Survivors

They were all stood at the bottom of the square access shaft Joe had fallen down peering into a long smooth concrete tunnel which seemed to disappear off into the mountain. It was very, very black. In fact it was so black it made your eyes hurt trying to see anything else other than black.

“Okay, so what are we going to do?” Said Joe.

“I say we go down it and see what’s there” said Holly as she peered down into the blackness.

“I don’t know” said Luke.

Holly sighed “What have we got to loose? We’re running low on food, we’re tired and cold and to be honest I’m bored and could do with something else to look at other than my boots. We’ve seen no Aliens for a couple of days so there probably not even up here in the hills.”

“So?”

“So, they wouldn’t have bothered building something underground would they? They wouldn’t go to all that trouble of digging it out if they weren’t going to use it, would they? That’s not the way they work is it, nothing without a reason, even if we can’t workout what that reason is! I reckon this was dug before the war, and you never know, there might just be something useful down there. Even if it’s just a bit of shelter for a couple of nights I say we should go and see what we can find.”

“Yeah, and it might be fun too” grinned Joe.

“That’s all very well” said Luke with that annoying air of superiority he sometimes had “But how the hell are we going to see where were going in the dark? I think once you’ve gone ten feet down that tunnel you won’t be able to see your hand in front of your face. We’ve got no torches and everything is too wet to start a fire. We’d just be stumbling blindly around in the dark. It would be pointless and dangerous”.

Even more annoying than Luke’s tone was, that in this case, he was also annoyingly right. Joe and Holly looked crest fallen. Exploring the tunnel might not have helped them in any way shape or form but at least it would have been a short break from the monotony of the constant trudging.

“Come on” said Luke “Let’s get back to the path.”

He turned and climbed up the short access ladder at the end of the shaft. Joe and holly followed him in silence, but you could feel their annoyance and despair.

As she climbed out of the shaft Holly said “Hang on a minute, I need to wee, wait for me over there. I’ll be with you in a minute”. She dropped her pack and darted off into the trees.

If they had listened carefully to her voice they would have already been able to hear the tears in her voice. But they were far too wrapped up in their own thoughts to catch on to the emotion in what she was saying, they just heard the pure data. So without giving it any more thought, they moved off to the right of the path and sat down to wait for Holly to come back.

Holly didn’t really need a wee at all. She had known she was going to cry and didn’t want the boys to see her. Being the only girl in the “gang” didn’t matter most of the time, but every now and then she felt she didn’t want them to see her when she felt at her weakest. She went a few yards into the undergrowth where she was sure she couldn’t be seen and sat down. She put her head in her hands and began to quietly sob tears of pure frustration. After a few seconds she started to compose herself, took a few deep breaths, rubbed her eyes and went to stand up.

It was only then she realised she’d not been sitting on damp earth, leaves, mud or anything like that. She’d been sitting on a piece of metal. It was about a foot square and had been sunk mostly into the ground. Not only was it square there were what appeared to be hinges on one side and a handle on the other. Holly quickly looked round to see where the boys were and was about to call out. Then just as she drew the breath to shout, she changed her mind and stopped herself. She had made a decision, she was going to open this door (because that’s what it obviously was) and see what was underneath herself before Luke could tell her for whatever reason that she couldn’t. She grasped the handle and pulled.

The door opened surprisingly easily to reveal what looked like some sort of circuit board. There was a whole load of switches with small printed labels above them; Master, Comms, Comps, AC, Living Qs and so on. All of the switches were in the on position. Then Holly saw it, the only switch that was turned to off, the one that had the label “Tunnel” above it. Her heart started to pound with rising excitement and without really thinking about what she was doing she reached out and flipped the switch. Holly leapt to her feet and dashed back to the top of the shaft. A dim light was now eminating from the shaft, she knelt down and shoved her head into the tunnel. A row of dinner plate sized lights glowed yellow in the ceiling for as far as Holly could see until the they were little more than pin pricks of light in the distance.

She sat up grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey boys” she called “Boys! Come and have a look at this!”