I'm so glad you all like this story! This is definitely one of my favorites! :)
Enjoy!
Joy and Fabian trailed behind Eddie closely as they marched further away from the house and their friends. The gravel under their feet crunched and filled the silence of the yard. The grass on either side of the path was brown and uncut, littered with toys, tools, shoes and books. Joy bent over and picked up a doll when Eddie halted.
"Where is everyone?" she whispered, brushing her thumb over the doll's dirty cheek.
"This base was probably abandoned a couple years ago – maybe, ten or more." Eddie shrugged.
"No, this doll is new."
"What?" he turned to her.
"I got a doll just like this for my niece last year. This base couldn't have been abandoned so long ago." she looked up at him sadly and he sighed.
"Don't worry," he assured her and jerked his head back to what was ahead of them. "Let's check out this shelter."
She nodded and tucked the doll into her purse. She followed Eddie to the stone shelter that was built into the side of a small hill. Fabian looked around and wandered to the right, away from the other two. They didn't notice and Eddie tugged on the door.
"Locked," he announced.
"Is there a key somewhere?" Joy asked, brown eyes sweeping over the path and the grass, pushing weeds away from the sides of the shelter.
"It'd be pretty hard to find in this place." he commented.
They searched through the grass and in the gravel for the key but found nothing. Eddie grabbed her elbow and unzipped her purse. She waited for him to finish shuffling through it and he pulled out a hairpin. He kneeled before the door and inserted the pin into the keyhole.
"Nina taught me how to do that." He chuckled, opening the door.
"Wait, Eddie, where's Fabian?"
Eddie whipped around, his eyes darting around the small area. Joy sighed, walking over to where Fabian was pulling a wire fence gate open.
"Fabian, can you slow down? We're going to check out the bunker first—"
"I'll be fine, Joy, just come and find me when you're done."
"Fabes, it's not safe." She said and grabbed his arm, tugging him toward the bunker again.
The three ventured through the dark doorway into a room that was lit by a single red emergency light. Office chairs lay discarded on their sides, control panels and monitor screens smashed and wires pulled from everywhere.
Eddie swallowed thickly, green eyes training on the tile floor that might have once been white, but it was now dusty and dried up red puddles here and there. Joy's grip tightened on Fabian's arm and he looked around in surprise. He wasn't completely paying attention, but he knew that this was serious. He was trying so very hard to get his head in the game.
Eddie picked up a jumper cable off the floor and furrowed his eyebrows. He unhooked a wire hanger from a pipe. He undid it and got down on his knees next to a grate in the floor. One corner of it had been pulled up.
"What are you doing?" Joy asked, watching him curiously.
"There's a second jumper cable down there." He grunted, moving the hanger around, careful not to push the cables off the pipe they were hanging on.
"So…?" she drifted off.
"I need to keep an eye out for anything that could come in handy. Jerry and the others are doing the same thing. I don't think this was an accident. Someone put that cable down there on purpose. Why? I'm not sure yet – oh, shoot." He mumbled in shock. The hanger's hook had looped around the wire but it started to slide down when he tried to lift it from the pipe. A second later, the cable stopped slipping when the clasp at the end hooked onto the hanger's hook.
"Boy, aren't you lucky." Joy laughed, patting his shoulder.
Eddie breathed out a sigh of relief as he chuckled, pulling the hanger and cable up. He tied the cables together and slipped a loop over his shoulder. He looked around once more before motioning for them to follow him out of the shelter.
They walked through the gate Fabian had opened and Eddie stopped next to a jeep. The windshield was broken and the seats were covered in dirt; weeds wrapped around the wheels and over the doors.
"I guess we won't be using this jeep, but," he rounded the vehicle to the trunk and pulled out a radio. "This might come in handy." He flipped the on switch and it came to life, but only a second later, something inside of it clicked and the light went off again. "Fabian, do you know how to fix this?"
Fabian didn't reply as he stared off into space. Suddenly, he took off in a sprint toward one of the bunkers in the distance.
"Fabian!" Eddie and Joy hollered simultaneously. They dashed in his direction and he halted next to a bunker. He leant against the side of it, his hand flat on the wood. He huffed and puffed, looking around in confusion like he couldn't understand how he had gotten there. Eddie grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, looking into his eyes, but Fabian's blue orbs wavered.
"Fabian, don't take off like that." Eddie ordered.
"I-I saw Nina though…" he mumbled, his vision going foggy once and then returning to normal. "I'm sorry. I'm not being much help am I?"
"Fabes, we know you're worried about Nina – we all are – but you have to stick with us." Joy said softly.
The brunette's eyes met hers and he took a deep breath. "I'm going to focus. Running around and acting like a maniac isn't going to help Nina, will it?"
"No, it won't." Eddie gestured back to the jeep as they walked back to it calmly. "Can you help me fix the radio?"
"Yes, that I can do." Fabian nodded and picked it up by the handle. "This isn't CB, this is a Ham Radio. You use Morse code to contact and then use a microphone, but…I don't see a microphone."
"Can we just use Morse code then?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah, that'll be fine. We just need to signal an SOS and give our location. I need a map though."
"I saw one in the bunker over there. I'll be right back." Eddie grinned, patting his friend's shoulder and jogging to the shelter. Now they were getting some place.
Review?
If any of you haven't read my new story, Lewis and Clarke: The Silent Scream, could you check it out and let me know what you think? Thank you!
"It's scratching on the walls, in the closet, in the halls. It comes awake and I can't control it. Hiding under the bed, in my body, in my head. Why won't somebody come and save me from this, make it end?" -Monster, Skillet
-Rachel