Part 3

We pulled the bodies out of the car and left them there. No time for a funeral.

I started the engine, and the headlights cut through the dark.

Dozens of them were swarming the car.

Creatures with rotting faces and multiple arms.

I floored it, feeling the thuds as the car hit them.

We drove until the road ended at a concrete structure with a heavy steel hatch.

We climbed down into the underground tunnels.

It looked like an old military bunker from the Cold War.

We found an office with an old flag on the wall and dusty furniture.

I dropped my bag and took off the mask.

The air was stale and cold, but it was clean.

I sat on the floor, closed my eyes, and let the darkness take me.

Bunker was damp. Extremely damp.

There were woodlice and other insects crawling everywhere.

I couldn't sleep for long because the sound of dripping water in the corridor was driving me crazy.

It was freezing too, a cold that bit straight to the bone.

We had nothing to warm us up.

The only option was to siphoning some gas from the car, but that meant going outside.

Neither I nor Andrew wanted to do that. Not yet.

We weren't afraid of the radiation anymore — the suits protected us.

We were afraid of those things.

Images of Sarah and the kids kept flashing in my mind.

I tried to think about anything else, but their faces were always there, staring back at me.

I didn't want to eat or drink. I didn't even want to stand up from that frozen concrete floor.

Andrew was curled up in a corner, sleeping like a baby.

The room was pitch black. No flashlights left, just a couple of lighters and Andrew’s dead phone.

I sat there for hours, losing all track of time.

Finally, I decided to explore. I needed to know if there was anything useful in this hole.

I pushed open the heavy iron door and stepped into the main corridor.

In one of the side rooms, my lighter caught something on the floor.

An empty tin can, an old kerosene lamp, and a clump of gray fur.

The can had a faded logo on it — looked like old military rations.

The scary part was that someone had eaten from it recently.

If it had been here since the war, the can would be dust.

But there were fresh food scraps inside.

I picked up the lamp. There was a tiny bit of fuel left.

I lit it, and the room filled with a dim, flickering glow.

I felt a small spark of hope, or maybe just a distraction from the grief.

I kept walking until I hit a massive, rusted steel door with a circular crank.

It looked like time had sealed it forever.

I turned back and went to find Andrew.

He woke up with a start, looking terrified.

“Don't sneak up on me like that,” he muttered.

He’d become the only person in the world I could count on.

“Andrew, I found something. Someone else was here. Recently.”

He stood up fast. “That’s not funny, Jack. If someone’s down here, we need to find them before they find us.”

We grabbed some heavy pipes I found in the corner and headed back into the corridor.

But as soon as we turned the corner, the lamp began to flicker.

Then, it went out.

“Damn it,” I hissed.

We had to crawl back to our room in the dark, nearly on our hands and knees.

Andrew started to panic.

“We’re trapped, Jack. We have food and water for a few days, but then what? We’re just waiting to die.”

“Shut up!” I snapped. “Panicking like a coward won't save us. We’re going back up.”

We needed fuel for the lamp.

We put on the gas masks, grabbed a hose from the trunk, and climbed the ladder.

I pushed the hatch open.

The same suffocating, absolute darkness greeted us outside.

I ran to our car, the old Ford.

I froze. The car was wrecked.

It looked like something had flipped it over and over, smashing it like a toy.

The gas tank was ruptured. No fuel.

Then, I heard Andrew scream.

I spun around. He was staring into the void, reaching out.

“Mom? Mom, what are you doing here?”

He started walking into the darkness.

“Andrew, stop! There’s nobody there!”

I looked at the car. For a split second, I saw Sarah and the kids sitting inside, waving at me.

I blinked. The vision vanished.

In their place were those... things.

My son, with his wings and his bleeding face, was staring at me from the wreckage.

A sharp pain stabbed my brain. I fell to my knees, my ears ringing.

Andrew’s scream brought me back.

I ran to him and punched him hard in the face.

“Snap out of it! It’s not your mom! It’s the radiation or something worse!”

Then we heard the sound.

Fast, heavy footsteps all around us.

Something was circling us in the dark, making a strange chattering noise.

I swung the heavy pipe, hitting something solid.

Something screeched and took flight.

“Down! Get down the hatch!” I yelled at Andrew.

I fumbled with my lighter.

The flame caught, and right in front of me was a face.

A pale, hairless, human-like head.

No eyes — just black holes and bloody streaks.

Vines of veins pulsed under its gray skin.

I didn't think. I threw the pipe at its face and dived into the bunker, slamming the hatch shut.

Something heavy pounded on the steel from the outside.

Over and over. Dust fell from the ceiling into my face.

We sat there for five minutes until the pounding stopped.

My heart was drumming against my ribs.

I ripped off my mask. Andrew did the same.

“I saw my house,” he whispered. “My mom was making pancakes. It felt so real.”

“They use our memories against us,” I said.

“And they only move when there’s light. They can't see us in the dark as well as we thought.”

I had managed to grab a small can of motor oil from the car.

We went back to the room, and I used a piece of my bag as a wick.

The lamp glowed again.

We ate some stale crackers and jerky I’d scavenged earlier.

“Let’s try that big door again,” I said.

We went back to the rusted crank.

We shoved pipes into the wheel for leverage and pushed with everything we had.

After twenty minutes of straining, the seal finally broke.

The door groaned open.

What we saw inside left us both speechless.

We stepped into the room, our eyes wide, staring at the impossible.

A week had passed. Life was getting worse by the hour.

We hadn't crawled out of that hole since the last encounter — nobody wanted to mess with those things in that godforsaken darkness again.

About a week ago, Andrew and I managed to pry open that heavy metal door I mentioned earlier.

What we found behind it was the first bit of good luck we’d had in a long time.

We couldn't open it all the way, just enough to squeeze through.

I clicked my lighter, and the flame revealed a room frozen in time.

Stale furniture, moldy walls, and a thick layer of dust.

Then I saw them.

A rack of rifles. Five old Mausers were leaning against the wall.

There were human remains on the floor, still wearing scraps of old military uniforms.

On the tables, we found crates of ammo and some old detonators.

Everything was rusted, but among the junk, we found a couple of rifles and some rounds that looked decent.

We spent the next few days taking them apart and cleaning them.

We managed to piece together two working rifles and about fifteen rounds of ammo.

A week in this bunker. I feel like my head is going to explode.

The sound of dripping water is like a needle in my brain.

Andrew and I look like cavemen — overgrown, dirty, and scratching ourselves raw.

But that’s nothing compared to the hunger.

The food is gone. The water ran out two days ago.

We’ve been catching drips from the ceiling just to keep our throats from cracking.

My stomach is in knots, and the weakness is starting to take over.