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The After War
Chapter 1
Brian and Steve
Brian Rhodes cracked open the solid steel trapdoor of the bunker, using his shoulder to carry its weight as he stepped up to the next rung of the ladder. A rush of warm, dusty air sucked down the entry chute, pulled in like a vacuum from the plank-board shed built to conceal the shelter door and the two men who had been hiding below ground. Brian kept his pistol at eye level as the metal door creaked, and a horizontal slit of light—real sunlight—hit his eyes for the first time in over two years.
Adrenaline and fear pumped in his chest, distracting him from that first breath of fresh air. The loose wooden floor of the shed lifted as the trapdoor opened and fell off to the side, disturbing the settled dust that covered everything in that tiny room. Particle clouds rose, the motes illuminated in the strips of sunlight shining through the slats of the wooden walls. Brian stifled back a sneeze.
At the bottom of the landing, Brian’s cousin Steven Driscoll stared upward, gripping the sides of the ladder.
“What’s up there, Bri—”
Brian hushed him with a shake of his open palm and continued up the ladder until he was standing outside. With care, he rested the heavy trapdoor against the far wall of the shed.
Brian looked down the entry chute to Steven at the bottom. He knew that five minutes ago, the only thought going through Steven’s mind had been the complete and utter fear of facing whatever unknown nature of humanity might remain outside that bunker door. Now his cousin looked panicked as the filtered light reflected the sheen of sweat on his forehead, his body tensed, as if the all-encompassing blackness in that room was squeezing him toward the exit. Steven’s eyes darted over his shoulder in the direction of the one piece of equipment they had not shut down entirely—the walk-in freezer. The red, glowing light from the switch illuminated the far wall. Steven seemed frozen, transfixed.
Not the time to be thinking about what’s in there, Brian thought.
Steven shuddered and turned to the ladder. He was halfway up when Brian hissed down to him.
“The gear, Steve. Pass the gear.”
Steven jumped to the landing and hefted the first, and then the second military-issue backpack up the passageway to Brian’s waiting hands. The large backpacks barely fit through the narrow opening with all the detachable pouches filled to the brim and the secondary detachable scout backpacks stuffed with the essentials.
The blackness of the bunker crept over Steven’s hands as he shoved the packs through the circular opening, momentarily cutting off the sunlight from the outside. Brian saw that look in his cousin’s shadowy eyes, as if the darkness was seeping into his body and being filtered into his lungs from the air he breathed.
Brian was still heaving the second dark green backpack from the opening as Steven hurried to the mouth of the ladder, his expansive shoulders and chest pinched momentarily at the narrow, circular entrance before pulling himself free.
Steven’s eyes were darting about the walls of the shed like those of a caged animal. For a moment, they were both silent, listening to the wind outside and the occasional chatter of birds far overhead. They pressed their faces to the cracks between the plank walls, blinking their eyes at the outside world, but all they could see were slivers of the vast fields beyond.
“All right then,” Brian whispered. “You keep lookout. I’ll cover the hatch.”
Steven swallowed and nodded.
Brian closed the metal door and turned the circular locking handle on the top to secure it. He grabbed a rusted length of chain hanging on the far wall among other rusted tools, wrapped it through the handle and an eye-loop bolt, and padlocked it shut. He placed the scattered floorboards back in position, covering the stenciled diagram of an octopus that was etched into the top of the hatch door. A hammer and box of nails sat on the workbench where he had left them all that time ago.
A silky sheen of dust had settled over the handle, and when Brian brought the hammer down, the noise made Steven jolt. He turned to Brian. “Can’t you do that any quieter?”
Brian didn’t look up. His cousin was dumber than the box of nails rattling beside him as he hammered away. “What you seeing out there?”
“Ain’t nothing to see.” Steven turned back to the slat in the wall, and Brian continued hammering until the floorboards were secure.
When he’d hammered the last nail, Brian stood and dusted off his knees. “Give me a hand here.” He walked to the end of the workbench and took hold of the far corner. Steven grabbed the other end, and they carried the cumbersome piece of furniture over the hollow floorboards. Not that they had any desire to ever go back down into that underground room, but the sanctity of that place had to remain a secret … just in case. Plenty of food and water still remained in the storage room, and for all they knew, the outside world was nothing more than a burnt-out shell—the rivers dry, the soil infertile, and humanity wiped from the pages of existence like wet ink smeared over by a thumb.
They hoped and prayed that that was not the case. Not entirely, at least.
“You ready?” Brian asked.
“Hell, no.”
