I very much realize that this story is not your typical, nor traditional, BATB story. I understand that some may feel strongly both positively and negatively about this, however, I'd still like to know what you think, either way. Keep in mind, it's a bit sophmoric. I wrote it in High School, so some facts are bound to be lacking in detail.
I wrote this at a time when I was absolutely obsessed with Post-Apocolyptic senarios. I was watching way too much Twilight Zone. None the less, this is still one of my favorite projects!
November 21, 2002 8:32pm
The light and crisp November snow covered the remainders of the forgotten New York City like a blanket covers a sickly child. The black smog of the air blocked out any trace of the moon, and the chill in the air could freeze anyone's bones if they were without shelter. One young soldier was.
17-year-old Private Karen Armstrong wandered through the center of the street. Her once tough, now tattered, Army boots sloshed through the blackened snow. She wrapped her arms around herself and persevered through the cutting wind. She passed house upon house, searching for just one that hadn't been burnt or destroyed. Feeling the beginnings of frostbite on her toes, Private Armstrong gathered all of the strength she had left and began to jog down the street.
She was using energy that she would need for later, but she needed heat more, and if body heat was all she was going to get for a while, she gladly used the energy. No sign of life was evident as she ran down the pitch-black streets. But Armstrong knew that there had to be someone else on this pitiful island.
She rounded a corner and found herself between two tanks. They faced each other, once mighty and proud, now black and rusted. The driver of each was bent over the turret with a rifle at the ready. Blood covered everything and a stifled chill ran up the Private's spine.
She continued between the two tanks into the battleground beyond it. It was a huge open area. There was absolutely no live vegetation anywhere. The entire landscape had been leveled. Barriers had been built with the wood from the trees and shrubbery that had once stood. Thousands of bodies littered the field of dead grass. Each lay in their own pool of blood. None had won this battle, and none could have walked away.
Armstrong only felt remorse for a moment before instinct kicked in and survival was all that mattered. She searched each body for some helpful tool that would get her through the night. Whether a red or blue uniform hid these items, it didn't matter. All that mattered was her life and what would get her through it.
A lighter with barely any fluid; a compass; a couple of cans of rations; and a flashlight were all she found of value in the small section that she searched. She ached now, her eyes could barely focus from fatigue, and she could hear her bones creak from the cold.
Deciding that she probably wouldn't find good shelter for the night, Private Armstrong just made camp. She found a tent made from a heavy blanket deeper into the battlefield and she broke down a barricade for a fire. She cleared the two bodies out of the tent and piled the wood skillfully for the beginnings of a fire.
She took clothes from the soldiers whose blood had dried long ago, and layered and covered herself. For hours Armstrong lay huddled around her small fire sleeping for a few minutes and then waking back up. She was used to not having a lot of sleep and the little she got satisfied and refreshed her. She rolled onto her back and looked out at the sky in all its billowing blackness. She imagined the sky the way it used to be, littered with stars as if someone had punched pinholes in black velvet cloth. She rolled back onto her stomach and pulled out the flashlight from her sack. She put in two of the batteries she had confiscated and got the flashlight working. She surveyed the landscape, taking in the loss of life. Not many had survived the War; maybe one hundred in the entire world were left alive. She seldom met any other people, and when she did they either attacked her or avoided her. The slaughter of humans leaving only a pitiful handful sickened her senses. She was about to turn off the flashlight and turn away when something caught her eye.
A tunnel lay about 20 yards away from her. It was caved in a little, but it didn't look uninhabitable. Armstrong picked herself up and went towards it to investigate. There were bodies lining the floors of what used to be a drainage tunnel, nothing that she couldn't clear out for herself, so she did.
After the passage was cleared, Armstrong gathered her things from her camp, put the fire out (bringing as many of the coals as she could carry), and took the tent blanket to the tunnel.
It was easer to start a fire in there because of the lack of wind. She wrapped the blanket around her aching body and leaned against the wall. With the flashlight she studied her surroundings.
Everything was pretty much tin and rust except for two iron gates. The one straight ahead of her had its gate half off its hinges and looked as if it opened to some kind of passageway. The one on the right held switches and buttons, like a control panel, behind its fully intact and closed gate. Curiosity, a natural human instinct, struck her and she shined her flashlight through the gate to examine the controls. She reached as far as she could through the iron bars to push and pull randomly. None of them did anything. Defeated, she pulled her hand out and looked more closely at the panel. One small, particularly rusted and obviously used switch up in the corner, away from any of the others, caught her eye and Armstrong flipped it.
The cement door slid back, revealing a dirt and rock passage beyond the gate. The young Private, intrigued, grabbed her sack, climbed around the torn gate, and ventured inside. Perhaps there would be better shelter in there.
September 8, 1999 6:25pm
Catherine Wells rushed into Father's study and practically dived into her seat next to her husband. "I'm sorry. Please continue." She blushed as every council members' eyes turned on her.
Pascal nodded and kept going. "They're running out of supplies themselves, how could they manage anything sufficient for us?"
