Silo

Chapter 12

The thud of my boot hitting the wall jarred me back to consciousness. I groaned, rolling over as another boot hit my head. "What the hell," as I rolled over into something hard and unforgiving. Three tennis balls, Tyler's glove, her notebook, and my only pair of sneakers strewn across my bed. Apparently, she'd been trying to wake me for a while.  

Wiping the haze of sleep from my eyes, I took a quick glance at the girl. She was awake, her eyes widened in a horror I failed to understand. "What's wrong?"  

My question was cut off by the sound of breaking glass, followed by a string of profanities I couldn't quite make out. Instinctively, I grabbed my rifle and tucked an extra box of ammo into my back pocket. I slipped the knife from beneath my pillow into her hand, physically wrapping each one of her fingers around the leather handle. 

"Don't move," I whispered. 

Shutting the door behind me, I crept towards Evan's room, my rifle trained on the dark, vacant space between his room and mine. His door was open a crack, the solitary light from his candle casting muted shadows into the hall. I stopped just outside the door and eased it open. I may not have been able to see past the end of my nose, but the muffled voices inside told me something was going on in Evan's room.  

Using the tip of my rifle, I pushed his door wide open. His normally organized collection of ratty sweatshirts and jeans were strewn across the floor, and the afghan was torn from his bed. My gaze settled on the far end of the room where Keith had Evan pinned to the wall. Evan's face red and blotchy he struggled to free himself from the forearm Keith had slammed across is throat. 

"I'm gonna give you to the count of five, you pathetic little shit." Keith's jaw tensed, his elbow pressing deeper into Evan's neck. "Give it back, or I swear to God, I'll kill you." 

Evan squeezed his eyes shut, the pressure on his throat making his response impossible to understand. A choked gasp escaped his lips as Keith pulled back his fist. 

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded, not bothering to lower my rifle. From the looks of it, Keith had completely lost his mind.  

One reinforcing shove of Evan's body into the wall and Keith released his grip and turning his eyes on me as Evan dropped to the floor. "Asshole took my bow."  

Evan held up a hand up from his spot on the ground, asking for help. It was Keith who reached down and hauled him up by the front of his shirt. "And if he doesn't give it back soon," Keith continued, "he's going to be paying for it in blood." 

I crossed the room, pushing Keith aside to get to Evan. His lip was bleeding, my first indication that Keith had already taken a half-hearted swing at him. Bu if Keith truly meant to hurt him, then Evan would be nursing a hell of a lot more then a split lip. 

I looked at Evan, his already fractured lenses sliding down the tip of his nose as he soaked up the blood with his sleeve. "What happened?" I asked. 

"I have no idea. I was asleep when this crazed lunatic burst into my room and dragged me out of bed. He thinks I stole his stupid crossbow." Evan chuckled, "The same one, incidentally, he stole from that other silo last week."  

"Did you?" I asked, watching as Evan's face morphed from annoyed to stunned.  

"Did I steal his bow? Are you insane? What would I want with it anyway? I don't even know how to use it!"  

"You didn't take my bow because you wanted to use it. You're pissed about your stupid stat book. You still think I took those pages and now you're messing with me!"  

Keith advanced on Evan again, prompting me to wedge my body between the two of them, keeping Evan safe. "I wish I had taken your little baseball diary," Keith raged. "I would've set the damn thing on fire just to watch you lose it while it burned." 

It was Evan who lashed out this time. Sidestepping around me, he dug his heels into the dirt-covered floor and lunged at Keith. I stopped him, held back his frail body with one arm while Keith leered at him from only a foot away.  

"Stop it. STOP. IT!" I stared down at my rifle, considered firing a warning shot to stop their bickering. Fortunately, one look up at the reinforced steel and concrete ceiling reminded me that a bullet would likely ricochet, possibly killing all three of us in the process.  

Guiding Evan over to his ransacked bed, I pressed down on his shoulders, motioning his to sit. He was beyond pissed and ready to square off with a kid twice his size. Whether or not Evan had taken Keith's bow, this had to end. Now!  

"Where did you have your bow last?" I asked Keith. 

"In the main room by the supplies. He grabbed it while I was sleeping."  

Evan stood up again, his limbs trembling with fury. "You took my stat book. Admit it. You're a selfish prick, and you did it just to screw with me."  

I opened my mouth to intervene when a spark of realization hit me. Maybe Evan did take the bow. Keith had been prodding Evan since day one, finding false inaccuracies in every plan he devised. I told Evan just last week that he needed to stand his ground, that he couldn't hide behind me forever. As proud as I was that he'd finally grown a pair, I wish he'd used more common sense, hadn't decided to pick a fight when we were all trapped down here on lockdown.  

I held up a hand in the air and sighed loudly. "Okay, so there's two missing items now - Evans stat pages and your bow." I said, as I turned my attention toward Keith. I needed him to ease down for a minute and let me figure this out. "The pages form Evan;s book are small, could've easily fallen behind something or blown away when we opened the hatch, but the bow ...."  

Dark thoughts burrowed through my mind. Maybe Evan was on to something when he said we were being watched, stalked like animals in our own home.  

"Let's do a quick sweep of the silo since we're all awake. I'll take the bedrooms. Evan you take the cooking area, and Keith you take the supply room. We'll meet back here, and if the bow hasn't turned up, then -"  

"Then what?" Keith interrupted before I could finish. "We assume that numb-nuts here made it disappear?" He said, jabbing a finger in Evan's direction. 

I shot a glare in his way, not appreciating his sarcasm. "We'll figure it out," I said, hoping beyond all reason that the bow was right where Keith last left it.  

                                                                                        # 

We'd searched the entire silo twice before meeting back in Evan's room, empty-handed. "So, you still think I took your bow and ran off with it? Where is it then, Keith?" 

Evan was standing directly in front of Keith, a choice I wouldn't have made under the circumstances. Part of me knew Evan was smarter than this, that he wouldn't pick a fight with Keith when we had bigger things to worry about. But the other part of me, the part that knew how primitive our behavior could become out here, figured he was long overdue to snap.  

Keith's eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and I immediately sprang from the doorway, blocking his path to Evan. Keith just laughed and dropped himself to Evan's bed. "Oh please, Jake. If I'd wanted to kick Evan's ass, I would've done it by now. I just want my bow back." 

"It's got to be what ... four, five in the morning?" I asked, knowing neither one of them could gauge the time. Three days locked down here, and we'd lost all sense of time and direction. "Sun's got to be up; I say we check topside."  

Evan nodded, thinking along the same lines of me. As soon as we opened that hatch, we'd be vulnerable to whatever or whomever might be waiting at the surface. If someone was sneaking into our silo from the outside, if the other camp was seeking revenge, there would be signs - tracks, broken limbs, disturbed shrubbery, something to indicate we weren't alone.  

"You think someone's coming in from the outside?" Keith asked  

"I don't think it's possible" Evan said, pulling a second pair of socks onto his feet. "Not with us in here, anyway." 

I looked at my bedroom door and thought about the girl behind it, her safety resting in my hands. I'd promised to keep her safe, to make sure who ever lived in that other silo never touched her again. And here I was, staring down the very real possibility that everything I said to her, every assurance of safety I made, was nothing more than a lie.