She shook her head. “Leave it, Leon. There could be anything, anyone—druggies—down there.” She obviously didn’t share Leon’s hope of finding some friendly creaky-kneed old security guard, but instead feared bumping into some drug-crazed hermit.
He ignored her and peered into the gloom beyond. Directly ahead of him there was a curving wall, and to his left, concrete steps followed the curve and descended into darkness.
He snapped the flashlight on.
“Leon, please,” said his mom.
“Let me just take a look. There might be something we can use.” He took the first half a dozen steps down and out of sight.
“Leon!” snapped Grace after him. “Listen to Mom for once!”
He ignored her and slowly made his way down, circling clockwise and descending until the last of the meager daylight was gone and it was just the stark beam of the flashlight ahead of him. Finally the steps came to an end. He shined his flashlight around.
He was in what looked like a sleeping room for workers. There were four metal-framed beds, a filing cabinet, several folding chairs, and a small table. The concrete walls were painted a mint green and were marked with scuffs and scrapes. On one wall was a cork bulletin board with a number of yellowing paper notes tacked to it, a Playboy calendar with curling pages, a small poster of some ridiculous-looking, puffy-haired rock band called Bon Jovi, and a bunch of baseball cards.
“Leon?” His mom’s voice echoed down the stairs. “You OK?”
“Yeah,” he replied. He crossed the small bunk room and shined his flashlight on the calendar.
Jeez. 1986. It was over thirty years old. The place was a time capsule.
He shined his flashlight around some more. There were two doors. He tried one, which led to a small bathroom. The toilet was bone dry and feathered with spiderwebs. He tried the other door and discovered there was a splintered, ragged hole where a handle had once been. Somebody must have forced it, smashed their way in sometime in the past, as they had the padlocked door at the top of the steps. He pushed the door and aimed his flashlight inside the room beyond.
“Oh…you’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispered. “Bazinga.”
• • •
By candlelight, they drank greedily from the cans of orange juice; then, their thirst finally quenched, they turned to the other cans for something to eat. Each can was clearly marked with plain, no-nonsense text on a pale military-gray label.
BEANS IN TOMATO SAUCE: 400GMS, 2 SERVINGS. CALORIES: 400
MINCED PORK: 100GMS, 1 SERVING. CALORIES: 130
SKINNED POTATOES: 250GMS, 2 SERVINGS. CALORIES: 160
Leon talked with his mouth full. “This must be some kind of old nuclear bunker or something.”
His mom nodded, her mouth bulging with food. “Missile silo.” She finished chewing and swallowed. “Your grandad once told me they’re dotted all over East Anglia from the Cold War.”
Leon looked up at her and watched her hungrily digging into a can of peaches with her finger, trying to scoop one out. He was reassured by the tone of her voice. For the first time in twenty-four hours, it sounded more like her normal self, not clipped and fragile…not the vocal equivalent of a glass pitcher perched precariously on the edge of a table.
She sounded like Leon’s mom again. Which was a relief. Leon had listened to his dad and stepped up…and hated every second of it. He was far happier tagging along than leading.
Now they had food and juice in their bellies, and somewhere safe and hidden away to sleep. For the first time in forty-eight hours of not knowing if life was going to be measured in minutes or months, it looked as if they were going to be OK for a little while. The storeroom was stacked with cardboard boxes of canned food and drinks. It was as good a place as any to ride out the apocalypse.
“Missiles?” said Grace. “You mean, like…nuke-u-lar ones?”
“Nuclear.” Leon’s mom nodded. “Uh-huh. But they’re not here anymore, love. They closed these sorts of places down back in the late eighties, I think.”
“Isn’t there, like, radiation or something to worry about?” asked Leon.
“I don’t think so.”
Leon put down his can of corned beef and rummaged through some of the boxes nearest him. “They’ve got, literally, everything here. Not just food, but medicine and stuff.”
“Good.”