Father buried his forehead in his hand and then pinched away the headache from between his eyes. "This damned war! How much do we have left?"
"There's enough food to last us until next spring… if we're careful," William informed from his place on the left of Pascal.
"Mouse will need more tools to keep topsiders from coming any deeper," Mouse added from the seat next to Catherine.
"We're low on medicine, Father," Mary commented from Father's left. "Winter is when most of our little ones are ill."
"How long will we last, though, Mary?" Vincent asked from Father's right.
"Four or five months, if all goes well."
"Catherine?" Father inquired after their only link to the world Above.
"Well, I won't lie to you, Father, it's getting worse. From an overall view, it's become WW III in the last four years. There isn't a neutral country anywhere. They're all starving and weak so they've had no choice but to ask for help. The world has divided in half. As for the news of New York City; there have been rumors of an invasion from the Long Island Sound, and the battle in west Pennsylvania is pushing north into the Adirondacks. Once they've gotten there, they'll move down to here. We're being surrounded. The officials are thinking of clearing out and using the sewage tunnels for refuge. If they do it's only a matter of weeks before they will be short on space and looking for more. They'll penetrate our world and we will be flooded with refugees." Catherine glanced down at her hand as Vincent took and squeezed it.
There was silence for a long while among the council members. They pondered all that could happen if the world Above were suddenly connected to the world Below. They each came up with their own horrific scenarios in their own imaginations.
"Mouse won't let it happen!" Mouse stated firmly, banging his fist on the table. "Build more tunnels! Go much deeper!"
"Even if we did," William reasoned, " they would just follow us, in need of more space. And besides, we can't build as fast as they can move."
"Let's think of the number of people we could help by allowing this to happen," Mary spoke up, always eager to help and heal.
"As much as we might be able, Mary, think of the number of people who would be angry and afraid. The number of people who will be driven to violence and would not understand…" Vincent set his hand on Catherine's shoulder, "any of us."
Catherine drew a little comfort from his touch, but only a few moments of it, and then she returned her focus to the meeting in session.
November 21, 2002 11:45pm
There wasn't much that Armstrong could see with her flashlight. She mostly kept it concentrated on what was straight ahead of her, but once in a while something would catch her eye and she would pull the light up or down to it.
Cut rope traps hung from the ceiling and she had to keep an eye out for holes in the floor. The only bodies that she found were in uniform and lying in the trap holes. This was obviously a refugee camp at one time, but the traps were so well organized that it would have been impossible for a bunch of civilians on the run to come up with on their own.
It wasn't far down the passage when Armstrong realized that refugees had been down there far longer than the war. Everything was so complex; work like this would take decades. There had to have been a civilization down there that the world never knew about. Of course, ignorance was what human beings were known for. The war taught her that.
She found herself suddenly at a crossroads. One tunnel led left, one right. Armstrong toyed with the idea of turning back, considering how lost she could get down either road. But then her flashlight flicked down and before her lay the remainders of a battle.
Only a few in uniform lay dead. The rest were garbed in layers of torn material resembling pants and vests. These tunnel people, with their primitive weapons, didn't have a chance against the soldiers.
Now she was really curious. How many people had lived down there? Why did they think they stood a fighting chance on their own? If she was going to investigate further she would need to mark her path. She searched the soldiers for a flare or something, but found nothing. She searched the walls. Surely these people had a means of lighting their way.
True enough, after a few minutes of searching she found an extinguished torch. She lit it with the last of her lighter fluid and continued, weaving in and out of the bodies, down the right-hand tunnel.
October 11, 1999 4:18pm
"And… and… and you know what, Jacob?" Eight-year-old Jenny Wells skipped backwards in front of her brother.
"I know you're gonna fall in about three seconds," the eleven-year-old crossed his arms and followed his littlest sister.
"Will not!"
"Okay, fine, crack your head open. See if I care."
"You will care a lot when Mother yells at both of us for not taking care of her," ten-year-old Rose, ever the voice of reason, spoke up.
"Ha!" Jenny exclaimed and continued her backward skipping.
"Come on, Jennifer. Turn around," Rose rolled her eyes at her sister.
Jenny sighed heavily as if it would be a huge effort and spun around. "Fine!"
The group of children, just released from their class, gathered around the Wells children and followed their leader, Derek.
"Hey, Jacob!" Derek followed at his side with a malicious smirk. He was not much older than Jacob, but definitely larger and much more intimidating.
"Hello, Derek," Jacob responded, stiff and cordial.
"How's your mom?"
Rose grabbed her brother's wrist and pulled him along. "Don't listen to him, Jacob. Let's just go."
Jacob followed obediently, completely aware of the nagging thought of hitting Derek. But Derek followed; not yet satisfied.
"Do you do whatever your little sister says, Jacob?" He jogged to keep up with them. "You know, the way Father dotes on you, I'd think you were Vincent himself. So, if you're your father, I guess that makes Rose your mother." Derek taunted and saw Jacob slow down. "You know… considering your father does whatever your mother tells him to."
Jacob froze. Knowing where this was going, he turned his head slowly to face Derek. "You take that back!" he demanded through clenched teeth.
