The Shadows Below

Chapter Twenty-Two

Neither of us feels safe in the house, so it's a big relief when she finds the basement with a trap door and we both enter silently as we can, the creaks on the wooden steps down into the darkness are both expected and unwelcome. The usual detritus is here, and she pushes most of it to one side and pulls out some empty cardboard boxes and old sheets and arranges one below the other for us to sit on.

'Concrete can get cold very fast,' she says quietly.

We both sit there for a while, after our escape and running into town, the clinic and all that happened there and now finding this place, I want to sleep but I don't feel I ever could again.

Too much has happened. I'm not a deserter, everyone else deserted me. It's dusty in here and I cough a little. She glances at me and I just shake my head. 'Dust,' I say out loud and she nods.

'We'll need to go soon, once we figure out our next move.'

'You could try calling your dad again. He could help out.'

She smiles. Her first real one. 'Good thinking.' Her face falls. 'You're coming too, right?'

I don't mind her asking, she knows I was left behind but she doesn't know the whole story. I shouldn't be tagging along like this.

'I should wait, contact the base first. My proper one.'

'And say that you were left behind to fend for yourself in enemy territory?'

'I can't just bail on them. My record still says the same thing. I may not be a deserter but if I'm still out here in the sticks, I'll be AWOL.' And I'll definitely be that if I'm transported stateside with no papers, no permission to do that.

'My dad knows a few lawyers, people all over. We can figure it out.'

'I can't. What I did -' I laugh brokenly. She doesn't even know what I did.

'The same as what those other guys did?'

'Absolutely nothing compared to what I did.' Fuck. I haven't even talked about this to anyone before. There should be a protocol. There probably is, but fucked if I can remember what it is at this point.

'Worse than me?' She asks and I look up at her then.

'You weren't yourself.'

'Name one person who I could convince, aside from family, that I wasn't fully aware and able to stop myself. Because if I'm able to see it, then logic dictates, I should be able to stop it.'

'Fuck logic. I was drunk but that doesn't excuse me for shooting a kid, does it?'

'What?'

'Yeah. I shot a kid. I was blind - fucking black-out drunk and any judge you could name would say the same thing, it doesn't excuse or whitewash what I did. That's on me.'

'I know.' Her voice is heavy. 'And thanks to whatever shit they gave me, I'm in the same boat.'

'What a fucking pair we make.' Despite the gruesome knowledge of us both, she's killed at least ten people, that I know of, while in that fucked up state and I've killed some, and one was a kid, civilian while I was too off my head to realise - we both start laughing but then abruptly stop.

We both hear some noises above us, there's someone in the house. I count one set of footsteps, walking around, slow and steady.

Searching.

We both get up quietly and back away to the far wall. We're in a shitty spot if this person is in any way connected to whoever was coming for us back out there at the base, and in a shitty spot if it's whoever owns this place. We've broken in and now we're technically squatting.

Standing, it's not a huge place and at some point - we both hear the trap door opening. Trap, how fucking apt is that. We're both trapped.

The person, whoever it is, slowly descends - much slower than we did. Little breaths of exertion, either out of breath or older than most. Neither of which gives me comfort and so I move to stand closer and in front of her. She flicks the switch, just as the stranger reaches the bottom rung which startles both whoever it is and me - a good move but I would have liked a little warning.

'Argh, that's too bright.' A woman, much older than us, shields her eyes against the sudden glare.

'Grandmother?'

'Kasia.'