Summer of the Apocalypse

Chapter Seventeen FIRST TIME

There are so many of them,” Eric said as another pair of soldiers marched by their hiding place, a pile of wood and brick rubble, the sunken remains of a house next to an intersection. A bent street sign leaning over the cracked sidewalk said “College Ave.” The other sign said “Broadway.” He had an awful premonition of hundreds of men like the ones who had executed the prisoners in the canyon the day before, a whole army overrunning Highwater and Littleton. There’d be no way to hold them back.

“No,” whispered Teach. “I think this is all of them, but they’re surrounding the campus, so it seems like a lot.” The patrol turned onto a path cut through head-high sage that grew between the distinctive red-stoned architecture of the University of Colorado. The building to the right of the path looked like a shell, its doors gone, the glassless windows gaping darkly. The smaller building on the left looked better cared for. Its windows were boarded, and the doors were barred tight. A thinning of the bushes showed where the sidewalk led to the door. In town, the streets were relatively clear of vegetation, the normal grasses pushing through cracks, but sage and greasewood crowded what used to be suburban lawns. On the campus, the growth seemed even wilder. Tough, dark-barked branches pushed against the buildings, choking the spaces between them. Most city trees, of course, thought Eric, died long ago. Boulder, like Denver, had once been covered by beautiful trees, all gone now without constant watering. A thin, mechanical sound drifted to him from somewhere deeper in the campus. It was speech, but high and tinny and he couldn’t make out the words. Someone on a bullhorn, he decided. Eric peered over the top of the rubble. From here, the red brick of the C.U. campus stood out from the dusty green and gray brush. He’d seen little evidence of fire damage in Boulder, which surprised him. Fires swept through the prairies around Littleton every five or six years, and none of the thousands of wood frame houses still stood. Only the most solid of the brick homes and the steel and glass businesses remained relatively unscathed. But here, the city’s empty buildings rattled and clattered and creaked in the breeze, and downed power lines flapped against their lonesome poles. Boulder was a true ghost town. All the damage seemed to be caused by vandalism, wind, rain or the plain old weight of time. “You know what makes me feel better,” Eric said, “is that I haven’t seen anything motorized. They may have guns, but no trucks or tanks.”

Teach grunted. “We’re on foot too, you know.” He scanned the buildings across the street sourly. “The problem is all this brush. It’s so thick. I don’t see but one or two ways through, and if Federal’s got any sense at all, they’re guarded. How are we going to get to your library? And for that matter, the campus is so big. How are we going to find the kids?”

Eric swallowed his fear. Since they’d reached the Boulder city limits, it had been all he could do to resist calling out for Dodge and Rabbit. They were out there somewhere, among the deserted houses, stupidly moving toward whatever goal he’d planted in their brains. “We ought to wait a bit…” said Eric, “…to see their routine. If we can get into any of those,” He waved at the structures across Broadway. “We might be able to make the library. Besides, the best we can do to meet up with the kids is to go to the place they know we’re going to. Either they’re there already, or they will be soon.”

“Okay,” said Teach. “We wait. You watch.” He propped the water skin beneath his head, shut his eyes, and within seconds, seemed to sleep.

Eric crawled a few feet away from Teach to a low spot in the foundation they hid behind. He could see both stretches of the street and the paths between the closest buildings. Rabbit, he thought, Dodge, where are you? He imagined them held captive or shot outright. How could he live knowing he’d brought them to this danger? He should have sent them home when they joined him days ago. Nothing was gained by bringing them. He stared at the backs of his liver-spotted hands, turned them over, made fists of them, and the bony knuckles stood out from the near translucent skin. I’m an old man, he thought. I needed them to be young for me, and, he admitted, closing his eyes, I wanted to be a better grandfather to Dodge than I was a father to Troy. If Dodge could see the books, he’d know. If he could see all the learning man has piled up, he’d know what man is capable of. We don’t have to fall back to the beginning. We can rise again, but we have to do it with him and his generation. Another handful of years, and it will all be too late. The secret is in the books. We find out what is making Littleton sick, then we go on and rebuild. That’s what we’ll do.

He could see in his imagination an older Dodge leading them bravely into the new world. No mistakes this time. It’d be a smarter, happier people who learned from the missteps of the past. But first we’ll have to find them.

The tramp of feet caught his ear, and he slid back a foot, pushing his chin into the dirt. Two more soldiers passed by, turning onto the same path the first two had followed. Ten minutes apart, or so, he thought. Eric jostled Teach. “Now’s the time,” he said.

