E. Montclair - The Sky Grew Dark

To my wonderful husband, who has constantly supported my dreams. Always encouraging, always uplifting, reminding me to persist when I feel like giving up, and reminding me to stick to my story when I start to stray. To my sister and mom, who help with editing and story content, reading and re-reading. Lastly, to my boys. When I have my head buried in the laptop they give me my space.

We worked as quietly as we could in the darkness. Sweat was running down my back on this cold night, the moon’s bright rays giving plenty of light for the task. Adrenaline coursing through our veins, we worked quickly, hoping we wouldn’t be seen.

I barely had time to feel remorse, knowing the time would come for that soon enough. When the hole was deep enough we hid the shovels and went for the body we had hidden nearby in some underbrush. We pulled it out; clothed with only a pair of underwear, we lowered him into the ditch.

We had only a moment. I looked across the darkness, searching my mom’s face. I had never seen her this thin or haggard in my life. She looked at me, tears making white trails down her dirty cheeks. She loved him as well as her own son.

I wanted to say something, to somehow honor this man we both loved, but I knew we shouldn’t risk it. Tears blurred my vision as I silently retrieved my shovel. As quickly and quietly as I could I began burying my husband.

5 months earlier

I hurried to the car with my groceries in tow, feeling pretty good now that the morning sickness had passed. The sky was cloudy and grey on this humid September day in Southern California. I anxiously looked around, hoping I had time to finish my errands before another storm hit.

I loaded up the car, quickly checking my cellphone to see if I had any texts or missed calls. I noticed something strange. My reception flashed from full bars to a circle with a slash, over and over again. I turned on the car, and began pulling out of the parking lot. I slowed to take in what I saw. A man staring at his phone. I glanced around. Everybody I could see was stopped in their tracks, looking at their phones with concern.

I started trembling uncontrollably. It was happening. I took a deep breath and tried to focus. I drove as quickly as I could to the house and tried to round everybody up. We all knew what the plan was. Anybody that couldn’t be tracked down within thirty minutes was left behind. They could try to meet up with us later but we needed to get to the shelter as soon as possible.

We grabbed the kit we had packed, a few necessities, and piled into the two cars. The cloud cover broke minutes after we got into the car, rain soaking the ground in seconds.

Hitting the freeway as fast as we could, we wound up the coast for about two and a half hours to the spot we had found. We unloaded our supplies and made our way down the steep side of the cliff to the large cave, hidden completely out of sight from an aerial view by trees and bushes. According to our plan the guys hid the two cars, one twenty miles away, and the other two miles, both driven off the road and covered with branches and leaves. We didn’t know how long it would be before we used them again.

We assembled in the cave and went over the plan.

The group consisted of; me, my husband Ian, our two sons; Seamus and Gaiden, with another on the way, my mom Sherry, my step dad Frank, my sister Lisa, my brother Joey, and my grandpa Emil.

We were part of an organization that was preparing for an attack. We weren’t preparing for Armageddon, we were preparing for an eminent attack. A friend in international communications had come to find out that a secret alliance had been made between Iran and North Korea.

We had tried to warn others, but many either chose to disbelieve or didn’t put feet to their fears. With all the ‘doomsday’ preppers around it was hard to talk to people about something like this seriously.

Based on the intelligence collected, aerial attacks were what we had planned for. We had only visited this cave once, not wanting to draw any attention to it, and we had prepped it as much as we could on that single visit.

The expected form of attack was biological warfare. Knowing this, we would have to be contained for three to six months, depending on how things went on the surface. We planned to wait it out in the cave for one month, not leaving for any reason, to avoid any contact with the contaminated air.

After one month, we would send one person to scout the area and see what was going on. At the three month mark, there was a designated meeting place to inform the refugees of any further information that had been obtained.

The plan had been to set up several areas that were stashed with supplies, but we hadn’t really had time for all that. This had happened much sooner than we expected. We only had one area prepped, and that was about eight miles away.

We quickly stashed our supplies and proceeded to close up the door of the cave as best as we could. Ian and Joey used a large camouflage tarp and tacked it to the side of the mountain. Then they covered it with branches and dirt and snuck in under one corner. This cave had been chosen for its proximity to the ocean; we hoped contaminated air would pass by us. It was also very large, going so deep into the mountain we hadn’t yet found its end.

The chart that the organization had made showed us how much water to bring, so we should have a sufficient amount of water to last us until the one month mark, then we could go find water. We didn’t bring wood because it wasn’t quite cool enough to require a fire, and if we all huddled together we should stay warm in the cave inside our sleeping bags. We had brought propane and a camping cook stove to cook our food on. We had figured if we only ate one hot meal a day, and conserved the propane lantern light, we should be able to make it last six weeks.

Then we waited.

We immediately set to work, trying to make this cave into a decent living space. The opening was about five feet wide and eight feet high. The opening faced the ocean, and was positioned on the side of a mountain. A steep cliff was just above us, and the freeway several hundred feet above that. The area where we were was mostly flat, and had a steady decline until it reached the water.

The cave had a wide opening that went into the mountain for about twenty-five feet, then it split off into four different directions. One ended immediately, while the other three we had not explored. Living in a cave wasn’t my first choice, but obviously it was better than trying to build something out here.

I had Seamus, who was seven and Gaiden, who was five, begin collecting any debris on the floor of the cave. Leaves, sticks, moss, and rocks, and sort and stack them against one wall. Seamus was tall for his age, and thin, and seemed to be eating everything in sight these days. He had short brown hair and hazel eyes, just like me. In fact, he looked exactly like me at that age. He was sweet, and very smart, but didn’t talk much.

Gaiden was the spitting image of my husband. He had lighter brown hair and pale blue eyes. And he never stopped talking. I was concerned about him being out here and the fact that we would need to keep quiet sometimes. He argued with everything I said, always thinking he knew what was best.

I took a deep breath and tried to focus on what needed to be done around here instead of worrying about the kids. There were a few things that needed to be taken care of right away. Namely, what we were going to do about a bathroom. We selected the arm of the tunnel that ended to designate as the place, and dug a hole about three feet deep. Every three days we covered it and dug another in that area. Problem solved. It really didn’t smell that bad.