Impetus (15 page)

CHAPTER
18
 

Mick stretched out across his cot, thinking about what had transpired with King earlier in the day. The crazy man now knew where they lived—where their food, water, and supplies were. Mick’s stomach knotted every time he thought about it. The relative safety afforded to them by living on the outskirts, hidden from most eyes, was now gone.

He had grown used to the way things were. A routine had formed over the years.
Now everything felt different. And that pissed him off. But what bothered him the most was that King now knew that he had a daughter. Of the most inopportune times to come out of the shelter, Kathryn had picked a doozy. But it was hard for Mick to be angry with her. She didn’t know who was out there. Greg had only warned them a few times like that. And not anytime recently that Mick could remember. Most of those warnings had turned out to be harmless stragglers that wandered too close to The Shelter. And Kathryn longed for company, for some semblance of how life used to be. Sadly, when that opportunity came, it happened to be the worst possible person that Mick could think of showing up.

The vibrations Mick had been feeling through his cot for the past hour seemed to be getting worse. They denied him any chance of sleep.
The one that rattled the shelter right then felt more intense than the others had. Something didn’t feel right.

“
It’s a bad one,” he heard Greg say from the main room, followed by the squeaky closing of the trapdoor that led to the roof.

Mick
sat up in his cot and swung his feet to the ground. Another vibration hit the shelter and made the walls hum, similar to the one prior but shorter in duration. The floor buzzed like a swarm of invisible bees brushed the floor, tickling the soles of Mick’s feet as they went.

He
stood at the same time that Sandeep did. They met eyes. It was apparent that Deep felt a difference in the air the same as Mick did. They had lived in the shelter for so long that any abnormality stuck out with a vengeance.

“
Sounds like a strong storm is passing through,” Deep said, sitting back down to let Mick pass.

“
It does, doesn’t it?” Mick shuffled past him and into the main room, rubbing his eyes as they readjusted to the dim light of the lamp. “What’s going on?”

“
Storm snuck up on us,” Greg said. “It’s spread wide, too. The entire city’s gone brown. I went to take a look, but it’s too bad for me to stay up there.”

The
y termed it “going brown” because no matter how hard you looked at something, it all looked like the same brown nothingness. And this storm had brought with it extremely high winds.

Another vibrat
ion shook the structure above them, followed quickly by the unnerving sound of straining steel. Mick looked to the ceiling of the main room. He had been there during the initial renovation phase of the shelter to get the telecommunications conduits in place. The structure above had been secured with large metal pylons buried deep into the rock below them. Any vibration to the above structure traveled throughout the entirety of the shelter through the girders.

“
Another storm?” Kathryn asked from the door of the sleeping quarters.

Mick
put his arm around her. “I’m afraid so, honey.”

“
I hate these things,” she said, giving him a little squeeze as another vibration ran the girders’ length.

Mick
did not much care for them, either. But like most things after Impact, they had little choice in the matter.

When the storms
were severe, something that had only happened once or twice before, the skeleton of the structure above would seem to almost sing as the wind tore through it. It was strange for a storm to roll in as fast as this one, and for the singing to start so quickly after. That was what had Mick so worried.

Laurel, Sarah
, and Chester came stumbling out of the sleeping quarters in unison.

“
Is Nate really still sleeping?” Mick asked, noticing the absence of his son.

“
He’ll sleep through anything, Dad,” Kathryn said. “I’ll get him up.”

Sarah passed K
athryn. “Don’t worry, Katie.” She used the nickname she had given Kathryn some years back. Sarah then gently brushed Kathryn’s arm as if to reassure her that everything would be fine.

“
I couldn’t see much outside before I was forced in,” Greg said as he double-checked the latch to the roof hatch. “The dust is thick right now. I can’t even see the fires in the city. I haven’t seen a storm like this in”—he paused to think—“well, ever, actually. This is going to be a bad one. The wind is already grabbing some of the heavier debris. Can’t say I feel great about that.”

Nate groaned and
shuffled out of the sleeping quarters, Kathryn in tow. He plopped down on the chair to his right, pulled his sleeping bag over him, and fell back sleep against the cold wall.

Must be nice
, Mick mused.

Another vibration
jolted the shelter as the wind above picked up speed. This one Mick could feel travel from the bottoms of his feet and rattle his teeth. It resonated throughout the shelter as if a jumbo jet had fired up its turbines inside. The stack of plates they used for almost every meal came crashing down on the floor and shattered into a million pieces.

“
Blasted things,” Chester said, anger lacing his usually placid words. “Everybody watch your feet.” He moved over to where the plates had dropped and bent down. Then Chester being Chester, he lightened up the mood despite the grim reality of the situation. “I’ll have to run down to the store and grab replacements tomorrow.” He smiled.

Then the
storm’s song became louder, closer to a howl, as if warning them what was to come.

“
What’s going on, Dad?” Nate said, now awake and standing. It appeared that this storm was enough to keep him awake, which said more than any words could.

Mick did not answer
. Instead, he listened intently. The hair on his arms stood tall. His heartbeat increased. The storm did not sound like the ones before it had. This storm sounded harsher, more intense. The wind, rather than dying down between gusts, increased in velocity. There were no breaks, points where the storm subsided or simply stopped. The Earth seemed angry; it grumbled from deep down inside, intent on releasing its wrath.

“
What the hell’s that noise?” Greg asked. He looked toward the ceiling, at the thick metal beams as they seemed to sway in place.

