The Last Place on Earth (10 page)

Flashlight in hand, I returned to the fake-mossy section of the wall, turned the handle, and pushed open the door. The narrow beam revealed a small vestibule, about the size of an elevator. To my surprise, there was another door straight ahead, set in the middle of a concrete wall, about a foot off the ground.

I hoisted the guitar over my shoulder and stepped into the tiny space, thinking,
At least the concrete lining means the walls won't cave in.
At least I hoped that was what it meant. The heavy door shut behind me. Panicked, I dropped Henry's guitar on the ground and turned back to the door. Tiny flashlight in one hand, I tugged on the knob, relieved when it turned and the door opened back up to the hole. Gently, I let the door close again and made my way across the space.

The far door had what looked like a metal steering wheel for a handle. I balanced the flashlight on the ground, pointing straight up. From that angle, the light was pretty useless, but no way was I going to immerse myself in total darkness.

Using both hands (and grunting from the effort), I tried turning the handle to the left. When that didn't work, I reversed directions. The wheel gave way, resisting at first and then suddenly—

Click.

The door in front of me hadn't opened. No, the sound came from behind. I grabbed the little flashlight and stumbled over Henry's guitar on my way back to the first door, the one that led to the hole. This time, the knob didn't turn. I had locked myself in.

My entire body began to shake as thoughts ran through my brain.
Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic … even though you are trapped inside a little tomb of a room with no food or water.

A scream began to bubble its way up my throat.

Don't scream.… There is no guarantee how long the air down here will last.… You can't waste a single molecule.

I returned to the far door, stumbling over the guitar again, and put the flashlight on the ground, not bothering to balance it but just letting it spin on its side. Hands shaking, I jerked the round handle to the right, fully expecting the resistance I had encountered before, but it unlocked and swung toward me so fast, the force almost knocked me to the ground.

“Hello?” I called into the darkness ahead. Of course no one answered, but the sound of my own voice provided some comfort. The buzzing was louder here than it had been in the anteroom.

I flicked the little beam around the space in front of me and stepped inside. On the wall next to the door, something looked like a light switch. I flicked it up, heard a buzz even louder than the one coming from outdoors, and …
on
. It didn't just look like a light switch; it was a light switch. The buzzing sound came not from killer bees but from a generator. The sudden brightness hurt my eyes, but after a few blinks they adjusted.

Ahead of me lay a long, white tubular room. Built-in bunk beds provided sleeping space for eight, while a table with bench seats provided seating for four. There was a built-in desk and a compact kitchenette with a little stove, a little sink, a compact microwave oven, and a fridge that, sadly, turned out to be empty. Next to the kitchenette, a wide-screen TV took up most of a wall. I pushed a button, but nothing happened.

With its curved walls and built-in everything, the room looked like something you'd see on a submarine or a spaceship—not that I've ever seen a submarine or a spaceship, but Henry and I watched a lot of movies. For the record, I've never had any great desire to go inside a submarine or spaceship, but after being trapped inside the little elevator/coffin anteroom, the tubular room was one heck of an upgrade.

Open shelves lined every free inch of wall space. Mostly, there was food: powdered milk, powdered eggs, bags of beans, canned vegetables, tuna, chicken, and sausages. There were barrels of rice, flour, sugar, and assorted spices and seasoning packets, along with an unopened bottle of Sriracha sauce and an enormous ziplock bag filled with Taco Bell salsa packets.

I couldn't imagine what I'd do with any of that, so I was relieved when some cardboard boxes, stacked on the highest shelves, turned out to be filled with dehydrated meal pouches: lasagna and stroganoff and jambalaya and much, much more.

But what I really needed right now was water. I turned the tap on the little sink. It vibrated, gurgled, and spewed water at a surprisingly high pressure. An open shelf above held plastic cups. I took one and filled it, closed my eyes, and sniffed. I smelled nothing—which meant nothing. Maybe the water was okay to drink. And maybe it teemed with microbes or radon or arsenic.

