Shelter

When the lights went out I knew we were in trouble. With a sputtering sound that reminded me of my uncle’s old, beat up Cadillac – the one he was perennially working on when I would visit him during the summer – the generator gasped out its last few puffs of breath and was still. Tracey grabbed my arm then and her long, perfectly manicured nails pressed painfully into my skin. The long silence that followed hung all around us. I could feel the onset of a panic attack starting and squeezed my eyes shut to stop it. I balled my fists and let the urge pass. The pain in my left arm from Tracey’s kung-fu grip helped some, and my breathing slowed down to what might pass as normal.

Yes, I was breathing normally now, but I felt that odd prickling sensation at the back of my neck again. I don‘t know when it first started, but it had been intensifying recently... Tracey’s voice, close to my ear sounded very calm as she asked me in her thin, whiny voice, “So, what are we going to do now, Jake?” God, how I hated her voice! It was grating before the disaster and now, in the dark, dank silence of the basement, it bounced off the walls, cutting into me from all directions. Even with the shit going on outside, I had to marvel at how normal she sounded. I pried her fingers off my arm and felt for the flashlight I remembered seeing on the bookshelf near the now useless generator. “Shit!” I cursed, as I collided against the poker table where we’d set up our water rations for the day. I immediately regretted this when the two cups that Tracey had meticulously filled with water fell over and crashed to the ground.

“Dammit, Jake - Just look at what you fucking did! You know we’re running low on water. How could you be so fucking careless…?!” I grimaced in response as she continued to scream obscenities at me and that strange prickly feeling came back again. I rubbed the back of my neck gently to try and stop it. Look at what I did? The lights are out, bitch. Neither one of us can even see what I did. Why don’t you take a look at how I saved your fat ass? Without me, you’d be like the fuckers outside - dead. I bit down hard on my tongue to stop myself from lashing out at her. Instead, inching forward, I stretched my arms out like a blind man to feel for the bookcase. As I moved away from Tracey, she continued to chew me out under her breath. In the stillness of the room, her muttering seemed obscenely loud. Angrily, I turned in her direction to scream at her to shut up, but the words wouldn’t come out. In all the years that I‘d known her, I’d never so much as raised my voice at her. She won all our arguments and I always did what she wanted.

We’d been together since college. I remember her being so young and beautiful back then. She had been supportive and stuck by me as I earned my medical degree and completed my residency. Never mind that my becoming a doctor was her idea… I proposed to her when I landed my first position. To this day, I often wonder if I asked to her to marry me out of love or obligation. Things changed after we were married. She changed. She became more demanding. Although I hated medicine when I first started practicing, I grew to love it. I wanted to start my own practice in a small town, but Tracey would have none of that. She liked living in the city. She loved the parties that we were invited to, her daily trips to the spa, her shopping, her flings on the side that she knew I knew about. I left all the decision-making to her. It would be up to her if we ever divorced and she would of course decide on the terms, but she enjoyed being a doctor’s wife, so we stayed together. When the disaster struck, that was the first time; I’d ever seen Tracey at a loss for what to do. That was why I felt so proud when I suggested that we go to Uncle Jim’s.

It had been a very long time since I had last visited my uncle’s farm. He owned an old farmhouse just outside the city. He was a farmer by trade, but had been a decorated war veteran in his prime. As a boy, I used to visit him each summer and watch in rapt attention as he fixed up an old Caddy that would eventually get abandoned, collecting dust in the backyard. I remember how much I loved Uncle Jim’s farmhouse. It was like something out of an old depression-era movie. It had an attic, a basement, and a weathervane in the shape of a rooster that sat rusting and swinging on the roof. The house had gone to shit when Aunt Sarah died. All the paint inside and outside the house had faded and peeled from neglect, and the yard was overrun with weeds. The decrepit nature of the house belied the modernity within. When Uncle Jim gave up on restoring his old Caddy, he shifted his attention to remodeling the basement instead. What started as a remodeling project eventually wound up being an obsession.

