He’s afraid the door is locked, him and me both.
My dad is on my mom’s other side now, and takes her weight from me. Being stronger than me, he has a better hold on her and she doesn’t have to do as much. It reads on her face that she can relax a little, and I feel bad that I’m not strong enough to help. Relinquishing custody I turn around and race towards the steps and to Gabe, who is just reaching for the handle to open it. I’m beside him in a flash, and I don’t even remember running up the steps, when he turns the knob and pulls it open with no resistance. He sighs in relief, and I pretty much do the same only second after. It’s almost completely dark outside now, and with no street or car lights, and it’s difficult to see anything inside.
When my parents make it up the steps and are right behind us, Gabe finally takes the first step inside.
Chapter Seventy Five
Not caring that I can’t see Gabe as he goes into the darkness of the City Hall, I literally follow him blindly. I can sense my parents following behind and I only walk a couple steps inside, when my dad shuts the door closed after him which plunges us into complete darkness. It’s silent in here except for the shuffling of what I hope is Gabe’s feet and not some unexpected visitor. The shuffling stops and it turns into a ruffling and then the sound of a match being lit. That is pretty accurate assumption because the room is filled with a bright flickering light, and I see Gabe in front of me holding onto a flare.
Huh, I totally forgot we had those, good thing he didn’t.
With the light, I can see where we are now and I notice that it’s a wide room that resembles that of a lobby. There is a large desk at the back wall, and a staircase to the left. To the right are a closed door and a long hallway right next to one another. I’m just thinking where we should go from here, when Gabe pulls something out of his jeans pocket. It’s a folded manila envelope, and I realize it’s the letter we got from Randy. Sure enough, Gabe opens it up and pulls out the map. He holds it up so my parents and I can check it out too. My dad I lean over him to get a better look, and my mom closes her eyes, just happy to not be moving yet. The map shows the layout of the City Hall and it has arrows indicating where to go from here. It tells us to go down the hall and take the second door on the left.
This should lead us to the basement stairs.
“
It’s quiet in here so I don’t think the dead have breached it, but don’t put away the weapons just in case.” Gabe tells us as he puts the map back in his pocket with the envelope.
Gabe leads the way then, and we all stick close to one another as we make our way to the hallway entrance. I am so close to him, that I reach out and latch onto his arm and he doesn’t make me let him go. My parents shuffle along behind us, and I’m grateful that my mom is still awake. Gabe approaches it cautiously with me in tow and lifts the flare high. I have the feeling of being stuck in The Shinning again and I really expect to see those creepy twins coming towards us in the never ending hallway.
But in reality, it’s just a long empty hallway filled with closed and open doors.
Together, we all start down the hall and before we know it we are right in front of door number two on the left. Gabe reaches the door with his free hand not in my grasp, and twists the knob. It rattles like it might be locked and I hold my breath, and pray that it’s not. Thankfully, the door pushes open with a great skin crawling squeak. We peer into the darkness, and even though he lifts up the flare again, we don’t see that far down the steps that are there. Not seeing anything malicious like movement as we peer down into the darkness, I know we can’t stand here forever for the light to move by itself so that we won’t be surprised.
With nothing else to do, Gabe guides me down the steps and each one creaks under the pressure of our feet. The steps are the old style, where the back is completely open so that you can see behind the stairs and down below. When I have the flash of hands grabbing me, I know I’ve seen to many scary movies, but it doesn’t stop me from tightening my hold onto Gabe. Above us, dad is taking his time so that mom isn’t jostled too much, but I can see the wear it’s taking on her no matter how slow they go. We reach the bottom finally, and with the light of the flare expanding to give us a better view I see what the basement looks like in the most import building in our city.
And you know what?
It kind of looks like a dustier version of the one we have at home, so much for our tax dollars being put to good use. The only difference between my own is that this one’s walls are completely surrounded with cement. There are also some file boxes littering around everywhere and some things that I think might have been clothes at some point, but now just resemble torn rags.
We huddle together in the middle of the basement, and Gabe spins in a circle waving the flare around the room, so that we can find where to go next. He goes almost in a complete circle, when I stop his movements. Besides being dizzy, I point towards the back of the room where a door is slowly opening as we all just stand there is shock staring at it.
I swear my heart stops for half a beat, and I refrain myself from jumping into Gabe’s arms.
I do however, I raise the ax up in my hand in preparation for whatever is about to come through. Gabe pulls away from me then, and I’m about to yell at him, but I don’t, because he is pulling the shotgun around and aims it at the door. He steps in front of me and I back up so that my mom is between my dad and me. It feels like forever while we wait for the door to fully open, and I want in the worst way to just run over and slam it shut. I don’t think I could handle any more of the crazy today. I’m so mentally and physically tired, that it’s not even funny, not that it ever was of course.
But you know what I mean.
When the door finally opens all we can see is darkness from within at first, and then a light shines and blinds us. Or it does me anyway. The light lowers from our eyes, and when it does, whoever is holding it steps forward. Now my heart really does skip a beat.
Because it’s the guy Randy we met from the apartments.
Looks like there really IS underground tunnels, and they really ARE all hiding in them. Go figure. Randy still looks about the same as I remember him being, with his light eyes and shaggy brown hair. Though I don’t remember him being so large, meaning he seems very intimidating standing in a small doorway. It doesn’t help that he is still pointing a wicked looking gun at us.
Gabe lowers the shotgun, and turns to me with a wide grin, but my eyes are all for Randy and his gun. Does he not remember us? I guess he didn’t really know us all that well, and Noah isn’t even with us now. But he smirks suddenly, and lowers his gun to his side.
