Instinct (44 page)

“I suspect my ride is here,” Hampton said. “I suggest that you don’t stay here too long. She said that the shit would hit the fan in six days, but she might have been trying to lull us into thinking we had more time to evacuate.”

“From the tornadoes.”

“Accounts are untrustworthy, but I hear they’re quite bad.”

“I’ve seen them,” Robby said. “I saw them taking apart towns on the coast.”

“You’re one of the few then.” Hampton stood and began collecting his documents. “There used to be a polished white limestone casing on the Great Pyramid at Giza. It was stolen hundreds of years ago to build other structures. I’ve heard that it wasn’t even the original skin. When the thing was first built, the skin was completely sealed. They say a tornado sat on top of the pyramid for four days, until the whole skin was stripped away.”

“Who said that? No historic record of that would exist,” Robby said.

“The records at the Ancient Library of Alexandria spoke of it, until all those accounts were burned by the Romans.” Hampton began to walk for the door. “You’ll need to come at least as far as the landing. When I flip the switch to open the hatch, the lights will go out in here.”

Robby stood up. “Can I ask you two more questions.”

“You can ask. I may not answer.”

Robby followed the man out into the big room.

“If you sacrifice all those people, what good will it do? All the humans will be dead either way.”

“I won’t validate your supposition to answer your question.”

He began to climb the stairs up to the dusty control room.

“What’s at the bottom of the silo where you had Brad locked up?”

“Water. It flooded years ago.”

“Is there something in the water?”

Hampton’s feet clanged up a few treads before he answered.

“That’s something that can never be explained, only experienced. I wouldn’t recommend it though. Unless you have about a decade to commit to intense psychotherapy. Do you?”

They reached the room.
 

Robby stood right at Hampton’s side as he reached into the little panel. He ignored the cracked and dusty controls and pushed on a patch of rust. The metal underneath clicked, like it was fatigued and flexing. Everything went out, leaving them in the dark. Robby heard the metal barrier sliding aside to reveal the shaft up to the shed. When the barrier stopped moving, Robby heard the click again and the dim bulb came on.

“That’s the courtesy light. You can leave it on when you’re done,” Hampton said. He slung his bag over his shoulder and began to move towards the ladder.

“Wait, what’s the point of evacuating everyone and then bringing them back here? Why didn’t you take them to the backup place initially, if you knew this place was going to be leveled by a tornado? Why bring them back here if you’re going to feed them to the entity?”

“That’s way more than two questions.”

“But you didn’t answer the first one.”

Robby heard Hampton laugh as he climbed towards the surface.

When he heard the hatch lift at the top of the shaft, Robby looked back towards the black square that was the doorway leading to the stairs. He looked back at the rusty spot on the panel. If he pressed that, the lights would make the place more bearable, but he would also be sealed inside. He wasn’t ready for that. He wanted to see the sky again, just to be sure there were no storms on the horizon. He’d seen one of the tornadoes tear apart a town. If one sat on top of the bunker for four straight days, it would no doubt be able to unearth the bunker. Robby ran for the ladder.
 

As he climbed, he reassured himself. “I’ve learned everything I could from those documents. I’m not going to decode them just by staring at them hour after hour.” The bin was latched above him. It must have clicked back into place after Hampton left.
 

Robby struggled with the catch. All he could think about was the thing in the water. Whatever it was, it scared Hampton. Robby had heard the fear in the man’s voice. His grip on the rung slipped as his other hand struggled with the latch. Robby took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He heard something move below.

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Robby kept his eyes shut and counted. When they had rescued Brad, they had closed and latched the door that led down to the water. And there was a door at the end of that hall, and rooms, and stairs, and a ladder. Nothing was coming from him. His brain knew that. He took another deep breath and willed his pounding heart to understand as well.

Robby imagined the latch and moved his fingers in the dark. He manipulated the lever and heard a snap. The door above him opened. In the little shed above, he saw cautious dawn light seeping between the gaps of the boards.

Robby climbed.

When he opened the shed door, he heard the grain bin closing automatically over the hatch.

Hampton was crossing the back yard, headed for the driveway. Robby scanned the sky. It was clear and dark. The sunrise was just beginning to breach the eastern horizon, and that’s the only place he saw even a trace of clouds. Robby walked towards the house. He found the folder he’d dropped, and picked it up. His stomach rumbled. He tried to think how many hours he’d been underground, depriving himself of food and water.

The grounds were a mess. Clothes and gear were scattered—left behind in the hasty evacuation. Hampton was walking towards an ambulance that sat in the center of the drive. Robby watched as the man slowed and then stopped. Hampton tilted his head and stared for a second. He broke for the house at a run.

The screen door on the back porch banged open and a man emerged who was so tall and muscular that he filled the entire doorway. Hampton stopped in his tracks. The enormous man was dressed like a surgeon. Robby’s eyes shot to his right. The man had probably seen him, but he could easily run for the barn. The man would get Hampton, but Robby could escape through the barn and then down the path between the pastures to the woods. A dog emerged between the man’s legs and came to the edge of the porch with a wagging tail. Robby smiled and thoughts of running away faded. A much smaller man came through the door. Robby and Hampton both approached.

CHAPTER 35: FIELD

E
VERYONE
SEEMED
TO
STIR
at once. Pete tried to sleep through the noises, but the general rustling of sleeping bags shifted into coughs and whispers. People stood and walked between the rows of sleepers. Pete gave up and moved outside. The flaps of the tent were tied open and people moved outside in a steady stream. The morning air was clean and delicious after the recycled air of the tent.

