William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

Even though he was hurrying, his brain was working even faster. What he had seen back there had disoriented him, but he was sure of one thing: Jill never would have thrown in with Holdstock and the other malcontents who had rallied around him. So if it hadn’t been the bunch from the Bullpen who’d been fighting with the security force… then who was it?

Larkin and Crandall reached the far end of the corridor and pushed through the doors there. Larkin’s rifle was ready, but Crandall still had his slung on his back, where it had been all along. He asked, “You want me to cover your back, Larkin? I don’t want to break out the hardware unless you’re sure you trust me.”

Larkin didn’t hesitate. He said, “Yeah, I trust you. And if you give me any reason to regret it, I’ll kill you.”

“Fair enough,” Crandall said with a grim smile. He brought the rifle around and let the sling slip down off his shoulder. It was an old deer rifle, Larkin noted. Not the greatest weapon for fighting a battle… but nearly 250 years earlier, a bunch of patriots had won a revolution using their era’s equivalent.

They hadn’t reached the elevator leading down to the apartments in Silo A when the door to the apartment on this level swung open. Jim and Beth Huddleston lived there, so Larkin wasn’t surprised to see Beth step out.

He was shocked to see the gun in her hand, though: a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver that she pointed at him as she said in a shrill, hysteria-edged voice, “Stop right there, Patrick Larkin!”

Larkin stopped and made a slight motion with his left hand, hoping Crandall would understand that he was telling him not to open fire. “Beth?” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on here. I’m all confused. Where’s Jim? Have you seen my wife?”

Beth sneered and said, “Jim called me on the walkie-talkie and warned me about you. He said you tried to kill him and the others. I’m not surprised. Your own daughter was with those lunatics trying to overthrow Graham Moultrie!”

Damn, Larkin thought, would the world ever stop lurching around under his feet? Beth Huddleston was not only holding a gun—she who hated guns and had argued stridently against the Second Amendment at every opportunity—but now she sounded like she supported whatever it was that Moultrie had done now. She’d always hated Moultrie. To her warped, throwback way of thinking, he was The Man —and she took that ridiculous notion seriously.

What would make her turn around so quickly and completely?

Larkin started to get a glimmer of an answer to that question, but he didn’t really have time to ponder it right now. Instead he said, “Beth, you need to put down that gun. I know you don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Who’s that with you?” Beth’s voice quivered, less from fear than from rage, Larkin thought. “He’s one of those awful people from the surface, isn’t he?”

Crandall said, “I’m not looking for any trouble, ma’ am—”

“Things are going to be different now,” Beth interrupted as if she hadn’t heard him. “Everything is going to be all right. We’re going to get rid of all the bad people, and then there’ll be plenty for the rest of us.”

Those words made a chill go through Larkin. He said, “What are you talking about, Beth?”

The gun in her hand didn’t budge. Larkin had been waiting for her hand to start to shake. But for someone who probably had never held a gun before, Beth was remarkably steady as she said, “The food. There’s not enough. It’s going to run out in less than a month unless there are fewer people to eat it.”

“That’s crazy. There should be enough for another six months, at least.”

“No. There would have been, if Graham had had more time. But then there was the war…”

Under his breath, Crandall said, “This is some bad shit, Larkin. It sounds like she’s talking about culling the herd.”

“Yeah.” Larkin had thought the same thing, and it put a cold ball of unease in his stomach. “Listen, Beth, I don’t know what happened while I was gone, but I’m sure everything can be worked out.”

Beth shook her head. “There’s only one answer.”

“Moultrie promised you and Jim that you’d be among the ones left, didn’t he?” Larkin had gotten a hint of that earlier, but he was sure of it now.

“Well, it’s only right that we are,” Beth said with a note of defensiveness in her voice. “Jim has always been supportive of him, and I’ve come to appreciate that he’s just trying to look out for us.”

“He bought you off.” Larkin couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice, even with the gun pointed at him.

“He didn’t have to. We’re better. We’ve always been better. We deserve to live.” Beth sniffed. “It’s only right. The people who are smarter, better educated, they have to survive and run things. You can’t let normal people decide things for themselves. They’ll do it all wrong. I mean, my God, look at some of the politicians normal people have elected!”

As always, arguing with Beth Huddleston was a waste of time, Larkin realized. She was as much of an elitist as she had ever been, although the world’s circumstances had changed drastically. People who thought they were better than everybody else would always try to seize power sooner or later, though, no matter what their circumstances were.

“Just what is it you want, Beth?” Larkin asked. “What do you hope to accomplish by pointing that gun at me?”

“I’m going to hold you here so Jim can come and get you. He’ll take you to Moultrie, and they’ll decide what to do with you.”

“Look, I want to talk to them, too. You don’t have to threaten me—”

The silo elevator opened. Larkin darted a glance in that direction, saw Susan stepping out. She looked all right, didn’t appear to be hurt in any way.

But then Beth jerked the revolver toward her and Larkin saw her finger whitening on the trigger. He leaped toward Susan, praying that he could knock her out of the way in time.

The gun in Beth’s hand blasted just as Larkin grabbed Susan and forced her back against the wall. He expected to feel the .38 caliber bullet smash into his back, but instead there was no impact.

When he looked around he saw Beth on her knees, cradling her right hand against her body and sobbing. The gun lay a few feet away. She didn’t look like she was interested in making any attempt to retrieve it.

Crandall picked up the pistol and tucked it behind his belt, then said, “I used the barrel of my rifle and knocked her hand up just in time. May have broken her wrist, though. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” Larkin told him. “You saved either my life or my wife’s. Thank you, Earl.”

“That shot’s liable to bring more trouble. Where do we need to go?”

Larkin glanced at Susan. “Have you seen Jill?”

“No,” she said. “I was on my way to their place. I didn’t know you were back, Patrick.” She gave him a brief but fierce hug. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. What the hell’s going on down here? How did it all fall apart so fast?”

Susan shook her head. “I don’t know. Jill came by earlier and said that there might be trouble. She told me to stay in the apartment with the door locked and to keep one of your guns handy. Then she left. I tried to do what she said and wait there, but I just couldn’t…”

She didn’t know that Jill had been shot, he realized. He was still hoping the wound wasn’t a bad one, so he decided not to say anything just yet.

Instead he took her hand and said, “Let’s go see if we can find her.”

“All right. Patrick…?” Susan’s voice held a tentative note. “Who’s this?”