Walking the Ruins

Upside down, and a door with bars

As I regain consciousness, I hang upside down, my nose buried in a piece of cloth smelling of stale sweat. The world around me is rocking gently, and my head aches.

I turn my face away from the obnoxious cloth and see a forest's edge, the wrong way round. A wave of nausea takes hold of me, nearly carrying me away again. I groan.

"Hey, she's awake." The voice comes from somewhere above me. Then the world tilts, and I land on the ground, with a violent thud that takes my breath away. I look up and see one of Jan's cronies, the tall, broad thug. He has obviously carried me over his shoulder until a few seconds ago when he decided to dump me.

"Now you can walk alone." I see Jan's ugly face appearing above me. He is grinning.

The tall one extends his hand towards me, obviously trying to help me up. I seize it, and he pulls me upright. The sudden change of position makes my head reel and ache even more. Obviously, someone has hit me. I touch the back of my head gingerly and discover a serious swelling.

"If you don't want another one of these, you will now walk with us, nicely." Jan holds his rifle by its barrel as if ready to strike me again.

We are on the path from the village to the bunker. Jan's two thugs are both still with him. I don't see Steve or Jenny, they probably stayed in the village. Emma, the girl with the pistol, and her three companions are not with us either.

Jan pushes his rifle into the small of my back, urging me uphill. I start walking.

We quickly reach the door to the bunker. It's closed. Jan bangs his rifle against it, and shortly later it starts to open, slowly revealing the surprised face of curly-head, the guy I saw jogging with Anna. Jan pushes me inside, and I enter a surprisingly large, poorly lit chamber. A couple of weak lamps on the ceiling illuminate large objects along the walls to the left and right. It takes me a moment to realize that these are vehicles. Military vehicles. Two of them are small and have huge wheels, one is a truck with a nearly spherical cabin for the driver and, on one side, there something that looks like a tank.

Jan urges me forward, towards the opposite wall of the chamber, where a second door stands open. Behind it, a large corridor leads gently downwards. It is broad enough for any of the vehicles I saw. Lamps are mounted to its ceiling, at regular intervals. About half of them are still working. In their light, the walls appear gray, with ugly, greenish patches.

The air carries a moldy, humid smell.

Our echoing steps are the only sound I hear.

After a couple of minutes, we reach a further door, which also stands open, and beyond it there is a second chamber, much smaller than the previous one. Several doors are arranged along its walls.

The one that we take leads us to a stairway. Looking down, my feeling of nausea intensifies, and I grab the handrail, which triggers Jan to prod me with his rifle again. I start to descend.

At the bottom of the steps, we reach a corridor that takes us to a brightly lit hall. First, I am blinded by the light, but then I recognize that the room contains several tables, with people sitting at them. They stare at us, wordlessly. Most of them are women.

One of them is Anna. For a moment, we lock eyes. She opens her mouth as a rough shove from Jan conveys me through yet another door and out of the room with the tables.

We cross several other passages, doors, and yet another stairway until we stand in a narrow corridor. It opens to a series of cells behind bars along one side. One of Jan's thugs unlocks the door of one of them, and Jan shoves me inside. Then the door closes with a metallic clang. I turn around and see Jan locking it with a key.

"Welcome to our humble home." He raises his eyebrows in an obvious attempt to underline his bout of sarcastic wit. I answer with a silent stare. I am rewarded by yet another of his ugly, yellow-toothed grins. Then he moves his tongue along his lips, slowly, deliberately. This evokes another bout of nausea.

"We will talk tomorrow." He lifts his hand, as if in a friendly farewell. With that, he turns and follows the others, who have already left the corridor.

The sound of a banging door is followed by an eerie silence. The kind of silence that weighs tons.

Then, the lights are turned off.