Below

LUKE

Autumn leaves crunched underfoot as Luke and his travelling party sought shelter from the oncoming nuclear winter. That warm cosy smell one would usually get a feel of that time of year was hidden behind the fumes of rubber gas masks stretched over the groups’ faces.

Luke squeezed a young girl’s hand. Inseparable, Luke held fingers that barely made an impression into his palm, watching over as a concerned parent should. He looked down at the girl, the mask fitted awkwardly over her face. During the old war Luke was told children wore gas masks meant to look like a famous cartoon mouse. He didn’t know if that was true, he just thought the image of that was probably more disturbing than intended. There’s no nice way to present a gas mask, but it was necessity. Now, it was a necessity.

“Dad, where are we going?” A tiny voice floated up to Luke’s ears. Luke looked down to his curious daughter with a face that wasn’t his own.

“We’re looking for your mother,” he said. “This is where she went to hide before…Before…”

STACY

Before the Incident, Stacy was separated from her husband. Both in the marital sense and in distance. Luke had taken their daughter north to see the old castles, leaving Stacy alone for the week. The night before was rough. In her so-called “freedom” she took the time to spend time with the girls over brunch that turned to drinks over dinner that turned into going out, then out out, and then into the bed of a stranger.

That day Stacy’s only concern was the hangover slowly growing through her throbbing head. At least, that’s how the day began. Time passed, and Stacy got herself back up to speed as the morning progressed. Hydration. Junk food. A tactical trip to the bathroom to purge herself of about half the alcohol her body made her regret. It was a regular Saturday morning for Stacy.

Until the bombs dropped.

LUKE

Hand in hand with his daughter, Luke and his companions continued their journey south through the woods. It was fortuitous that they had found this group. They too had families down south to try and reconnect with. Satellite signals went down as soon as the electro-magnetic pulses spread beyond the stratosphere. The true extent of the damage caused was unprecedented. No-one could have predicted the sheer magnitude.

“Luke, watch out!” A voice warned. In Luke’s determined journey, he neglected to check if the area had been booby-trapped in any way. There, mere inches from his stride, was a trip-wire. A woman walked up to Luke and pressed her hand to his chest to keep him a safe distance away. Brandishing her walking staff, she hit the rope. It pinged and wobbled, and the party jumped at the whoosh of hand-carved spikes shot out of the leaves and towards them.

“Jesus!” Luke yelled. His daughter cowered behind his leg. A slow exhale escaped Luke and he turned to look at the woman. “Thanks June.”

June returned her staff in front of her, ready to continue the journey. “Where’s your mind escaping to? We need you to be alert, Luke.”

STACY

In the city there was not much other than panic. What little news Stacy could get gave her the tip that she had to get out of there, fast. Her father was a crackpot always harping on about the inevitable conflict coming. John Gainsborough was ex-Ministry of Defence and was determined to make sure his daughters were prepared for the worst. Stacy never really took her father’s teachings to heart, but she was glad a small part in the back of her brain listened. She had an entire plan mapped out in her head. There was no way to contact the father of her child, but there was already a pre-arranged emergency plan instilled. At her father’s orders, of course. Head north, find the old bunker used during the war. Hide there. Wait there. It will all be okay.

LUKE

The path started looking familiar to Luke. He had definitely been here before. Before the blackout, Luke could have just whipped out his phone and use it to find exactly where he was in that very moment. Now, however, he had to resort to offline methods. It was a long time since school and being taught how to use paper maps, but it wasn’t impossible. He thanked the road trip he took with his friends after university for the experiences he needed. Where his friends were now, he didn’t know. No-one knew anything about anyone who wasn’t 10 feet apart from them.

“Becca, we’re almost there!” Luke said to his daughter.

“Dadddd, can you carry me?” Becca moaned. She was not prepared to walk this far. She wasn’t prepared for any of this. Good thing her parents were.

STACY

Stacy didn’t account for the mass exodus reaching the bunker. Sure, she didn’t expect to be completely alone in the bunker awaiting safety, but it truly felt like a tin of sardines. People were crammed, jostling for their own breathing room. Stacy watched as people yelled at each other, screaming, punching, trampling. The stone walls echoed with the anger of the old and the sadness of the young.

She felt the pressure around her. The closing in. Prayers bounced around her ears, she eavesdropped on those saying the military were coming, Rumours that there was an invasion. Was it from overseas? Was it from even beyond that? Judgement Day. Natural Selection. Stacy couldn’t handle any of the words being thrown around. Any of the hope, the grief, the acceptance. Her gaze just rested on the motionless rat laying in the corner near her.

