Resistance: The Gathering Storm

CHAPTER FIFTEEN A Cold Day in Hell

Near Madison, Wisconsin

Tuesday, December 11, 1951

Escape Tunnel I was four feet high and two men wide. What little light there was came from improvised oil lamps positioned at regular intervals along the upward-sloping shaft. Each jar contained a wooden block that was floating on a layer of cooking oil supported by four or five inches of water. A hole had been drilled through each block so that an improvised wick could be pushed down into the fuel below. As Henry Walker turned to deposit a scoopful of dirt and rock onto a sheet of scrap metal called “the wagon,” one of the lamps threw a monstrous shadow onto the opposite wall. Walker was in his sixties, and he had all sorts of aches and pains, but was determined to ignore them in order to do his share of the work.

Fortunately his one-hour shift was almost over and Walker felt a sense of relief as he added one last scoop of dirt to the heaping pile and jerked on the string that ran the length of the tunnel. Tin cans partially filled with pebbles rattled noisily, signaling for the “donkeys” to pull the wagon downslope to the carefully concealed entrance. There “spreaders” would take the material out and scatter it around the pit a few pounds at a time. It was an exhausting not to mention time-consuming process, but in the words of Walker’s friend Harley Burl, “What the hell else have we got to do?”

And for Walker, who still hoped to get his recordings out to the public, the escape tunnels gave him reason to hope.

The wagon made a grating sound as the donkeys towed it away, and Walker followed, looking forward to the moment when he would be able to stand straight. The trip served to remind him of the need for more supports, which, given the amount of wood already burned for heat, were in short supply. And that shortage had been responsible for the recent collapse some forty feet upslope in Tunnel 3. A disastrous event that not only claimed three lives, but had to be concealed from both the Chimera and the ever-watchful Collins, who insisted on a head count every morning. The prisoners had been able to fool the ex-schoolteacher by having people yell “Here!” for those who weren’t actually present, but there was no telling how long the ruse would work.

The entrance to Tunnel I was located immediately behind one of the four-hole outhouses the prisoners had constructed for themselves. The shed was about fifteen feet wide and made out of scrap lumber. In addition to blocking the cold winter wind and providing users with a modicum of privacy, the shitter had another purpose as well. And that was to conceal the escape shaft that Walker and the other tunnel rats had worked so hard to create. Which was why it had been constructed against the pit’s west wall.

A twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot chamber was located directly behind the four-holer. That was where the donkeys could unload the wagon, the spreaders could fill sacks with dirt, and Walker could finally stand up straight.

Which he did with an audible groan. One of the donkeys smiled sympathetically. His hair was ragged where chunks of it had been hacked off with a knife—and a grimy face framed his bright blue eyes.

“It don’t get any easier, does it?” the man inquired.

“No, it doesn’t,” Walker replied, as he brushed dirt off his already filthy trousers. “I keep hoping the stinks will find this thing and put us out of our misery!”

Dark humor was the order of the day, so those around Walker chuckled appreciatively. He knocked on the panel that separated the tunnel from Cubicle 2 inside the aptly named “shit shack.” Then, having heard no response from within, he lifted the section of paneling out of the way and put it to one side. Once he passed through the hole one of the donkeys lifted the barrier back into place. That gave Walker an opportunity to pee before zipping his trousers and stepping out into the cold morning air.

Prior to the invasion, the pit had been an operating sulfide mine from which the owners had been able to extract 8.4 percent zinc and 0.7 percent lead. And that, according to the mining engineer who had been killed in the Tunnel 3 cave-in days before, was a very rich find.

Like most open-pit mines the “stink hole,” as the prisoners called it, consisted of a groundwater-supplied lake at its center, and a circular roadway that rose corkscrew fashion up through the terracelike levels that had been excavated in the past.

