, but his strength was no match for a bear’s.
Dean yanked Jayce out of the car, flinging him to the dirt. He looked over at Gina and she thought she saw sadness in his golden eyes, if that was even possible. Then he grabbed the man, took him behind the car out of Gina’s view. There was a loud scream from Jayce, one last gunshot, and a crunching noise that marked the end of the screaming.
Then Dean was stumbling around the car, stark naked, covered in blood. Gina didn’t know whether the blood belonged to him or to Jayce, but she could tell enough to know that he was injured. She knew he had been shot at least twice – maybe three times – and he was losing a lot of blood.
She noticed his naked body for only the briefest of seconds before her doctor instincts kicked in. She began rooting through one of the bags, looking for the half of a medical kit they had left, ready to patch Dean up.
“Don’t,” he said, coming close to her. “We have to move.”
“Let’s get you back inside and stop the bleeding first,” Gina told him. “You’re hurt. You’re hurt bad.”
“We don’t have time.”
“If we don’t, you’re going to die!”
“I won’t. I’m a Shifter. I can handle this.”
Gina didn’t believe him. “Dean!”
“We have to go. Now. Before the rest of those men get down here.”
Suddenly, Gina remembered what the man had said. My buddies are going to come down the hill. Maybe he was lying. Maybe there were only two more guys. Maybe there were 10. Fifteen. There was no way of knowing. Dean was injured; he wouldn’t be able to fight them off. And Gina didn’t know if she could shoot them. She didn’t think she could.
Dean was right.
“Where?” she asked.
“Follow,” Dean said. Without waiting, he bent down and picked up the heavy duffel bags, wincing from the pain. Still, he started moving, running along the gully, the rock wall on his left, the men probably above on his right. He moved surprisingly fast, even with his injuries.
“Petey,” Gina said, and then they were off, following Dean quickly. Gina didn’t know how he did it. They came to what looked like an impenetrable thicket of thorns and Dean darted easily through some weak spot, allowing Gina to follow, passing through unharmed. Somehow, Dean’s instincts let him move through the wilds with ease. Gina would never have been able to move even half as fast as she was without Dean leading the way.
They ran for what must have been no more than 15 minutes, by Gina’s estimation. By that time, she was sucking air. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d run without stopping for this long. “Dean,” she panted. “Dean, I have to take a break.”
If he heard her, he didn’t give any indication, so they kept running. After some time they reached a small stream, and finally Dean stopped. Gina sat down heavily, trying to catch her breath. She splashed some ice cold water on her face.
Beside her, Dean put down the bags and lowered himself into the stream. He gasped, loudly, as he came into contact with the cold water. She watched as blood washed away into the water. She took a moment to scrub herself clean as best she could.
Gina couldn’t help but notice his naked form. He was toned, as she had seen from before, and perfection in every way. She glanced down between his legs, blushing at what she saw. It’s not the time, or place, she reminded herself. Especially not now.
When he was clean, Dean pulled himself out of the water. Gina dug through a bag and pulled out a towel, which he accepted eagerly. He toweled off, drying his body, wincing as he moved the towel over his bullet holes.
“You were shot three times,” Gina observed. At the end, that man – she refused to use his name, now – had managed to get a shot off on Dean that had grazed his forearm.
“Yeah,” Dean said.
“We have to get you patched up,” Gina said, pulling the med kit out. Dean pushed her hands away as she came close. “Dean, you need stitches.”
“I’m a Shifter. The wounds will close within a day.”
“What?” Gina asked. “That’s ridiculous. Wounds can’t heal that fast.”
“Have you ever dealt with a Shifter?”
Gina shook her head.
“Well, here’s your chance. We heal fast, as long as there isn’t any serious internal damage. I’ll be fine within a day. Just wait. We might need that med kit for something more important in the future.”
Gina nodded, though she didn’t like it. It was true: they might need what remained of their medical kit sometime later. She hoped they wouldn’t, but she’d rather be safe than sorry. Plus, it looked like Dean was telling the truth: the bleeding had stopped and he didn’t appear to have any serious complications from the gun shots. She was thankful; she had no idea what she would do without Dean.
What would have happened there if Dean hadn’t been around? If he had forced her out and wasn’t there to protect her? She didn’t want to think about it.
“I’m sorry, Dean.”
He grunted.
“I’m serious. Stop with all of the grunting. Talk like a normal person.”
He grunted again, but said afterward, “For what?”
“I should have listened to you. I was willing to give that man shelter and some of our food. I believed him. I put us in danger.”
He shrugged. “You couldn’t have known.”
“You were right. Next time we run into someone, I’ll listen to your instincts. If you think something is up, then just let me know and we’ll figure it out.”
Dean thought for a second, but nodded. “And next time, I’ll let you do the talking. Try not to come off so crass.”
Gina gave him a smile. “That sounds good. We’ll make it through this.”
Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he just turned towards Petey, who was playing in the water. Gina dug through the bag and pulled out a fresh change of clothes for Dean.
“Next time, take them off before you shift,” she told him. She tried to get him to smile, but he wouldn’t. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” Dean asked. He turned away from her as he pulled his clothes back on.
“About… back there. With that man.”
“No,” Dean said. “I don’t.”
“Dean…”
“I said I don’t. He was dangerous. Next time, I won’t men like him even get off one shot against us. I shouldn’t have let my guard down like that.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Gina, I don’t want to talk about it. Now, let’s get going.”