"No," Derek refused simply, the two boys practically nose to nose.
"Come on, Jacob," Rose tried to pull him back. "Let's go home."
"Yeah, Jacob. Do what your little sister tells you to. Go on home to your mommy, the traitor."
"She's not a traitor!" Jenny yelled from the other side of Rose.
"Everyone knows that she is," Derek continued maliciously in Jacob's ear.
"My father says that your mom wants the topsiders to come down here," a boy from the group shouted.
"That's not true!" Jenny screamed.
"My mom says that Catherine's loyalty has always been with the world Above," a girl chimed in.
"Nuh-uh!" Jenny fought back. "Tell 'em Jacob!"
"Yeah, tell 'em Jacob," Derek whispered. "Tell 'em that your daddy's a coward and your mommy's a traitor."
Jacob swung hard and within seconds he was on top of Derek, hitting him with all of the strength he could conjure from his fists. The crowd cheered them on, including Jenny who stood in the front yelling, "C'mon, Jacob! Hit him!"
The two tumbled and rolled, Jacob usually triumphing. He used his father's strength to his advantage, leaving traces of blood wherever he hit.
"Stop it! Jacob, stop!" Rose screamed from the back of the crowd, trying to push her way through. Suddenly she was pushed aside as Vincent swiftly cleared a path to the two boys.
He first pulled his son off and then pulled Derek back away. Even though he was held by the collar, Jacob charged forward repeatedly, determined to get one more punch in.
"Now stop this!" Vincent shouted and Jacob finally relented. "Do you want to tell me what this is about?"
Jacob glared at Derek, whose mouth was covered in blood and his eyes already turning purple. Both were silent and panting.
"Anybody?" he looked around at the crowd for an answer. All bowed their heads when his eyes fell on them. After a deafening silence, Vincent turned his concentration back to the boys. "Well, since it seems that I'm not going to get answers out of any of you," he let go of Derek's collar, "someone please help Derek to find Father and Mary; get yourself cleaned up. I believe the rest of you are expected in the kitchen." The children dispersed and he took Jacob's arm and led him back towards the family chamber with a call over his shoulder for his daughters to follow.
6:15pm
"Hello, hello!" Catherine called weakly as she descended the stairs into the living area.
"Hi." The two girls answered with hardly any sound.
Catherine bent and kissed Vincent who was in his chair reading. "Hi, how are you?"
"All right." He smiled weakly. "How was your day?"
"Crazy."
"Anything new?"
Catherine gave him a small nod and sighed. "We'll talk about it later," she whispered. "Where's Jacob?"
"In his room," Vincent glanced back at the doorway. "He wants to speak with you."
Eyebrows raised quizzically Catherine nodded. "Okay." She set her briefcase down behind his chair and continued into her son's room.
Jacob lay sprawled out on his bed. When he heard her come in, he sat up, revealing his one black eye and split lip.
She sighed heavily at the sight of him. "Oh, Jacob. What happened?" She sat patiently next to him as he hesitantly told her all of the events leading up to the fight. "So you hit him?" she resolved at the end of the story.
Jacob nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry, Mother. I just got so angry. And then when they all started talking about you… I couldn't even hear Rose's voice telling me to stop anymore."
"Well, I won't deny that you're in a lot of trouble for this, but I do understand." She let the silence fall.
Suddenly a little voice, far away, whispered something. It was followed by a harsh "Shhhh!", and then Vincent's voice.
"Girls! Let your mother and brother talk."
Catherine giggled shortly and took her son's hand. "Come on." She led him out to the rest of the family. "Everyone knows what happened today, correct?" she confirmed as she set Jacob next to his sisters on the couch.
The two girls nodded solemnly, but Vincent spoke up. "Unfortunately," he watched his wife in the chair next to him where she sat, "I have been deprived of the details."
Both adults glanced at the children, giving them their last chance to explain. When all three pairs of eyes dropped, Catherine summarized. "Some of the children were saying… some rather unkind things about us today. Jacob was defending our honor."
"I see," Vincent slowly turned his head back to the children in front of him. "And what did they say that warranted Derek's three broken teeth and two black eyes?"
They waited in silence for one of the children to speak.
"Jacob?" Catherine prompted.
He was working his hardest to gather the kind of courage it took to tell his mother, in order to tell his father. "They called Mother a traitor," he spoke softly.
"And Daddy a coward," Jenny piped up.
"It wasn't just them," Rose added in a mumble. "They said that their parents were saying it, too."
"Now why would they say that?" Vincent asked, and again all eyes dropped. "There had to have been a reason, children."
Catherine spoke when none would. "Because I spend a lot of my time Above, and they believe that you do everything I tell you to." She turned back to the kids. "Now you all know, you have all seen, that this is not true." They all nodded in agreement.
"Children," Vincent began, "there is a reason why your mother is spending so much time Above."
"Wendy said that her mother said it was because you've always been more loyal to the world Above," Rose spoke gently, afraid that she was offending her mother.
