Chapter 2: The Bunker

The next day, Jordan walked out of his room. He had barely slept and woke up almost every hour in a cold sweat. By the time it hit 7am, he bolted out of bed and tried to get out of the room. The bolt was a little higher than he could reach, so he tried to use his teddy bear that he had gripped in his right hand to slingshot the last two inches to the bolt.

With the constant movement, Tarrant woke up hearing the rustling. He sat up from his bed looking around the darkened room to see a small figure bouncing. The sounds weren’t that loud, but Tarrant quickly got up and took the kid in his arms pulling him away from the door.

“NO! LET ME GO! PLEASE! DON’T EAT ME!” Tarrant covered Jordan’s mouth with his hand and brought their eyes to meet.

Jordan looked up at the red head with wide teary eyes. “Shh, do you want them to find us?” Jordan shook his head rapidly from side to side. “Then shh. It’s okay. Everything will be okay.” Tarrant’s voice wavered a little, but he knew that this kid needed a lot more comfort than anyone in this compound could ever give.

“P-Please let me go.”

“You need to stay in here or inside the compound. Besides, you can’t even get up to the bolt.” Tarrant tried to give Jordan a smile, but it was forced. Jordan could tell.

“I-I just wanna g-go see m-my sister. P-Please mister.”

“Call me Tarrant. Mister sounds too formal. Besides, I’m only three years older than you. Let’s go.” Tarrant held out his hand as the little boy grabbed his hand tightly. Tarrant could feel the vibrations in his hand. It made him sigh. He knew that this was the moment that their childhoods would be gone.

He led Jordan to the girl’s room and knocked. Stephanie was the one who opened the door. Tarrant felt a shiver go down his spine because Stephanie is NOT a morning person at all.

“What the hell do you want, Tarrant? It’s fucking 7am and I’m not needed on duty.”

“It’s for Jordan.” Stephanie leaned on the doorframe and turned her head, “Alice, there’s someone here to see you.” She left the door frame just as it was replaced with Alice standing there.

“A-Ali.”

“Come here, JorJor.” Alice took Jordan into her arms and kept the door open. “Wanna come in?” Tarrant stood in the doorway shaking his head. Stephanie can be a little scary in the mornings. “Okay. It’s fine, but I think he’d like to have you here with him, right JorJor?” Jordan looked at Tarrant, but he shied away as he nuzzled into Alice’s shoulder. “Okay, well, I’ll see you in the living area I guess. Um, if you need anything, you can come talk to me. Come on, JorJor.” Alice closed the door and laid Jordan into her bed pulling the covers up. “Go back to sleep, JorJor. I’ll be here when you do.”

Jordan held up his pinky as it wobbled in the air. “Promise?”

“Promise.” Alice hooked her finger with his and gave it a tug before pulling herself into the bed.

When Jordan’s breathing evened out, Stephanie tapped Alice on the shoulder. “We need to go for debriefing. You may be young, but we can teach you things here. Now that the world is completely casted in a red glow and monsters are appearing everywhere, we need to inform everyone we can and find anything.” Alice nodded and moved so that Jordan was cuddling his teddy bear before leaving for the living area.

Stephanie pressed a small button on the coffee table and a projection of a computer or a laptop appeared on the big off white wall. Eric came in with Miss. Flora holding bowls of cereal. “Eat up. We need to get rid of the milk before it goes bad. Most of the things can sustain here, but someone wanted to get milk.” Ace came in holding his hands up in a surrender.

“I can’t help that I want the kids to have milk. They’re still growing.”

“And yet you had Miss. Flora bake a cake.” Ace tensed a little under everyone’s gazes. He quickly dismissed it as Sean finally came in. He was sweating a little and still had his bag in hand. “Okay, Stephanie, did you find anything from the recording we got when saving Alice and Jordan?”

Stephanie pressed a few buttons on a remote and moved a couple of images before coming to a blurry picture. “This is what we found on your recording. It seems that one of the creatures passed by your team just as you entered the house. I’d like to bet that you scared it off, but that is highly unlikely. Anyway, with this picture, we have gotten a good look at these creatures, or a better one.” Stephanie switched the picture.

“What the hell is that?” Sean held a hand to his face almost ready to puke.

“That, my dear child, is the best image we have of these creatures. They have really long heads as shown, and they crouch naturally. I want to bet that their skin is rough. The color seems and the dry texture seems to support that theory. They also seem to have no eyes, which means that our theory is correct. They work with sound, so we need to be extra careful when we’re in the watchtower.” Everyone nodded in agreement as Alice looked around at everyone, trying to keep up. Stephanie was about to click to another image when Eric stopped her.

“Steph, stop. Can you go back for a second?”

“Sure.” Eric got up and stood right in front of the image for a minute before turning to everyone.

His face had paled a little as his brain tried to connect the dots. “Guys, this creature looks like something out of a f-freaking horror film, but have any of you realized something that’s different about all of these creatures?” Everyone shook their heads no except for Stephanie who had a shit eating grin on her face. “Yes Steph, you were right.”

“And I tried to tell you before you went to the Holtzman house, but none of you listened, so you guys were this close to getting killed.” Stephanie held her pointer finger and thumb just a millimeter away from each other as she glared at Sean and Ace.

“Okay. Okay. Yes, Stephanie, we are sorry for not listening to you. Now, please let Eric make his point.”

“Okay, Steph, can you pull up all of the other images we have of these creatures and the places we found them?”

“They’re called Tyrants, and yes.” Stephanie pulled up three more images.

