His brother, Jordan—the technical programming brain behind their small security intelligence firm—marched into the office, muttering beneath his breath.
Jack prepared himself for what he knew was coming… another tirade about Jon, their youngest sibling.
“I asked Jon to retrieve some vegetables from the garden at 0800 this morning,”
Jack hid his smile. It was hard to take his brother seriously when he was sporting such a pretty apron.
“The garden is a stone’s throw away from the bunker,”
“Perhaps he took a walk.”
“
Perhaps
to look for the keys he lost?”
Jack rubbed his temples at the reminder. Thanks to their youngest brother, they couldn’t get into the helicopter—at least not without breaking a window or a door handle. The fuel cap was also locked.
When Jon had fessed up to misplacing the keys, Jack hadn’t been too concerned, thinking they would turn up. But that had been a week ago, and while they had recently stocked up on food and supplies, they would need to go back to civilization sooner or later.
The joys of living in the middle of a wildlife refuge
.
“Tell me,”
“I don’t know,” Jack replied evenly. “As the middle child, are you overly sensitive? Do you often feel neglected and unloved?”
“Talking about me?” Jon strolled into the office, a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Jack was just defending your sorry ass again.”
“Whoa!” Jon held up his hands in surrender. “No need to be hostile. The vegetables are in the kitchen.”
“What good are they to me now, you dumb fuck? The stew is already done and lunch is on the table. I’m so tired of your irresponsibility. You can’t even take care of a simple task without running off like a little cub chasing a bumblebee.”
“Thank you for the reprimand, mother bear.” He turned to Jack. “Don’t I do my job? I’m the one who breaks into the systems. Without me, his monitoring programs would be fucking worthless.”
“You’re a two-bit hacker,”
“You son of a—” Jon let out an ear piercing roar.
To Jack’s surprise,
So much for the middle child being the peacemaker.
Before his eyes, his brothers’ nails elongated as did their faces, their noses becoming snouts. Fur spouted and the sound of tearing cloth filled the office as their bodies began contorting, gaining the towering bulk and muscle mass known to Kodiak bears.
“Enough!” Jack bellowed, hitting the desk with his fist. “Both of you! You know how I feel about shifting in the bunker.”
Fur, fangs and claws instantly retreated in favor of ordinary human features.
“I think we all need to go down to the stream and cool off,” Jack growled.
Jon gave a side glance. “But I don’t want—”
“I wasn’t asking.” Jack rose to his feet, locking his computer terminal.
“That is why we have a microwave.” Jack said as he headed toward the doorway.
When his brothers didn’t follow, he looked over his shoulder in silent query.
Jon shrugged. “Who’s going to stay behind and watch the bunker?”
“Yeah, remember?”
“We have no spares for the front entry?”
Jack held up his hand. “I think we’ll be okay.”
They both stared at him like he’d sprouted two heads.
“Who are you and where is my anal retentive brother?” Jon asked.
Jack allowed himself to smile. “We’ll hike to the river in human form, shift when we get there. On the way, we’ll enjoy the peace of the Kodiak landscape and discuss the animosity that’s going on between you two—then we’ll resolve it. Go get dressed so we can leave.”
Oriana thought she heard the echoing bang of a heavy metal door closing in the distance. She held her breath and willed her ears to perk up. Voices, though far away, floated through the mist.
Wait? Is it just my imagination, a delusion brought on by fatigue and hunger? Or could there really be people out here?
Not willing to leave it to chance, she sprinted toward the faint sounds, her body surging with renewed energy. The voices—if real—could belong to backpackers or hunters, and if that was the case, she needed to hurry. They’d be on the move and she needed to catch up to them before they got too far ahead of her to track.
She ignored her body’s fatigue and forced herself on, running against a chilly breeze that hindered her momentum and quickly sapped what little strength she had. But the further she traveled, the worse things got. The very ground began to work against her, inclining beneath her feet while tree roots and the other flora snagged her legs and tangled around her ankles, tripping her up.
The combination of obstacles made it seem as if she was running through molasses.
Oriana leaned forward and urged her protesting legs to navigate the upslope, but it was of no use. She collapsed on her hands and knees, gasping for air.
“Wait! Help!” she cried, but it came out as a raspy croak, her voice stolen by overexertion.
Tears burned her eyes as the bleakness of the situation ate at her, but she couldn’t give up. She had to keep going. She was a fighter.
She began clambering up the slope once more, her fingers clawing at the slick ground to pull her weight up while her toes dug into the damp soil so she wouldn’t backslide.
Only a little further to the crest.
Endless minutes passed before she finally reached the top.