It was going to be a beautiful day. Pete surveyed their encampment.

Nearly the entire football field was taken over by the tents. He saw a first aid tent and the latrine tent that he had already visited. At the perimeter, the chain link fence was lined with black tarps. Over the top of the tall fence, he could just see the highest railing of the bleachers. They were covered with a blanket of vines.

Pete tried to look casual as he strolled towards the fence. He glanced towards the Beardos who drank coffee near the first aid tent. They seemed unconcerned by his movements, so he kept walking to a place where he saw a gap in the black tarps. Pete stayed back from the fence until he spotted movement outside the perimeter. As he puzzled out what he saw, and felt the heat, he moved forward.

He pulled apart the edges of two tarps and saw what was on the other side of the fence.

In the sideline area of the football field, a Beardo walked. He wore a backpack with canisters and tubes that ran to the weapon he held. The Beardo pulled the trigger and Pete shrank back as a jet of hot flame shot from the end of the weapon. He directed the flamethrower at the bleachers and torched the vines that were creeping between the tiers of metal seats. The man walked methodically towards the end zone, burning up the creeping vines. In the wake of his flames, the vines burned only for a second and then left behind black husks.

Pete looked beyond the Beardo. This wasn’t his first pass. There were already charred remains of vines in the direction the Beardo was walking, but the vines had advanced over their burned siblings. Pete wondered how often they had to drive them back to keep the vines at bay. He let the tarps fall shut again.
 

Pete walked in the direction of the other end zone. That was where the gate sat. It was where he had come in the night before. They had been led on a concrete walkway between buildings. Atop the brick school buildings, more Beardos stood. Pete saw that one of those men was also carrying a flamethrower.
 

“Can I help you?”

Pete looked back down. “I guess not. Just stretching my legs.”

“Please stay on the marked paths,” the Beardo said.

“Yeah. Sure.” Pete nodded. “I’m curious. Why bring us here, when it’s clearly surrounded by danger?”

“Where else?” the Beardo asked. “Danger is everywhere. At least this is a defendable position.”

“Ah,” Pete said. He smiled and nodded before turning back towards the tents. He caught the smell of breakfast cooking from the main tent. It was briefly overpowered as the breeze brought him aromas of burning leaves and then chemicals from the bathroom tent. The field was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic for Pete. They had more than a hundred and fifty people crammed into the space, and their sounds and smells overlapped to crowd Pete’s senses.
 

He rubbed his chin and wondered if he could simply join the Beardos just to get a turn on top of one of the school buildings. He would still be trapped with these people, but at least he would be able to see beyond the enclosing fences.

Pete heard a scream and turned to see several Beardos running out through the gate and disappearing around the other side of the fence. Pete quickened his pace and walked around the first aid tent before dashing for the fence. He reached the fence as another scream called out from the other side.
 

There was a gap between sections of the bleachers there. The vines had come up over the railings of the bleachers, but had respected the walkway between them, leaving the concrete path bare. It looked like a trap. Pete wondered why the man hadn’t recognized it as such.

He was pinned there, lashed to the vertical support of the bleacher and held by ropes of green vine. One vine spiraled over the man’s ear, ran down behind his sideburn and looped under his chin before disappearing down his shirt. The man was panting quickly. Trickles of blood seeped through his beard.

Pete was about to speak to him—tell him to hold still and that help would be there soon. He didn’t get the chance. Beardos appeared from both directions. One had a flamethrower. The others held machetes.
 

“Burn it back. I want this whole section cleared,” one man shouted at the flamethrower man. The others moved with their machetes and approached slowly. Pink and purple flowers erupted on the vines. The flowers were beautiful, but chilling, the way they suddenly budded and opened. The machetes swung, hacking off sections of reaching vines. As they hit the ground, the vines twisted on the concrete. One flopped and rolled towards a Beardo. He stomped at it, and the vine rewarded him by curling up his leg. He slid his machete between his pants and the vine and began methodically dicing the vine into little sections. The other men hacked at the roots of the vines that held their friend.
 

The pinned man continued to pant and emitted a low moan and people encouraged him to keep calm. They had to speak up to be heard over the low roar of the flamethrower. The man shooting fire worked his way up the bleachers, burning the vines and paying extra attention to flowers. Those glowed like miniature torches as they burned.

Pete gripped the fence. A few other people had joined him. They were all looking through the fence at the battle playing out on the other side. The Beardos were too involved to order them back.
 

One of the observers shouted a warning and Pete saw the danger just before it was too late. A vine had sent out a runner from the other set of bleachers. It reached the foot of one of the machete Beardos as he was engrossed in cutting the vines from the pinned man.

It circled the Beardo’s ankle before he heard the shouted warnings. When the vine looped around his ankle, it suddenly recoiled, pulling his foot out from underneath him. The man slammed down to the concrete, throwing his arms out to catch himself. His machete clanged away from his hand and the other Beardos turned at the sound. They hacked at the vine, severing it before it could drag the man under the bleachers. More vines began to descend from over the side of the bleachers while the flamethrower Beardo was occupied.

More people yelled, and this time the Beardos heard the warnings. They ducked and backed out of there, dragging the man with the section of vine still looped around his ankle. Meanwhile, more vines had slipped under the bleachers to ensnare the other man once more to the support pole. He screamed again as the new vines dug into his flesh. The other Beardos had learned their lesson. The area was too dangerous to attempt a rescue. They pulled back to within a couple of paces of Pete as he watched.