Instantly alert, Teach rolled to his hands and knees, checked the street himself and nodded. “What’s the plan?”

“We start there.” Eric pointed to the damaged building.

In the basement, mostly by feel, Eric found it. The building’s boiler room had been stripped of almost anything portable. All that remained was junk, and the boilers themselves, two bulbous iron shapes bristling with pipes and dangling wires. The trap door was behind the second boiler. Eric strained to raise it. The metal door moved up an inch, then stopped. Teach slipped his hands beneath the edge and yanked hard with no more luck.

“I’m right,” said Eric. “It’s locked from the other side. We’ll need to pry it open.” Teach broke a four foot length of two-inch pipe from its junction to the boiler. “This’ll give me enough leverage,” he said, balancing the pipe in the middle. “Now I need a thin edge of the wedge.” Eric pulled a short-handled bolt cutter from his pack. “Will this do?” Teach stuck the handle into one end of the pipe, jammed the bolt cutter under the trap door, used a brick as a fulcrum and leaned his weight on the free end of the pipe. The door groaned; something snapped, and Teach flopped to the floor.

Teach handed the bolt cutter to Eric. “Pretty convenient thing to be toting around. No wonder your pack’s so heavy. Any other surprises in there?”

Eric pushed the cutter back in place. “Standard equipment for a scavenger.” Teach only raised his eyebrows when Eric produced a candle lantern from the pack, lit it and climbed down a short ladder into a passage. He paused before stepping to the bottom. The flickering light revealed parallel lines of thickly insulated pipes and conduit reaching into the dark. Water covered the floor, but there was no way to tell how deep it was. Eric looked up. The candle gave Teach’s skin a yellow hue. “Coming?” asked Eric. He took the last step; the water barely lapped over the rubber soles of his hiking boots.

“Do we have to?” asked Teach weakly.

After splashing along for a couple of minutes, ducking their heads beneath low-slung I-beams every ten feet, Teach said, “Will this get us there?”

Eric kept his hand on a conduit next to him. The water wasn’t deep, but the footing was slippery. “It’s not a direct route. This passage ought to take us to the Heating Plant where all the heat and power originated.”

“So, what were those boilers for?”

Eric thought about it. Their steps echoed in the passageway. The air smelled dank, but not dead. He guessed that there must be circulation. “Maybe they’re for back up. I studied the maps and a schematic of C.U., but they didn’t say anything about that.”

They reached an intersection, and Eric stopped. Teach bumped him from behind.

“Where’s this go?” asked Teach.

Eric held up the lantern, but the pale light showed only a few feet of passage. “It wasn’t on the map.” A sign bolted on the wall said, “B-82.”

Eric had always had a good memory for things he’d read, and in his mind’s eye he could see the map of C.U. on his dining room table, the late afternoon sun slanting across it as he placed his finger on each building and looked for its name in the key. He smiled to himself. “It’s to the theater. We started from the basement of the Geology Center. Next to it was Economics. This passage wasn’t on the map, but that’s the theater’s number from the schematic.” Eric pointed to the sign. “If this goes where it ought to, we’ll be underneath the Ekeley Chemical Laboratories Complex in a few hundred yards, which will put us close to the library.”

“The place gives me the creeps. If it weren’t for the kids, you couldn’t have gotten me down a hole like this for a year’s supply of firewood.” Teach’s deep voice rumbled in the dark, but he sounded unsure, a little panicky. Eric gritted his teeth. The reminder of the lost kids made him quiver, and Teach’s nervousness set him on edge. Here, in the service tunnels beneath the campus, Teach looked out of place. Water soaked his soft leather soled moccasins, and goose bumps stood his leg hairs on end. They started forward again, Eric holding the lantern ahead of them, feeling each step carefully, although the floor had not varied and the water had remained a uniform half-inch in depth so far. “It’s a scavenger skill,” said Eric patiently. “For years, we’ve explored the Gone Time places, hunting for supplies, looking for the treasures that had been left behind. I’ve spent thousands of hours in the dark.” They came to a ladder. Eric climbed a few rungs and shown the light on the trap-door above. A huge padlock was snapped shut around a pair of sloppily welded rings to hold the door closed. Here a sign said, “B-19.”

“Right on path,” said Eric. “That’s Chemistry. Arts and Science should be directly ahead, and the library will be on our left.”