They grabbed their packs and hefted them over their shoulders, feeling the weight pull at them. Steven had his Winchester shotgun—passed down from his father—attached to the webbing of his pack, and Brian had his scoped hunting rifle attached to the webbing on his own pack. Both of these weapons had wooden stocks and were the only weapons in their inventory that were not jet-black and designed for warfare. They each carried identical assault rifles on tactical shoulder slings, and each also holstered a pistol. Spare magazines and ammunition for these weapons were stuffed in pouches and attached to their belts and gear. Most of their equipment was military issue and had never been fired.
Only moments ago, as they readied themselves to depart the bunker, they had traded in their well-worn jeans and flannel shirts for olive-drab jumpsuits, shin-high black boots, elbow and kneepads, and tactical vests. Brian thought the seams on Steven’s jumpsuit were going to bust as he watched his cousin wrest it over his expansive chest, his bear-paw hands fumbling with the zipper. Brian’s own jumpsuit felt snug, but he was nowhere near his cousin in stature.
They were late leaving the bunker. The date on the calendar came and went. Brian had crossed it off with the big black marker and then both men just stood and stared at it.
“We gotta get moving,” Brian had said.
Steven nodded, and then added, “We ain’t ready.”
As time passed, it had become obvious they would never be truly ready to leave their lavish bunker. Despite spending two years underground and feeling on the verge of insanity, their bunker had carpeting and fluorescent lighting, separate bedrooms with real beds, and a TV with a video game system. The kitchen and living room were at the very center of the bunker in a domed room with cylindrical arms reaching out in separate directions—like the octopus logo on the trapdoor—to the various bedrooms, generator area, and storage.
As far as underground shelters went, theirs was indeed luxurious. All the same, Brian and Steven had not seen the light of day for more than a fraction of a second—that one time they had to open the hatch door. It was time to come out of hibernation to face the road ahead, and complete the task they had promised their Uncle Al they would take care of.
They crouched by the shed door, assault rifles armed and ready. They were clean in their new army jumpsuits, freshly shaven with rough-looking red faces, their hair trimmed short. Steven’s dark-blond hair was already plastered to his forehead with sweat.
Brian turned the handle of the door and pushed. The flimsy plywood bent in the middle, stuck at the bottom.
“It’s the vines there,” Steven said, pointing to the weeds protruding through the wooden slats. It took several shoves, along with a few hacks with Brian’s combat knife, until the door swung open.
The rush of air that hit their faces was laden with a southern dampness, smelling of wildflowers and the live oak trees covered in dangling moss that grew all over the property. Brian looked to the sky for the sun he so longed to see and feel, but the expansive heavens were overcast with rolling gray clouds.
They stood in the middle of a vast plain. In the distance was Steven’s house, where Brian had lived with his cousin for many years. An old plantation home, it had been passed down from generation to generation, until it was handed over to Steven. The luster and charm it once radiated was lost after the death of Steven’s parents, when he took up residence and failed to maintain the responsibilities of homeownership.
The house looked dark and cold on the horizon, a whispery building lost among the weeds and gray sky.
Brian turned to see the longing in Steven’s eyes. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “We ain’t going.”
Steven stared at the house—his house. The large picture window facing the valley was gone. Even from his distance, Brian could see the gentle inward and outward flutter of a large black tarp, perhaps a garbage bag, constructed to cover the window opening. There was a mound of something on the back porch that looked charred. This was not how they had left it.
Steven had that look that Brian knew so well. He was seeing red, but fear and uncertainty kept his anger from boiling over. Maybe all that time spent in solitude had given Steven the ability to control his anger, quell the tide of rage that so easily overtook him. Brian wasn’t so sure. How many fights had Brian pulled Steven away from throughout their lives, only moments before his cousin killed the other person? Brian couldn’t even guess. Once Steven would calm down, he’d go on to explain, “I just see red. All I see is red, and I can’t—I don’t think.”
If he makes a charge for the house, Brian thought, I can’t stop him.
Steven spat in the windswept grass. “I know we ain’t going. I don’t wanna go.”
“Let’s get on then.”
Brian patted his breast pocket, a final check for the folded weatherproof map. The route east was marked with a permanent felt-tipped marker. It was the route Uncle Al had traced for them over two years ago. Steven had a similar map folded in the breast pocket of his tactical vest, and he took it out and looked it over. Brian doubted his cousin could discern much from the lines and colors—he had once got lost walking to a bar one town over.
The two men stood up from their crouching position in the tall grass, turned from their old house, and began their trek into the unknown.
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