"Now that is not true!" Catherine raised her voice defensively. She took a deep breath and in a calmer voice she continued. "This is my home. It has been and it always will be. When the rest of the world turned its back on me, this place took me in. It has given me everything that I have ever wanted. It gave me your father, it gave me you three, a family, something to believe in. I would never, ever betray this place."
"Then why are you always up there?" Jenny sat forward.
"Because there's a stupid war on, Jenny!" Jacob shoved himself back into the couch angrily.
Catherine watched her three little ones sorrowfully. She put on her best smile and called them over. "Come here."
Jenny immediately hopped in her mother's lap, Rose stood by the left arm of her father's chair, and Jacob stood between the two chairs with his arm hooked around the head of his mother's.
"I love you all very much." She made eye contact with all of them in turn, including Vincent. "I know your father hates it when I say this, but I value all of you more than my own life. I would die for you if it were necessary. And that is the truth. And don't ever, ever forget that."
10:02pm
"I just wish that he could control himself!" Catherine threw her brush down on the vanity. "He's just so hot-headed!"
Vincent smirked, lounging on the bed behind her. "He gets it from his mother."
"Not in the mood, Vincent," she warned, stripping off her shirt and skirt. "I'm just... my head is spinning!" Catherine dropped onto the bed, now only in her underwear. "I mean, why would they say that?" She never looked at Vincent, the question was directed only to herself. "I've known those children since they came here. I've taught them, I've cared for them; I just don't understand."
"They're children, Catherine. They're just as confused about all this as we are. Maybe more so, because we've tried to shelter them." Vincent stroked her back, attempting to calm the frustration building since midday.
"But the others?" Catherine finally turned to him. "I've never betrayed this place. I've protected it with everything that I have. How could they think that I would turn my back on it? To do that would be condemning everything I have! My family, my children, you! What would ever make them think that I could do that?"
"We don't even know for sure if these things were ever said. Catherine... don't let it trouble you. You have enough to worry about. The ones who matter to you; who love you and value you; they know your loyalty. And they're all who matter." With almost no effort, Vincent pulled his wife down onto her side, spooning her against him and wrapping her chilled body up in his arms. "Now, what happened today?"
"Everything." A chill, that had nothing to do with the cold, ran up her spine. "The Draft went through today. Children... hardly older than Jacob, will be going off to this war. And what's hardest is they're not going anywhere. The war is right here, in our backyards... above our heads."
"They'll be coming soon..." Vincent whispered, "won't they?"
The pair were silent for a moment. Finally Catherine rolled into Vincent, tucking her face into his broad chest. He held her, attempting to smooth away the sobs that shook her slight body.
November 22, 2002 12:31am
As Private Armstrong continued her search, she found random areas where a group of tunnel people had battled the on-coming soldiers. Karen shook her head in dismay each time she encountered one. It was always the same. There were about three soldiers within the piles of people, a huge contrast to the ten to twenty lying among them. "Damn fools," she would mumble as she passed them.
The passageways of this underground city became more and more complex. With no lighter fluid left, she was forced to pull out her flint and stone to light one of the many torches that lined the cavern walls. As her flashlight batteries began to die, Armstrong decided that a torch would illuminate her surroundings better. Not to mention it would keep her warmer. For all of these cave's shelter from the wind, it was still cold, and the heat from the torch would help.
She stuffed her flashlight into her sack along with the other little necessities that she had acquired along the way. As she continued on, there were fewer and fewer torches for her to light and she began making deep 'X's in the earth to mark her way.
The number of small battles dwindled as she traveled deeper. She began to find openings in the walls and when she peered in, she found rooms. Empty rooms. They were complete with beds, dressers, bookshelves, and more, but there were no people to occupy them.
However there were two rooms that she found occupied. The first was obviously a woman's room. There was a vanity table with a hairbrush, pins, and ties strewn across it, a tall and proud bureau in the corner, a bed and a rocking chair. The rocking chair held the confirmation of it being a woman's room. In it was an old woman. She seemed disturbingly peaceful sitting there, holding her picture frame, her long silver hair draped over the back of the chair. Her head had fallen backward over the chair when they shot her. From the position of her body, Armstrong guessed that she didn't put up any kind of a fight. She just let them come and accepted her fate. The Private took the hairbrush and moved on.
The second room was huge! Stacked high with books and still some lay in piles on the floor. The soldiers had made a mess of this place. Papers were everywhere. Ink and broken pens stained the floor. Dry wax from the burnt down candles spilled over the desk and onto the floor. As big as this place was, there was only one body. An old man was sprawled out in the middle of the carpet. A cane lay at his side and a pool of dried blood surrounded him. From the looks of him, he didn't seem to have put up too much of a fight either. He held no weapon, and had no signs of ever having held one, save for the cane. He looked as if he had stood defiantly in the middle of the room.
A large table was littered with papers and rolled up posters. She picked up the one in the center, opened and unrolled it. There before her lay a generalized map of the tunnels she was traveling through. With a large grin she shook her head. 'What idiots!' She thought. 'It figures they wouldn't look for anything useful to get themselves out.' She rolled it back up and tucked it under her arm, continuing on.