But my body needed fluids, and unless I drained some liquid from the canned corn, it was tap water or nothing. I downed the water in a few big gulps, refilled the cup, and drank more. It tasted a little dusty, a little metallic, but at least it was cold.

My thirst quenched, I examined the rest of the provisions. There were batteries, iodine tablets, propane canisters, medicine packets, hydrogen peroxide, and bandages in varying sizes. There was glue, paper, plastic bags, twisty ties, wire, string, and burlap. There were books and matches, needles and thread, and so much more. It was like I'd stumbled into an episode of
Hoarders: Subterranean Edition.

At the far end, beyond shelves stuffed with sheets, towels, pillows, and blankets, a narrow door opened to a spectacularly small toilet and shower room.

What was this place? Some kind of nuclear bomb shelter? I thought those had gone out of style years ago. Maybe it was a hermit house, though surely the hermit would have turned up by now.

A writing pad sat on the corner of the desk. Only now did I notice that it was covered with unfamiliar writing.

Welcome! And make yourself comfortable.

You have plenty of food, and the air is clean.

TV needs to be plugged in. No cable but lots of DVDs in lower cabinet.

Water is probably okay to drink, though you should add iodine tabs to be safe.

Enjoy your stay.

“Hello?” I called out, but of course no one answered me.

I hadn't simply fallen in a hole. Someone had been expecting me. I had been lured out here in the middle of nowhere, led to a trap, and then shut in darkness until I found my way into this underground prison.

Henry wouldn't do this to me. But someone who knew Henry did, someone who knew he could be used against me. What did that person want from me? A hundred old news clips flashed through my brain: girls who went off one day and simply disappeared—some forever, and others for what felt like forever, presumed dead while being held captive by some lunatic. At least if the tap water turned out to be contaminated enough to kill me, I could knock “long-term captivity” off my list of things to worry about.

It was so cold in this underground tomb, and I was so frightened. I retrieved the guitar from the anteroom and shut the spaceship's door behind me. I heard a click and yanked on the door—once again, I had locked myself in. I could only hope I was locking my jailers out.

I pulled a blanket from the cupboard, wrapped it around myself, and curled up on the couch, fully intending to stay awake, to watch the door, to protect myself from my captors. But within minutes, I was fast asleep.

 

Fourteen

WHEN I WOKE
up, the scrape on my arm stung, my ankle ached, and I was still imprisoned underground. But I was alive, and that was something. The long room was much brighter than before. A quick check revealed a series of solar tubes in the ceiling—narrow reflecting pipes that ran up to the earth's surface, sneaking in tiny splashes of daylight. Maybe other tubes were letting in air from above.

Or maybe I'd use up all available oxygen and suffocate down here. That was another possibility.

My stomach growled. I pushed myself to my feet, careful not to put too much weight on my injured ankle, and limped over to the food cabinets. I climbed onto the desk chair and pulled down the cardboard box with the premade meals, going with a southwestern omelet, which I made even more southwestern by dousing it with three packets of Taco Bell fire sauce.

From the bathroom shelves I retrieved a surprisingly fluffy white towel. At home, our towels dated back to before I was born, and all softness had long since been washed out. But the fluffy towels didn't make me happy because remembering the scratchy towels at home made me think of my mother and brother and whether I'd ever see them again. Such an enormous knot of panic lodged in my chest that I began yanking things out of the closet with a new vengeance, just to get my mind off my situation.

Behind the towels, some black knit fabric turned out to be several pairs of drawstring pants and long-sleeved T-shirts. I took the smallest pair, and shoved the rest back in the closet. Then I dug around some more until I found a bar of soap and a comb.

In the tiny bathroom, I shut the door behind me. The shower was an odd contraption, with no drain, just a big metal pan to collect the water underneath. It made sense once I realized that the toilet would flush only after water had been deposited into the tank.