Eric moved the light close to the ladder rungs. “See this,” he said and showed Teach how a thin layer of flaky rust coated each step. “The middles are scraped clean, though. Whoever locked the doors did it pretty recently. Probably in the last year. Either somebody is living in the tunnels, or there is one door that’s locked on the outside.”

Teach rubbed his finger on the rung and held it up. “Damp. It would rust in a couple of days. Somebody uses this ladder a lot.”

Eric smiled. “Give me a couple of months and I’ll make a scavenger out of you.” Teach shuddered. “Jackal’s life isn’t for me. Too many poisons. If it’s Gone Time I say leave it lie. Good for cooking fire talk, but don’t play with their toys.”

“You’d rather a bear ate you, or your children died from measles, huh? Are you happy knowing that your expected life span is twenty years shorter than mine?” Suddenly angry, Eric stomped down the corridor, splashing dark splotches against both walls. He felt the blood rising in his face. We’re so close, he thought. The library’s right around the corner, and this… this… caveman doesn’t know why we’re here. Behind him, Teach said evenly, “I’ve heard a lot about the Gone Time. Mostly horror stories I’ve got to tell you. Stuff my parents told me. What Ripple’s found out. Even the things you’ve said. I’ve heard about Gone Time magic, tales I can hardly believe, but you know what I never hear anyone say? That Gone Time people were happy. For all the cars and trains and subways, for all the medicine and telephones and computers, for all the manufacturing and invention and television, I haven’t heard a single word about how happy the Gone Times were. So why don’t you answer your question? Were you happy in the Gone Time? When was the first time you were really happy?”

They pushed on in the dark in the silence punctuated by the hollow slap of their feet on the wet floor, and Erie thought back, and he remembered the first time:

Between conscious and unconscious he drifted, and he was thinking, I’m warm again, and he floated. Slowly he felt himself moving upwards, out of the lethargy and dreaming of sleep, and briefly he thought of going back to the soft blankness, but he didn’t, and slowly he became aware that he was lying on his side. He was wrapped in warmth. It pushed against his back and sides, even over his ears and the top of his head. He breathed in the moisture of his own breath. His head rested on soft, warm cloth. Vaguely, he wondered where he was and how he got here. It was like he’d been sick when he was a child. He’d hide under the blankets with his fevers and chills, and listen to the gentle hiss from the vaporizer, smell the rich penetrating odor of Vick’s Vapor Rub, and he’d stay covered up until the fever broke and he was wet with perspiration. For hours he’d stay wrapped, interrupted only by his mother checking on him. Being sick was no fun, but afterwards, wrapped and warm and tired, he felt content. That’s how he felt now, but he knew he wasn’t a child, and after a while he started to think about what had happened in the last few days: the cave, the long bike ride, the destruction in Golden and the ghost cop, Meg and the basement, wind, the long run from the fire, hail, snow, cold, and Leda. None of these memories worried him. He was just sorting them out lazily, as if they’d slipped out of place, and he needed to file them again.

Where am I? he thought. What does it matter? he answered, and he let his attention drift away again almost back to sleep. His right arm seemed to be trapped, but he didn’t feel energetic enough to move it. His left arm was draped over something, and the weighty softness of cloth pressed around it all. Beneath his left hand, he felt a warm, damp, smooth surface, and he rubbed it gently. Still not awake, sleep like a great, fuzzy presence in his mind, he massaged the surface beneath his hand and it stirred. An arm tightened around him, and he realized he was holding Leda. They were in bed, and he remembered the white bungalow with blue trim, the blue goose with “Welcome” painted on it on the front door. He felt a hand on his back move; fingernails scratched lightly by his shoulder blade, not purposefully, accidently; she was still sleeping. Her forehead rested on his chest, and he could feel her breathing. He pressed against her back, pulling her closer and continued rubbing. Skin rippled under his palm, her backbone a gentle line of bumps, her skin slick with sweat. The tiny hairs at the back of her neck felt like mouse fur. He left his hand there and moved his fingers in tiny motions, stroking lightly, holding her, and gradually, through his drowsiness, he realized they were naked, that she had saved his life with her body warmth. Her chest rested against his own. His left knee lay on top of her knee. This wasn’t what he’d imagined being in bed with a woman would be like. He thought of the scenes from movies he’d seen, the arching, violent couplings; the athletic, frantic gymnastics in film after film, but here he was in bed with Leda, holding the back of her neck, feeling her breath on his skin as she slept, and it felt comfortable and lazy and… and… right. Not even sexual as he’d always thought of it. Just good. He lay like that for a long time. A half-hour or more he guessed.