February 8, 2000 3:25pm
"They're talking about nuclear warfare now, Father," Catherine confessed with reluctance. She looked around at the hundreds of people gathered in Father's study. "They've already started breaking through to us. I think the time has come to move us down to the Catacombs."
"Why? They'll just follow us," a lone, bitter voice called out. The rest of the crowd murmured their agreement.
"Better to leave and see if this all blows over," Pascal spoke up, "than to stay and be ambushed."
The crowd was silent. "Whatever we decide will be in a vote," Father's feeble voice addressed everyone. "We will vote as a community, and we will respect the vote as a community."
"And we will follow the results of this vote as one… as a community," Vincent finished for him.
"I say we just set traps and then no one will get to us!" another voice called out.
"How many more have to die? My boys, Kipper, Andrew, they left us for this war!" a man added.
Suddenly shouts rang through the room from almost everyone.
"Well your boys were fools anyways!"
"It wasn't our fault they wanted to get away from you!"
"All of those boys are dead! Have you any respect?"
"Enough!" The room was silent again and Vincent continued. "Look what this has done to us. Don't you see that our whole existence depends on our friendship and teamwork? Without this, we are nothing. We will solve this issue democratically. We are friends… we are family… we will stick by each other."
November 22, 2002 1:15am
The rest of the trek through the passageways was littered with bodies. Armstrong stepped delicately so as not to disturb them. None were soldiers for about ten minutes of her walk. Then, she began to find one or two un-uniformed out of a cluster of ten.
She stepped even more carefully as the number of bodies began to pile up and the terrain got rockier. Some of the tunnels were a little caved in, as if a minor explosion had occurred. There is where many of the soldiers' bodies lay. Some were killed by the impact of rock, and the ones closer were burned from the explosion.
She traveled through about three of these cave-ins. Occasionally something on one of the soldiers would catch her eye and she would pick it up. Just past the third cave-in something within the rock wall caught her attention. As she neared it, she saw that it was a hollowed out hole where two bodies hid. It was hard to tell what was what. Dried bloodstains covered everything, and the hole was deep in the rock. But she could see the shapes of two bodies.
The first was a woman, and from what the young Private could see of her, she was in her late 20's, early 30's. She wasn't dressed the way most of the women she had found down there were. This one wore heavy quilted pants and a heavy vest-coat over her long-sleeved shirt. Her short mousy-brown hair was pulled up high in a ponytail, and she was leaned across the body behind her.
The second body was much harder to see. It was definitely a man and he held the woman with his head bent over hers. His mopped blonde hair seemed to tickle her eyes and nose. His arms encircled her and in them he held, from what Armstrong could tell, a detonator.
March 20, 2000 12:31am
"They're coming!" Jamie screamed as she ran into Father's study.
"Topsiders?" Mouse rolled up the map.
"Soldiers! And they're not from our side!"
"We don't have a side, Jamie!" Pascal told her as he was hurrying out. "I'm on my way, Father."
"I'll start until you get there, Pascal," Father called back, his eyes wide with shock, as he rushed to the nearest pipe.
"Where are they?" Vincent followed Mouse to meet Jamie.
"Just coming through. The traps are set. We'll be ready."
"Father," Vincent called down to the man who was tapping feverently, "when you're finished, the group will be waiting for you."
"Don't worry about me, Vincent. Just get them down to the Catacombs!" he waved his arm at his son.
Vincent hesitated for a second, until Mouse pulled his arm. As he ran he heard the message ringing clear.
"Everyone to the Catacombs, quickly"
Vincent called in to every family and chamber, drawing them out and hurrying them away from the oncoming ambush.
"Taking too long!" Mouse observed, seeing everyone stumbling out of their beds, and working to be coherent.
"Mouse and I will go back. We'll keep an eye out," Jamie took his hand and began to pull him back from where they came.
"Mouse has explosives! Keep them back for a while," Mouse informed and then followed after her.
Vincent nodded and then called back into the chamber. "Hurry!"
A woman came tumbling out and joined the stampede of tunnel dwellers. Vincent ran along with her, but then, in sudden fear and urgency, sped them up.
"Catherine."
November 22, 2002 2:00am
Private Armstrong walked slowly through the masses of bodies, checking each one in an overview. Once in a while she'd find something useful, but she was becoming more and more reluctant to take things or even to touch the bodies of the fallen citizens. "Damn fools," she would whisper as she passed them.
A cluster of soldiers lay before her and she began to watch her way for small cave-ins, as the clusters had in common. But there was no debris ahead of her; nothing was similar to the other piles she had found. She reasoned that the only explanation for no explosions around was that one of the civilians had to have gotten a hold of a gun. She bent to a soldier with a pocketknife on his hip belt. But as she got closer to the soldier to pull his knife, she saw his cause of death.
Three symmetrical slashes across his chest were deep and crusted over with dried blood. "What the hell?" An animal maybe, or some kind of strange weapon these people built. She checked each soldier; man and woman, each had the same type of wound in slightly different areas.