“Any aspirin?” asked Grace. She patted her sling gently. “My arm’s been killing me for ages.”
“I’ll look… Ahh.” He pulled out a carton of pills. Like the food, it was labeled clearly and blandly.
“Oh, now you both need to be careful. Medicines have a shelf life,” said Leon’s mom. “They may not be safe to—”
“Mom?” Leon looked at her. “Relax, OK? They’re aspirin. Nothing more.”
She nodded, returning his smile. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Leon opened the packet and popped a couple out of the foil for Grace and a couple for himself. “The worst that happens with aspirin is they get less effective with age.”
“You know that, or you’re just guessing?” asked Grace. She was also sounding more like her old self now.
“I read it online…somewhere. Once.” He tossed the pills into his mouth and knocked them back with a slug of orange juice.
Grace cocked her brow at his casual attitude but finally followed his lead. “If I end up getting poisoned, it’s your fault.”
“You can sue me, kiddo.”
They resumed eating in silence, the concrete walls echoing with the sound of scraping cans and fingers being licked.
“Leo,” said Grace after a while, “I…I’m sorry about what I said. I really don’t wish Dad were dead.” She pressed her lips together. “I hope he’s OK.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
“Your dad’s a natural survivor,” said his mom. “I imagine you’d be far safer with him looking after you than me.”
“You’re doing fine, Mom.” Leon stretched out a foot and tapped one of hers. “You got us out in time…just before they locked London down. That was really close.”
“Do you think we’re better off out of London than in?” asked Grace.
Leon thought she was asking their mom that, but he realized the question was directed at him.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. He had no idea at all. Just a guess. “Probably,” he added. “There’re millions living in London, right? Even if the virus hasn’t gotten in there, I guess there won’t be enough food and water for everyone.”
Crisis aftermath…that’s when most people die, MonkeyNuts. It’s not the earthquake that kills ’em—it’s the mess afterward.
Leon recalled news stories from postdisaster shantytowns, people dying of hunger and from drinking polluted water.
You know, Son, a wise man once said that modern civilization is just three square meals and an internet connection away from total anarchy.
“We’re much better off waiting this thing out sitting here, Grace. Far better than being stuck in Hammersmith.”
Grace nodded. Then a thought occurred to her. “Remember when Dad took us camping in the Rockies?”
“This”—he gestured at the concrete walls—“reminds you of that?”
“No, this,” she replied, holding out the can of baked beans she was pawing her way through. “Remember Dad’s totally lame camp stew?”
Leon’s mom laughed. “God it was awful, wasn’t it?” He’d insisted on making dinner over a campfire in an old pot. He’d basically emptied a random selection of canned goods into the pot filled with river water and boiled the whole thing into a thick porridge-like paste. They’d gone camping with a colleague of their dad’s and his family. Grace had, of course, gotten on really well with the other kids, while Leon had kept them at a cool distance. But the one thing that had pulled Leon into the circ
le was the universal disgust at his dad’s “Survival Soup.” It had ended up being tossed into the bushes, no doubt attracting some giant grizzly bear, and they’d all driven into the nearby town for McDonald’s.
“Even your dad admitted it tasted disgusting,” said Leon’s mom. She smiled at the memory. Good times…there had been one or two.
They heard a heavy metallic clang. It came from above. Leon recognized it for what it was: the heavy door right at the top of the bunker banging closed.
Shit.
Was that the wind outside blowing it shut? The possibility that they might just have very stupidly entombed themselves down here forever hit him like a hard slap.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Then he heard something far more disconcerting: the heavy clunk of a pair of boots descending the concrete steps toward them. Leon’s mom reached over to snuff out the candle sitting between them.
Leon grabbed her hand to prevent her. He shook his head. “Better to not be a surprise,” he whispered. There was nowhere for them to hide. It was better if they weren’t a complete shock to whoever it was, especially if they were carrying a gun and had a finger resting on the trigger.
