A Girl Called Badger - By Stephen Colegrove Page 0,1
door rumbled to the side along a slotted track. They stepped into a bare concrete room filled with red light and waited for the heavy door to close. Another metal door labeled “Restricted” faced them across the room. A square, yellowed board on the wall held rows of tiny hooks and dangling tags in a faded rainbow of colors. A dozen black boots were arranged in a neat and dusty line below. In the center of the room lay a scratched floor panel edged with yellow and black stripes. “Do Not Stand” and “Danger” were stenciled in black.
The two lowered the body to the floor. Reed crouched down and opened a tiny door next to the panel. He stuck his hand inside the opening and a silver console hissed from the floor to waist height. A display screen with keyboard yawned open and hummed to life.
“Your turn.” The helmet muffled Reed’s voice.
Wilson stepped to the screen. Through scratches in his face-shield he could see a single line of green text and a lazy, blinking square.
USAF Altmann Research Station
05.03.2312
[]
He typed the memorized words one letter at a time.
ARSRS032 [Enter]
bluebird45645 [Enter]
term002 manop [Enter]
rel lift002 [Enter]
Wilson closed the screen and the console hissed down to the floor. A klaxon whined somewhere deep below his feet and the floor vibrated. After a minute the floor panel split apart and a black slab rose from the pit. Hydraulics moaned as the obelisk slowly turned flat. A horizontal seam appeared in the center. The sides of the black rectangle opened and folded down like the wings of a stone butterfly.
Together, Wilson and Reed slid the dead man onto the concave surface in the middle.
Reed touched the cold, waxy forehead. “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. Dust you are and to dust you will return.“
He bent down to the small hatch and again turned his hand. The wings hissed together to form a seamless, inscrutable block, and the underground klaxon woke from its nap with a groan. The block descended and the metal floor slid over the pit.
“Goodbye, Airman Ralph Lewis,” said Reed.
Wilson followed him out of the Tombs into the warm sunshine.
People in the village had returned to their daily chores. Many of the men and women were busy in the gardens. A half-dozen men walked toward the southern forest with axes on their shoulders. A group of women carried bundles of hemp from the fields. Three boys laughed and chased each other toward the smokehouse.
Wilson watched the running boys and wondered if his life could ever be that simple again.
HE DIDN’T SLEEP WELL and went to breakfast early.
A thick mist filled the air and hid the mountains from view. Wilson walked along a stone path and passed rows of staked tomato plants and green squash. At the plaza, the lemon trees splashed the mist with color. A pair of hunters passed him, headed for the gap out of the valley. They talked about finding deer in the corn fields.
The path led him to a concrete opening in the earth. Wilson walked down a set of stairs to a heavy metal hatch and went through the entrance tunnel to the cafeteria. He took a bowl of porridge with a teaspoon of honey to a bench in a far corner. Memories of the bloody, lifeless body of Lewis kept him from finishing his breakfast as quickly as usual.
The cafeteria slowly filled up. A pair of boys sat next to him with a clatter of wooden bowls.
“Hey, Wilson,” said a tall, red-haired scarecrow. “Out of your cave?”
“Leave him be,” said a muscular teenager. “Wilson is holy material. He’ll tell the big man upstairs and–” He whacked a spoon on the table. “–hello, lightning bolt.”
“Keep your voice down, Mast. But if anyone deserves to fry, it’s the Colonel,” said Wilson.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Inside voice, please,” said Mast.
He swallowed a mouthful of tea and pointed the cup at Wilson. “You look tired. Some unlucky lady? I bet you’ve been wandering the Tombs.”
“Yesterday was the first time I’d been there in months. I don’t enjoy it.”
“Yeah, right,” said Mast. “I bet all those stories about singing ghosts are just made up. You priests just want a peaceful nap down there, undisturbed by us nosy citizens.”
“ How could I sleep? You know I’m scared of spiders.”
“Scared of spiders,” chanted Robb. “Scared of sleeping. Scared of sleeping spiders.”