Digger 1.0 (12 page)

Which way to go?
He looked back down
the vertical hole and then turned to examine the tunnel in which he
was now standing.
Walking on the ground is easier, so I’ll go
this way.
He wiped sweat from his brow with his forearm, his
mind on fire with danger, possibility and excitement.
What kind
of labyrinth do we have here?

He moved forward cautiously, circumspectly.
The tunnel was braced every ten feet or so with heavy, dark beams,
and Ellis saw where here and there, the tunnel digger (
or was it
diggers?
) had cemented certain areas of the shaft, probably
where the soil or clay had been loose and maybe showed a tendency
to crumble and fall, but the tunnel seemed to be relatively dry.
Since the whole valley was up on an escarpment, Ellis figured it
was maybe one hundred feet or more down to subsurface water, and
the humidity was high but not oppressive.

Thirty feet into the horizontal shaft, he
saw another tunnel, breaking off to the west. Was that way actually
west? He wondered. It was hard to tell down here, but if he’d kept
his bearings, he was facing south which would mean the new tunnel
headed off to the southwest.

No more breaking off. I need to follow
this one until it ends somewhere. The last thing I need is to get
confused about where I’m at and then get lost down here.
His
inner voice was morphing into that of his father, lending
credibility and authority to his own thoughts.

He kept walking south, and after another ten
paces he saw crates and boxes and barrels stacked against the east
wall. He used the torch to illuminate the boxes, but backed off
when on some of them he saw the word “explosives” stenciled with
spray paint. He sat the torch up against the west wall, far away
from any danger of it igniting anything in the boxes, and pulled
his headlight out of his pocket, putting it on his head. Flipping
on the light, he moved forward and opened one of the wooden crates
marked ‘explosives.’

C4. Bricks and bricks of the stable, bomb
making material packed in sawdust.

He opened another box. Trigger mechanisms.
Maybe blasting caps, detonators, detonation cord. He wasn’t an
expert, but he was pretty sure he knew what he was seeing. Another
box: Directional mines…
what did they call them? Claymores?
In a huge plastic crate he found rifles, a dozen AR-15’s, and in
still another wooden crate he found metal ammo cans full of .223
ammo. There was even more. .308, 7.62x39, 7.62x54, nine mil. A lot
of everything.

After the end of the world, thought Ellis
wiping more sweat from his neck, this is what passes for a gold
mine!