She nodded. They listened to the footsteps descending. “Hello?” Leon’s mom called out.
The footsteps suddenly stopped.
“Hello?” she said again, doing her best to keep her voice sounding confident and steady.
Silence.
“You might as well come down. We all heard you slam the door!”
Another moment of silence, then they heard the scraping of a boot. A step…then another and another. Slowly getting closer and louder until with a scrape of rubber soles on the gritty floor, a dark figure loomed in the doorway at the bottom of the stairwell.
“That is my food you’re eating.”
“What? Oh…” Leon’s mom set the can of fruit salad she was holding down on the ground. “I’m really…sorry… We just—”
“Go ahead and eat it. There is much, much more of it.” The figure, a man, took several steps into the small room. He was holding a cardboard box, which he set on the ground, cans rattling inside it. Closer to the candle, they could see him more clearly. He was dark skinned, with a thick, black beard covering the lower half of his face.
“There’s food like this in every one of these bunkers,” he said. His brown eyes settled on each of them in turn. “If it is just the three of you, then, inshallah, there will be enough food for all.”
Chapter 26
5/11
Dad, we’re alive and we’re safe and we’ve got food and water. I don’t want to think about what would have happened (or if we’d even still be alive) if Mom hadn’t gotten us out on pretty much the last train from London. I know you’re alive too. Like Mom said, you’re a born survivor. An alpha male, right? Unlike me. I’m more your knuckle-dragger type. But I guess I did my part by looking after Grace. Anyway, the point is we’re OK. We’re with this guy called Mohammed. We call him “Mo” for short. Yeah, I know…before you ask…he is. He prays and stuff but he’s OK with us not doing the same. He’s this big Bangladeshi guy, kinda gentle, and he speaks really softly like he’s constantly trying not to wake up someone who’s sleeping nearby.
We came across this old Cold War missile silo stocked with supplies that date back to, I kid you not, the eighties! I guess if there’d been a nuclear war, these supplies were supposed to last the missile crew until radiation was low enough to come out again. How long’s that supposed to be—years, decades? So, none of the tin cans actually have “use by” dates on them. I guess the food was zapped to hell before it was canned. We’ve got no radios, no working phones, nothing. No power. So right now we’ve got no idea whether the rest of the country or the world has been affected. It’s been two weeks, I think. And the farthest I’ve been from our bunker is a few dozen yards. I spent some time yesterday standing on top of one of the bunker mounds, looking across some fields for any signs of life. I didn’t see anything.
For all I know we could be the last four people in the world. (Five, counting you.) It’s weird. Every time I’ve stepped outside it’s been so quiet. No planes in the sky, no sound of distant traffic, obviously. But also no birds in the trees. No buzzing insects. The trees, grass, weeds—the plants—aren’t affected, but everything that isn’t a plant seems to be.
What does that mean for the planet? Can plants get by without animals around? I know some plants need bees to pollinate, right? And other plants need animals to eat their seeds and poop them out, so doesn’t that mean an unsustainable ecosystem? No animals means eventually no plants? And if no plants…eventually that means no breathable air, right? Or maybe I’m overthinking this. I guess that kind of process takes decades, so we’re OK for now. If it really is just us left, there’s probably enough preserved food out there in stores and supermarkets to last us for the rest of our lives. Only if it’s safe to go out and forage though.
Mo says there’s a high chance we might be immune to the infection. That’s why the four of us are still alive. Some kind of inherited, genetic immunity. Which I guess suggests it must be from Mom’s genes, and not yours, if that’s the case. I’ve been trying to rack my brains to remember if anyone who was infected on that train touched me, or whether any of that pollen stuff landed on me. I don’t remember. I don’t think so. So…Mo’s theory so far remains to be proven. Maybe we were just very, very lucky.
5/12
Why am I even writing this stuff to you? You’re never going to read it.
