Our Secret War

We had been fighting the war in secret for years, most without knowing it. Every day was a new hate-filled headline, stories designed to make us fear our own backyards. We were entrenched in a daily rhythm of pitting ourselves against anyone who was different. Our society was a flammable husk thrown to the wind: each passing day was a damp match struck against fate, waiting for it to catch.

Our most fatal flaw was probably the consideration of those around as being somehow less than human because their circumstances weren’t as fortunate as our own. It was a communal lack of love, an intolerance for humanity, and an uncanny ability to hate what we couldn’t understand. If you remember anything that I’m able to tell you, let it be this: never, ever discount the value of another human life.

So now my story can begin.

It wouldn’t be fair to call it a bomb. Sure, we’ve all hypothesized the outcome of nuclear warfare and how quickly the planet could self-destruct but this just might be worse. Let me explain:

We didn’t all die.

That’s what makes this so cruel, so inhumane, and yet so horribly funny. In the aftermath of a nuclear war, everyone is supposed to be dead. Cities, lives, the world. Gone. There is no one, not a soul, left alone to revel in loss or struggle to survive. Suffering is nonexistent because life is extinguished. The parts of the world licked by the nuclear tongue are simply wiped away by a metaphorical ‘Reset’ button, as though that population never really existed at all. The problem we approach, however, is who gets to make that decision? Who gets to decide which lives are worth living? And what happens if something, somehow, survives?

***

I no longer believe that America exists, though some people think that it might. The only proof that I have of our old world is that I’m still alive. That’s the craziest part of all of this: there are people left behind. The world is gone but we aren’t. Not all of us, anyway.

I happened to be deep underground when it all began.

The day wasn’t unusual, not really. I was on my way home from a late night at work. I remember my walk to the train, shoving headphones deep into my ear sockets to drown out the shouts, gentle begs for money, a cup of coffee, a warm place to sleep. I averted my eyes to the suffering, the deterioration of other humans all around me.

I climbed aboard a subway car, grabbing the railing right as the train lurched forward and began its serpentine travel deep into New York’s underbelly. I immediately surveyed my surroundings: my mother had told me many things when I moved to this city, one of which I took to heart: observe. You don’t have to interact. Hell, you don’t even have to care. But you must observe. Threat or friend. Classify people on these two things and you’ll be alright, never mind the ignorance that fuels the idea that anyone unlike ourselves is a threat. In retrospect, maybe that ignorance is why we all stopped giving a damn.

As it was, I wasn’t alone on the subway that evening. I had been rushing to catch the train, throwing my body between the closing doors before I realized the mistake of boarding a car that appeared to be empty.

Of course, they never are empty. When they are, it’s for a reason.

There was a man at the far end, huddled in the corner. His clothes were ripped and his hair was clumped, matted to his head as though it hadn’t been washed in weeks. I remember my early thoughts of him, how I considered his slight odor a blessing. I remember thinking that it could have been so much worse. That was it, though. I didn’t allow my mind to linger, to think much else about him. He could have been dead, a lifeless form slouched against the wall for support. Only faint, ragged breathing betrayed his clinging grip on this world.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and began idly swiping through emails, my other hand mindlessly twisting an old, heart-shaped locket from where it hung on it’s chain around my neck, a nervous habit I never outgrew. This was my routine: swipe through my phone, scan my surroundings. Pass the time. Avoid the gentle buzz in the back of my mind, the growing list of things I wanted to do, places to go, the person I craved to be but would never allow myself to become.

Crash.

The end of the world was punctuated by a sickening bang as the train launched from the rails and collided with the cement tunnel it had been moving through. The subway car jerked to the side and I was thrust against the door, my phone knocked from my hands as the shock from the force rendered me momentarily stunned. It was probably 25 seconds before I knew what had happened, before I could process what to do. Twenty-five seconds until I was plunged into a deep, unforgiving darkness. The lights flickered twice before dying completely. I finally remembered to scream.

“Shuddap, ‘ill ya?” a raspy voice crawled deep into my ear, grounding me back onto the subway car and wrapping me with terror. I spun around, my arms spread wide, reaching, flailing, swinging through the darkness. When we made contact I screamed again, alarmed by his rapid approach, his sudden nearness.

“I say SHUDDAP!”

“I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I hurled the words before I knew what I was doing, an empty apology for a crime I didn’t commit. Self-preservation. Threat or friend?

“No, but yeh will be,” the voice whispered. A deep shudder dripped down my spine, leaving me frozen until I realized my hands were still grasping the man standing in front of me. I let go and immediately dropped to my knees, groping the ground in a search for the phone I had lost in the crash.

