Mark woke up shivering in complete darkness, reeling from a dream of the tsunami the day of the Flares.
The amount of snoring in the room meant that Alec hadn't lasted long at watch, but that might turn out to be a good thing.
"Oh … crap," Alec said.
Mark popped up onto his elbow, looking in the direction of his friend. "What?" He hadn't realised that the man had woken up, too engrossed in his thoughts, which weren't a nice place.
"I didn't mean to fall asleep. Fine soldier I am. And I left the damn workpad on. We can forget using that thing again."
"Meh, the battery was probably almost dead anyway," Mark said. Though in truth, he'd have given anything for five more minutes of the device's glow right then.
Alec groaned and Mark heard the sounds of the cot creaking as the older man got to his feet.
"We need to go find this guy's coworkers. He said they were meeting farther down in the bunker. So we need to find our way to some stairs," the man said. He moved to wake Darnell and the Toad as he came towards Mark. After a year without electricity it was easier to see in the dark so their outlines could be distinguished from the blackness.
"Man, after this I am sleeping for at least two days." Darnell yawned, "I can't remember when I last got a night of sleep."
"The night before we were supposed to go location scouting. No one else could sleep because you were snoring so loudly." The Toad clarified.
"If we all survive this I don't care what you go and do. Now come on." Alec had managed to find a lightswitch and the glow from the single bulb managed to be almost blinding. "As long as you don't kill yourselves, I ain't kept you alive for nothing."
They could only have slept for two or three hours so the exhaustion had not completely disappeared. Not tired seemed like a distant memory.
They spent the next few minutes slowly making their way through the room and out into the hallway. The light above the door still sputtered a bit, but barely enough to see by. They eventually found the stairwell Alec had been hoping for.
It went down three levels until they came across a lit corridor.
"Get your guns out." Alec whispered and Mark remembered their weapons, five bullets apiece. Had the others had theirs when they were taken?
Using bullets meant serious, it was as if the weight of the whole situation tripled to Mark as he took out his pistol, loaded it, checked the safety.
The Toad pointed to a room with light coming from under the door, the sound of intense, slightly unhinged voices.
"First a crazy cult, now a crazy pseudo-militia. Just our luck."
Alec peeked his head through the door for a moment.
"Forty or fifty people, all watching some guy on the stage, like he's Jesus. Arguing about something nuts."
"So like those cult people?" Mark clarified, hopefully these would be slightly less homicidal, but that was highly unlikely. 'Nothing ever goes our way' was rule number one.
There couldn't be a sign of their friends or it would have been mentioned.
"So what do we do?" Mark asked. "Keep going? This hall can't go on much longer."
"If we get down on our hands and knees we can crawl in there and down the back. We can hide in a corner over on the right. I think we need to hear what these people are saying."
Mark agreed. They didn't know who these people were or what they were up to, but it seemed like the only way to find out. The safest way, at least. "Okay, let's do it."
"If I die I'm gonna haunt you all." Darnell whispered, always joking.
They crouched on all fours and got ready, Mark right behind Alec. The soldier leaned forward to take a look around the edge of the door; then he started crawling into the large room. Mark followed, feeling almost naked as they entered the open air of the auditorium. But no one was close to the back—the voices were all coming from below and sounded far enough away. And judging from the fact that they all seemed to be talking at once, Mark had a feeling they weren't on the alert for intruders.
Alec crawled along the last row, his side pressed against the black plastic of the chairs, until he got all the way to the far right side of the room, where the corner was shadowed in darkness. He stopped and situated himself, his legs crossed, his body wedged into the space between the last chair and the wall. Mark moved to sit next to him. He had to tuck himself in closer than was comfortable in order to stay as hidden as possible.
Alec stretched up and peeked over the chair in front of them, then sank down again quickly.
"Can't see much. Seems like they're waiting for something to begin. Or maybe they're taking a break. I don't know."
Mark closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. They sat there for what seemed like forever. At least ten excruciating minutes passed with nothing changing. Just the buzz of mixed conversation. Then, suddenly, a blur of movement made him catch his breath. A man had walked into the auditorium from the hallway, a quick flash of motion as he entered and began walking down the aisle toward the front. Mark breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't been seen.
The crowd grew quiet and still, the room dropping into an almost eerie silence. Mark could actually hear the man's footsteps as he reached the bottom of the room and climbed a set of stairs onto the stage.
"I'll take over from here, Stanley," a deep voice said, echoing off the ceiling even though he'd said it softly. Acoustics.
"Thanks, Bruce," came the reply from Stanley, a man with a much higher voice. "Everyone give him your full attention."
There was the sound of someone descending the stairs and then the rattle of him sitting in one of the chairs. When silence fell once again, the newcomer began to speak.
"Let's get this started, people. It won't be long before we all lose our minds."
So these people were just as crazy as the cult, and they likely had their friends. Great. Just Great.
As if the man's opening statement wasn't bizarre enough, the crowd clapped and cheered after he said it, making Mark shiver. Bruce waited for it to die down on its own before he spoke again. Mark was anxious to hear what the guy would say next.
