The Cellar: A Post-Apocalyptic Novella Page 5

  Daren sighed and hauled the can back into the cellar. He looked over at the shelf where he took the hominy grits. The can dropped from his hands and landed on the floor with a loud thud. It rolled away from his feet until it came to rest beside a sack of flour. Daren stared at the shelf and rubbed his eyes over and over again.

  “The can!” He pointed at the shelf with a shaking finger. “It’s there!” He looked at the floor. “And there!” He turned to stare at Lara. “There’s two of them!”

  “That’s right.” She oozed smugness.

  “But how?” Daren walked forward and looked at both cans.

  “Beats me,” Lara said. “Every time I take something away from the room I go back and there’s another one on the shelf again.”

  “You mean if I take something, go out, close the door and come back, I’ll see another one on the shelf?”

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” Lara chuckled softly. “But it only works after you close the door and lock it. I did that with a packet of bacon eight times and ended up with exactly eight packets of bacon.”

  “Unbelievable…” Daren picked up the can of grits and placed it beside its twin.

  “I tried an experiment once. I threw cans around, cut open sacks, poured stuff on the ground. And when I went out and came back everything was back in place. It’s like I was never there at all.”

  Daren considered the possibilities of the cellar. If the strange magic in the place held, it would mean that no one in the village would ever go hungry again. No more settling for rats and mice ever.

  “Do you realize what this means?” He rushed over to her and squeezed her arms. “We can feed both our villages forever!”

  The excitement of the moment took possession of him. He grabbed her by the waist and twirled her round and round. After the dizziness got too much for him, he plopped her back on the ground and staggered back. He collided with a shelf and knocked several cans to the floor.

  “Wow.” It was her turn to look shocked. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Daren felt heat rise to his cheeks. He felt mortified at what he just did. They hardly ever went past friendly banter and suddenly he was grabbing her and carrying her around. What is wrong with me?

  “I’m sorry.” He bowed his head and scratched the back of it. “I don’t know what came over me. I was just so happy—”

  “It’s okay.” She looked down and stroked her hair over her ear. “I thought it was kind of cute.”

  Daren squirmed in place and coughed into his fist. Desperate to end the awkwardness, he stooped down to pick up the cans. In his haste to put them back on the shelf a few more rolled off. He knelt down to grab the newly fallen cans and shoved them back on the shelf, which caused even more to topple to the floor.

  “Stop it already!” Lara held her sides and laughed. “Just leave them where they are. They’ll all go back in place later.”

  Daren got up and avoided her gaze as he tried to endure his embarrassment. Why was he acting like a clumsy idiot?

  “All this excitement’s made me hungry.” She bent down and picked up some cans. “Mind if you join me for chowder?”

  Daren managed a smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  ⊕ ⊕ ⊕

  DAREN AND LARA SAT AT a small table in the bedroom where he’d first awakened. He was having one of the best dinners he could ever remember. They basked in the lamp’s glow as they scooped delicious cold chowder from their open cans. He relished every piece of clam, enjoyed pressing the tiny potato cubes against the roof of his mouth until they turned into mush.

  “By the way,” he spoke up, “you know the wheeled platform?”

  “What about it?”

  “I guess whenever you take it out of the cellar another one appears when you go back, right?”

  “That’s right,” Lara replied. “One time I actually had ten of them.”

  “Ten?” Daren sat up.

  “But I figured it was too much so I got rid of them.”

  “How’d you do that?” Daren asked. “What if someone finds them?”

  “No one’s going to find them.” She spooned some chowder into her mouth.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Every time I close and lock the cellar door everything inside goes back to exactly how I found it.”

  “So if you put anything inside it that wasn’t there before,” Daren said, “it disappears the next time you open the cellar.”

  Lara said nothing but just smiled and tapped her nose.

  “Just imagine the possibilities.” Daren looked up and scratched his chin. “You could poop, pee and throw garbage in there and it’ll all just disappear.”

  “Ewwww!” Lara scrunched up her face. “I’m eating here!”

  “You gotta admit it’s an awesome idea.” Daren tilted up his can to scrape the leftovers from the bottom. “I’m surprised you haven’t thought of it before.”

  Lara kept quiet. She stirred her chowder slowly while trying to avoid his eyes. Daren watched her closely.

  “Whoah!” Daren sat up. “Are you telling me—”

  “It happened just one time, okay!” She slapped her palm on the table. “I really needed to go and it was a long way to the surface.” She sat back and folded her arms. “So there!”

  Daren bit his lips and looked down until his chin touched his chest. He tried to keep control of his facial muscles, but he couldn’t stop the stifled laugh escaping out his nostrils.

  “You think that’s funny?”

  “No.” Daren’s voice betrayed a smile.

  “Bastard.” Lara cracked a smile of her own.

  “By the way,” he changed the subject, “I never thanked you for saving my life.”

  “That’s right.” She spooned chowder into her mouth. “You never thanked me, you frickin’ ingrate.”

  “Well, I’m thanking you now.” He reached across the table and touched her fingers. “Thank you for saving my life, Lara.”

