William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

Larkin didn’t care much for the way Moultrie said my people like that, as if they were his subjects rather than his tenants. In a sense, that’s what he was: a landlord. Not a king or an emperor.

Larkin didn’t want to get into that. Instead he said, “How do you intend to get parts for the generator and more gasoline?”

“I said we weren’t all going up to the surface.” Moultrie smiled a little. “I didn’t say that nobody could go.”

Larkin’s brain was still reeling a little by the time he got back to the apartment—not only from the dangers Graham Moultrie had revealed to him but also the plan that Moultrie had concocted to counter those dangers.

Susan was waiting for him. He could tell she was trying not to look anxious, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

The first question she asked was that of a mother. “Is Jill all right?”

“She was fine the last I saw of her,” Larkin replied as he put his arms around his wife and drew her against him. “If there had been any more trouble, I’m sure I would have heard.”

Susan moved back a little and tilted her head to look up at him. “Patrick, what happened? Why did Jill call you, and did it have anything to do with the lights going out a little while later? I don’t mind telling you, I was scared.”

“So was I. I wish I could have been here with you.”

“But I felt my way around and found a flashlight, and then it wasn’t quite so bad. But I was still so worried about you and Jill…”

“Let’s sit down, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

They settled onto the love seat. Larkin enjoyed the warm, companionable pressure of her hip against his. He couldn’t imagine life without her, and he hoped he’d never have to experience it.

For the next few minutes, he told her about the near-riot caused by the new food restrictions. Susan shook her head in answer to his question about that and said, “No, I haven’t heard anything about our supplies being cut. Thirty percent for the Bullpen and ten percent for the people in the main halls, you said?”

Larkin nodded. “Yep.”

“Well, that’s just not right! It should be the same for everybody.”

“I agree with you. I got into that a little when I went to talk to Graham, but there are bigger problems to consider.”

“The power going out, you mean.”

“Yeah.” Larkin made a face. “Turns out that he didn’t have everything figured out quite so perfectly as everybody thought, including him. The life-support systems have developed some problems, but the real trouble is the generators. They’re wearing out, Susan, and even if the guys who maintain them can keep them limping along, they’re going to run out of fuel before we’re ready to go back up to the surface.”

Her eyes widened. “But… if the generators don’t work… we can’t stay down here.” Her voice took on a shaky note. “We’ll all suffocate in the dark…”

His wife had a steel core, Larkin knew that. She could deal with bloody injuries and life-and-death situations as well as anyone. But this was different. The possibilities Larkin was talking about tapped into the sort of primitive fears every human being had lurking deep inside. No matter how far humanity progressed, within the heart of everyone was a prehistoric creature peering at the eternal darkness and everything bad hidden within it.

“That’s not gonna happen,” he said as he tightened his arm around her. “We’re going to do something about it before things ever get that bad.”

“We?”

“Well… some of us. Graham has decided to send an expedition up to the surface to scavenge for the things we need.” Larkin paused, knowing he couldn’t dodge the rest of the news he had for Susan. “And I’m going to lead it.”

Larkin expected an argument, and he got one.

“Are you crazy?” Susan demanded as she paced back and forth in front of him. “It’s too dangerous for the rest of us to go up to the surface, but you’re going.”

“Someone has to,” Larkin said calmly. “And it’s not like this is the first time I’ll be doing something dangerous.”

Susan swung around sharply toward him. “I know! You always volunteered for every insane mission that came along.”

“And I came back safe and sound from all of them. Well, mostly,” Larkin added, thinking of a few scars and stiff muscles he had brought back with him.

“Getting shot at is one thing. I suppose you know how to guard against that about as well as anyone down here. But what about the radiation and all the other things up there that can kill you?”

“We have a dozen hazmat suits. Moultrie had them stored down here in case anyone had to go into possibly contaminated areas and work on equipment. They’ll provide a decent level of protection from radiation, and they should filter out any biological hazards. I’ll be fine.”

“What about the… the people up there?”

Susan’s voice held a note of horror. As someone in the medical profession, she understood quite well on an intellectual level that the people from the surface who had attacked the project were just suffering from various diseases and medical conditions. But that prehistoric part of her brain had recoiled from them in fear and disgust. Larkin knew that because he had experienced the same thing.

“The motion sensors haven’t detected anything up there since right after the attack, except a few stray anomalies that probably weren’t human. Even those seem to have gone away. The survivors who were left, they’ve either moved on somewhere else or…”

“Or died,” Susan finished for him.

“The shape they were in, some of them are bound to have passed away by now,” Larkin agreed.

“What if they just pulled back? What if they’re still close by and see you and the others moving around?”

“We’ll be better armed than they are,” Larkin said confidently. “Chances are, if that happens they’ll steer clear of us. They probably don’t want any more to do with us than we do with them.”

“And you’re sure of that.”

“Nothing in life is certain, babe.”

She glared at him for a moment, then sat down beside him again. He took that as a small victory.

After a couple of minutes of silence, she asked, “Who’s going with you?”

“I’ll have to ask for volunteers, of course.”

“I can tell you who’s not going with you, Patrick.”

“Jill,” he said before she could go on. “Yeah, I already thought of that. She’ll probably want to, but I’m in command of this mission, so I have the final say on who stays and who goes.”

“She’s going to be very angry with you.”

“Hey, she’s been angry with me before. Remember that guy in high school… what was his name?”

“Danny,” Susan said.

“Yeah, Danny. She was convinced she was in love with him, and when I told her she wasn’t, she threatened to move out.”

“And then she broke up with him a week later.”

“After breaking his finger when he wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Larkin sighed in satisfaction. “That’s my girl.”

Susan leaned against his shoulder. “But she’s still not going with you.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Larkin said.

The heat and the staleness of the air grew worse over the next few days, though not unbearably so. Rumors ran rampant throughout the project, though, and the level of anxiety was high. Most people didn’t know what was going on, and naturally, most of them assumed the worst.

Without going into detail, Larkin put the word out among the security force that he was looking for volunteers for an urgent, vital mission that might involve a high degree of risk. He didn’t say anything about it to Jill, but he wasn’t the least bit surprised when she got wind of it anyway. She confronted him one day in the Command Center.