Silo

Chapter 14

"What the hell are we going to do?" Evan asked as he spread the map out on the table. He studied it, his fingers tracing outlines across the wrinkled paper. "It's impossible. I know ... I know there is no other way in." 

I'd been through every square inch of these damn tunnels multiple times myself. Keith and I had searched every hall, opened every door before we moved in. I knew every dead-end, every seeping corner, every scrap of graffiti that covered the walls. Evan spent the first two weeks down here drawing map after complicated map of this place. He used my perfect, size twelve foot to measure the length of each hallway, re-walking them twice just to verify his calculations. All of that was useless now. I knew it. Evan knew it.  

Keith ripped a bag of ammunition from the stash and began haphazardly cramming extra clips in his pockets. I stood up, momentarily afraid that he hadn't cooled off and was preparing to have another go at Evan.  

"Keith, Evan doesn't-" 

He turned around abruptly, halting my words. I saw the flash of recognition in his eyes; he'd known all along Evan hadn't taken his stuff. Like me, he was just hoping otherwise. 

"What do you think I'm gonna do, Jake? I know it wasn't Evan. Those sons of bitches are getting in here somehow and when they come back, I'm gonna be ready."  

"I don't understand," Evan mumbled. He hadn't heard a word Keith and I had said, he was too consumed with the flaws in his map. "There is no possible entry point we haven't checked. There is no other way for them to get in. This doesn't make any sense." 

"Well you better check your map again there, Evan boy, because it looks like you screwed up." 

Ignoring Keith's comment, I glanced down the hallway to my room. I should be working on a plan, helping Evan make sense of the illogical and Keith prepare for God knows what, but all I could think about was the girl. The terrified look on her face and the fact that I'd forgotten to tell her what was happening when we went topside. Maybe it was better I hadn't clued her in; she was scared enough as it was. 

Keith kicked a full ammo box across the room, scattering bullets into our food supplies. The noise didn't faze Evan; he just continued pacing the tight width of the room, ducking as the box nearly grazed his head. No doubt he was still running the details of silo schematics through his analytical mind, but it wouldn't help. His map wasn't flawed; our sense of security was. 

I backed out of the room, stopping in my tracks as Keith called out behind me. "Where are you going? Those assholes could come back any minute and you're running off to play with that head-case of yours?"  

"I'm not playing with her." I growled, clenching my fists. Idiot was lucky I didn't have time to deal with his mouth today. The crack of my fist against his jaw would be the perfect release for my boiling rage. She was guarded, still mute, and I was irritated she still wouldn't give me an inch of trust. But she wasn't crazy, that much I knew. "And she's not crazy." She's scared, I silently added.  

My eyes traveled the length of our supply wall, my pulse quickening as I counted the boxes of ammo. We had twelve boxes, but who knew how many of them were damaged or unusable. We'd been collecting them since the day we found the rifle, picking up moldy, half-emptied boxes of ammo in the abandoned farm houses surrounding the silo.  

"Go through our ammo. Pull out everything we can use. I'll be back in a minute," I said.  

"You better be, because Evan here isn't any better with a weapon than he is with drawing maps," Keith mumbled, reaching for the first box.  

Keith had a point, and for the first time I wondered if Keith's constant razzing of Evan's uselessness had nothing to do with being mean and everything to do with forcing Evan to hone his skills. Badger him long enough and maybe Evan would pick up a gun, practice firing it just to prove Keith wrong. Either way, starting tonight, I was getting involved, making sure Evan became intimate with the weapon of his choice. And it wasn't going to be that damn map!