Spare Parts
Part Seven
Reaching the dark opening to the bunker seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. Dealing with the overseers took less time than Garrett figured on but the pail men had a hand in that. Carrying the girl made things easier. She was so thin it was hardly different than hauling a water barrel up the hill and he’d been doing that for months. The distance he had built up in his mind melted away and he realized that forbidden “well of ghosts” wasn’t quite as far as way as he always assumed.
Seeing that darkness made him faulter and stop for a moment. The knife and the ax were far away now, along with any other weapons. Not that weapons would help if the haunts had settled the place. There were no lights inside and if he managed to get the old bunker door to close at all that would mean even less light.
Plunging into darkness, again. His time with the Tumor Queen had soured bunkers for him, it had him expected the worst and knowing he had no gear. The girl pinched his arm, “We have to go in, it’s the only way.”
The opening of the place was similar to the other bunker. A massive open area with banks of old halogen lights hung from the ceiling. Years of dirt and debris blowing in had created a patch of wild grass in the arc of the doorway where sun light came through. Besides that, long, thin mushrooms with tiny heads grew in the darker corners of what was once the receiving/reception area for registered refugees. The lucky ones who could afford the exorbitant fees to buy a ticket to one of these state-of-the-art facilities while the rest of humanity burned and drowned and starved thanks to those who drank it all up. Otherwise Garrett assumed this massive area served as a meeting place/conference hall after the massive door was sealed.
Speaking of the door. Garrett set the girl down at the edge of the grass and what light came in from the outside and considered the massive door. The one on the Tumor Queen’s bunker had been blasted off or removed long before his visit there. He imagined what an original bunker door might look like and this one did not disappoint. Much like the vaults of the old-world banks Garrett had delved into but larger, it was round with a large wheel on the inside that if turned would send cascading lengths of steel pillars into locking ports inside the mouth of the opening. There were already problems that he could see, one, the door hinges were corroded, not rusty per say given that the alloys were made to be rust proof but they were oxidized and stuck in place by years of dirt and grime. Also, there were the holes along the bottom of the seal, all of them along the sun’s path had long ago been filled by dirt and generations of growing grass and vegetations.
Garrett pushed with all his might and the door only barely budged before swinging if only a bit on its massive hinges before it became hopeless stuck. The light coming in had been cut by half but any determined parties who came along would still be able to walk through the opening.
“Before my momma died, the first story she ever told me was about this place. How haunted and cursed it is. Anyone who ever came here was never seen again.”
Garrett turned away from the door and the girl pointed off into the dark. “As close as any of them will ever get is the doorway, if we get farther off, they’ll think the ghosts ate us up.”
Ghosts, yeah. “Do you know of anyone who came here and didn’t come back?”
“No Believer has ever come in here, not that I’ve ever heard.”
The girl got her good foot moving forward and pulled the other one along and crept further into the pitch black. “I don’t know why but I was never afraid of this place. I don’t believe in ghosts anyway.”
Garrett wanted to reply. He wanted to warn the girl. “I’ve seen them, survived them, they can take your life like snuffing out a candle and there isn’t a thing you can do to stop them.”
Instilling fear, clipping wings, hadn’t she had enough of that? And if the place was irradiated in such a way that the haunts held sway below, well, they would make themselves known one way or the other. Garrett crept behind her, trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness as they stepped away from the entry way.