A curb ran along the bottom edge, and I stepped over it, peering into a strange and secret place. Before I knew it I was inside, discovering a knob that clicked once and then turned, bringing up the light.
I had come to the farthest corner of where I could go; and, turning around, I pulled the door in close behind me, just shy of locking myself in.
There were many things in the bomb shelter: a drooping cot, a vent trickling earthy air, a toilet against a low wall slung around the edge. There was a fifties style red phone that emitted no dial tone, shelves with a lot of junk and some yellowed paperbacks, and a power outlet that worked, with a hot plate plugged into it.
But none of these things caught my eye when I’d turned the dimmer switch knob and the light went on. It was the wall of monitors that captured every ounce of my attention.
“No way,” I muttered, touching the curved glass of an empty screen. It was a foot across, with a metal housing that was rusting in one corner. And it was not the only screen; there were six more.
There were seven monitors—one in the middle and six wrapped around the outside in a circle, all of them staring vacantly in my direction—and a set of four buttons in the middle. One button was black; the others were marked with letters: G, B, and M.
“Why are you here?” I whispered, staring at a wall that made no sense. The monitors had that old, 1950s era quality about them, so they sort of fit—but how? The room was beginning to feel less like a bomb shelter and more like a safe room. A room that would allow someone to see outside after the door had been sealed shut from a dangerous world outside. There was a part of me—the same part that had been listening to recordings for weeks—that liked the idea of secretly observing the world outside. This could be interesting.
I set my backpack on the smooth floor, retrieving one of the water bottles and gulping down half of its contents. My finger hovered over the M button, then I pushed it in and a loud, flat click echoed in the bomb shelter. The center monitor sparked to life. It was dim at first, like a retrograde TV that hadn’t been used in a long time and needed a few seconds to wake up. As the image grew brighter, I saw them: a group in an open room, sitting around a large table as if they were taking turns telling ghost stories. The light was faint, but I knew these people.
Ben Dugan’s back, a mop of dark hair spilling over the neck of a polo shirt. To his right, the shape of Connor Bloom’s cropped, domed head. On Ben’s left, Alex Chow. And the faces of the girls as the circle went around: Kate, Avery, Marisa.
I could see that they were talking, but what they were saying was a mystery to me. The monitor was showing, but it wasn’t telling. There was no audio whatsoever, and after examining the wall, I found no sign of a speaker or volume control. I felt as if I was ten feet underwater, staring through the filmy surface of a pond at talking heads I couldn’t hear. It also felt like a trick or a punishment for what I’d done: the missing half of what I’d stolen. I’d been listening to their disembodied voices for weeks. Now I was seeing them but couldn’t hear what they were saying.
The oppressive silence of the bomb shelter made the images feel haunted, as if they were people long since dead and I was watching silent home movies from a hundred years before. Either that or I’d gone totally deaf in the basement of Mrs. Goring’s bunker. I squeezed the water bottle in my hand and heard the cheap plastic crinkling between my fingers. At least I hadn’t lapsed into a nightmare.
I thought my luck might improve with one of the other buttons, so I pushed in the white G button. When I did, the M button popped back out, and the screen began to fill with the image of a different room. The tube inside the monitor struggled to life, the image fluttering and weak. It was dimmer than the first, and the picture never settled down entirely. Whatever camera it was attached to was pointed directly at a chair, which was empty. Behind the chair was a gray concrete wall with the numbers 2, 5, and 7 stenciled in red, just like the bomb shelter door. I backed away from the monitor, sensing that there was a connection here. Whoever had painted the bomb shelter door had also painted the 2, the 5, and the 7. I suspected that the room was upstairs in the Bunker, and I just hadn’t seen it. Either that or it was in Fort Eden.
I crept forward and pushed in the B button. The screen died again, then slowly shimmered back to life. It was the same as the last scene: an empty chair, a gray wall, and four other numbers, stenciled in red: 1, 3, 4, 6.
“Creepy,” I whispered, drinking down the last of the water and hoping that the toilet would flush quietly when the time came to use it. I felt suddenly tired and looked at my watch for the first time in hours: 10:35 PM. How had it gotten so late, so fast?
I sat on the sagging cot to think, staring at the empty room and the four numbers.
“It’s us,” I said, leaning back on my elbows, feeling the weight of sleep edging closer. “Seven numbers, seven patients. G for girls, B for boys, M for main room.”
I was certain of this in the same way that I knew I could return any face burner Keith fired across our air hockey table back home. These numbers were us. These rooms meant something.
I put my arms behind my head and laid back, a heavy feeling on my eyelids.
So quiet. So very, very quiet, like a silent torture chamber that was sucking my will to live.
Keith’s voice appeared at the last edge of wakefulness.
Change the channel, Will. This show is ultralame.
And then I was asleep.
The slick floor of the hallway is cold on my body, but I’m so weak I can’t get up. The hall is white and long. I am alone, then there’s a shadow, far away and moving toward me: a rolling gurney with a body on top, the sound of its wheels rattling. It’s close now, the white sheet stained with blood. I want to get up as the cart moves past, but I can’t.
Will?
It’s Marisa on the gurney, smiling vacantly.