“
It’s about fucking time you guys got here. And with different company I see.” His posture relaxes visibly, even though I can tell it must bother him that we’re not with Noah or even Claire and Sam anymore.
Looks like we all need to have a nice little pow-wow and catch up?
Chapter Seventy Six
Randy begins to back up, and when he turns to walk away, I realize he means for us to follow him already. And why do I suddenly feel like Alice getting ready to fall down the rabbit hole? Well, at least I know what to kind of expect, and I know Alice certainly didn’t, point for me. Gabe doesn’t hesitate to follow after him, and I don’t want to be that far from Gabe, so I follow them too. I hear my parents coming after me, and we all get led down the dim narrow corridor, which turns into another set of stairs. The door at our backs slams shut, making me jump a good foot in the air, and I would have fallen headfirst down the steps if Gabe did grab my waist.
“
Latch the hook on the door there, if you don’t mind will you.” Randy calls over his shoulder, as he is already reaching the bottom of the stairs.
From behind me, my dad latches the hook around the lock at the top of the door.
I don’t know if it’s good or bad that it’s secured. But that isn’t that big as Gabe’s flare is dimming more now, and pretty soon all the light we will have is Randy’s flashlight. This doesn’t sit well with me, and my skin crawls with the fear of being in the dark. Randy is at the bottom of the stairs now and as we get closer, I can see that there is another door made out of a heavy looking stele. When all of us are squeezed into the small landing at the bottom and directly in front of the door, Randy raises his hand and bangs on it.
The sound radiates in the small space, and I don’t even have time to wonder why we are waiting, when the door opens inward and I see another familiar face. It’s Randy’s partner Brady from the apartments. He looks about the same as before too, with his dark eyes and brown hair. He seems to hold himself a little more with assurance, something he didn’t have the last time we met. Or maybe I’m just overthinking and he is just in bad mood.
He doesn’t notice the rest of us at first, as his eyes are all for Randy.
“
Did you find what was making all that noise up there?”
Randy doesn’t say anything, rather he steps aside as the space allows, and reveals us to him. If it’s possible, his eyes go so wide I swear they are going to fall of his face.
“
Well I’ll be. Dan is going to shit a brick.”
Did he just say Dan?
So that means my brother is here and he is well enough to complain. I seriously have to stop myself from charging past them and screaming for him. Instead I cling to Gabe’s side as Randy chuckles at Brady, and steps up beside him so that they are both in the small door way.
He reaches up and squeezes the back of his neck with a smirk on his face. “Yeah, I know he is.”
He immediately walks into the room without saying another word or even looking back to make sure we follow. So, we do the only thing we can do, we follow into a new room. The first thing I notice as I walk inside is that it’s brighter in here and not from a flashlight or candles. Looking up I notice that there are strings of Christmas lights circling all along the walls, and they are all on and blinking. This brings me to the second thing I notice, which is a vibrating generator across the room, that is obviously giving them power. The third thing I notice is that there is actual furniture in the room.
And I mean home goods furniture, like a sofa, loveseat, recliner and even a coffee table.
“
Nice digs.” Gabe says under his breath.
I have to agree with him, the entire room is pretty good sized, and with its low ceilings and cement walls, it actually feels kind of nice. Good to know they are all living in comfort.
We don’t stay in here for long though, and before I have time to take it all in, Randy is already heading for an open doorway that looks like it leads into another room like this one.
“
We haven’t been here for very long, but we have managed to swipe some stuff from the place upstairs.” Randy says over his shoulder as he hurries into the other room.
Still sticking close to one another, we pace after Randy, but when Gabe tenses in my arms I know we can’t keep playing show and tell. We have to tell Randy about the bombs coming and sooner rather than later too. Randy crosses into the new room with Gabe and I right on his heels, and Gabe clears his throat and I have the feeling he is about to take the plunge in confessing.
“
We have something that needs to be discussed, it’s kind of important.” Gabe admits.
Randy turns around and faces us with an uncomfortable expression on his face, and Brady is right beside him now looking about the same. They are both blocking the opening of the room, but it really doesn’t matter since we are about to tell them that the world is ending as we know it. I give Gabe’s arm a comforting squeeze, like trying to tell him to go ahead and that it’ll be alright. I don’t know if that is even true though, because my parents are right next to me now and my mom looks worse than she did before. But we all wait patiently for Gabe to explain, and I think the guys sense that it’s a difficult situation, because they don’t rush him.
“
We ended up making it to the Collisee, and they got word that air bombs are flying in sometime tomorrow to eradicate the dead.”
He finishes by taking a deep breath, and all I can do is hold mine, as we wait for their reaction to the whole thing. Brady starts right in by swearing and shaking his head like his disbelief will make it not true, but Randy remains calm. It’s almost creepy how calm he is, and all he does is just stares down Gabe, like he too is testing the truth in the matter.
He must believe it though, because he just nods his head once.
“
Well, it’s a good thing we’re in a bomb shelter then isn’t it?”
Then he just turns around and makes his way into the room, with Brady following after him still in shock. We finally get a good view of the room now, and it pretty much looks identical to the one we just left, minus the generator though. Another thing that is different is that there are two sets off hallways that lead to the left and the right of the room and there are other people in here. They are all staring at us with wide eyes as soon as Randy walked away. A familiar figure amongst them sticks out to me and my heart swells at the sight of him. No it’s not an ex-boyfriend or anything, it’s my brother.
And if you have been through all that I have just to see him again, your heart would swell like the Grinch seeing the Who’s in Whoville singing at Christmas morning.