Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

III

In back of the cabin was an opening four feet high and five feet wide that led into the cave. Mortimer stopped at the gun locker first, took the keys hung on a string around his neck, picked out the correct one and opened the locker. He reloaded the police special.

It was a big gun locker, long guns on top, ammunition and pistols in the drawers below. He had two more police specials in case something happened to the first and a thousand rounds of.38 ammunition sealed against the elements. He had a twelve-gauge pump shotgun, a lever-action.30- 06, a.223 Ruger Mini-14 with two thirty-round banana clips. There was also a 9 mm Uzi that Mortimer had converted to full auto with online information, when there had been such a thing as the Internet.

Mortimer had maxed three credit cards stocking the cave with canned goods and medical supplies and tools and everything a man needed to live through the end of the world. There were more than a thousand books along shelves in the driest part of the cave. There used to be several boxes of pornography until Mortimer realized he’d spent nearly ten days in a row sitting in the cave masturbating. He burned the dirty magazines to keep from doing some terrible whacking injury to himself. There were also books on survival, books showing how to use the many tools he’d brought, books revealing the secrets of the land, how to skin and dress game, how to produce various medicines from plants and animals.

In the farthest reaches of the cavern, an underground stream ran through a deep chamber. Mortimer had secured a ladder down to the chamber and had rigged a system of buckets and pulleys to haul water. The cabin/cave combination was fortress, refuge, sanctuary and home. He had been relatively comfortable and safe these nine years.

Nine years. It seemed an impossible amount of time.

He dug into a cabinet and came out with a shaving mirror. He didn’t shave anymore and had put the mirror away. He took the mirror out to the cabin window so he could see himself in the light. He gasped at his reflection, the haunted eyes glaring red-rimmed from the bushy hair, and beard and eyebrows gone awry. He remembered he was now thirty-eight years old, but he looked like some old, wild hermit, streaks of gray in his black hair and beard.

Many of the books Mortimer had stashed in the cavern were novels. He’d anticipated having a lot of time on his hands. In Treasure Island, there was a character named Ben Gunn who’d been stranded on an island and had gone half insane lusting for cheese. Mortimer imagined that’s how he looked. No wonder the stranger had swung the deer rifle on him.

He fetched water up from the stream and heated it with a Coleman propane stove. He didn’t have much propane left, but he didn’t build fires in the cave because there wasn’t any way for the smoke to vent. He rummaged the storage boxes until he found a disposable razor and a can of shaving gel. Rust ringed the bottom of the can.

He splashed warm water on his face and lathered up, but the razor balked at his thick and tangled beard. He went back into the cabinet and found scissors. He cut away the beard in big patches. The hair collected around his ankles. He tried the razor again and shaved close, nicking himself around the chin. He wiped the blood with the bottom of his shirt. He cut his hair with the scissors. He surprised himself by doing a good job. Nine years had taught him patience with tedious tasks.

He went into the cabinet one more time and found the brush. He looked at it a moment like it was some alien artifact. In relearning these simple acts-shaving, brushing his hair-he was really learning to be human again. He planned to go down the mountain, and he was getting himself ready.

Mortimer brushed his hair and looked at his new sleek reflection and considered what he’d take. He would take the police special and the lever-action rifle. He wanted to protect himself but didn’t want to appear hostile and thought the Uzi might be a bit much. He’d need food and a medical kit, but he’d also need to travel light. When first outfitting his refuge, he’d flirted with the idea of a horse, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it alive. He’d sold insurance in a previous life and knew little of animal husbandry.

So he’d start down the mountain on foot. He’d go in the morning at first light with all his gear. He also decided to take three bottles of booze from the stock he’d kept unopened. Trade goods, if there was still such a thing as trade.

Trade goods. Weapons. He would not be able to get quickly back up the mountain if he needed something. He decided to pack the sled, extra weapons and the two cases of Johnnie Walker Blue, a third case of Maker’s Mark. He could hide the sled at the bottom of the mountain, retrieve whatever he needed.

He realized there would be no McDonald’s, no Holiday Inn, no Exxon station. Traveling would not be a lark. He did not know what it would be like except that it wouldn’t be the same. He could not guess what awaited him down the mountain, but it was time to find out.

He dabbed at the blood on his chin.