Once removed from the mine, the raw ore had been fed into an assemblage of buildings up top, where it was systematically roasted, smelted, and converted. Except that rather than ore, the Chimera were feeding people into the former smelter, none of whom were ever seen again. The choice of which prisoners to take was left largely to Collins. That was why most people sought to avoid the collaborator in hopes of escaping what could be a fatal glance.

It also explained why most of the people who sat bundled in blankets, ambled about, or gathered around “the boil” were so dispirited. Because the odds of their being taken off to the processing plant were good, and even if they lived long enough to crawl through one of the tunnels to freedom, the prisoners knew that most—if not all—of the escapees would be caught and executed.

But depressing though the situation was, people were people, and with death only a whisper away, there were those who sought to advantage themselves by forming and being part of so-called committees. Groups that were very similar to gangs, all vying to control resources like food, medicine, and clothing. And they were very much in evidence as a shadow drifted over the pit and a loud thrumming noise was heard.

The cry of “Dump! Dump! Dump!” went up as the Chimeran ship slowed its sideways motion and a black rectangle appeared in the shuttle’s belly. Walker knew what was going to happen next, and ran to the rally point where Harley Burl stood waiting. Others were assembling there as well, all members of the Fair and Square Squad, which was dedicated to dividing all resources fairly, rather than allowing the competing committees to take possession of them and therefore the entire pit.

Speed was of utmost importance as boxes of supplies began to tumble out of the shuttle. Some splashed into the slushy lake where they sank or floated, depending on what was in them. Others exploded on contact, spewing their contents far and wide. And a few made it to the ground intact. Those were considered to be the most significant prizes—even though the prisoners knew some would turn out to be nothing more than a cruel joke. Because there was often little rhyme or reason as to what sorts of things the Chimera chose to drop.

In the recent past the prisoners had been on the receiving end of crates that contained basketballs, auto parts, and luggage. But there had been big boxes full of cereal, canned fruit, and canned dog food as well. The latter being highly valued because of all the protein contained in the cans.

So every crate was worth battling for, even if the contents were uncertain, and as Burl led his squad out to do battle with the committees, makeshift clubs were swung, fists flew, and even teeth were employed as the melee got underway. Walker, ex-Marine that he was, sought the very center of the battle.

A man wearing a homemade eye patch took a swing at the Secretary of War, only to have his arm blocked as Walker hit him in the mouth. The committeeman’s lower lip split open, blood dribbled down his chin, and he was forced to fall back, along with his cronies. The battle was over two minutes later as Burl’s men drove the gang away from the booty they were trying to claim.

Then, true to their motto of “fair and square,” the squad hauled the boxes to a central location where the entire community could witness their activities, and began the process of evaluating their haul. Once that effort was complete everything that could be logically distributed was, including three hundred pairs of socks, fifty tubes of toothpaste, and a hundred straw hats. Food, and anything that could even remotely be considered to be medical in nature, was kept together to be rationed out to the entire population, including the committeemen. Chimeran drones, which never took sides in such battles, hummed ominously as they crisscrossed the air above.

Once the work of processing the dump was complete, Walker was about to look for his wife, when Burl intercepted him.

“There you are,” the big man said. “I’m glad I caught you.”

“Yeah?” Walker replied. “What’s up?”

“Porter tells me the guy you hit in the mouth—Tolly is his name—was seen talking to Collins.”

“So?” Walker demanded. “The committeemen suck up to Collins all the time. It never does them any good. The bitch would sell her own mother for a stick of gum. She couldn’t care less about them.”

“That’s true,” Burl agreed soberly. “But Porter says that as Tolly was speaking to Collins, he was pointing at you. So keep your head down and stay out of sight for a while. We’re all going to heaven—but why hurry?”

Walker laughed, promised Burl that he would be careful, and went looking for Myra. She wasn’t hard to find. Almost from the moment they had arrived she had involved herself with the stink hole’s meager medical facility. It was a rudimentary operation housed in what had once been the supervisor’s pit shack—a wooden structure that sat on skids and could be towed from place to place as the mine deepened.

