Mark Clodi - Discovery

Tom searched around and found it in the top of one of the cans, he held it up for Stewart, who said, “Don't you want a free grenade?”

He shook his head vigorously and handed her the pin. Sighing Steward carefully removed the grenade and put the pin back into it. She handed it to Tom, indicating that she had no more room in the fanny pack she wore, “You carry it.”

Tom just stared at her for a moment, the put his hand out for the explosive, he tucked it with some reluctance into this front pocket. Just as he finished securing it, sure that it was going to go off and blow him up a scream came from behind the closed door of the basement. It was muffled, but sounded loud enough that both of them knew what it was. Stewart started forward, methodically slow, checking for more traps. They didn't run into anything else along the aisle and Stewart examined the door closely when they reached it. The door was metal painted in the same green color as the wooden one had been. There was a key hole in the handle and another on in the dead bold above that. Stewart touched the handle and tried to turn the knob, it did not turn. Another scream sounded from inside the closed room, followed by a man's voice screaming profanities that did not quite make it into the basement room. Both voices were so muffled that Stewart suspected there was some sort of sound proofing around the room.

“Locked.” she said looking over the door frame, “Metal frame, check this out.” Stewart dusted off a sign hanging on the wall. It showed a radiation symbol and the words 'Designated Fallout Shelter' in yellow and black lettering. “Shit. Here we have been fucking around trying to be all quiet and the music in there must be blasting for us to hear it at all. These walls are cement, the door is metal. Any ideas?” she asked Tom.

“Turn around and leave?”

Stewart gave Tom a look that he interpreted as 'No really what do you want to do?'

“Well I don't know.” he whispered, “I don't think we could shoot our way in? When was this place built? The fifties? We'd need a battering ram to get through the door. And if they had grenades to leave around as booby traps they probably have more firepower than we do.”

“But we have the element of surprise.” Stewart said.

Abruptly the deadbolt unlatched and the door handled turned, surprising them both. Stewart stepped back in time to avoid the door which swung out quickly and almost caught her. Tom stumbled and fell to his butt behind her, as he fell he tried to catch himself on one of the shelves and his hand contracted and the shotgun when off firing into the junk of the basement.

Stewart brought her gun up and yelled at the surprised man standing in the doorway, “Freeze! Police!” in a voice that carried authority beyond those of the words along. The man was older, probably in his fifties, he was in good shape, but had a paunchy beer belly which was visible because he was completely naked. His gray hair was cut short in a military style and he stood about five and a half feet tall. In the hand that he had not been opening the door with he held some sort of assault rifle. His body was splattered with blood and loud, pounding music blared out of the room behind him, it sounded like some sort of punk band from the late seventies.

“Don't do it!” yelled Stewart as the man stepped back trying to pull the door with him as he brought his gun up and fired.

The assault rifle sent bullets ricocheting off of the metal door back into the room, Stewart watched as one of the rounds tore through the man's leg just above his knee. The bullet spun him around and he fell onto the floor, where he lay moaning and grasping at the blood pouring from his leg.

“Fuck!” Stewart yelled, unable to hear her own voice. She stepped into the room scanning it for other adversaries, looking right and left she saw no other moving people. The room was longer than she expected, and after about four feet there were two steps down into the main area of the fallout shelter. There were two sets of bunk beds up against the walls of the shelter and another set had been broken down into two beds in the main area of the room. Along the far wall hung a set of green metal cabinets, to one side of them was a portable toilet on the other was a shower curtain. On the upper level of the room was another counter with stools set up to form a bar like area, shelves above this counter held dozens of bottles of alcohol and there were three coolers on the counters too. Near the far end of the counter was a gun rack, there was another assault rifle there and what looked like a few cases of ammunition. The shelves also held a large stereo which was plugged into an array of car batteries with a converter box. There were two overhead lights hanging down off of the ceiling that also appeared to be plugged into the car batteries, they kept the place well lighted and Stewart wanted to retch at what she was seeing.

Tom stumbled into the room after her and was mouthing something at her, that she could not hear. Finally he turned and went over to the stereo and pulled the plug on it. The man on the ground was moaning as the pool of blood grew around him. Stewart went up to him and kicked him, “You son of a bitch! You fucking son of a bitch!”

Tom didn't stop her, instead he went down to the beds in the main room and checked the two bodies tied to them, both were also nude and sported various cuts and bruises. One looked like it had been there for a few days, the other had a fresh wound in the ribs, where a trickle of blood flowed. The very dead one was a young man, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, the other was a young woman. Their faces were similar enough that they could have been siblings. Tom stood over the woman while Stewart kicked the man down the steps into the main room.

“Stewart!” She didn't respond, “Stewart! She is still alive! Stop and help me!”

Stewart looked up, the man on the floor was not moving, the blood from his leg wound was only seeping out slowly now. “What?”

“She is still alive!”

Stewart came over and checked the woman's wounds. She had plenty of them, her face was bruised and swollen and she was breathing raggedly. Tom used his knife to cut her free of the bed and Stewart checked the girl's pulse. The girl pulled in a deep breath and the blood from her chest wound bubbled as air hissed through the opening.

“Fuck, the bullet went into her lungs. Her lung is going to collapse. We need some plastic and duct tape, Tom, now!”

Tom started searching the room and found a plastic bag from the hardware store and some duct tape on one of the counters. He hand them both to her, but while Stewart was taping the plastic over the hole in the woman's chest she stopped breathing. Stewart looked across the body at Tom, both knowing they could start cardio-pulmonary-resuscitation, both realizing it wouldn't do any good.

“Fuck.” Stewart said slowly, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Tom, still holding her gaze, repeated her words and they both started to shake at the same time. Stewart got up first and held her hand out to Tom, he took it and she hauled him up to his feet where she, gave him a brief hug.

When they parted he said, “I didn't think you were the kind of woman who liked to hug.”

“I'm not, that was for you.”

“What do we do about this?” he said, gesturing around the room with one hand.

“This? Fuck me if I know. I am taking the guns and the ammo and if there are grenades I am taking them too. As much as we can carry, but no more than that. When we leave this basement I am not coming back down.” Stewart checked the body near the door to make sure he was dead, "He must have hit an artery in his leg." she said looking at large pool of blood surrounding the man on the floor.

Five minutes later Tom and Stewart left the hardware store lugging a heavy army green box between them, on top of the box were assorted dog treats, dog food and one flip flop. Stewart was wearing the other one over her socks. Amelia, who was standing by the cars keeping a look out noted the blood on their clothing and started to ask a question. Stewart stopped her, “Don't worry about it. Just the run of the mill shit we find everywhere we go. We did get some good stuff this time, weapons and hand grenades, the guy must have been a gun nut. You guys didn't hear us firing from out here?”