Half Lives (21 page)

‘Now that’s what I call roughing it,’ she said, and shook her head.

We quickly had everything organized in piles and documented on our inventory sheets. We didn’t have a lot of clothes. With everything combined, we each had two complete outfits with a few
T-shirts and sweatshirts to spare. I’d have to share with Marissa. I was bigger than she was in every area but the one that mattered most to boys. Chaske was easily twice Tate’s size.
They’d looked like David and Goliath walking down the tunnel earlier. Guess it wouldn’t matter if our clothes fit down here. It wasn’t as if we were going to host a subterranean
fashion show.

My parents had done an amazing job of packing everything I would need. There was a first-aid kit. Mum must have emptied the medicine cabinet. I had a variety of painkillers and penicillin, as
well as a nearly full prescription of Dad’s Valium. A thousand multi-vitamins, each big enough to choke a line-backer. A few lighters as well as four Maglites with extra batteries. They had
also packed disposable facemasks and rubber gloves.

These supplies hadn’t been gathered in a rush. The packaging had been removed and everything was crammed in clear plastic bags. Some of these items had been ordered and acquired from
survival stores. My parents had created a survival kit after 9/11. Mum tried to sit me down once and tell me what to do in case of some national disaster, but Dad told her not to worry me. I think
they told me where the kit was, but I hadn’t paid any attention. I’d thought she was being, well, Mum. I figured it was just a flashlight, radio and candy bar, but she’d really
thought it through.

Chaske had a hammer, a small collapsible shovel and one of those multi-purpose pocket gadgets that had every kind of tool, including a toothpick. He also had a coverless copy of
To Kill a
Mockingbird
, two water canteens, a pack of cards, four boxes of matches, a box of ammunition for his gun, two signal-flares and a one-man pop-up tent.

‘Whoa, get a load of this,’ Marissa said, unwrapping a screepy hunting knife from one of Chaske’s shirts. ‘Are you sure we can trust this guy? I mean, look at the size of
this.’ She pinched the handle between her fingers and let the four-inch blade dangle and reflect green in our Manilow light.

‘Maybe he was out here hunting or camping or, I don’t know, just hiking. People do that all the time.’ My stomach rolled, not because of hunger this time. Everything about the
knife, from the curve of its handle to the jagged notches on the blade, was designed to kill. I didn’t like having that thing in here with me.

‘Yeah, maybe, but it’s weird him being out here on his own – and he’s not exactly Mr Chatty,’ Marissa said, glancing down the tunnel to make sure they weren’t
listening. ‘What’s the deal with him?’

I shrugged. ‘All I know is that he saved my life and he seems pretty normal, except for the man-of-mystery routine. I’m sure he’ll talk when he’s ready, and he’ll
be some average guy from some average place. It will make perfect sense why he’s alone on the mountain with all this survival gear.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ Marissa said as she placed the knife next to Tate’s Swiss Army knife. Tate’s knife with its shiny red exterior and white cross logo
looked like a child’s toy next to Chaske’s massive hunting knife. ‘I plan to keep a close eye on him just in case he’s escaped from some nuthouse.’

I knew less than a Facebook profile about these people. I added fear of Marissa, Tate and Chaske to my ‘Reasons to Panic’ list, not only fear of who they really were and what they
were capable of today, but of what they might do after a few months locked in a bunker.

We turned our attention back to the inventory. My parents had sent hundreds of Nutri-power Bars in every flavour imaginable. That was all Mum ate when she was busy. I’d tried one once. It
had the taste and consistency of mud and sand mixed with jelly. Chaske had exactly eighty-one of these vacuum-packed, army-issued ‘Meals, Ready-to-Eat’. MREs. Cheesy tortellini from a
packet I could live with, but I wasn’t sure about eating vacuum-packed meat products like Mediterranean chicken, or spicy penne pasta with some sort of sausage. He also had a big bag of beef
and turkey jerky. Marissa had twenty-three packs of breath mints and assorted travel-size snacks.

We had nearly finished organizing our supplies into food, medical, tools and miscellaneous when the place was suddenly flooded with light. I squinted at the brightness. Marissa and I leapt to
our feet. My head swam from the sudden action and lack of food. Two parallel lines of those energy-efficient lights lined the ceiling.

‘This place is massive,’ Chaske hollered to us. We rushed towards one another. Midnight raced between us, as if following the conversation. ‘I think the lighting must be solar
powered. There’s also some sort of air-filtration system. We switched everything on.’

‘Oh, that’s fab!’ Marissa clapped. Her enthusiasm was a bit over the top. Maybe the latent cheerleader in her was coming to life. I wondered if she had a cheer for not
suffocating in a bunker.

‘This tunnel spirals down about a mile,’ Chaske said.

‘It would be great for skateboarding,’ Tate interjected.

‘The tunnel gets narrower as you go down. There’s a part at the back that’s not finished. No lights or anything. We should stay away from that part,’ Chaske said.
‘I’m not sure if it’s structurally sound. All right?’

Marissa and I nodded.

Chaske raised his eyebrows at Tate.

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ He kicked at the dirt floor.

‘Well, I’ve got good news and bad news,’ Chaske said.

‘What’s the bad news?’ I asked.

‘You’re supposed to ask for the good news first,’ Marissa said.

‘I’m “glass half-empty” at the moment,’ I replied.

‘Well, you’re getting the good news first,’ Chaske said. ‘We found a few dusty gallon-jugs of water in this huge room near the back of the tunnel. That should last us for
a little while, but there are also a few places where water is pooling from cracks in the walls. We should be able to collect that water somehow.’

‘And . . .’ I prompted.