I wanna be adored.
Get up, Will. Get up.
Intruder alert! Intruder alert!
I was off the cot and on my feet, my mind caught between alertness and sleep. Where was I? The van, the path, Fort Eden, the Bunker, the basement.
I was lying on a cot in a bomb shelter, not sitting on a white floor watching Marisa roll by. And yet, in the deep silence of the basement, the wheels of the gurney were there. One of the wheels was flapping back and forth as if it was attached to a bad grocery cart.
There was no time to hide and no point in turning off the light in the bomb shelter. Whoever had come into the basement had turned on the main lights, so turning off mine wasn’t going to make any difference. I saw shadows roll by through the crack I’d left in the door. The gurney was not only real, it was moving through the basement.
It stopped where they kept the dry goods. I remembered the closed door I’d seen there, the one I hadn’t gone back to and opened.
That must be where they keep the bodies.
This thought circled through my brain until the sound of the wheels faded and then almost disappeared entirely.
I looked at my watch: 10:58 PM. I’d only slept for about twenty minutes. Opening the heavy bomb shelter door another inch, I peered into the lit basement and found it empty. From my vantage point I could see that the door leading back upstairs had been left wide-open. I could escape into the woods, or at least into the kitchen. But who would I meet there: Mrs. Goring, standing in the Bunker with a meat cleaver?
I talked myself off the madhouse ledge I’d crawled onto and stepped out into the basement. Whoever had been down here was gone now, through the door I hadn’t bothered to open. I went quickly for the ramp that led upstairs, peeking around the corner. No one up there, or so it seemed, but I’d left my backpack in the bomb shelter. I turned to go back and saw light coming from under the door of the room where the gurney had gone. And something more than that—I heard voices. A small cheer, in fact, or something like one, far off down a hallway I couldn’t see.
I crept to the door and looked around its edge, hopelessly con
fused.
“Hands off the cart!”
It was Mrs. Goring’s voice, at the top of a much longer ramp. A tunnel, slanting up like the one from the basement to the Bunker, stretched thirty yards or more between two buildings. She was in Fort Eden. And it wasn’t a hospital gurney she was pushing but a food cart filled with late-night snacks.
“That’s it for tonight. Make the most of it.” Mrs. Goring’s mouselike voice glided down the tunnel. A door at the far end was slammed shut, and the cart was rolling toward me once more. She passed under the first of five grimy lightbulbs, one every twenty feet, and I backed away from the door.
Stepping quietly toward my hiding place, it occurred to me that I might be able to get across on my own. Maybe if I waited until everyone was asleep I could find out what was really going on without anyone knowing.
Mrs. Goring’s empty cart was clamoring down the runway as I reentered the bomb shelter and dialed down the light. Darkness would have engulfed me if not for the glow of the monitor screen, which I had neglected to turn off. I went to push the black OFF button, just to be extra careful, and that’s when I saw it on the monitor screen.
Ben Dugan was sitting in the chair.
I tried to read Ben’s lips, but it was no use. Whatever he was saying didn’t register on my end. There were pauses, as if he was trying to decide if he should keep going or not. I couldn’t stand the silence anymore and took out my Recorder, dialed in BEN DUGAN, and hit PLAY. The funny thing was, watching his face on the screen and hearing his voice in my head almost felt real, like the two belonged together. The first voice in my head was Dr. Stevens’s.
When was the first time you felt this way? Go back as far as you can remember.
I don’t know. I forget.
What did you forget?
That’s an unanswerable question. I don’t remember what I forgot.
Right, but there’s a clue here, you see? There are things you don’t want to remember, so you don’t. When you think of these things—the events you don’t want recorded in your memory—what are they? What is it about them that make you afraid?
I don’t like dirt.
Okay. That’s a start. So, if you’re digging around in the dirt, that bothers you?
I wouldn’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever done that.
Oh, but you have, Ben. Trust me, you have done this. And you’re still alive.
I don’t remember.
What is it about dirt that bothers you so?
Is there any water in here?
No, there’s no water. Not until you tell me. We’ve been at this a long time. You have to tell me, Ben. What is it about dirt that bothers you so?
I don’t remember.
You do remember.
I don’t.
The session dissolved into a similar pattern after that: You do remember; No, I don’t; Where’s the water? I’d heard it a few times, so I knew. I unwrapped a Clif Bar and popped the earbuds out of my ears.
Ben Dugan leaned down and picked up something off the floor where I couldn’t see it. He got up off the chair, holding something in his hand.
“What’s he doing now?” I wondered, biting a corner off the chewy bar as if I was watching a movie.
He was facing away from the camera, staring at the wall, gripping some sort of blunt tool. Whatever he held was dripping stringy lines of goo on the floor at his feet. He walked up to the red stenciled numbers and did something I couldn’t see.
“What are you doing, Ben Dugan?” I said.
He turned and dropped the tool he’d used on the floor in front of the camera, and then he was gone. So was the number 1. It was a wide paintbrush he’d held, slopped with paint.
The 1 had been replaced by a blue blotch, dripping down the wall like cobalt blood.