She followed the trail of soldiers, curious if it would lead to the weapon that caused it. To her slight disappointment, it led to another room. But, now intrigued in the mystery, young Armstrong went closer.
A stack of tunnel people lay at the end, just outside the door. A family, judging by the sizes of the bodies. A bit of guilt pushed its way into her thoughts. "Little kids; that sucks." She suddenly felt as if she were prying, but her curiosity wouldn't let her stop now. She shoved her feelings aside and thought only of survival.
The little girl on the very top wouldn't and didn't have anything useful. The boy, who had fallen a little farther away, only carried a deck of cards in his pocket. Karen took it and kept digging. The mother had nothing, and Karen pushed her aside to get to the man underneath her. She almost immediately regretted it. She fell back onto her hands, and barely missed the face of the soldier behind her.
The man was not a man. He was deformed, grotesque, like an animal. 'A lion' she told herself. 'He looks like a lion. He must have been living down here. Hiding under the city.' The old New York City was known for it's strange inhabitants. She didn't doubt anything at this point. By the way that the others were piled on him it was as if they were protecting him. Wouldn't he have been the one to do the protecting?
She stepped around him carefully, as if it would awaken him if she touched him. Barely a step away from the pile laid another girl. This one was a little older than the first and she faced away from the group. 'She must have been trying to get away.'
She stepped into the living room setting and everything struck her at once. Pictures of the children were hung and set everywhere. Some were with each other; some were with their mother. Somewhere inside her, she had hoped that she would find one with the lion/man in it. 'Perhaps he was just trying to get the family out.'
Armstrong began scavenging through the rooms. She took a heavy blanket off the couch and lined her sack with it. She didn't find anything in the room with the two double beds, probably shared by the two girls. She checked the room beside it, but her once-over was enough to see that there was nothing there of value. Besides, that uncomfortable feeling of prying into these people's lives was sinking deeper into the pit of her stomach, making her increasingly nervous. She tried to push it away, remembering her training, and her Drill Sargent's 'no mercy' policy. The feeling solidified like lead in her belly.
She jogged into the last room and without looking around, she just began to dig. She found large socks that she took, a box of tampons that she dumped into her sack, and one more smaller blanket that she could carry with her. She backed out, surveying the room for anything she missed and as her eyes scanned the room she saw a picture that took her breath away. A portrait of the man/lion and the mother wrapped up in each other, holding each other protectively, lovingly. Something that she wasn't sure of compelled her to get close and touch the canvas. It was incredible… beautiful, and she found herself mesmerized by it. 'All right, so they were together, obviously, but the possibility of him being the father of the children?' She'd seen some bizarre things in her short life, but this took the cake!
Mechanical logic took over. None of the children looked like him, so they couldn't be his biological children. But something, some strange and foreign, childish need in her wanted it to be so. For a reason unknown to herself, she was searching for the proof of this fantasy. This is what drew her back to the living room.
She took pictures off the walls and pulled them out of their frames. The back of a picture of a little boy read 'Jacob Charles Wells (5)'. A baby girl whose frame sat on the desk read 'Jennifer April Wells (2months)'. Rows upon rows of pictures, the children got older and younger as she moved through them. The mother was found in a select few, but there was no father… anywhere. Books upon books lined the shelves. Children's, classics, poetry, adult, fiction, non-fiction, every kind of book a person could dream of. But one place on the bookshelf, closest to the doorway to the tunnel caves, was saved for the picture volumes.
She didn't know what, or why she was doing this, but Armstrong pulled all four volumes off the shelf and made herself comfortable on the old couch with all of the albums next to her. She pulled the first one off the top.
'1962-1980'
The mother, whom Armstrong found was named Catherine Chandler, progressed from pre-teen, to teenager, to adult as she flipped quickly through. Halloweens and Christmases passed, friends came and went, and her father appeared and disappeared. Her degree from Columbia University, Armstrong read, certified her to practice law. She was professional, but happy... and elegant. Karen blushed at finding herself so drawn to a woman in a 1 dimensional photograph.
There was nearly a decade gap between that and the next album. Armstrong grinned when she opened the cover and found the first picture. A bunch of children huddled around a pregnant Catherine. She looked to be in the caves from the residents' clothing and surroundings, and from the dates on the album this must have been the boy, the eldest. But as she flipped through and Jacob Charles Wells was born, there was no father in sight. She was beginning to lose hope. The next was opened (1990-1997) and the middle child was immediately introduced. 'Rose Mary Wells- December 21, 1990', it read under the newborn picture of her in a beautiful hand-made crib. Rose grew a little older, now at two years, there were pictures of her and her older brother with Catherine, pregnant again. She flipped quickly, there were almost as many of this pregnancy as the brother. But in the middle of her flipping Armstrong stopped. She could have sworn she had seen him: the lion/man. She scanned back and found it. Rose, about 2-years-old, slept curled up against him. He slept also, his arms enfolding her securely, tenderly. Below it read: 'Rose and Papa after a hard day.'