"Frank and Marla are back from a flyby of the areas around Asheville. Just as we thought, they've shored up those walls nice and tight. Humanity and charity, my friends? Those days are long gone. The PFC has created an army of monsters, people who used to be willing to give the shirt off their backs for a neighbor in need. No longer. Those scumbags in Alaska and North Carolina—our very own Asheville—have turned their backs on the settlements once and for all. Worse, they've turned their backs on us. Us!"
This elicited a chorus of angry shouts, stomping of feet and banging on the armrests of the chairs. The noises echoed through the room until Bruce started talking again.
"They sent us here!" he shouted. His voice was louder now. "They assigned us to take part in the worst civil rights fiasco since the War of 2020. A holocaust! But they were firm that it was for the survival of the human race. They said it was to save what little resources we have, to be able to feed those people they deemed worthy to live. But who are they to decide who's worthy?" He paused for a moment before he continued. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that we are not worthy. They sent us here to do their dirty work and now they've decided to cut us off. Who are they, I ask all of you!"
He practically screamed the last sentence and once again sent the crowd into a fit of near hysterics. People screamed and stomped their feet. The roar made Mark's temples throb and the inside of his forehead ache. He thought it might never end, but it did, abruptly. He imagined that Bruce had made a gesture to silence them.
"Here's where we stand," the man said, much calmer. "The test subjects are getting more fanatical in their odd little religious cult by the day. We've made a deal with them. They wanted the little girl back. Seems that they want to sacrifice her to their newfound spirits. I think they've passed the point of no return. They're beyond any help we could give them. They can barely go a day without fighting each other, reorganizing factions, starting over until they battle again. But we made a deal with the few who still seem to be operating on some sane level—I'm sick and tired of worrying who's going to jump out of a tree and attack me every time I walk outside."
He paused, allowed a long, lingering moment of silence. "We gave them the little girl and the women we found with her. I know it's harsh, but it buys us a little time where we don't have to worry about those people. I don't want to waste the precious ammo we have left defending ourselves against a cult."
So, The cult people had wanted Deedee back despite believing she had brought the virus on them and having abandoned her. Could nothing make any sense? The idea that Trina, Lana and Misty had been given to the crazies to buy these people time filled Mark with a rage he forced back down, it would be useful later but not now.
They had been in this bunker all this time, and their friends had never even been there, but now they had an idea of where to find them.
Bruce was still talking, but Mark couldn't focus on the words. He leaned in to speak in Alec's ear. "How could they have given them to those … people? We have to go. Who knows what those psychos will do to them!"
Alec held a hand out to urge calm. "I know. We will. But remember the reason we came here. Let's hear what this man has to say, then we'll go. I promise. Lana means as much to me as Trina does to you."
Mark nodded, leaned back into the wall again. Tried to listen to what Bruce was saying down on the stage.
"—fire is out, thanks to the latest storm that rolled in a couple of hours ago. The sky's black, but the flames are dead. We're going to be dealing with mudslides all over the place. The test subjects all fled to the half-burnt mountain homes, by the looks of it. Hopefully they'll stay put awhile before they get desperate and march on Asheville for food. But I think we're safe to head over to the city in the next day or two. Force our way in, demand our rights. We'll go by foot and hope to surprise them."
"And spread this virus throughout the country." Darnell whispered, Mark hadn't thought of that, but the boy was right, if these people and the cult were allowed to roam the Flare would spread freely, destroy what civilization had rebuilt. Mountain homes, that was where Trina and the others had been taken.
There were a few worried murmurs before he continued. "Look, we can't deny that we're dealing with our own outbreak now. We've all seen the symptoms, right here in our safe house. There's just no way our superiors would've agreed to unleash this virus without having something to reverse its effects. And I say that they'll give it to us or they'll all die. Even if we have to go all the way to Alaska to do it. We know they have a Flat Trans at their headquarters. We'll go through it and make them give us what we deserve!"
More cheers and pounding feet thundered through the air.
Mark shook his head. These people were obviously unstable. There was a wild energy in the room, like they were a nest of vipers, tensing to strike. Whatever the reason for spreading this virus, it was clear what it did to people: it made them crazy, and it appeared to be taking more time to do it as it spread. And if Asheville, the largest surviving city within hundreds of miles, really had erected walls to keep itself safe from the disease, things must be bad. Then the last thing anyone needed was a bunch of infected soldiers running through the streets. And the Flat Trans …
Mark elbowed Alec, gave him a look that said his patience was running out.
"Soon, boy," the man whispered. "Never skip a chance to get intel. Then we'll go find our friends. I swear it."
"When's enough intel?" Alec gave the Toad his shut up glare. That was a question Mark did want answered.
The room had grown quiet again.
"The Post- … Flares … Coalition." Bruce pronounced every word with exaggerated diction and spite. "Who do these people think they are? Gods? They can just choose to wipe out the entire eastern half of the United States? Like the PFC has more right to live than anyone else?"