  Lara looked down at her hand. “It’s funny how you keep finding excuses to touch me.” She raised an eyebrow. “You never used to do that before.”

  “You never invited me to dinner before.” He grinned at her.

  She let out a nervous giggle and continued to eat. Daren had nothing to follow up his remark so he just kept quiet. The awkwardness was starting to build in the air, especially since his hand was still stretched out and touching hers. He slowly withdrew it and placed it under the table. There was a moment of silence interrupted by random slurps of chowder.

  Daren finally broke the silence. “I dreamed about the cellar door, you know. It looked exactly like how I saw it in my dream. And when it opened, I saw a hooded figure inside waiting for me. It freaked me out at the time.” He chuckled aloud. “I had no idea it was actually you.”

  “You want to know how I found this place?” She propped her elbow on the table, rested her chin on her palm, and met his gaze.

  Daren leaned forward and read her expression. “You saw it in a dream, didn’t you?”

  Lara raised her eyebrows and made a half smile.

  “What did the dream show you?” he asked.

  “I was standing in a dark forest,” Lara began. “Right ahead of me I saw a cloaked figure waving at me to follow it. I should’ve been totally afraid but I felt that there was something important that I had to see.”

  She explained how the figure silently led her to a run-down old cabin. Part of the roof had collapsed and most of the wood shingles were rotted. All of the windows were broken. The cabin hadn’t seen any inhabitants for decades. The figure glided through the entrance and Lara followed after it. It stopped and pointed to a trapdoor. Then the dream ended.

  “It felt so real to me,” she said. “So I went looking for the cabin just to make sure. Somehow when I reached a portion of the woods near my village, I felt something guiding me to the right place. I found the cabin and the trapdoor. Under the trapdoor were some stairs leading right to this bunker—and the
rest is history.”

  “Did you happen to see some odd rippling in the air on the way to the cabin?”

  “Yes!” Lara stared at Daren. “You’ve seen them too?”

  “Somewhere around the Dead Fields. There’s probably some kind of energy disturbance or something in the area.”

  “Energy disturbance?”

  “Yeah.” Daren nodded as he spoke. “Maybe the magic in the cellar and the ripples in the air might be connected somehow.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “You think we’re having those dreams and experiencing all this for a reason?” Daren asked. “You think maybe the Angel of Death is trying to communicate with us?”

  “You sound like a prophet.” Lara’s demeanor suddenly shifted. “There are a dozen other logical explanations.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know.” She had an edge to her voice. “Maybe I knew about this place when I was really young and it all came back to me in a dream.”

  “But what about the cellar? What about the air ripples?” Daren asked. “What logical explanation do you have for them?”

  “It’s probably some weird ancient technology from before The Event. There’s no point looking for ghosts and angels in everything you can’t explain.”

  “Don’t you think there are bigger forces at work here?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You think both of us having similar dreams mean we have some kind of destiny together?”

  Daren drew back as if she had slapped him. The way she said it hurt him more than he wanted to admit. Lara must have noticed the look on his face. She softened her features.

  “I’m sorry.” She leaned forward. “I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. It’s just that my dad used to talk like that.”

  “Your dad?”

  Daren became curious. Lara had told him about her mother and siblings but never once did she mention her father.

  “Yeah.” She held the empty chowder can and tapped it with her fingers. “He woke up one day talking about visions and angels and whatnot. We tried calming him down, but he wouldn’t listen to us. It’s like something else took control of him.”

  “He was a prophet?”

  “Yes,” Lara answered. “At first we thought it was a fever or something he ate. But weeks went by, and he wouldn’t stop talking about angels and spirits and the end of days.”

  She thumped the can on the table and stared into a dark corner of the room. Daren saw the lamplight glisten on tears that threatened to spill over.

  “One day he told us that he had a mission to preach to all who would listen,” she continued. “He just up and left, and we never saw him again.”

  She sniffed and brushed the corner of her eye with her finger. Daren waited a few moments for her to continue.

  “Six months later, word got back to us that a mob lynched him for causing trouble,” she said. “The news didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would. I already gave him up for dead the day he left us. It was just easier that way.” She clenched her fists and took a breath to calm herself. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.” She forced a laugh. “Must be something in the chowder.”

  Her face crumpled as she fought back the wave of emotion. Tears came down her cheeks as she covered her eyes with her hand and sobbed.

  Daren had never known his own father. He was barely a month old when his father was crushed by a portion of the rock wall that gave way during construction. But he definitely had experienced the painful void of not having him around. He went over to Lara’s side, knelt down by her chair, and rested his palm on her left hand. She turned up her wrist and gently squeezed his fingers.

  He wanted to stay there longer. So much longer. That is, until he realized something. He let go of her hand and abruptly stood up. Lara, startled by his movement, looked up in surprise.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “How long have I been down here?”

  “I’m not sure.” She furrowed her brows. “Three…four hours maybe.”

  “Shit!” He slapped the top of his head with both hands.

  “What?” Lara’s eyes widened.

  “My mom probably thinks I’m dead! I gotta get back home!”