She scuttled across and the peered down the other side of the hill. Then, she blinked hard to be sure she hadn’t totally lost her mind.
Below was a clearing. While the fully blooming garden was of interest to her griping stomach, it was what sat at the opposite end of the glade had her heart blossoming with hope. Hidden underneath a canopy of camouflage was a helicopter.
Oriana slowly crawled to her feet, her elation making the painful effort unworthy of notice. But on the first step of her descent, her foot slipped. Momentarily airborne, her ass slammed onto the ground and down she went, sliding toward her salvation.
“Do you hear that?”
Jack neatly laid his clothes on a boulder. “What?”
“I think I hear screaming.”
There was a giant splash and water rained upon them.
They both glared at the river.
Jon thrashed around, oblivious to the frowns they sent his way. “Fuck, it’s cold!” He then shifted, his body contorting and enlarging as fur sprouted.
“It was probably just a screeching bird,” Jack murmured.
Shrieking like a kid stuck on some sadistic theme park ride, the world passed in painful smears of green and brown. Suddenly she hit a level point then tumbled sideways.
She was airborne again, freefalling.
Oriana grunted with the jarring impact, the hard landing literally stealing the breath from her lungs.
Stunned, she laid there, unmoving.
Though it was slow in coming, her mind finally registered, took inventory of her body, and reported. Her lungs kicked in and she gasped, but had trouble inhaling. Darkness clouded her vision.
She realized she was laying face first in the dirt.
Turning her head, she sputtered, trying to remove the grass, leaves and soil from her mouth.
Fuck. Did I really just fall down a hill?
Rising onto her elbows, she blinked a couple of times to clear the debris out of her eyes before she fully opened them. First thing she saw was a doormat with bold black print.
Wipe Your Paws Please.
Her gaze moved up from the doormat to the concrete bordered alcove, where she could see a metal door a couple of feet inside the thick cement entranceway.
Fighting off a wave of dizziness, Oriana climbed to her knees and crawled over to the heavy steel door, placing her hand on it. It was thick, old, and had letters stenciled on the surface.
“Property of the
It was a bomb shelter. Or a nuclear bunker. Maybe the entrance to some secret missile silo.
Maybe the whole site is some abandoned remnant of World War II, or even the Cold War era.
No, not abandoned. She had heard the metal door slam, had heard voices.
Oh well, she didn’t care either way. All she really cared about was finding a radio so she could call for help.
Using the handle on the door, Oriana began pulling herself up, only to fall into the wall when the handle gave beneath her weight. The door clicked and moved slightly.
She climbed to her feet, ignoring the stabbing pain in her ankle. She positioned herself in front of the steel barrier, and with both hands, tugged on the handle. The heavy door groaned and creaked as it slowly opened, inch by excruciating inch. With her strength quickly depleting, she stopped pulling once there was enough room for her to slide in.
Sucking in her stomach and turning to her side, she squeezed herself through the small gap, the hard metal scraping her stomach and back. She nearly stumbled to her knees once she finally cleared the tight opening.
She found herself in a dimly illuminated concrete and stone tunnel.
“Hello?”
Other than her voice echoing through the passageway, there was no response. The single light bulbs spaced on the ceiling every ten or so feet flickered, unnerving her more than the oppressive silence, reminding her of a creepy scene from a horror movie.
Shaking off the chills that shuddered up her spine, she touched the metal tubing on the wall beside her, then let her gaze follow the piping down the length of the barely lit passage until it made an abrupt left and disappeared around the corner.
“Wire conduit.”
It had to lead somewhere. Perhaps a control room—one with a radio.
Oriana glanced over her shoulder. She would leave the heavy door open, just in case. She didn’t want to get trapped inside, and if she needed to make a quick exit for whatever reason, she wouldn’t have to worry about messing with it.
On that decision, she limped forward, using the wall to guide her as she forced her feet to propel her deeper into the creepy bunker.
Reaching the turn, she stopped and pressed herself against the inner wall. After taking a deep breath for fortitude, she peeked around the corner. To her surprise, there was another door, this one made of wood. Strangely, this new entrance looked as if it belonged on the front step of a cabin.
Oriana moved away from the wall and approached the door. Not knowing what else to do, she knocked and waited.
Nothing.
She tried the doorknob. It gave under her hand’s pressure and the door shifted slightly ajar, allowing the soft glow of light to pour out the crack. Inhaling sharply, she froze in place, her heart thumping wildly in her chest while her ears strained to pick up any noise that might indicate what lay behind the wood panel.
“Hello? Anyone in here? I’m coming in.”
When no one responded, she pushed the door all the way open.