Stacy withdrew. Curled into herself, protecting herself and her alone. She squeezed her hand around the locket around her neck. The one constant she controlled. As she let go, she watched the heart-shaped indentation in her palm slowly fade away.

LUKE

Luke squeezed his daughter’s hand a little tighter as the two of them followed behind the rest of the group. He definitely knew where they were now. His breathing sped up, the heat fogging up his gas mask, each breath dying on the transparent plastic lenses.

“This is it!” Luke beamed. This was definitely where the bunker was. Miles out from the city. This is where they escaped to. It felt like an age since Luke had been in actual contact with Stacy, but they both knew that if were anything to happen, they were to meet at the bunker. For their daughter.

STACY

Time passed differently in the bunker. Below ground, their bodies had no way to regulate what was day and what was night. Just the lies told to them through slowly dying smartphones, through watches that barely made a glint in the pale spotlights. She didn’t know if days, months, or even years were passing. She fought as well as she could.

As the nightmare continued, people slowly left. They decided to make it alone. Risk heading for the border. Forming a new civilisation. Make a break for the military checkpoints. Stacy heard every plan under the dull stone ceiling, none of them sounding like the one she should follow. Only the wise words of her father, and her plan to be there for her daughter. She looked at the locket she held in her hand. Her finger grazed the cool metal as its delicate chain rested over the back of her hand.

She just had to wait for Luke and Becca. Then everything would be okay.

LUKE

Luke’s excitement dulled as they got closer to where the bunker was. He covered Becca’s eyes as the group stumbled upon sights they did not want to find.

Bodies. Lots of bodies. Sprawled randomly across the woods, buried in freshly fallen leaves, decaying slowly. These were the ones that couldn’t make it to the bunker. Or couldn’t find it. Or found each other and tore each other apart. The Incident made everyone into who they truly were beneath everything else. Survivors. Victims.

“I don’t understand,” Luke said. “Why would anyone leave the bunker?”

STACY

There were only a few left in the bunker with Stacy. Her own little community. A party of survivors perfectly happy staying exactly where they were in the safety of the bunker. There was not enough food to go around, but there was a tap. She would often take her metal cup over to the faucet and pour herself another water to quench her cracked lips. Her group had a system. A way to make the food last as long as possible. Surely it was only a matter of time until someone from the outside arrived.

“Do you hear that?” A voice yelled down the bunker. “I hear people outside!”

Joy spread through the bunker for the very first time. This was it. Salvation. Stacy shot up from her squat position, hovering over a chalk drawing she was working on. Stacy was no artist, but there was limited ways to stay occupied during an apocalypse.

“Becca,” Stacy grinned. She flicked open the heart-shaped locket and looked into it. She was ready to go home to her daughter.

The door to the bunker flung open with a triumphant bang against the frame.

LUKE

The party creeped their way into the bunker. Even the masks couldn’t hide the smell. The smell was tragically familiar to them. Luke shook his head.

“No, this is it. This is the bunker.”

He peeled away from the others, rushing deeper into the bunker. This is it. He thought. This is where we agreed to meet.

There wasn’t a sign of anyone in the bunker.

Alive, at least.

June took over escort duty for Becca as Luke scavenged around.

“Come on, Becca, stay close to me,” June said, holding Luke and Stacy’s child safe against her.

Luke turned over bodies in search. Something must be wrong. It must be the wrong bunker.

He paused. Away from the others, away from the corpses of those who rushed out to meet the fate that came knocking at the bunker door, laid a solitary individual.

Luke’s body knew it before he did. He tore off his mask and approached the woman laying lifeless on the ground. Beside her laid a locket he long thought she had gotten rid of. Tears were already in his eyes as he dropped to hold the woman who once loved him, the mother of his daughter. Stacy.

STACY

She didn’t expect to be on the edge of death so soon. The bunker was supposed to be escape. Freedom. Salvation. Instead it was just another target.

As she laid on the cold floor, her body slowly matching the temperature, Stacy held out the locket she kept close to her heart. Her fading strength flicked it open, revealing the photo of her newly born daughter. If only she could have seen her grow up. It was supposed to just be a short trip up north.

Stacy’s eyes flooded as the view of her daughter started to obscure. Stacy removed the photo and held it tightly. Behind it in the locket, separated on either half of the open heart was the visage of herself, and of Luke.

A family. United.