*
Dean had vowed never to kill again. He had vowed never to shift again when it would lead to violence. And he had broken that personal vow.
He hadn’t had a choice, had he? He didn’t think so. If he hadn’t shifted, he would probably be dead by now. Gina would probably be dead by now. Petey would probably be dead by now. He didn’t want any of those things to happen.
So, he hadn’t let them. He had done what he thought was necessary to keep them safe. That man, Jayce, had been dangerous. Maybe he hadn’t needed to kill him, maybe he could have let him go, but that was dangerous, too. He didn’t want to take any chances. Couldn’t take any chances. Not now. The man could have gone back to his friends and they could have tracked Dean’s passage through the forest. He couldn’t risk that.
Hell, they could be following them anyway. Dean didn’t think it was likely, unless they were really out for vengeance. In his experience, most men, in situations like that, would just accept what had happened and move on. They’d only look out for themselves. Dean hoped they would.
After they’d stopped at the stream for a few minutes, they started off again. The rock wall of the mountain was miles back. He would probably never see the bunker again, even if they lived through this. Dean wasn’t so sure that they would, but he knew he would do his best. If not for himself, then for Gina.
He had an idea of where to go, but it was easier said than done. He intended to skirt north of Haysberry by a few miles, far enough away to keep a low profile and avoid the major highway that ran next to it. They’d have to cross a smaller one, but he didn’t think that would be a problem. Once they moved past Haysberry, they could dive back into the deep woods and follow an old game trail his grandfather had shown him years ago.
They could follow that north for about 50 miles before hitting Marshall Mountain. From there, the trail forked. He was unsure of which way to go after that. To the west, they could keep following the trail, through the forest. There was a lake up there, where they could lay low and maybe do some fishing for food. He didn’t like the idea of their survival relying on fishing, but it was an option. If they had enough food for the trek, he would take that route every time.
To the east, though, was one of the major cities in the area: North Williamstown. Dean absolutely did not want to go in that direction, but it might be a necessity. If they had no food, or if he failed in hunting some, they would have to go into town and resupply. But that would be dangerous. It was all up in the air.
Once past the mountain and the city, they would have nearly 100 miles of empty wilderness before the next major city. His grandfather had a cabin up there, somewhere in the woods. It wasn’t the best place to go in an emergency like this, but it looked like it was their only option. They would be alone, provided he could remember where the cabin was at.
They would mostly be safe up there, as long as more bombs didn’t drop.
Gina was following close behind him. Undoubtedly, she was wondering what their next move was. But she didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell her. There was no use worrying her just yet. A lot of things could change between Haysberry and the 50 miles to the mountain. They could find other people. Society and order could return, though that was unlikely. He could hunt a deer and feed them for weeks. There was just too much variance right now to worry her.
*
The sun was going down when Dean finally decided to stop. Gina had no idea how long they’d been walking, or how far they had traveled. Dean’s chosen spot was by a thicket of bushes above a small creek. There was just enough room that they could sit comfortably with the thicket on three sides of them, the only opening facing towards the creek. No one would be able to see them unless they were standing at the far side of the bank.
It was cozy, in a way. Dean cleaned the debris away and put a blanket down. Gina crawled onto it eagerly. The ground was cold underneath her, but the blanket helped. Plus, it was July. The temperature would drop, some, but she thought they would be alright throughout the night. Petey was down at the creek, lapping up the water.
Gina sat alone as Petey drank and Dean scouted the area. She wasn’t sure where they stood with each other: she could tell he was still harboring ill feelings for his bunker burning down, though she hoped that he was coming to realize it was an accident and it wasn’t worth blaming anyone, especially her. Still, his usefulness was undeniable. She would never have been able to get through the mountains without his help. There would be no way that she could have found this secluded spot to spend the night. She just hoped that she would be useful in the coming days. She hoped that she wouldn’t be dead weight.
Dean came back, carrying handfuls of berries. He set them in front of Gina without a word, then turned back, in constant vigilance of the area around them. She could tell that he was hurting. His wounds, and having pushed himself all day, were taking their toll on him.
She looked down at the berries. They looked delicious, but were they safe to eat? She wasn’t sure. Dean should know what was good to eat and what wasn’t; he was a survivalist, after all. Still, he had been in a bunker for the past two years. How was his memory of the outside world faring?
“What are these?” she asked.
Dean turned back towards her and answered, “Mulberries.” Mulberries, huh? She’d heard of them before, but she had never eaten them. She decided to dig in. They filled her mouth with a sweet, tart flavor. She smiled. This was a welcome change of pace from the canned foods and meal packs she’d been eating in the bunker.
Petey ran up to her and sat, begging. She knew what he wanted, so she dug through one of the duffel bags. She pulled out a can of food and Petey dug in immediately.
“So what’s our next move?” she asked Dean. Standing above her, he looked like some sentinel from ages past: stoic, heavily muscled, and insanely handsome. If only his attitude matched his physique, Gina found herself wishing.
“I’ve got it under control.”
“That’s great,” Gina said, throwing up her hands. She found herself doing that a lot because of Dean, lately. “But I’d like to know where we’re going. What our plan is. What I should plan for.”
“We’re going north, to one of my grandfather’s old cabins. We should be safe there.”
“Like we were safe in the bunker?” Gina snapped. She could tell that wounded Dean. Maybe he was coming around and realizing that maybe – just maybe – it wasn’t her fault.