Sadly, the “med center,” as it was called, had been set up and maintained by a succession of doctors, dentists, nurses, and in one case a pharmacist, all of whom had been marched up the spiral road to the Chimeran processing center on the flat land above. It was presently being run by a midwife, a retired Navy hospital corps-man, and Myra. She hurried over to give her husband a peck on the cheek as he entered.

The couple had always been close, but with death hovering all around, expressions of affection had become more frequent. Myra’s face was thinner now, and there were perpetual circles around her eyes, but they still brimmed with life.

“You’ve been fighting again!” she said accusingly. “I know because the casualties show up here.”

Walker grinned. “Who, me?” he protested as he looked around. There were fifteen or twenty patients crammed into the building—at least three of whom were dying of amoebic dysentery. The rest were getting treatment for cuts and bruises received during the recent dustup. A couple of committeemen were present and glowered at Walker as their injuries were tended to. He ignored them and turned back to Myra.

“Let’s have dinner together,” Walker said. “I’ll take you to the best restaurant in town. To hell with the cost.”

Myra smiled brightly.

“But I don’t have anything to wear!”

“They’re very understanding over at the boil,” Walker assured her. “Dirty, blood-splattered clothes are in this year.”

“Well, in that case, I would be delighted,” Myra replied gravely. “Give me five minutes to finish what I was doing and I’ll be ready to go.”

Walker stepped back outside to wait for her, and watched as the sun descended below the western rim of the pit, and darkness settled into the stink hole. By the time Myra emerged from the med center, another freezing-cold night had begun. The sky was clear, so the couple could see a scattering of stars as they made their way over to the boil, where they fell into line behind a blanket-clad man and his ten-year-old daughter.

Each prisoner received three handcrafted tin tokens per day, which they were free to use as they saw fit. Some hoarded the disks for reasons Walker couldn’t understand. Others used the tokens to pay for items of clothing, or personal services, sometimes including sex. But most people—the Walkers included—were happy to exchange their tokens for three hot meals per day.

Each meal was always the same, with a consistency of oatmeal, yet different because the ingredients varied. So as the line shuffled toward the fire-blackened cauldron, there was always a certain amount of suspense, not to mention rumors, regarding the contents of the occasionally noxious brew.

As Walker’s stomach continued to growl, and he accepted a chromed baby moon hubcap from one of the volunteers, he wondered what sort of gustatory experience was waiting for him. The “glop masters,” as they were jokingly called, were men and women who were willing to cook and serve for an extra token a day, and Walker knew the woman who ladled two dollops of glutinous “boil” onto his makeshift plate. Edith had a halo of gray hair, a broad face, and a big smile.

“Hello, Myra, hello, Henry,” she said cheerfully. “You’re going to like the boil tonight! A couple of cases of meatballs came in today. Most people are getting at least one or two.”

And sure enough, consistent with Edith’s prophecy, both Walkers found meatballs in their mush. A tasty brew that included oatmeal, canned peas, and a scattering of raisins. It was important to eat quickly, because even though the boil was hot, their metal plates were cold and the temperature was dropping. So the Walkers hurried over to the edge of a nearby terrace where layers of rock offered stadium-style seating. Once in place it was time to fish spoons out of their pockets and dig in.

By unspoken agreement there was no conversation during dinner, just eating, so as to consume the food before it grew cold. And even though Myra would have never considered doing such a thing in her Washington home, the former socialite didn’t hesitate to lick her bowl clean once her food was gone.

“Not bad,” Walker said as he put his empty hubcap aside. “Although my mush was a bit overcooked.”

Myra laughed. “I’ll tell the maître d’. Come on, it’s time to get ready for bed.”

Just about all the stink hole’s prisoners went to bed early. Partly because there was nothing else to do, partly because it was easier to stay warm that way, and partly because just about all of them were bone-tired. There were no formal sleeping arrangements, just hundreds of improvised shelters, many of which had been constructed by people who had been marched up to the processing plant above. The Walkers’ lean-to was no exception.