Eric pointed to the first one. “This is when we found Sean. See how this Tyrant has a piece of white cloth on its ankle?” Eric changed and opened a file to Sean’s apartment complex. “This is Mr. Kurtzberg’s son Marc. See any resemblance to what he was wearing in this picture and the cloth on the ankle?”

“It’s the same color white?” Sean asked, completely lost. He scratched his head trying to put the clues together.

Alice turned her head and sighed. “He’s implying that they’re from the same cloth.”

“Oh!” Everyone shook their heads as Eric continued. “What does that mean?”

“I think we don’t fully understand what these creatures are yet.”

“They could have just gotten a piece when they probably found them.” Sean suggested. Eric pointed to the next picture when the screen went stark white.

“Shit.” Stephanie got up and checked the flash drive. “Looks like something short circuited. Who got milk or any other liquid on my laptop?!” Stephanie’s eyesight went to where the milk was coming from and saw a small Tarrant who had just tripped over the wires and spilled his cereal.

He was rapidly trying to clean it up as his bottom lip wobbled. Stephanie sighed and brought Tarrant up into a short hug. “S-Sorry.”

“It’s fine, kid. I’ve got spares for reasons.” Stephanie put the laptop in some place to dry and went to fix the flash drive. Stephanie patted Jordan’s head before motioning him to go sit next to Tarrant.

“Okay everyone, that’s the meeting. Sean, I need you in the watchtower, Tarrant, go check on Jordan and when he’s awake, take him into the living room. You guys should try to keep your childhood for as long as possible.”

“What about me?”

“Alice, I need you to come with me to my office. We’ll be discussing what we can do for you. I want to gauge where you are mentally and if you’re willing to do the things we do here in the bunker. I don’t want to push you to do something you’re not willing to do.”

“I’m almost 15. I’m willing to learn anything. I can’t just go hide when one of those monsters comes here again. I need to be able to protect my brother when shit hits the fan.” Ace smiled sadly at the girl before him.

“You can and will get blood on your hands that you hoped you’d never have to.”

“I don’t care. I need to be able to defend my brother. I stayed under that bed and I couldn’t even move.” Alice looked over to the door with a forlorn gaze. “My brother needs protection, and I need to be his safe place, so please allow me to fight.”

“We will, but we need to see where your strengths lie. You will be sitting in with everyone in the group for an entire day doing what they can. Stephanie is our analyst and strategist. Miss Flora is our cook but she’s also a retired nurse. Eric Braun is our snipper and distributes our weapons when he sees fit. Sean is our trainer. He is young, but he can teach you different fighting styles that his family forced on him. I am the leader, but most of my work is keeping in contact with the other bunkers in the country. We devise plans and attacks, but right now we are only trying to find a way to survive. Jordan and Tarrant will eventually do the same thing you’re doing now, but that will be when they turn 12. They won’t be able to work with Eric until they turn 14 or 15, but the others are free game.” Ace pulled out a stack of cards that had a single black line across them. “Who do you want to start with first?”

“Sean.” Ace swiped the card across something on his desk that Alice couldn’t see and handed it to her.

“Be careful. He might be throwing something when you walk into the room.”

“I’ll be sure to look.” Ace smiled and nodded her on.

As the door closed, Ace’s smile fell. He looked at the picture on his desk and gripped the edge tightly. “I’m sorry.” He put the picture frame into a drawer and pulled out his landline phone and dialed a number.

“Hey, it’s Ace. Are we okay with getting to the closest Sams or Costco?”

“Yes. Many of them are on the southern border of your space. Head north or north west but no where near the south or the east, A”

“Okay. Thank you, T.” The call ended, and Ace called Eric in.

Eric came already holding a sniper’s rifle and a few glocks in his hands. “We leaving?”

“Yep.” Eric tossed Ace one of the glocks and they left with two big duffle bags.

Alice stood in front of the huge metal door that led to the gym/practice area. She swiped the card and ducked supper fast as a sharp ass blade slammed into the wall where her head was. She looked back at it just as Miss Flora “yelled” over the intercom that and I quote “Sean, if that was you, you’re cleaning every inch of this damn bunker before tomorrow night!” Sean rubbed the back of his neck trying to ignore that threat.

That’s when his eyes met with Alice’s green-hazel ones. He smiled and stumbled on one of the staff that was laying on the floor making him almost stumble into the wall to his left.

Alice leaned against the doorframe waiting for Sean to gain some kind of footing as she watched with a full poker face. By the time that Sean got his barings, Alice had been standing there for a good minute watching things fall and or hit Sean.

“S-Sorry. Hi, I’m Sean.” Sean held a hand out. Alice shook it curtly before walking into the room. “Um, why are you here? I thought you’d be helping your brother?”

“This is a better way for me to help my brother.”

“Shouldn’t older sisters comfort their younger brothers?”

“The time for comfort is long gone. I can’t bring them back, so the best I can do is keep him safe from them for as long as I live. So stop with that nonsense and teach me to fight. Don’t go easy on me, either. I need to protect the one I care about.”

“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Alice got into a fighting stance and Sean kicked her legs out from under her. “You need a firm stance. Legs spread and one hand near your cheek and the other under near your shoulders.”

“Then teach oh wise one.” Alice said sarcastically. Sean smirked and held a hand out. Sean rolled his eyes, sighed, and grabbed Alice’s hand. She looked down and kicked Sean’s legs out and dragged him down and rolled over.

“Wise ass?”

“Just able. So don’t go easy.” Alice said before attacking him.