From then on, whenever I visited him, I would find him working down in the basement. I don’t have any fond memories of Aunt Sarah. The strongest memories I have are of her yelling at Uncle Jim during this time. She had been bossy and mean-spirited while she lived and she abhorred my uncle‘s interest in that basement. There‘s a saying that a person’s appearance matches their personality. Well, Aunt Sarah had been an obese, pockmarked woman for as long as I’d known her. I loved my Uncle Jim, but most of my memories of him are tempered by my memories of Aunt Sarah constantly nagging him. Sometimes, when I visited them during the summer, my uncle would have bruises and scratches on his face and hands. He always said that they were from working on the basement, but I had my suspicions. Although Aunt Sarah spent most of her days sitting in the lazy boy in front of their TV set, she was amazingly fast and strong. I spent most of my time at Uncle Jim’s tending to her. If I wasn’t fast enough in getting her what she wanted, she was swift to smack me or slap me in the face. The only reprieve I got was in the weeks before I was to return home. Aunt Sarah knew that it took time for bruises and scratches to heal completely. Although I was terrified of her, I couldn’t tell my parents. If I told them about Aunt Sarah, they wouldn’t let me visit Uncle Jim and I couldn’t just abandon him. When she passed, Uncle Jim never talked about her, but I sensed a change in him. He eventually finished his basement project. He kept it under lock and key and never let me down there. He passed years before the disaster, but left the farm to me in his will. Tracey and I had been amazed when we came down here and discovered that my uncle had been working on a bomb shelter this entire time. It was well-stocked with supplies, so we hunkered down and…just waited.

I don’t know how long we’ve been down here. Communication with the outside world had ceased some time ago. Our watches, phones…everything had stopped working. Days, weeks, months…there was no distinction now. It felt like we were living through one endless day. The only way I knew that time was passing was by looking at Tracey’s face. Uncle Jim had no mirrors down here, but I knew that time was swiftly passing us by as each new wrinkle formed on her face. The shelter was stocked with food, but not much else. Tracey spent long hours - or was it days - painting and filing her nails. The strong odor of nail polish pervaded everything and became a permanent part of the air we breathed in. I’d long since run out of reading material, so these days, I found myself thinking about the past. I just kept thinking about Uncle Jim. Like memories of me visiting him, the stories he used to tell me, and the advice he always tried to impart on me... I hadn’t thought about him in years (not since I’d met Tracey), but recently, I’d been trying to remember what he used to say to me…

“Jake! What the hell are you doing?! I need that fucking flashlight!“ I jumped in surprise at her outburst. I hadn't realized that I had been idle for awile now. With a shake to clear my head, and that prickling sensation still lingering around my neck, I moved forward. Although I couldn’t see an inch before my face, I could still make out vague shapes. Goosepimples dotted my skin as I made my way slowly through the dark. By now, my eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and I could make out the outline of a bookcase. I reached out for the fuzzy dark thing that looked like a flashlight and prayed that the batteries still worked. My hands trembled as I turned on the light and I let out a sigh of dismay as the small bulb gave off a weak sputtering glow. I almost dropped it when Tracey screamed in frustration. In the fading light of the flashlight’s beam, her face looked so contorted and twisted that it was unrecognizable. Only her hard, dark eyes remained the same. She was looking right at me and I knew that this was my fault. It was always 'my' fault. For a moment, the thin light bounced off the wall, casting shadows all around me and then, it eventually faded. I broke out in a cold sweat and waited for Tracey to say something.

“We have to get out of here. You need to go out there right now, Jake.” My eyes widened and the prickling on my neck became more intense. Go outside?!

“We don’t know what’s out there! How can I go out there?!,” I pleaded in the dark. “Please, Tracey. Let’s think of something else! Please don‘t make me!” I recoiled at the desperation and weakness in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. Fear had taken over me and I took a stumbling step towards Tracey. I tripped over my own feet and fell face down in the small puddle of water that had spilled earlier. Tracey snorted in disgust. “What the fuck is wrong with you. You’re a man, aren’t you? Act like one already! Jesus Christ. I can’t live like this. I can’t live down here without any light. Take your uncle’s shotgun and get your ass up there, Jake!” Another panic attack was threatening to hit me. I could feel it, but as I lay there on the cold, damp floor, I was able to keep it away. “Take the gun, Jake. Take it and check upstairs.” In the dark, Tracy had somehow found me lying on the floor. Once again, I could feel her talon-like nails gripping my arm tightly as she pulled me up.