She starred for a moment, taking in the power of the picture. It held the same energy and beauty of the painting of the lovers in the bedroom. She felt as if she should speak, as if she should do them some justice of a eulogy. But, she was having trouble forming words in her mind at the moment. "Wow... he was their father," she simply mumbled, as if ending a fairytale, and looked up from the album to survey the family lying strewn across the cavern floor. "These poor people." She stared at them a while. They had something special, something unique and it was all ripped away from them. She suddenly shrugged it off of her conscience. 'Well these things happen,' she reasoned, feeling the tough hardness ebbing away from her sensibilities.
Jennifer April Wells was born and grew with her two siblings. The pictures progressed and as the children grew older their status within the family unit became more and more apparent. Jennifer was very obviously her mother's baby. Jacob was the oldest and resembled his father the most, but didn't seem to personally gravitate to a select parent. Although the lion/man/father was never fully seen in any of the other pictures, part of him would usually be seen with Rose on his lap and the other two around him.
But the last picture in the album showed the whole family. Taken from a distance, it seemed to be in a theater-type room somewhere in the caves. It was a simple, yet an amazingly beautiful sight. Catherine, with Jennifer on her lap, rested her head on the father's shoulder. Rose leaned against her father's side, and Jacob sat next to his mother, captivated by whatever they were watching. They were close, and the parents were in love. How rare that was, even before the war.
This family was special. They didn't deserve to die. They were happy and loved every moment of their lives together.
Armstrong slammed the book and felt the faintest prick of an emotion at the corner of her eye. She stood against the doorway, staring at them: Catherine thrown aside like a rag-doll, torn away from her love; Jacob and Jenny just pushed out of the way as if they were nothing; Rose who must have tried to save her family; and the lion/man/father lying amongst his family, the one to protect, the first to die.
'They loved each other, yes. But… why are they here? Why didn't they get away? Why didn't he get them out?'
March 20, 2000 12:35am
The masses of people moved at a jog. They crowded the passageways, moving as one, a unified force. Behind them they could hear the screams and cries of others as they fell. Without looking back, they pushed on at a steady pace to the Catacombs.
Catherine followed her two oldest children at their rate, pulling Jenny along behind her. She was the only one to occasionally look back, checking to see if Vincent was close behind them. She would encourage the group faster, giving support to the adults, pulling the fallen children to their feet. "Just keep going!" she would yell to them if something happened behind them.
"Wait!" Jenny shrieked and slipped away from her mother. "I forgot Alice!" She swam back through the sea of dwellers streaming past her.
"Jenny, no!" Catherine followed eight feet behind her. "Rose, Jacob, just keep going!"
Brother and sister exchanged knowing glances, and quickly followed after their mother and little sister.
All three fought the crowd, pushing the dwellers in the direction they ran, launching themselves toward Jenny. Jenny ducked under and twisted around people with lightning speed, like a fish fighting upstream, on a mission for her precious doll.
A few people in the mass tried to grab the children, and even Catherine, but in the tangle and hysterics the family easily slipped away and out of their grips.
Catherine screamed to her daughter as shots rang out and she could see the military coats. Still people streamed by her, but now her friends and family began dropping at her feet. She rounded the corner, entering the passage leading to the family's chamber.
Rose and Jacob followed close, coming around the corner only seconds after. After a fierce look from Catherine, all three charged into Jenny and Rose's chamber. They ran into Jenny who held Alice triumphantly, and Catherine grabbed her wrist to drag her out quickly. They neared the doorway and found the gunshots only at the end of the passage.
"Damn it!" Catherine cursed under her breath and whirled herself and the children around. "Back this way!" She pushed them into her and Vincent's bedroom. "Under the bed!" she commanded as she shoved them one-by-one across the threshold.
But Rose froze and stared back at the passage. "Now, Rose!" Catherine tugged on her.
Rose's stare shifted to her mother quickly. "Father," she told her with wild, fearful eyes.
Catherine glanced up at the passageway, sensing her husband as well. "It's all right. Go!" She pushed the child into the bedroom and followed as slowly as she dared.
She lay on her stomach and as she reached her arm across her children she heard a tunnel wall shatter, and true enough a roar echoed throughout. Shots rang off like machine guns and Catherine tightened her grip on her children, squeezing her eyes shut and straining to hear his roars.
The children laid still and stiff. Rose buried her head in the floor, trying to block her father's rage as she quietly sobbed. Jacob held Jenny and watched his mother on the other side who also was beginning to cry and he felt her hold tighten even more. Jenny cuddled into the secure arms of her brother, listening to the cries of her parents and sister.
What felt like forever passed and the shots were at the doorway to the family room. They went quiet suddenly, and Catherine strained to hear Vincent, but nothing. "Watch your sisters," she whispered frantically as she slid out from under the bed.
"Mother! Wait! Mother!" He tried to reach out and stop her, but she was already gone.