‘There are even a few cots. The construction crew must have slept here sometimes,’ Tate jumped in.

‘So what’s the bad news?’ I said, getting more anxious by the minute. ‘Is the place infested with nasty beasties?’ I hopped on the balls of my feet at the thought
of more snakes or rats or alligators or mountain lions or zombies or werewolves . . .

‘Nope, we didn’t see any creatures, did we, Tate?’

‘Nope,’ Tate said.

‘Just tell us the bad news already,’ I demanded.

‘No toilets,’ Tate announced.

‘No plumbing of any kind that we could see.’

I suddenly had the overpowering urge to pee.

‘We’ll figure out something. It’s not that big a deal really.’ Chaske was trying to sound reassuring.

It felt like a big, ginormous, urgent problem. Mum always said she was going to ‘the necessary’. She hated any of the words – British or American – for toilet. Now the
title seemed one hundred per cent appropriate.

Until now the worst thing that had ever happened to me was Tristan Carmichael breaking up with me before prom. I felt light-headed from my dramatic change in priorities. If I survived this, I
promised whatever god was listening that I would never complain about anything ever again.

After I’d worked up the nerve to go to the ‘necessary’, which in the short term consisted of an empty plastic bag and two tissues from my messenger bag, we
gathered at the entrance. Midnight slept on my lap with one paw covering her eyes, like she was some melodramatic actress in one of those silent movies.

‘The only way we are going to make it is if we work together.’ I sounded like my mother.

‘We need to make a plan,’ Marissa piped up. Was Mum inhabiting her too?

‘Can’t we eat?’ Tate whined. ‘I’m starving.’

‘Yeah, in a minute. We need to agree on a few things first.’ If Chaske was annoyed, he kept any hint of it out of his voice. I was impressed at his self-control.

‘We need roles and responsibilities.’ Marissa studied each of us carefully. ‘Tate.’ At the sound of his name, he sat up. ‘Tate, you will be our
timekeeper.’

‘What? Why me?’ he moaned.

‘You’ve got the most expensive watch,’ Marissa continued. ‘I’m assuming it’s one of those that doesn’t need a battery. It keeps time using your
body’s movement, right?’

Tate proffered his wrist so we could see our official timepiece, a big, chunky silver Rolex. ‘Yeah, right. What do I have to do?’

‘Our days and nights could easily get mixed up. It would be great if you could give us a regular account of the time and also find some central place to tally the days. What do you
say?’ She had that unique combination of soothing and condescension in her voice. Was she giving him a compliment or making fun of him? It was hard to tell.

‘Yeah, sure. Whatever,’ Tate said. ‘Can we eat now?’

‘We are making some pretty important decisions and you are a part of this team,’ Marissa said.

Tate shrugged and slouched back, reclining on his elbows. ‘So get on with it.’

‘Chaske, can you be responsible for toilets and sleeping quarters?’ Marissa stated it as a question but it was clear she was handing out orders. It felt strange all of a sudden that
Marissa had decided she was boss. I mean, she was right but I didn’t like the feeling of being told what to do. I’d brought her here, after all.

‘I’ll manage all our supplies,’ I said. It was the most important job and I decided no one was going to do it but me. ‘Tomorrow I’ll divide up the resources and
make sure we have enough to keep us going for as long as possible.’

‘That’s fab, Ice,’ Marissa said. Her tone was that of someone rewarding a dog for a simple trick. Up until now, I’d seen mostly the ‘cheer’ part. Now I
thought I was meeting the ‘captain’.

‘What about you?’ Chaske asked Marissa.

‘I’ll help you with the physical stuff tomorrow,’ she said, and put her hand on Chaske’s knee. What was she doing? Was she holding her friends close and her enemies
closer? She did say she was going to keep an eye on him, didn’t she?

‘Yeah, OK,’ Chaske said, and stretched his legs, which caused Marissa’s hand to shift off him. ‘We should move everything further down into the tunnel. But we can sleep
here again tonight.’

‘That’s fab, Chaske,’ Marissa said. She batted her eyelashes at him. I think his cheeks went a little pink with embarrassment. Was she flirting or playing him? Marissa was much
more complex than I’d originally thought. Chaske wouldn’t fall for her giggly-lack-of-hair-flip-cheerleader routine. Would he?

Then it hit me. I felt a fluttering in my stomach and this feeling like an emotional hiccup when I looked at Chaske. The guy saved my life and I was crushing on him, big-time. I was envious of
Marissa’s girlish ease around him. I needed to get a grip. This was reality, not reality TV.

‘Stuff that doesn’t kill me, makes me way better.’

– Just Saying 222

HARPER

F
inch and Harper spend the morning digging Atti’s grave at the base of the Mountain near Finch and Atti’s father’s burial mound.
Some time overnight Finch has shaved his head. Harper doesn’t ask him why. This isn’t about him, no matter how much he’s trying to use Atti’s death to gain attention. Today
is about saying goodbye to a dear, sweet little girl who was a ray of sunshine in their dull existence. They place her remains in the misshapen hole. Harper can’t bring herself to cover Atti
with dirt. Finch does that on his own. It’s horrible seeing dirt fill in Atti’s missing pieces. Harper helps him cover the grave with a blanket of stones. A sob is permanently wedged in
her throat. She can’t believe Atti’s gone.

As the Cheerleaders gather, Harper sprinkles Atti’s grave with the tiny white and yellow flowers that grow wild on the Mountain. Atti would have loved it. They have picked
flowers together before and made crowns. Every petal that falls feels like it’s taking the small remaining pieces of her only friend away. A warm breeze stirs the air, creating spirals of
petals that rise and fall as if Atti’s spirit is swaying among them, refusing to abandon Harper.