LITMIR.BIZ

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guy?”

      Lyssa shakes her head. “Trouble.”

      I see that the men move back to the guy waving his arms. When they reach him, he seems to shout at them and keeps pointing to his right.

      “Shoot.”

      “What’s the matter?”

      Lyssa spins back to face me. “That road he’s pointing at leads right here.”

      “Are you sure?”

      She spins back to the screens. “Positive.”

      “Well, what do we do?”

      “Well normally I’d say we stay in here. But now...” She trails off.

      “I don’t understand why now is any different?”

      She spins and looks at me like I’m the biggest idiot ever. “Moron, we were out walking around leaving tracks in the snow yesterday and I even backed out the snowcat. I don’t know if bunker babies have heard of the concept of tracks, but we left a butt-load of them out there in the snow!”

      “Crap!”

      She spins back to the monitors. “Exactly.”

      She switches camera views, following the men walking in the snow and leaving huge a trail behind them.

      “Man, I really hope they take the bait,” she says.

      “What bait?”

      “Well, my mother and father changed the layout and planted a bunch of trees to hide the entrance to the compound. It’s hard to spot, but not impossible. You see, the road used to fork right there, but now it doesn’t. If they keep to the road, I think we’ll be okay. But if they turn right—”

      Almost as soon as she points this out, they veer right.

      “Crap!”

      “What do we do?”

      “We have to abandon the post. We lock it down, and then get out of dodge. In a few months maybe, I can come back. I have a remote base not far from here which is tied into the security feed. I can monitor the base from there.”

      I’m staring at the huge trail they’re leaving. “How do we get there without leading them right to us?”

      She spins back at me. “Does it look like my father was the type of guy to leave anything to chance?”

      With that she hits a switch. A doorway opens to the left of the screens and reveals a set of spiraling stairs going down. She stands up and moves through the door. “Do me a favor, grab the guns and some more ammo.”

      “Wait, everything I own is in that snowcat. And so is the .22 you gave me.”

      “Don’t worry, I’ll give you more stuff. This place is my home, but it’s not where I keep everything I own. I have twenty-five caches. You’ll be fine. But we should head out. This tunnel leads straight to the power station and to my boat.”

      My head is spinning. “Your what? Wait, I don’t just up and run without knowing what’s going on.”

      She sighs. “Look slick, you’re coming with me and I’m getting us to safety. Once we get there, we’ll get you another pack.”

      “But my mother’s hard drive with all of her work is in that pack.”

      She rolls her eyes. “Sorry, but we have to go now!”

      I spot the button behind the towel rack that raised the wall opposite the tub, and move my hand towards it. “Hey, how does this wall work? Seems dangerous to have a door right here that opens up to the house. What if someone finds the tunnel and tries to use it?”

      She sighs. “It only opens from in there.”

      I look her dead in the eye. “Good.”

      Then I hit the button and the wall closes in a blur before she can step back inside. She starts banging on the wall and yelling, but all I can do is say, “Sorry Lyssa, but I need ten minutes, well maybe fifteen.”

      She stops pounding and yells, “For what? Hello? For what?”

      I unbuckle my pants and lift the toilet seat, drop my pants and sit. I’m way too preoccupied to answer; besides, I’m trying to block her out. I’m not used to performing for an audience and I really have to go.

      CHAPTER TWO

      It takes me five minutes to figure out which combination of controls lifts the wall to get out the bathroom door. Lyssa was, of course, no help. She didn’t want me to go outside and refused to listen when I told her every second I wasted, the greater the chance I’d get caught. And I was going no matter what. Regardless about how I feel about my mom, I can’t let her life’s work go as if it was nothing. I have to get it. It’s the only thing I have left of my parents and I’m not letting it go.

      Well, that and the note from my dad in my pocket.

      I’m not an idiot though. Before I leave I check the security feeds and see no sign of human life anywhere in the compound. Well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I saw all of the compound mostly because I’m not really a hundred percent sure I know how many buildings there are. But I looked long enough to ease my nerves.

      I race out the door of the bathroom and across the now empty darkened room. I move the curtain aside and open the door in one fluid motion. I dash out into the snow and race to the garage. I easily open the door and jump inside. I freeze when I realize that the snowcat is gone. I almost in panic-mode, when I remember Lyssa hit something just inside the door before she closed the garage last night. I turn and look in the same area, but I don’t see anything except a pipe running up to the ceiling along the wall in the corner. I’m about to give up the search, when I decide to try and move the pipe. A lengthy section gives easily and then the floor where the snowcat once sat splits open. Some kind of elevator system raises the snowcat up to floor level.

      After I get over my shock of the power behind the lift, I race to the door of the snowcat, grab my backpack and the .22 rifle I stashed, and slam the door shut. I race to the door and push the pipe back in place and the snowcat lowers itself back into the floor. I close the garage door and turn to head back to the hangar, but I stop in my tracks.

       There’s a man walking out of one of the buildings 300 yards to the north of my position.

      He is dressed just like the other men on the security feed. Clearly Lyssa was right and they had a scout neither of us had seen. I shake my head when I realize she is never going to let me live this down. If I survive, that is.

      From where I’m standing, the man seems to be moving in the opposite direction from the hangar and I let out a silent sigh of relief. He must be reconnoitering the compound, taking the logical progression from one building to the other. If he stays on his current path, he’ll end up hitting the big main building and once he’s inside, I’ll be able to get back to the hangar. It was one of the first buildings I looked in myself when I got here, so it makes sense he’d want to check it out. But at the last moment he stops and eyes the main building up and down. He reaches up and scratches his chin and then looks at the smaller outbuildings. Then back at the main building. He shakes his head and begins walking straight for me.

      My stomach shifts violently in my gut.

      This isn’t a video game. If he sees me, two things are gonna happen and both of them are bad. Either I kill him or he kills me. I do the math in my head and it doesn’t look so hot for me. This guy is basically an experienced serial killer. He actually eats people for a living. He won’t hesitate. As for me?

       I’m screwed!

      I clutch my rifle and then slowly pull back the bolt and slide a bullet into the chamber, just like Lyssa taught me. The wind is howling so hard that I know there’s no way he could hear the tiny clicks that it makes from this distance, but I cringe anyway. I curse myself

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