Creeping to the bedroom doorway, Catherine pulled the curtain back and spied through the family room. She could barely make out the doorway to the outside passage, and there she found Vincent's lifeless form, a pool of scarlet blood spreading around him. There was no sign of soldiers, they seemed to have retreated from their kill. She gripped the curtain tightly, fighting to stay where she was until she was sure they were safe. She felt her legs begin to grow weak and she locked her knees in place as she bit her lip to stop herself from screaming. The world was silent, and she was transfixed with horror. She stared at him; her husband, her lover, her savior, her everything. Then, she saw it. Small and insignificant, but a breath of life, none-the-less. She couldn't stop herself. She ran to him, trying to stifle the sobs that were just a little too loud, as she fell over him.
The soldiers, who had turned away from the dead beast, jumped to attention at her sudden presence. They immediately opened fire on her and in less than seconds her blood mixed with his on the tunnel floor.
Jacob heard his mother's crying and he heard her run out of the bedroom. He began to slide himself out from under the bed shakily. But the gunfire went off and that just quickened his pace. "Mother!" he called as he bolted out of the room.
"Jacob, no!" Jenny rolled out after him, just barely missing her sister's grip.
"Jennifer! Jenny!" Rose rolled out the other way and ran to catch her, but she was too late.
She had made it to her mother's feet when she realized her brother was laying over her father's legs, her mother over her father's chest, and Jenny on top of her, with the soldiers towering over them. She barely had the chance to take a step away when she was frozen with shock, the shots hitting her barely seconds apart, and then fell with the third bullet impact in her back.
"Make sure there's no one else," the leader appointed a soldier. "Move out," he told the rest, leaving the family to their death.
November 22, 2002 3:30am
They didn't even look like a family the way she had thrown them around, carelessly. With slow and careful precision she replaced the bodies the way she had found them. It brought her peace to know that they were together again.
With a mournful glance at the five bodies at her feet, Karen Armstrong sucked her hard edge back up and left the mystery behind. She followed the trail of bodies deeper and deeper, and found that the block on her feelings (drilled into her from months and months of military camps) was disintegrating faster and faster. She suddenly began to feel remorse for these people that she wove around; the old woman in her rocking chair, the old man who wouldn't leave, the couple in the hole in the wall, and the Wells family.
They had done nothing to deserve this. They weren't harming anyone or anything. They had their lives down there and kept to themselves. 'Why did they have to die? Why the innocent children who didn't understand the conflict even when explained to them? Why the slaughter? Why?'
With each question she would cry a little more. First one tear, then four, and soon they streamed down her face as she glanced at each body. She would even cry for soldiers who were lying amongst them.
'Crying,' she thought as she stopped and studied a mother holding her baby, slumped against the wall. 'Now that is something I haven't done in years. Do these feelings still exist?'
A long set of stairs lay before her, descending deeper into the caverns. But just before that, was one last passageway. Karen followed it and instead of finding another of the cozy homes, she found pipes. A whole network of them, crossing and curling around each other like a giant spider.
They were everywhere! She observed it in awe as she wiped the last of her tears away. Pipes above her, below her, encircling her, and she found herself climbing them as if a child on a playground. She was actually enjoying the sense of play that she was getting just from crawling through the pipes. She hadn't played in what seemed like forever. But all fun and games ended when she found a single man within the maze.
He held a leg of the pipes with his hand and he pressed his ear against it. His eyes were closed as if he were concentrating, and his other hand was at the ready with a piece of lead pipe in it. He had a very eerie look to him, as he wasn't alive, but in some ethereal way his life lingered.
Extremely cautious Karen approached him. She paused after each step, waiting for him to open his eyes. She pictured him suddenly demanding an explanation of why she was there. With violently shaking hands and her tears rapidly forming again, Karen reached out and pulled his shoulder back. She shrieked, let go, and jumped back when she found his body stiff and cold as ice.
With, what she saw as, slow methodical movements, the man fell. His arm ran along the network of pipes as he did and the lead pipe dragged along behind it, tapping out a Morse Code-type distress signal that reverberated through the tunnels and pipes. Karen stood frozen. He was there at those pipes until the end. That must have been their form of communication, and this man stayed to the end in order to warn everyone out of their homes. He sounded the alarm; he tried just as hard to save these people as the couple in the hole, and the lion/man with his family. Even in death he seemed to still be trying to save them. He would have been considered a hero years ago. But heroes didn't matter now. Life didn't even matter now. There was no life worth living anymore. There was practically no one to rebuild. And what would they rebuild from? What would they rebuild to? There was nothing left.
These people died for nothing. They had nothing to fight for politically. They had nothing to do with the war and yet, they died. It was all for nothing; no cause, no will. They were simply trying to survive, and the world took that away from them. These people had been separate from all society, never bothering anyone... and the world had taken away their homes... their lives.
'And it isn't just these people,' it dawned on her. 'No one deserved to die. Even the soldiers. Neither side deserved any of this. This destruction, this desolation. Our lives, human lives, were merely cows for the slaughter. And soon we will all be gone. There will be nothing and nobody to remember us.'
Private Karen Armstrong stood staring at the man and his once glorious kingdom of pipes. "My God," she whispered as she cried, "what have we done?"