The Variables

She turned around and could see Darla following her route up the small hill, past an American Sycamore tree with branches full of richly green leaves. Following Dean’s command, Ainsley perched herself beside Dean and looked down into a valley below. She gasped, bringing her hand up over her mouth. Silently, Ainsley turned to him, her eyes wide, and Dean smiled.

Darla approached and slid up next to Ainsley; she put her hand above her eyes to shield the sun and peered outward. She whistled loud and low.

Stretched beneath them were rows upon rows of solar panels, like little metal worshippers all lifting their bodies up to their sun god. And sitting off to the side, angled against the hills so the flat plains were in front of it, was a medium-sized passenger airplane sitting on a short black tar runway. A staircase was pushed up to its side and the cabin door was open. The three of them looked at the plane and the panels and then at each other.

“Well,” Darla said with an authoritative nod. “That settles that. We found the right place.”

It was Ainsley who spotted it first. As they wound their way down to inspect the plane, they found Ainsley peering through a thick pane of glass imbedded in the ground. She tapped on the glass with her foot, and then jumped up and down to test its strength. She turned to the group and called them to her.

Darla laid herself across the skylight and cupped her hands to see, and Ainsley crouched down beside her on her haunches. They half expected someone to peer back up at them, but the space below was unoccupied and still.

“A kitchenette. And some chairs. Books.” Darla sat up. “It’s like a little apartment.”

“They’re underground,” Ainsley said. “Like Hobbits.”

“Don’t Hobbits live in trees?” Dean asked.

Ainsley just stared at him and blinked.

“There must be a door somewhere. Come on,” Darla said and she went off wandering back toward the town, staring at the ground as she went, leaving everyone else in her wake. Ainsley jogged to catch up: pumping her arms and letting her curly hair fly.

“Wait!” shouted Dean. “What about the plane?”

“I don’t care about the plane,” Darla called back without turning. “I want to find the people who are getting on that plane.” She held her gun out from her body and sca

“What are we looking for?” he called to Darla. She rolled her eyes at him in a

“Just look for anything,” she shouted back.

“Anything is a tall order!” he called back. But he listened to her and began to wander and inspect the ground beneath them and every tree as though it held the secret entrance to the terrorists’ underground lair.

“Darla?” Dean called after a few minutes.

She turned.

Dean sighed, dropped his arms, and sped up to her. “This doesn’t feel right. And it doesn’t feel safe,” he said in a whisper.

“No, it’s not safe. They’re here. We found them. And we have the element of surprise. This town? It is deserted. The people we want are down below.”

“How do we even know that?” Dean asked. A look of concern crossed over his face and he put his hand out and touched Darla lightly on her forearm. “We have one gun. And we know they are armed...”

She hadn’t wanted him to bring the truth to her hunt. She felt the energy drain out of her like she was a slowly deflating balloon. Darla lifted her head to the sky and tapped her gun against her leg. “We can sit back and we can wait for someone to show themselves...which could be minutes, hours, days. Or we can do something. I just spent time trapped in someone’s basement without the ability to save my boy. That wasn’t me, Dean. That was a shadow of me. I’m here now…I’m where I need to be…I’m where Teddy is. Don’t tell me I can’t do anything about it.”

He pointed back over the hill to where the plane was hidden. “That plane is wide open. We won’t wait days. And—” he hesitated, “it’s not just Teddy we’re looking for. Can’t you see that? Please, Darla, I’m really asking you: can you see?” He stepped into her line of vision and forced her to look at him. Darla’s chin quivered and she blinked.

“I can’t wait,” Darla said. “But you don’t have to come with me.”

“You’re no good to Teddy dead, Darla.”

“I’m no good to him up here, either. My son is down below and that’s where I’m going.”

From behind them, they heard the sound of feet rushing toward them. Ainsley had popped her head into a church on the hill and now she rushed out, and carried herself straight up to Dean and Darla. She paused and took in deep gulps of air.

“Bones,” she said, out of breath. “They’ve been dead a long time...way before the virus. Completely deteriorated.”

They all paused and took a collective breath and let that information sink in.

“I’m thinking there has to be a hidden staircase in a building. Easier to hide. Come on, let’s check each place together, no more splitting up.” Darla readied her gun and marched forward. “One end to the other. Come on, troops.”

The first building was a library. Its door was wide open and it drifted back and forth in the wind. They walked inside and froze, each of them noticing in turn that the entire back wall was gone and exposed. In its place were the thick metal doors to an elevator. Dean looked at Darla and Darla couldn’t help but smile as she stalked forward.

“Lucky us,” she said.

“It’s about time,” Ainsley added.

Darla looked at the elevator doors and pondered their next move. She put her ear to the door and listened, puzzled, and then without hesitation she pushed the button to the side. There were no telling clanks and rumblings of a machine coming to life, and Darla pushed the button again. Then she put her ear to the doors again and listened intently.

“I think I hear it coming. But it’s far away...must be a long way down,” she said. She took a step back and motioned for Dean to join her, and assumed a leveled stance, her gun raised.

Ainsley hid out of sight behind a row of non-fiction books, filed with care under a laminated sign boasting their Dewey Decimal System call numbers. Removing some books so she could see, she rested her head against the bookshelf and watched. She held her breath.

After a torturous five minutes, the doors to the elevator opened to an empty box, with metal railings. Not the enclosed walls of a traditional elevator, but more like one about to lead them down to the depths of coal mine. A gray light beamed down into the box from the side railing. It blinked twice, but sustained its glow.

“No way,” Dean said shaking his head. “That thing looks like it’s about to take me into the pit of hell.”

Darla sca

“You could be walking into an ambush down there,” Dean said. “Darla...don’t...”

Ainsley whimpered. “I don’t know...it’s so dark. I’m done with the dark. No more dark.”

With a deep breath, Darla took the barrel of her gun and pushed it into the button. Dean and Ainsley watched her with their eyes wide, and their mouths formed into circles of worry and fear. The elevator doors began to close, eclipsing the library and the world above, and steeping Darla into darkness.

From outside she heard Dean swear and he pushed the button in a vain attempt to stop her. Then she jumped back as Dean’s outstretched hand pushed its way into the closing elevator doors. He wrestled them open, but the elevator did not stop its slow descent. Darla looked up, through the topless metal box, as she traveled downward, Dean’s face growing smaller. And without warning, he swung his body down into the blackness of the hole and dropped. He crashed into Darla and hit her to the floor; he landed on his ankle and crumpled into a heap. Dean yelped in pain.