The
unnerving sound of the metal twisting and bending reached its climax. It strained under its own weight, fighting against itself to remain intact. What was left of the structure topside, worn down from countless years of abuse, had finally given in.

And then came the crash.

Anything attached to the walls fell. The old florescent lights that had not worked since Impact came crashing down from the ceiling. Like popcorn, they burst on the dark floor one after another, showering all of them in thin glass and sharp plastic. The metal shelving that circled the room dropped from its anchors as if gravity had multiplied tenfold.

“
Daddy!” Kathryn screamed.

He
reached out and pulled her close. “Nate?” It was difficult to see anything. The lamp burned, but the room had filled with particulates from the crash. “Nate!” Mick listened as their only salvation they had known since Impact was ripped away as if a tornado hovered directly over them.

“
I’m here, Dad,” Nate said, coming up on his other side.

“
Are you all right?” Mick asked. Nate nodded. His breathing was fast, his eyes wide with fear. “Stay beside me,” Mick said. He then looked to Kathryn. “You, too. Stay next to me, okay?”

Kathryn
was crying. He wished more than anything that he could help her stop, but she had every right to be doing so. Why should a fourteen-year-old have to suffer through more misery? Where was Chester’s God now?

“
Is everyone all right?” Mick shouted. It had become much more difficult to hear them with the insulated walls breached.

A sudden second crash sounded, much louder than the last and with far deeper repercussions
. Whipping dust poured into the shelter’s room. It bit at Mick’s skin and blurred his vision.

Kathryn and Nate clung to
his sides. Mick’s heart raced. He was the one that cared for these people, protected them. And he did not know what to do. He had not planned for something like this. What is there to do when the planet you rely on for life wants to take it from you?

“
Laurel!” Greg shouted. There was panic in his voice. “Laurel, I need you now!”

Mick could not make out
much in the distance. He squinted, but the room was a mess. Dust swirled around as if they were outside. With Nate and Kathryn still clutching him, Mick slowly shuffled to the far side of the room where Greg was bent down.

Please, no
.

“
Laurel!” Greg shouted again.

“
I’m here,” Laurel said. “What’s—”

A coursing numbness fro
ze Mick in place.

Sarah.

Kathryn screamed. Mick instinctively cupped his daughters head and blocked her eyes. She shouldn’t see what he did. No one should.
This can’t be happening
, he thought. But it was happening. This was real, and there was no way to turn it off.

The last crash
had brought with it one of the large support beams from the structure above. The beam had crashed through the floor, what was once their ceiling, and landed across Sarah’s now motionless body. She was alive, but barely. The beam had crushed her body as if it were made of papier-mâché, resting right below her chest. A thin line of blood streamed from each corner of her mouth.

“
Help me get this off,” Greg said, sliding down next to Sarah.

Sandeep and Chester went to the far side, while
Mick joined Greg.

Greg qui
ckly counted down from three. They all heaved with every fiber of muscle they had. The beam did not budge more than an inch, if that. Greg counted down again. And again they lifted in unison; this time the beam moved even less. When the beam came back down that tiny bit, it made Sarah scream. It was muted and sad, filled with pain. Her scream shot adrenaline through Mick’s body.

Nate slid down next to Mick
. Kathryn ran to the opposite side with Chester and Sandeep. Again, Greg counted down from three. And again, even with the addition of Nate, the beam stayed where it was: across Sarah, firm and unrelenting.

“
Again,” Greg shouted. And again they failed to budge it.

“
Stop,” Sarah said, her voice, soft and distant, mixing with the gurgle of blood from her throat. Her eyelids were halfway closed, and her eyes looked as if they wanted to roll into the back of her head. Despite the storm and the noise it brought, Sarah’s voice echoed in Mick’s mind.

“
Stay with us, hon,” Laurel said through tears, propping her head up as best she could.

Mick
reached down and stroked her cheek with the back of his shaking hand. “It will be okay,” he said, clearly lying to everyone within earshot. “We’ll get you out of here. We just have to …”

Sarah
’s breaths became labored and uneven. She tried to speak again, but nothing came out of her parted mouth. A small trickle of blood dripped from her nose. The drop of blood crept slowly down her cheek. Before the drop hit the floor, Sarah was dead.

The metal girders above them
continued to twist in the wind. There was little time to mourn; no time to feel what Mick could not help but feel. The shelter was falling apart. What had provided a life for them for so long had just taken a bit of it back. Their home, what was left of it, had become a tomb.

Laurel grabbed Kathryn and pulled her tight t
o her chest. They wept together, Kathryn sobbing to the point of losing her breath.

The herd sat around the beam,
dejected and still. Mere hours ago they were all surviving in an inhospitable world; a world they’d thought they had finally figured out how to coexist with. Then that world had flipped upside down again, and their eight had become seven.

Another crash boomed, this one from the other side of the sleeping quarters. Dirt and debris flooded out of the doorway and mixed with the already heavy air wher
e they were, pelting them with whatever could be pushed free.

Mick
reached down with the gentlest touch he could and closed Sarah’s eyelids, which had already begun to build up a small layer of dust.

I
’m so sorry I let this happen, Sarah.

He
felt the tear roll down his cheek and did nothing to stop it. He was sure there would be more.

Mick
looked to his left. The dirt and debris from the last crash cleared. In its wake, he realized that the sleeping quarters were gone, lost beneath tons of twisted metal. And then the stark reality of their situation hit him. Behind the sleeping quarters was the food store. Their water, fuel, and food. Their survival was no longer a guarantee.