“My phone, it has a flashlight,” I tried to explain, not fully understanding what good it would do. Our shared darkness masked the reality of the situation, maintaining the strangeness and uncertainty. I tried to fill it with fumbling words, scared that the otherwise empty void would swallow me whole. Light, surely, could shatter the spell. What came next was worse than anything I could have imagined.

Laughter.

A deep, animal laugh erupted out of the man, the sound of it shaking my body in imitation, vibrating gently as though his laughter were my own. I looked up slowly, my eyes trying to bore holes through the darkness, exploring the unseeable area where I knew he must be. Threat or friend, threat or friend? My mind was exploding, unable to comprehend, to decide, the instinct for survival outweighing the logic of my surroundings.

The subway car suddenly burst into light, a firey glow casting a shadow that felt safer than what it grew from. It took a moment for my eyes to refocus, searching for the source of the light and praying for the safety I hoped would accompany it. Finally, the small, flickering match came into view. I was entranced by the flame that danced its way closer and closer to the man’s fingers. I gasped as it met his skin, imagining the recoil, the pain. My mind was pleading for a shout that would restore a feeling of normalcy, but all I found was silence. Terrified to meet his gaze, I looked immediately back to the floor.

“My phone,” I said, an almost inaudible whisper.

“It’s ‘ere,” grunted my companion, and I felt the small metal device knock into my shoe as he kicked it across the car. I picked it up slowly, allowing my fingers to trace its simple shape. The screen had shattered and some parts were missing entirely. I pushed the home button and the screen lit up briefly before turning to black. I looked at it, dejected, and steeled myself to stand and finally return the stare of the man beside me.

His gaze was full of certainty and something like amusement, studying my movements as though he already knew what would come next. I was left with the terrifying realization that, at least for now, he was all I had.

“Well, are yeh comin’ or are yeh just waitin’ for death to meet yeh here?” His voice shook me awake, both a reminder and a warning.

“We’re leaving? Where are you taking me?” The question was my first mistake.

“Aye, I a’int takin’ yeh nowhere. You are the cap’in of yeh’r own ship.”

I took that to mean I should follow or be left to drown and resolved to ask only questions pertaining to immediate life or death from there on out. I nodded, though almost imperceptibly, offering myself a small moment before deciding that there was no other way. Shrugging my shoulders back in a feigned show of confidence, I cleared my throat.

“Let’s go.”

He looked at me again and laughed, that same noise that made my blood run cold.

“Yeh, thas what I thought.”

He walked to the far corner of the subway car, yanking hard on the brake cord. I heard a soft pop and the doors heaved one last exhale before slowly falling open.

He shuffled past me again, climbing through the doors as though it was routine. He clambered out into the abandoned tunnel with surprising ease, stalking off before I realized that I was waiting for an invitation that would never come.

“There have to be others,” my voice echoed, running ahead of us.

He didn’t respond right away but his back stiffened when I smashed the silence we shared. He continued onward as though he hadn’t heard me but he gradually began slowing his pace, eventually halting and turning so fast that I almost walked right into him. He paused for a moment, lighting another match that he held up to my face. I felt as his eyes burned into mine, laughing without making a sound.

“I know there is. Yer question, ‘owever, is if there are any of yer kind.” He brought the match close until I could feel its heat tickling my nose, his eyes bouncing back and forth between mine. “Yeh’d do better ter stop askin’ questions,” he whispered. “I don’ think yer ready for the answers.”

He dropped the match onto the ground and I snapped free from his trance.

His words rang through my head like a threat, reverberating through the empty tunnel as though he had screamed them. What does he mean, my kind? Who else is down here?

“I’m gonna tell yeh sumthin’ yeh migh’ not like teh hear, but yeh should know. Wha’ happened today was no accident. It was a plan, a cleansin’ I think was the name they were callin’ it. Yer supposed teh be dead.

“We was ready for it, though. Funny how smart people think they are, hidin’ secrets in plain sight. Sendin’ messages where anyone can find ‘em. Was kinda brilliant, now I’m thinkin’ about it. Yeh and yer phone, yer news, yer media. Too self-involved to read the signs. Funny, really, how the res’ of us saw it comin’. Couldn’ do nothin’ to stop it, not even if we wanted to. Whouda believed us? Us, the marginalized, abandoned, drug-addled inhabitants of the night. Oh yeh, yeh look away from us but tha’ don’ mean we look away from you.”

“What do you mean I’m supposed to be dead?” The sound of my own voice scared me, but he only laughed.

Yeh and yer questions. Ah, yeh’ll see soon enough. We’re almos’ there,” he grunted dismissively. I felt his eyes on me but refused to look up, waiting until he eventually turned and led me along a steep decline, inching deeper and deeper down.