But that wasn't the worst of it. The smell of iron and sulfur that filled the room when I turned on the water wasn't the worst of it, either. Nor was the lousy water pressure. No, the biggest problem was that the shower had
no hot water
. Had my body been just a little less encrusted with blood and dirt, I would have turned off the tap and just changed into the black stretch clothes, but I had to clean my scrapes and get the dust and soil out of my hair.

By the time I had scrubbed every inch of myself with Ivory soap, I was shivering so hard I almost stumbled climbing out of the icy metal bucket. Cold, soapy water sloshed on the grainy concrete floor.

Once I'd dried off (the towel really was nice), I applied antibiotic ointment to the scrape on my arm and covered it with several large Band-Aids—not Hello Kitty, but they would have to do. Then I wrapped an Ace bandage around my ankle, looping the stretchy flesh-colored fabric around the bottom of my foot.

The black knit clothing was too wide and too long, but it was a relief to get out of my shorts and T-shirt. Further rooting around in the linen closet turned up a stash of black socks, which I slipped onto my icy feet. Weirdly, my black outfit made me feel not just warmer, but better, more secure, and braver. Like a ninja.

I returned to the long, white room. There was really nothing for me to do but wait, even if I didn't know what I was waiting for. And to stay down here without going completely insane meant I'd have to stay busy. I went to the shelves crammed with books and papers and pulled out a booklet.

Beekeeping in the 21st Century.
Okay, that was unexpected. I pulled out another.
Herbal Remedies.
And another.
How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse
.

Peter would love that one.

I settled on the couch with the zombie book and began to read.

 

Fifteen

THE DAY PASSED.
And then another. And another. No one came to rescue me, but no one came to maul or mutilate me, either, so it was a wash … sort of. This subterranean exile couldn't go on forever. Peter would have told the authorities I was missing. Search crews would have spread out all over the forest. They would find me. It was just a matter of time.

I thought about school and all the things I was missing. An essay revision in English. A class party in Spanish. A chapter test in history, and another in math. I never imagined I could miss late nights doing geometry homework, stressed out because I was barely pulling a B and because I'd never catch up on my sleep.

My daily routine was the only thing that kept me from completely freaking out. If I didn't think more than an hour or two ahead, I could get through this. After all, I had light. I had water. I had surprisingly tasty food. (Having grown up in a family that didn't cook, my standards were pretty low.) Most important, my air showed no signs of running out, which made me think there must be some kind of ventilation system in place.

This, then, was my schedule:

When the light from the solar tubes woke me up, I got out of bed. I pulled down one of the cardboard boxes and chose my meals for the day. After eating breakfast and cleaning my dishes, I heated water on the stove, which I'd add to the shower basin. After that first morning, I'd sworn off the torture of cold showers, opting instead for warm sponge baths with the quickest possible cold rinse at the end.

After bathing, it was on to inventory. I had no idea how long I'd be down here before my rescuers came. (
When
they came, I told myself again and again and again. Not
if
.) I needed to know what food and supplies were available. Besides, taking inventory required complete concentration, which took my mind off things like suffocation, dehydration, and aliens intent on medical experiments.

By day three, the inventory was complete. There were tons of miscellaneous supplies, including scissors, hammers, screwdrivers, sewing supplies, bandages, tape, tarps, lanterns, propane tanks, and fire extinguishers. There were ten rolls of cinnamon-flavored dental floss, which seemed excessive.

As for the food, I recorded the following:

•
Premade individual meals:
72 (and diminishing daily)

•
Rice:
10 lbs. white, 10 lbs. brown

•
Pasta:
9 boxes

•
Dried beans, assorted:
20 lbs.

•
Flour:
10 lbs.

•
Sugar, Salt:
5 lbs. each

•
Dry yeast:
40 packets

•
Olive oil:
5 lbs.

•
Canola oil:
5 lbs.

•
Oats, Cornmeal:
5 lbs. each

•
Dehydrated eggs:
10 lbs.