What did it mean, this blotting out of the number? The whole event had the feeling of a zombie choosing to erase himself from existence.
There, I’ve marked out my number.
Now I’m ready to face the end.
I switched to M, the main room, and saw that everyone else was sitting on couches and chairs in a far corner. Ben approached, and everyone stood, gathering around him. They appeared to be asking him questions, but it was impossible to know for sure.
“My kingdom for an audio feed,” I complained.
Ben started to back away from the rest of the group, and then I saw him for the first time. It had to be the person who ran this place, a tall, dark figure at the edge of the screen, barely visible. The figure moved toward Ben, touching him on the shoulder and leading him away. He was speaking to Ben, whispering in his ear: a private message only for the two of them. The whole thing felt haunted, bathed in a black silence.
The two arrived at a door that opened into darkness, and then, just like that, Ben Dugan was gone.
One of the six monitors without controls crackled to life, and I jumped back, tripping over my backpack and falling onto the floor. I’d thought those six were useless, vacant eyes staring back at me without purpose. But now one had come alive in the bomb shelter. I got to my feet and crept in close, staring at a room I’d never seen before.
The first thing that struck me about the room was that it was painted a deep, menacing blue. The floor, the walls, the chair that sat alone—all of it streaked in globs of navy, as if someone had used their bare hands applying the paint.
The second thing that caught my attention was the helmet hanging from the corner of the chair. It was leather, or something like leather; and out of its top rose a series of tubes and wires that hooked into the ceiling. It felt to me as if the room was screaming a message out of the silence: sit in this chair, put on this helmet, do as I say. The chair was clearly meant to be sat in, the helmet meant to be put on.
It felt as if I was watching something that wasn’t actually happening. Like a video game or a TV show. But I also knew that this wasn’t the case—this was real; I knew this kid. I thought seriously about running out of Ms. Goring’s bunker, into the woods, and up the path. But there were problems with a plan like that: I was many miles into the wilderness, and I had a notoriously bad sense of direction. I’d barely ever been camping, let alone tried to rough it on my own in the middle of nowhere. What I was seeing scared me, sure, but the prospect of leaving scared me just as much. And the thought of encountering Mrs. Goring or Rainsford as I tried to escape bothered me even more. There was one other, more troubling reason why I stayed and knew I’d keep staying: I was curious. So curious, in fact, that I couldn’t stand the idea of not knowing what all this meant or where it would lead. Leaving meant not discovering the truth, which felt unacceptable.
Ben Dugan entered the room. He sat in the chair and held the helmet in his hands, staring at it without moving. He raised his head and said something I couldn’t hear; but from the look on his face, I think I got the message.
I can’t do this.
He sat a moment longer and then gave in to whatever was happening to him. He slid the helmet on. It covered his head, ears, and eyes, leaving only the lower half of his face exposed.
At least the others will hear him scream, I thought. They’ll come running and save him if things get bad, won’t they?
The tubes jumped grotesquely, as if they had suddenly filled with liquid or electricity, and the screen in the bomb shelter began to fill with data, typed in a glowing green text along the top edge.
Ben Dugan, 15
Acute fear: bugs, spiders, centipedes
Things that crept out of the dirt terrified Ben Dugan. I’d known this all along. The fear had become a looming shadow that ruled his life. It was a miracle he’d made it into the woods at all.
Dr Stevens’s voice filled my mind as I watched the still figure sitting in a blue room.
Now we’re getting somewhere, Ben. But why? Why do you fear these things?
I don’t know.
You do know.
I don’t! Leave me alone!
A blue bar began to move up the r
ight side of the screen, like a thermometer with liquid mercury heating up. Only this mercury was the blackest shade of blue, rising slowly toward the top.
“What the hell is happening to this guy?” I said out loud, wishing Keith was with me and we were back home watching a scary movie.
He’s gonna blow! Keith would say, because we’d always do this to calm each other down: yell at the screen until the really bad parts sent us howling through the basement.
The screen glitched and popped, static snow raining down over Ben’s sullen figure. His body jerked to life, and suddenly the scene on the screen switched to a child of five or six walking in a park. It was a boy, laughing like little boys do, walking away from whoever was holding the camera. The boy held a small plastic shovel in his hand, waving it like a magic wand as he approached a soggy sandbox. He was in some sort of run-down park, a waning light falling through low clouds.
The image frothed with static again and returned to Ben wearing the helmet. The blue mercury line was rising faster now.
“He’s scared,” I said.
No kidding! I imagined Keith yelling back.
From this point on, the scene leaped back and forth between Ben Dugan in the blue room and the park setting with the small child. There had to be a screen inside the helmet, a screen that allowed Ben to see what I was seeing. Where the footage came from was a mystery—was it real or made up or somehow pulled out of Ben’s brain and projected in front of him?
The kid was in the sandbox now, digging with the plastic shovel. The sand was wet, and the wood rails along the edge of the box were rotting. The boy gave up on the shovel and started digging like a dog, throwing clumps of sodden sand into the camera.
In the room, the blue line neared the top of the screen.
The boy had a hold of something heavy and unexpected. He yelled something I couldn’t hear. A dinosaur bone! Mom, look!