Then, her hand moved again, rubbing his shoulder blade, and he tightened up. She’s awake, he thought, and this moment will be over. I’m warm and safe and we’ll climb out of bed. She’ll never talk about it. She just had to save my life. That’s all.

But her hand kept moving, and he began to relax again. It was so warm. There was no light at all. He felt as if they’d transported themselves into a different universe, one no larger than the womb of blankets and each other. The only sounds were the sounds of their breath, the rustle of skin on skin. The only smells were the smells of each other, moist, rich human smells. She rubbed one shoulder blade and then the other, and Eric moved his hand down from her neck to rub her shoulder blades, mirroring what she did with her hand, massaging high on her back on one side and then the other; the thin sheen of sweat helped his hand glide effortlessly. For a long time she just rubbed his shoulder blades, working on one gently for minutes, sometimes stopping as if she’d dropped back off to sleep, then switching to the other for more time. Then her hand found larger circles, now high on his side, now reaching all the way around him. Her stomach touched his. Eric followed her lead, letting her hand tell his where to go. Against his chest, in his ear, he could tell her breathing was deeper now. She trailed her fingertips against his backbone, tracing them, bone to bone, from his neck, slowly down his back—his hand did the same; her skin flowed smoothly under his hand—lower and lower until she was in the small of his back rubbing the delicate areas over his kidneys, pulling his stomach against hers with each motion, pulling himself against her, and he was breathing deeply too, not sure if he should be scared or excited, but desperately, desperately sure he never wanted this to end.

Then Leda reached farther until her hand was rubbing his bottom, and he let his hand do the same; she gasped slightly as he passed the dip in the small of her back to mimic her, and she pulled her knee out from under his, pulling him even closer, shifting her legs. She wrapped her leg over the top of his, used her foot against the back of his legs to pull him against her. He panicked, and all his muscles locked up.

“No,” he choked out, his breathing as ragged as if he’d just finished a hundred yard dash. She kept him close. “It’s all right, Eric,” she said between her own gasps. “It’s all right.” And after a moment, he relaxed and let her guide him.

It was the first time he could truly remember being happy.

And it was after the Gone Time was done.

Teach said, “Do you remember?”

Eric looked around. He had lost track of time and the tunnel surprised him. “Have we gone by any other passages?” he said.

Sounding puzzled, Teach said, “Of course not.”

“Good. We have to find the library.”

“I know. You said that.” They splashed on. Teach said, “Are you all right?”

“Just keep your eyes open is all,” Eric snapped. He bit the skin inside his mouth until he tasted a little blood. Getting lost in a memory like that, even a wonderful memory, disturbed him. Concentrate, he thought. Stay in the present.

A few paces later they came to another junction. The sign read, “B-61.”

“Hah,” said Eric. “This is the way.”

The tunnel jogged left, then right. They made the second turn, and a line of lights in the ceiling flicked on, revealing the end of the tunnel and a ladder up.

“Someone knows we’re here,” said Teach.

Eric blew out the candle. “Maybe, maybe not. That’s a motion detector I think.” He pointed to a pair of boxes mounted on the sides of the tunnel. “I tripped it when I crossed between them.”

“Motion detector?”

“It’s an electronic thing. The lights may have gone on automatically. Of course, if the lights go on here, an alarm may have gone off somewhere else.” Looking up the ladder, Eric continued, “You’re right that one door wouldn’t be locked on the inside.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “ This is it,” and started up. Teach followed.

At the top, Eric pushed the trap-door open an inch and peered out. From what he could see, he was in a basement like the one they’d started in. Broken boiler equipment, moldy-looking boxes bursting at the seams, and a flight of stairs leading to a shut door. The difference was that this basement was lit by electric light. Eric wondered where the power came from as he opened the trap door the rest of the way. Teach was just climbing out when the door at the top of the stairs opened revealing an older woman in a white smock, who was saying as she stepped through, “It’s about time you got back….” She looked at them a second, mouth open, screeched, and slammed the door in Teach’s face as he bounded up the stairs.

Teach grabbed the handle and twisted it to no avail. He threw his shoulder into the panel, but it didn’t even rattle. He sat on the top stair. “Now what?” he said.

“I guess we wait,” said Eric. “It’s their library.”

He heard a voice on a bullhorn coming from outside the building, the voice he couldn’t understand earlier. It chanted the same phrase over and over without intonation, almost without intelligence. “Give up your books for the good of the people. Give up your books for the good of the people. Give up your books for the good of the people….”