Chapter 43 -"impenetrable,

Darkness engulfs us. People gasp and shove. Counselors, guards, inmates mingle as a mass of frightened life. I lose Dee Dee’s hand as screams echo off the walls. Fear prickles across my skin and I feel my soul sink into my feet. People bump and grab at me in the blackness. I do not want to be surrounded, so I keep backing up.

Backing up.

Backing up.

Waiting to bump into a marble wall.

Around me tortured tears and the weight of sadness is palpable. I feel exposed and continue to step backward, bumping into people who swat and smack at me. I slap back, getting my fingers tangled in someone’s hair. An elbow to my side bends me over, but not in half because of the mass of unseen flesh. I will my feet to keep shuffling backward, while I find myself joining in the whimpering. I reach behind me and my fingers brush the cool marble.

I curl up next to it, my head pressed into the stone. The angle of the wall isn’t comfortable, but I find it comforting. I’ve found the end. My life relegated to a mausoleum full of the living, while outside people die in a fiery hell.

I sink to the ground and sit in a tight fetal position, facing the slanted wall with my head buried between my knees. Only my back is exposed to the kicks and bumps. Before I can settle in, a grumble vibrates beneath me. Some idiot shouts, “Earthquake.” And the chaos explodes in a flicker and dies down as the lights come on. I remember from orientation that the doors are powered by solar, but something bigger runs the lights inside.

The fear around me turns to fascination as a command center console of computers blink on demanding user IDs and passwords on large screens. The rumble comes from generators. It must. They talked about those too. Methane generators that run off steam.

The crowd thins quickly as people descend the ten ladders less hurried. I don’t know how it happens faster without the pushing and panic, but it does. In the middle of the dispersing mass, Dee Dee sits on the ground, nursing her wounded ankle. I get up and kneel beside her.

“You okay?”

She shakes her head.

“Come on, I’ll help you.” With our hands clasped, I pull her up then tuck my shoulder under hers.

“You save me.” She squeezes my hand. “I’d be out there. In the fire…” Her eyes are wide.

“Don’t talk about it.”

She hops beside me. And I can’t believe the warm glow of peace her statement stirs in me. I did it again. I helped someone else and even as I study the cold marble walls, all urgency has gone. A gray-clad guard helps Dee Dee to a ladder. I watch them descend. It takes a long time, and as I look through the hole, I’m guessing that it’s probably two full stories of black metal rungs before she lands on the bottom.

I exhale my relief. She’s safe. Because of his care. Because of mine.

 The guard signals for me to come and I grasp the rungs and carefully climb down. It’s not frightening because each ladder is surrounded by a steel cage, so the only way to fall is straight down. The cage ends at the last ten rungs.

“Can you stay with her?” The guard asks. He doesn’t wait for my answer before he hurries off to some unknown post. I want to tell him I will. Of course I will. I’m glad to have her leaning on my shoulder. Glad to know she’s alive.

Cave walls with long florescent lights illuminate each ladder. A few remaining feet step down into the wide expanse where we wait. The smell of wet dirt replaces the ashy soot of smoke. The wide cavern easily houses a hundred of us. The air is cool, insanely cool considering the fire that rages above ground. I look up. Stalactites hang like the crooked teeth of a beast.

A counselor signals to a group of us. She points down a hall with cement walls. The corridor is wide like the kind in a hospital. Dee Dee’s arm feels heavy on my shoulder.

“You okay?’

“It hurts.”

“We’ll stop soon.”

But we don’t. Instead we are taken into a cement stairway and asked to climb down. Seven steps and turn. Seven steps and turn. While the ladders were more gothic, these scream mall parking lot. We continue down another three flights before the counselor opens a door and we exit into a sublevel hallway.

At our left is an elevator.

Dee Dee and I glance at each other. “How deep does this place go?” She whispers.

“I don’t remember.”

We get in. The stomach-jolting movement toward the earth’s core. The box has no lights or buttons to indicate floors or levels, The pain on Dee Dee’s face hurt me as we jerk to a stop.

The elevator opens and we enter another hallway. All the doors are open along the cement walls. The counselor directs students to take a room, closing the thick steel behind them. I’m not too surprised that everyone complies. They must all be as tired as I am. Tired and relieved. Happy to be alive, as well as a little ashamed at making it into a room with a bed when people at least ten stories above us inhale their last breath.

“Take her in there,” The counselor points to an empty room. “Then come back out when she’s settled.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Dee Dee whispers to me.

“I understand.” I help her sit. “But it’s only temporary.”

Her eyes are wide as she takes in the single unmade bunk and the toilet in the corner. She jumps as she hears doors along the hallway shut with a hard metallic click.

“Dee Dee,” I demand her attention. “It’s only temporary. Okay?” I want to tell her it’s better than the alternative, but she doesn’t need reminding of that. No one does.

“Come on out,” The counselor says.

“I’ll be close by.” Dee Dee bites at her lip and lets a tear slip down her face as she watches me go. “Right down the hall.” I give her a thumbs up. But her face doesn’t change.

The counselor closes the door and I watch Dee Dee’s head sink into her hands through the small, glass window covered in wire mesh. I accept my cell without fight, ready to sink into my own skinny mattress. I feel Dee Dee’s rush of panic at the permanent sound of the lock on the heavy door. While I can’t remove my Bracelet, I do peel off The Shackle on my ankle. GPS will be pointless now. 

A new stream of inmates shuffle past my window. I don’t recognize any of them. And after a few minutes, I give up looking. “It is temporary,” I remind myself and the cement walls. Convinced until it dawns on me. Time in this dungeon might not last, but since The Center has burned to the ground, once we get out we’ll be locked up in something similar. My days of comfort have reached their end. The reality settles on me like a wool blanket. It covers me while I scratch my skin.

Yellow, painted walls surround me. Florescent lights are tucked into the tall ceiling next to vents that feed me air. To my right an exposed toilet next to a small sink completes the room’s furniture. I try the faucet. A loud crank trembles through the pipe. It produces more sound than water, so I turn it off.

“They’ll take care of that,” I speak confidently to the wall. We’ll need three things as a minimum down here. Oxygen, water and food. I finger the unmade bunk and remember what we were told. There should be enough food and oxygen to keep five thousand people alive for six weeks. I suddenly wonder what they told people who boarded the Titanic.

“Don’t be stupid. They used this facility in blizzards and no one died.” At least I don’t think they did. I don’t say the last sentence out loud. Come on, Courtney, get a grip. A few minutes underground and I’m acting like a baby. I exhale.

The bunk accepts my weight with a small creak. I feel a lump on my bottom and stand up to find the skinny mattress is smooth. I reach into the back pocket of my pants and discover Jackson’s small Bible. I must have shoved it back there during the evacuation. Or when I leaned over to help Dee Dee up.

He ran away so fast I didn’t have time to give it back to him. I set it on the bed, as soon as I see him I’ll return it. I refuse to accept I won’t see him again. He is sure to be here in The Bunker or on the first evacuation bus. I refused to imagine anything else. 

Right now, I will stay positive and wait.