It consisted of a slab of steel that had once served as a bridge over a drainage ditch. At some point prior to their arrival it had been moved using muscle power, and tipped into position against the second-lowest terrace. That was as high as the humans were allowed to go without being shot by the Bullseye-toting Hybrid guards above. Backed by automatic weapons and mortars, they were in an unassailable position. The Chimera liked the cold temperatures, and glowered down from above as the Walkers ducked under their slanted roof.

Wood was too precious to be used as a floor, so their bedrolls rested on layers of cardboard, which offered a little bit of insulation from the hard frozen ground. One end of the lean-to had been sealed with a piece of raggedy carpet, cut to size. Once inside it was Walker’s job to close the other end with a carefully crafted plug made out of canvas stretched over a wooden frame. An oil lamp similar to the ones being used in the escape tunnels provided what little light there was.

Having opened their slightly damp bedrolls, and climbed inside with their clothes still on, the Walkers were ready to sleep. Or Henry was anyway, because after kissing his wife good night, he soon began to snore. Myra knew the pattern well, and once her husband was asleep, allowed herself to cry. The sobs were muffled by blankets and therefore nearly inaudible, but they lasted for a long time.

Myra awoke to find her husband gone. That was no surprise since he always rose earlier than she did. Daylight was filtering in around the carpet and the canvas “door” behind her head by then.

She would have preferred to remain in bed for a while, comfortably cocooned inside her carefully maintained air pocket, but Myra needed to pee. So she steeled herself against the cold, rolled out of her slightly damp bedding, and remembered all of the steaming-hot baths she had taken for granted during her previous life. Long luxurious soaks that lasted for half an hour or more. But it was best to forget such things, to relegate them to the past along with the joys of clean clothes and hot tea.

After a visit to the nearest four-holer, Myra went to collect her tokens before making her way over to the boil. Myra knew most of her fellow prisoners, as a result of working in the med center, and said hello to them as she passed, but few were willing to do more than mumble a neutral response. And she knew why.

Because even though many of the prisoners had lost track of the calendar date, all of them knew that the Chimera came down into the pit to take people away every third day, which meant that today someone was going to die. So people found it difficult to look one another in the eye and exchange friendly greetings until a new seventy-two-hour clock began. Then it would be time to mourn those who had been taken, commiserate with whatever newbies had been brought in overnight, and try to ignore the horror of what was taking place.

Still, even with that understanding, it seemed as if people were especially taciturn that morning as Myra waited in the line, received her portion of the boil, and went off to eat it. The glutinous mess was almost identical to the glop served the evening before, except that there was only one meatball in her portion and kernels of canned corn had been added. Once she was finished, Myra took her hubcap over to the kitchen area where she turned it in prior to leaving for work.

The first thing Myra noticed about the Med Center was the absence of a line. But that wasn’t too unusual for a three-day when most people did whatever they could to keep a low profile. So as Myra opened the door, and stepped inside, she was readying herself to face the usual chores, many of which were quite unpleasant.

But what awaited her was something entirely different.

A familiar stench hung heavy in the air, people were sobbing, and three heavily armed Hybrids were present. As was Norma Collins.

“You’re five minutes late,” the collaborator said accusingly, as if she was in charge of the clinic. “Turn around and go back outside.”

Myra led the way, closely followed by her fellow staffers and all of the patients, some of whom were so sick they could barely walk, dressed in little more than street clothes, with nothing more than socks on their feet. A few complained, but doing so was pointless as the Chimera herded them onto the spiral road.

Myra felt liquid lead collect in the pit of her stomach and battled to control the sudden desire to go to the bathroom.

Judging from appearances the stinks had been waiting inside the clinic for some time. If so, that would explain why people had been unwilling to interact with Myra earlier, knowing as they did that she was marked for death. Some were sad, no doubt, but secretly happy as well, having been granted another seventy-two hours of life.