  Daren burst out into the hallway and went on a frantic search for the exit. Lara followed after him.

  “How do I get out of here?” He turned to face her.

  “Just calm down for a minute.” She grabbed his arm. “You can’t go charging out like that. You could run into the raiders again.”

  “So what should I do?”

  She walked over to one of the doors in the hallway and opened it. She went inside the room and Daren heard her rummage about. Moments later she emerged with a long robe draped over her shoulder.

  “You’ll need a disguise.” She took the gray hooded robe and held it up in front of him.

  “Wait a minute.” He held up both his hands. “You mean I’m wearing that and riding on the wheel platform thing?”

  “No. You can’t handle the vehicle yet. So we’ll both have to be under the robe, and we’ll both ride the wheel platform thing.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Daren looked at the robe. “We’ll be riding together and you think that’ll cover us both?”

  Lara gave a shrug. “We’ll just have to hope the wheels don’t peek out too much. And if they do let’s pray that people will be too freaked out to notice.”

  ⊕ ⊕ ⊕

  DAREN AND LARA CARRIED GREEN glowsticks to light their way as they climbed up a long flight of concrete stairs. Strapped to Daren’s back was a bag of food supplies from the cellar. He could just imagine everyone’s reaction when he showed it to the village. That’ll beat a horde of rats anytime. They can go extinct for all he cared.

  “I can’t wait to tell everybody about this place!” He rushed ahead of Lara. He felt too happy to feel the weight on his back.

  “You can’t tell anyone, Daren!”

  He stopped, turned around, and looked at her in slack-jawed amazement.

  “What are you talking about?” His voice echoed down the tunnel. “There’s infinite food in there. As in it will never…NEVER…run out. Enough for everyone we know and twice more. There’ll be no need to fight over meals again.”

  “First off, you promised me you wouldn’t tell a single soul about the food stash.” She stomped her way past him. “Second, how can you be sure the food supply is infinite? That cellar could lose its magic anytime and we’re back to scrounging for scraps. And suppose the food renews forever?” She turned around and placed her hands on her hips. “You think that’ll stop people from being the bastards they are? Clans and villages for miles around would slaughter each other for control of the cellar. That’s exactly what I meant when I said the knowledge was too dangerous.”

  Daren had to admit she was right. The cellar and its treasures would be powerful leverage in a starving world. It had to be kept a secret.

  The sound of their footfalls bounced around the tunnel as they continued on their way up. A couple of rats scurried their way down past them. He gave them a passing glance before resuming his climb. Just a day before he would’ve turned around to hunt them down.

  “So what do you tell your village when you bring them fresh food?” he asked, breaking the silence. “They’ve gotta be curious.”

  “I tell them it was a gift from the Angel of Death,” she replied. “And after all the ‘sightings’ in the area by yours truly they all believe me and are too scared to ask any more questions.”

  “And you get away with that?” He adjusted the straps on the bag.

  She looked back and shot him a smirk. “Apparently.”

  “So…” He held his shoulder straps while sticking up his thumbs. “I must be special, huh?”

  Lara faced him and raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure that?”

  “You didn’t tell anyone else about the cellar,” he said. “But you let me see it.”

  “That’s beca
use you begged me like the sad boy you are. And so I took pity on your sorry ass.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you might have a little crush on me.”

  She quickly turned her head back and cleared her throat. He liked the way her hair flipped when she did that. He had a sneaking suspicion she was hiding a blush.

  Eventually the tunnel ended, and they emerged inside an old cabin. Odors of dampness and rot assaulted Daren as he looked around. Wispy layers of cobwebs dangled from the rafters, and a thick layer of dirt covered the floorboards. All around were broken barrels and empty crates. The place had been looted decades before.

  Lara kneeled down by the hole in the floor from which they got out. She closed the trapdoor, making it squeak from its hinges, and pushed it down shut. Then she used her hands to push dirt over the door to conceal it.

  She approached a dark corner of the cabin and shone her glowstick on the area. There were a few crates and some plywood propped up on the wall. She pulled them aside to reveal a wheeled platform vehicle—exactly like the one he saw in the cellar.

  “So you keep one up here, huh?” Daren walked over and shone his light on it. “How’d you get this thing up those stairs?”

  Lara mounted the vehicle and fiddled with the handlebars.

  “Willpower, perseverance, and a lot of free time,” she said.

  She leaned forward slightly to propel the platform to the center of the room. The aging floorboards moaned in protest as the wheels passed over them. She turned the vehicle around to face Daren.

  “Okay,” Lara said. “Open the doors so I can ride out. Then you come out and close them as soon as I’m outside.”

  After Daren complied with her instructions he found himself standing outside the old cabin. It was still night so most of it was shrouded in darkness, save for whatever was revealed by the greenish glow of the tubes. He looked over at Lara standing on the wheeled platform. She was on the front walkway leading away from the cabin.

  “Tell me,” he said. “How exactly did you carry me from the woods, up to this cabin, down the stairs and right into the bunker?”

  She drove the vehicle around him in a circle while she smirked at him. “I have my ways.”