There was another long pause after that. Mark couldn't take it anymore. He crawled around Alec and slowly peeked over the chair to take a look. Bruce was a large man with a bald head that shone in the dull light, his face pale and scruffy with a few days' worth of beard. The muscles of his arms and shoulders bulged against a tight black shirt as he stood with hands clasped in front of him, staring at the floor. If Mark hadn't heard all the things the man had just said, he'd think he could be praying.
"Don't feel bad, friends. We couldn't have said no to what they asked us to do," Bruce said, slowly raising his eyes to gaze at his captive audience again. "We had no choice. They used the very resources they're trying to preserve against us. We have to eat, too, right? It's not our fault the virus wasn't quite what they expected. All we can do is what we've done since the sun flares struck the Earth: fight tooth and nail to live. Darwin taught about survival of the fittest in the natural world. Well, the PFC is trying to cheat nature. It's time to stand up for ourselves. We … will … live!"
Another raucous round of cheers and whistles and clapping and foot pounding went on for a good minute or two. Mark slinked back to sit next to Alec, feeling stronger than ever that they had to get moving. He was just about to say something when the crowd fell silent and Bruce's voice filled the room like the amplified hiss of a snake.
"But first, my friends, I need you to do something for me. We have some spies in the back of this auditorium. They could very well be from the PFC. I want them bound and gagged by the time I count to thirty."
Why? Just why?
They jumped up and sprinted for the door before the man had finished speaking.
A vicious roar erupted from the crowd like a war cry as Mark paused to take them all in. The group was already on the move, springing from their chairs and stumbling over each other to be the first ones to get up the aisle.
These people were utterly insane. Mark wondered again how soon it would be before him and his friends were just like them. He felt perfectly fine but that likely meant nothing.
Once they were all through the doors Alec slammed them shut and took off, retracing their steps.
There was the loud bang of the door slamming back open, followed by the rush of bodies and their continued battle cries. Mark pushed himself to run even faster.
They bolted up the stairs, back down the upper hallway still cloaked in almost complete darkness. That might help, they would be heard but their pursuers were unhinged enough that being unseen could buy crucial seconds. Sometimes seconds were all you needed.
"Which way!" Darnell demanded, the sounds of the chasers were getting closer, but only so many could climb the stairs at once.
Instead of answering Alec ran back towards the hangar they had entered from. But surely they couldn't get out that way?
They ran through the darkness at a reckless speed. Mark ran his hand against the wall to keep his bearings, but he knew that if he came across something on the floor he was a goner. They passed the generator room, its struggling red bulb of faint light giving them a brief break from the pitch-black, the hum of machinery like the drone of bees. Both the glow and the noise faded as they sprinted past. It was at that moment that Mark noticed something that almost made him stop.
The sounds of the people chasing them had ceased. Completely. As if they'd never made it up the stairs.
Then there was a rustling sound, faint, but coming from down the hallway. It continued, and oddly, the noise played tricks, seeming to be close one second and far the next. Suddenly Mark was struck by the feeling that they weren't alone.
"That can't be good. Come on." Alec was about to walk into the Berg chamber when the light appeared. A blinding yellow beam, resting on the soldier's face.
"We didn't say you could leave yet," a woman said.
More beams of light flashed on, coming from almost everywhere. At least they could see now. There was a split second of calm then the crazies descended.
The air was full of arms and legs, grabbing, punching, kicking. Cries of pain, people grunting as they fought.
If they couldn't get out of this soon they were all dead, and so were Trina and the others in the hands of the cult.
They had to get into the Berg chamber, shut the door on these psychos. There weren't many blocking it so Mark tried to make his way towards them, hoping somehow the others would understand. They certainly wouldn't hear anything he shouted over the din.
He caught a glimpse of Alec, tried to gesture towards the door while fighting off two men at once. Mark could feel his strength waning, whatever the outcome this would end soon.
His friend must have understood because he shouted for them to get to the chamber.
Mark could hear Darnell and the Toad fighting to get to them, many of their attackers were now on the floor, either knocked out or injured. Yet they were still outnumbered by far.
As soon as they were all stood together they charged the small group blocking the door.
They crashed into them, sending bodies flying and tumbling all over each other. Mark went ballistic in a fit of desperation, kicking and kneeing and swinging the butt end of his flashlight at anything that moved. Scrambling and crawling and pushing, twisting away anytime someone tried to latch on to his limbs or clothes, he moved forward, barreling through the crowd of people.
Somehow Mark reached the other side, with a free path to the open door, the other three following. They clambered through the hole and slammed the door shut. Met with numerous arms belonging to those trying to fight their way through.
Mark beat at hands and fingers; then Alec pulled back on the door and pushed it forward again, crushing it against those still trying to fight their way in. He repeated the action, until only a few persistent limbs remained. The Toad had moved to help and they slammed the door once more, bones crushed and fingers smashed but it was shut.
Alec leaned into the door and closed it with a booming metallic ring.
Mark spun the wheel.