I sighed deeply in resignation. I couldn’t stop shaking and I trembled as I slowly made my way to the stairs. At the foot of them, I felt around for the old shotgun that my uncle had left on a gun rack to the side. With one hand feeling the wall to my right, I gingerly climbed the stairs. When I reached the door, I stopped. “Are you at the top yet, Jake?” Tracey called out to me. “Once you get outside, prop the door open with something. Look around and see if it’s safe.” Setting the shotgun down briefly, I felt the wall to my left and grabbed my keys, which were hung on a hook next to the door. The door to the shelter was designed to lock automatically and Uncle Jim had only made one key. After slipping it into the keyhole and unlocking the door, I pocketed them without even thinking about it. Bending down, I retrieved my gun and exhaled deeply, trying desperately to gather my wits about me. The hand holding the shotgun suddenly grew slick with sweat and I gripped it tightly to avoid dropping it. I slowly turned the knob and eased the door open an inch and peeked out. I gasped as my eyes adjusted to the light. Across the way, I could see the kitchen and the gray beams of light shining through the windows. All was still, save for the sound of my breathing. My heart was pounding and I almost dropped the shotgun again. All the alarms in my head were telling me to retreat back into the shelter but I held my spot. For a moment I halted my breathing, straining to pick up even the slightest sound but the house was silent. Galvanized, I let out my breath and opened the door a bit wider while looking around cautiously. The house had been boarded up prior to the disaster, and everything was covered in fine layers of dust. A testament to how much time had passed. I could hear Tracy below shuffling in the dark, so I looked behind me and propped the door open with the dead flashlight that I had unconsciously brought along.

I unsteadily made my way to the front door. Slivers of light shone through the boards illuminating the hard wood floor. My footsteps echoed with each step and when I got there I stood for a long while with my hand perched above the doorknob. I had tried looking through the peep hole in the door, but it was so caked in dirt that I couldn’t make out what lay outside. “Jake!! What’s taking so long? Hurry up already!” Tracey hissed from the shelter. In the stillness of the house, her voice carried and she sounded so loud! The prickling on the back of my neck started up again, but I ignored it and slowly opened the door. The hinges creaked and I almost screamed as an explosion of light hit my face. I squinted against the light, the panic rising as I realized that I couldn’t see. After some time had passed, I once again forced my eyes to adjust and was finally rewarded with a fuzzy image of what lay before me.

White fluffy clouds hung in the bright blue sky. The yard was overrun with not just weeds, but huge stalks of sunflowers that cast long shadows on the ground. The vegetation had grown right up to the front door. The car we had driven in and left in front of the barn had completely disappeared under a mound of wildflowers that dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see. I took a step forward and could hear the sound of birds chirping in the distance. The only sounds I could hear were those birds and the wind as it softly blew by. In that moment, I suddenly remembered what Uncle Jim had always told me. I took a deep breath and walked back in to the house. The opening to the shelter looked like a dark gaping mouth as I walked towards it. I picked up the flashlight and looked into the gloomy room below. Although my frame blocked the doorway, a sliver of light made it past me illuminating Tracey’s upturned face.

For a moment, I recognized the girl I loved in college, but that quickly changed as her cold, dark eyes narrowed as she looked at me. She ran her hands through her hair and the bright red nail polish on the tips of her fingers reflected the light. “What took you so goddamn long? Did you take a scenic tour? Well? What is it like up there, Jake? I‘m tired of waiting.” The prickling at the back of my neck threatened to start up again, but I willed it away. “It’s absolutely beautiful,” I said, before throwing the dead flashlight down at her, and stepping back to close the door. The door to the shelter was made of fortified steel, so I couldn’t hear anything beyond it. I could picture Tracey cursing me and scrambling up the stairs, but I willed away the urge to open it, in the same manner that I willed away the prickling at the back of my neck. Dusting myself off, I shouldered my shotgun and walked back toward the entrance. As I stepped outside into the warm sun and a world that was different from the one that I had left, I repeated the words that Uncle Jim had always said to me when I was a young boy. “You have a right to be happy, Jake. Don’t let anyone get in the way of your happiness…”

It was time to start over.