Myra’s head swiveled back and forth as she looked for her husband, desperately hoping for one last moment of eye contact and a final wave, but he was nowhere to be seen. Yet that meant Henry would live a bit longer, and she was grateful.

That left Myra with nothing to do but trudge up the muddy slope and face what lay ahead. The air smelled clean and fresh, with just a slight tang of wood smoke. The weak, nearly powerless sunlight bathed everything around her in gold, and Myra could hear blood pounding in her ears as she and her doomed companions circled the pit like birds uncertain of where to land. She had regrets, but very few, and felt fortunate to be alive, if only for a short while longer.

As Walker left Escape Tunnel 1, made his way through the four-holer beyond, and stepped out into the well-churned muck, he knew instantly that something was wrong. An almost perfect silence hung over the pit, hundreds of people stood staring up at the road, and then he remembered. It was three-day, the stinks were making a withdrawal from their meat bank, and people were going to die. That was when the glop master named Edith turned to him with tears running down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically. “Myra was a very nice person.”

What felt like ice water trickled into Walker’s veins.

“No!” he shouted, and began to run. If the stinks were going to take Myra, then he would go as well, and they would die together.

Burl heard Walker, saw him start to run, and knew what the man had in mind. But Burl was aware of the recorder, the recordings, and how important they were.

So he hurried to cut Walker off, threw his arms around him, and brought the ex-Secretary of War crashing down. Then, as members of the Fair and Square Squad hurried to help, Burl kept Walker from getting up.

That was when Tolly and a group of his cronies sauntered over. Tolly offered Burl an evil grin. “Remember this the next time a dump falls out of the sky,” the committeeman said ominously. “And remember, it belongs to us.”

That generated a chorus of agreement from the other committeemen, who slapped one another’s backs, and left as a group.

Another day had begun.

There were lights inside what had been the mine’s smelter, but not very many, because the Spinners wanted it that way. Like the rest of the forms to which the Chimeran virus had given life, the Spinners had a specific purpose, and an important one. That was to take human beings, and seal them inside a chrysalis-like cocoon, where a complex series of chemical reactions converted them into whatever type of Chimera was in short supply at the moment. Hybrids mostly, since they were the foot soldiers in the battle to conquer Earth, and were subject to a high casualty rate.

None of this was known to the Spinners, who were little more than parts in a biological machine, the purpose of which was beyond their understanding.

So as Myra was forced to enter the long rectangular building, and gagged on the stench, she was unaware of the fact that the Hybrids urging her forward had once been human. And that was just as well, because knowing would have served no purpose other than to make an already horrible experience even worse. As she moved forward, scritching sounds were heard and hideous-looking monsters peered out from the compartments in which they lived. Cubicles which, judging from the layer of the fecal matter in them, hadn’t been cleaned out in quite a while.

As Myra was chivvied down the main corridor, her knees felt weak, and her heart beat like a trip hammer. She knew the stinks were going to kill her, but she didn’t know how. And not knowing was worse than any fate she could imagine.

Then she was there, standing in front of an open bay as a Spinner came out to inspect her. It was about the size of a large dog, and walked crablike on six claw-shaped feet. Myra screamed, and screamed again, as something hot and sticky shot out to make contact with her body. Then she was spinning, feet off the floor, as the goo wrapped her in a sticky embrace. Once the thick impermeable substance rose to encircle her chin, Myra knew how she was going to die, and uttered one last scream before hot sealer filled her mouth. Then she was choking, unable to breathe, as the newly formed chrysalis hardened around her.

Meanwhile, in the curing room a hundred feet away, a scabrous arm shot out of a cocoon. One of dozens that occupied that particular area. Pieces of rotting chrysalis fell away to land on the filth below as the Hybrid struggled to deliver itself. There was a ripping sound as the pod broke open and a scabrous thing staggered out onto the floor. It was clad in rags and the sad remnants of a pair of lace-up hunting boots.

Myra was dead by that time—and a Chimera had been born.