And then he found the gold. Bricks and
bricks of it.

~~~

Chuck, Delores, Patrick, Neil and Marlon
were working in the barn, bringing the goats in one at a time to be
harnessed with their new Y-shaped yokes. Neil and Patrick had
AK-47’s slung to their backs—still ready and on alert from the
recent event at the bridge. It was after supper and they were
working fast so they could get all of the goats yoked before dark.
That is, until Rooster came running into the barn and tackled
Marlon to the ground.

Marlon struggled with Rooster, who was
cackling loudly, and tried to regain his feet. “
Rooster, get off me!
”

“You
took my mirror!
” Rooster yelled, intent but laughing as she
tried to wrestle Marlon back to the ground.

Marlon broke free and ran to the back of the
barn, near the cabinet that held the spreckle. “I didn’t do it! It
was Karl! He takes everything!”

Rooster was advancing on Marlon, cackling
like she was going to bust a gut. “Marlon, give me that mirror or
I’ll make you sorry you took it!”

“I didn’t take it!” Marlon squealed. Now he
was laughing, too. “It was Karl!” As he said it, he started
running, trying to get away from Rooster who was about to pounce,
but he tripped and tumbled to the ground.

“What the—?” he mumbled, as he looked back
at whatever had made him trip.

Rooster saw it too, and then they all did.
The floor was rising, pivoting, and hay was sliding off it as it
did.

“The ground’
s alive!
” Rooster screamed, and she ran out of the
barn and toward the house. She didn’t stop or look back. She wasn’t
there to see Ellis rise up out of the floor and stand before
them.

He smiled.

Their mouths were open, gaping.

“You’re not going to believe this!”
exclaimed Ellis.

The Man in Black pushed aside the warped
door. He stepped across the threshold of the old saloon, leaving
behind the sand-covered and grit-blasted FEMA trucks that had been
abandoned five years ago on the small main street outside.

The wind howled through the old place and
the thing known as Mayhem liked that. It liked that very much.

He could tell that someone,
someones
,
were coming to the town to do trade. He’d seen the messages written
in chalk and old paint on the sides of frail houses as he made his
way to the center. To the historic district. To the old
“tyme-y-time” saloon as he liked to think of it.

“Good,
” he muttered melodiously. “I’ll need some
warm bodies to make my mischief.”

He was glad the mule had died of thirst. Her
incessant honking had begun to wear on his volatile nerves. She
wasn’t family.

“She was just a mule!”
he shrieked.

“Time to settle down now,” he said to
himself, listening to the rising wind pitch and howl as it rambled
through dry shutters and blown out rooms. “I think I’ll set up shop
here and make myself into a man to be reckoned with. Ah,” he
gravel-sighed to himself. “That might be real nice.”

He went over to the old bar. There was
broken glass everywhere and he swept it aside with his huge gloved
hand. There were scratchings in the bartop, worn smooth by hands
and time. Pulling out an Old Timer pocket knife, he carved his own
message.

Mayheminhere.com

Walter added the .com as a joke, really. A
sick joke about the death of technology, and the dependence that
came with it. But then again… back in the days of the world wide
interconnectedness of all things, you never knew exactly what you’d
find if you searched stuff out.

He produced the old plastic Jack bottle and
slammed it down on the warped bar.

“I elect me… mayor of Casperville.”

He found a cracked and jagged shot glass
that would do for now, then poured it full until the amber liquor
overran its broken edges and spilled onto the gray thirsty
wood.

“All in favor?”

He raised the glass, then nodded.

“Motion carried.”

He drank and laughed and wheezed one after
the other and then threw the broken shot glass against a far
wall.

“Eighty-eight bottles of beer on the wall!”
he sang, and then broke into a fit of giggles and sputters.

“Time to make some more mischief,” he roared
and choked, sputtering on his own insane laughter and rage. “Time
to make us some fun.”

The End
of Episode Two
…

Make friends with the dark,
thought
Ellis, his eyes staring into the black, headlight off. Hands
stretched out to each side, palms down, he felt the blackness.
Received it.

Make friends with it. It changed your
world. It took everything from you. Maybe it’s time for the dark to
give something back.
That’s what he constantly told himself.
That was his new mantra as he worked in the cool deep.

He felt his mind drift back into concerns
about family and farm and he didn’t want to lose his mental contact
with the tunnel, so he turned off his headlight and allowed the
darkness to flow over him and through him. He allowed it to baptize
him again. Only when his mind was centered and focused, embracing
the down deep, did he flip his headlight back on and proceed,
checking the tunnel carefully as he walked. Looking for weaknesses
or anything else he might need to know. Learning the down deep.

Ellis was getting used to the new world of
underground. The strange smells of dirt and wet and time. The stale
air. The inexplicable chills or strange breezes that would
circulate through the tunnels, almost as if the chambers and
passages were some kind of respiratory system for the earth
itself.

Most Americans—most Texans—had no concept of
the subterranean. Ease, comfort, affluence… these first world
realities had conspired to make westerners almost uniformly
up-toppers. Groundlings. But Ellis was starting to learn that there
were people, unique people, who were comfortable living and
operating below the surface. People like
that
had built
these tunnels.

Maybe he was one of those people. Maybe he
could make friends with the dark. Striking hands with an enemy you
might say. Despite all that had happened, it was hard for him to
think of the dark as corporeal, as having motive and malevolent
intent. But then there was the day of blindness. That day was a
hard argument for this darkness being evil.

The dark almost certainly killed his dad at
the Beginning and probably stole his brother’s life too. And his
mother? Hard to care what happened to her. But that thought was for
another day, so he put it away. Who knows, or could ever know, what
had really happened to anyone he ever known or loved from the
Before. He’d never really known his brother Kevin, ten years his
senior, who’d left with his mother when Ellis was still in diapers.
Ellis knew his dad, though. Knew him and still loved him and missed
him dearly. His father, who’d been flying a plane to Kansas City
when the darkness took the world. Who’d been his only real friend.
Who’d raised him after his mom left, taking Kevin and whatever
family life they’d ever had with them.

Despite all that, in the week since he’d
found the tunnel, he’d grown accustomed to spending time
underground. He’d come to embrace the absolute darkness and the
cool unknown. He’d even developed some kind of uneasy peace with
his own horrific memories of the day of blindness. Détente maybe,
if not peace. The deep dark had meant doom to him over the last
five years, but now, slowly, that was changing. He even looked
forward to those moments when he’d just sit in the darkness, turn
off his headlight and make himself breathe it all in. Become one
with it. He’d sit in the darkness just like on the day of blindness
and connect his thoughts with that day. He could feel himself
healing and expanding. Growing outward until he felt like his
consciousness filled every nook and cranny and passageway of the
down deep.

Then he’d turn on his light and get back to
work. Like he did now.

He’d spent most of the last week exploring
the beginnings of the tunnels by himself. He wasn’t completely
convinced that the network was safe, and he didn’t want to risk the
farm and any possible defense of it by taking a crew with him to
find out what the down deep offered. So during the day he’d work
alone. In the evenings, he’d bring family members in—two or three
at a time—to show them what he’d found during the day. That way
they were part of things.

But they grumbled at him for being
privileged enough to be down there alone.

Especially Delores.

Delores had made it known that she wasn’t
going to put up with it anymore. So now he had to sneak off to
continue his explorations, because he wanted to keep them safe for
as long as he could. They were his responsibility and he wanted to
know… more. Just more.

Now his mind was drifting up top again. He
shook his head to clear it and focus on what he was doing, and
where he was doing it.

Who could know if the tunnels were a
blessing or just another curse from the darkness? How could he even
know who’d built them?

The what-ifs were many. Too many.

What if whoever gave so many
years—
decades
probably
—to such a monumental task… what if they were still
around down here somewhere, he wondered.

What if these tunnels are primed to
collapse?

What if they’re booby trapped?

What if some gang is using them to get
around and hide out from the hordes and the PMPs up top?

These things were constantly on Ellis’s mind
as he went farther and deeper into the dark tunnels.

What if… everything went wrong?

The gear they’d found—the guns, gold, and
explosives—had been in the tunnels for decades. Thankfully they’d
been stored properly, greased up when necessary and the boxes were
loaded with moisture absorbing packets. Thank God for that. The
explosives were stable plastic explosives and not dangerous crates
full of dynamite or some other primitive material that would
degrade and become more dangerous with every passing day.

But none of that stopped Ellis from
obsessing over the dangers. And now here he was, considering the
ramifications once again,
the possibilities
, just as he did
every day. As he explored the passageways he rolled the
probabilities over and over in his mind, trying to see every
problem from every conceivable angle.

The tunnel he was in now he’d named, “The
Pillbox Express,” because it headed southwest from the main
northward tunnel (where they’d found the explosives) and terminated
in the forest not far behind the pillbox. As he walked, he passed a
tunnel that headed back directly due east. That tunnel came up in
the root cellar under the farmhouse, another exciting find that had
fired imaginations in the family.