Well tunnel dug: Part 1

Before the war, on Darryl’s last day of work, the elevator plummeted into the storey below the basement, doors sliding closed. He hadn't noticed immediately. He was walking across the lobby of the building, carrying the last box from his cube when he heard it hit bedrock. He turned around slowly. Light bounced dully from the skylight off his buzz cut.

These things, they happen. Darryl had expected this sort of thing. He had three flashlights; a lighter, an extra cell phone, a walky-talky, and three cartons of triple A batteries, along with four water bottles, and some trail mix in an airtight, UV bag in the box in his arms. On the outside of the box in sharpie pen, he had written ‘work: survival’ on a strip of duct-tape.

The contents of that box weren't the reason he had gotten fired, directly. But those contents were the reason his wife had packed her van, buckled in the kids, and driven back to her parents' farm.

*

The car was on its last legs oil wise. They had brought about 15 gallons of gas, when they left Virginia. Gas vapors have driven them half mad, and Darryl was clenching his teeth audibly, sitting in the back seat.

‘You think we're going to make it? I know it will be within 15 miles or so,’ Sandra said. Her tan hair was nearly touching the ceiling in the car they had picked up on the way out of Richmond. She had been a math professor. She had a thing for the architecture of plant life as well.

‘I guess it depends on how well the road punks are taking care of the patch work,’ Darryl said, ‘is the toll still edible?’

‘You gonna ask that every sixteen seconds?’ said Juan. He was younger than the other three. Good mechanic, shrewd thinker, black hair, dark skin.

‘Yes, I am. How do you expect to get out of it if we don't? We got about 10 minutes by the signs before we have to give them the food.’

‘Chill out, man, chill,’ Juan said.

Darryl saw movement between the woods and the road to his right, a fish-flash.

‘Deer!’

Carl's hair surged past his face as he mashed the breaks of the green Taurus station wagon into the floorboard. They smashed through a little deer. Everything seemed to be moving very slowly.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Darryl screamed at him. His voice came out at a feminine octave.

‘Shit man, I just was swerving, I saw him, I swear I did.’

The station wagon was rolling to a stop, in the gravel on the side of highway. There were not any cars on the road.

Darryl leapt out of the passenger seat, into the open air, without even a lawn mask on. That was, in certain areas, a great way to develop some forms of cancer rapidly.

There was blood on the grill. There was fur lining the little open areas between the light lenses and the body of the car. The front right quarter panel looked like construction paper, wrinkled.

Carl was not as good a driver as Darryl was. Darryl was cautious. Darryl was very cautious. Darryl planned avenues of advancement. Darryl thought of every possible scenario. He thought of what he was going to have to do in that scenario. It might have made him a slow driver, but he was comfortable that way. He was not comfortable, bordering on insane, any other way.

Darryl tilted his head back, and cussed a few times at the sky. Then he took his watch off, and threw it into the deep ditch beside the highway.

‘You know why I threw that?’ Darryl asked.

‘No,’ Carl said.

‘I threw it because we just fucking lost time. We can't be on these roads after dark. It's 11:30 now. With no trouble, it takes five hours to get to Charleston from Richmond. You think it'll be dark at 5:00 tonight?’

‘No, dude.’ said Carl.

‘You willing to be getting shot on that?’ Darryl paused, vein throbbing in his forehead. Suddenly he turned towards the ditch, out of Carl's face.

‘Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to get heated up, man. I just don’t know what to do. We’re probably not going to make this drive. I’m not sure.’

‘Dude, its cool.’

‘You think so?’

‘I think it’s worth a shot. You said it’d be easier to defend ourselves in West Virginia.’

‘It probably would be. It’s just been so difficult protecting all these goddamn seeds, Carl.’

‘I know. Look, man… why don’t you just drive. Maybe we can trade some of the seeds for some Dramamine or something on the way.’

‘You know how unlikely that is? Just estimating like a 2.3 percent chance.’

‘I’d rather do this than have you fucking freaking out on me, kay?’

‘Yeah, sorry. I’m cool now. We’ll fix this,’ said Darryl.

‘We won’t fix this. You know that. We might do a little better at best, get something to grow, but look around man, there’s a whole lot of shit dying out there. It’s just too cold.’

‘Alright. Alright. I’ll drive until you can’t stand it anymore, then we’ll switch.’

‘Get back in the car quick,’ said Carl.

‘We don’t really know how much the glass keeps out radiation. You know that. At least we can look forward to some interesting genetic mutation, eh? Split the species and all ‘that,’ said Darryl.

‘You need a plastic baggie or something,’ Sandra said to Carl as he got in the back seat.

‘Hell yeah I do.’

‘How bad is it,’ she asked, twisting around in her seat to look behind her.

‘You'll find out in a minute,’ Carl said.

Darryl slammed the driver's door closed.

‘Why’d you throw that watch?’ said Sandra.

‘We ain’t making it in this car. We lost crazy time. I guess it just made sense to throw it.’

‘It didn’t make any sense at all,’ she said.

‘Well, fucking help me find some fucking drugs then.’

‘That’s the whole idea,’ Juan said.

They made it about two miles, before the front right hand tire started whining.

‘Oh, no. The tire is going to explode,’ said Darryl.

‘You sure?’ said Juan. The tire exploded, taking the wheel well with it. It felt like the car had taken mortar fire. It shifted to the right, and ground to a halt at a crazy angle in the gravel.

‘Awesome. Now what?’ said Carl. Then he retched, and threw up in his shoes.

*
They had knives, each of them, somewhere in their clothes. They had to leave most of the precious seeds in the car. They had to walk together, for protection.

‘Fair chance that there's something to drive in the town off this exit,’ said Darryl, ‘Lot of cars sort of just left where they ran out of gas.’

No shit, thought Juan.

They found a Nissan Altima, in useable condition. It hadn't been there for long, about 300 yards from a dry gas station.

‘Must have been desperate, gas ran out 6 months ago or more.’

They walked over to the car, and filled the tank all the way up. Darryl popped the trunk, and stowed the empty gas containers.

‘Let me drive, Darryl. I can't throw up again.’

‘Nope.’

‘Dude, let him drive,’ said Juan.

‘You selfish bastard. How dare you suggest I should let him drive? We've got more than one man's deficiencies riding on us getting there. Now I don't want to hear another goddamn word about it. I am going to drive this, or you can try and kill me. But I would ‘strongly advise against that.’

‘After all this shit, you bring that up again?’ said Juan.

‘We need to go right now,’ said Sandra, ‘Four cars,' she pointed off in the distance to the east.

They all jumped in the car, slammed the doors, and sped off. Carl put his heads in his hands, and threw up again into the plastic baggie he had. He looked up at the back of Darryl's head.

>>Well tunnel dug: Part 2