5/14
Dad, is it totally weird of me to kind of know you’re still alive even if the odds are against that? It’s just that I keep hearing you butt into my head. If that’s you somewhere using Jedi mind powers…don’t stop. It’s mostly good advice you’re giving. So don’t, you know, stop. OK? So, by the way, I guess with your super mind powers you must be able to hear me too? (That would be great, wouldn’t it?)
I guess you want to know how Grace is doing. Better than you’d expect, I think. She’s cried a few times. Mainly because she’s missing her old life, her phone, her friends, Facebook, all that kind of meaningless stuff. She’s OK enough to have bitched at me a few times about being a wimp. So I guess she’s generally OK. Her arm’s still hurting her though. I think it may have gotten banged up, knocked or broken or something during our escape. Mo thinks it might even be infected, although he’s not sure.
And Mom? I think she’s doing her best to stay strong for us. I know she’s called you an asshole a number of times since we left New York, but deep down I know she still misses you. Maybe even still loves you. And I know she wishes you were here right now. Mo seems all right. But Mom never lets Grace out of her sight when he’s around. I get that. We don’t know anything about him really. I know she wishes you were here, taking charge of things. Because that’s what you’re used to, isn’t it? Being “the Guy” when the shit hits the fan. Taking charge under fire, leading your men into combat. You never did tell me much about your time in Iraq. All I remember you saying was that it wasn’t anything like Call of Duty. I wish I were more like you. I wish I hadn’t been such a disappointment to you. Been Marine material, instead of a… What was it you called me once? Oh yeah, I remember…a “whiny little thumb-sucker.” Nice.
5/25
Dad, I am trying to be better than that. I think I’ve done some growing up.
“It has gone septic, I think,” said Mohammed. He studied the inflamed, red skin of Grace’s forearm, scratched his thick beard, and frowned deep folds on his forehead. “This is not good.”
“We’ve got antibiotics,” said Leon’s mom. She turned around and picked up several plainly marked boxes of medicine. “See? Look? Netromycin. Streptomycin.”
Mohammed shook his head and wagged a finger. “Those are over thirty years old, Mrs. Button. Bacterial resistance has moved on a very long way since those pills wer
e made. They will do nothing to help her.”
“So?” She looked at Leon then back to Mohammed. “We have to go find some more modern antibiotics, then?”
He nodded. “Indeed. Yes.”
“Where?”
“Little Buntingham.”
She shook her head. The name meant nothing to her.
“It is nearby. It is where I was working. Just seven or eight miles from here.”
Leon put down the old Marvel comic books he was reading. He’d found a stash of them beneath one of the bunks. “Walk eight miles? What about the virus?”
“Leon?” His mother stared at him sternly. “You do understand if we don’t get some viable antibiotics for Grace she could get really sick?” She glanced quickly at Grace, then back at him.
Leon understood. “Really sick” meant far worse, but Grace was right there, listening to her. Really sick meant septicemia—or worse.
“We haven’t seen any of those pollen clouds for nearly a week now. I think whatever stage of the plague that was… Well, it’s happened. It’s all done.” She looked to Mohammed to back her up.
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “We will have to go outside eventually.”
Leon nodded slowly. It wasn’t as if he’d said they shouldn’t go out; he just wanted to be clear that they all understood this meant more than a casual trip around the corner to the local pharmacy.
“Maybe we’ll find an abandoned car,” he said hopefully.
“I cannot drive,” said Mohammed.
“None of us can,” added Leon’s mom.
“I can,” said Leon. “Not, like, legally, but I know how it’s done…kind of.”
“It’s not like playing Big Theft Auto, Leo. You can’t just—”
“Grand Theft Auto, Mom. And, anyway, jeez, it’s not like there’s going to be anything else on the road for me to hit. Or even any cops to pull us over.”
Grace nodded, on his side for once. “Mom, just let Leon drive if we find a car. I don’t think we should be walking around outside if we don’t have to be.”