ANYONE ELSE?: (ANYONE Series Book 2) A post-apocalypic survival novel Read online

  I didn’t move. “You mean cameras?”

  He nodded.

  It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. Medical supplies, radio equipment, generators, food, water—Richard had thought of everything. Of course, he’d be watching things from the safety of his hole in the ground.

  “Should we be going in there?” I glanced around. If the lunatic had cameras looking outside surely, he had them pointed at us right now. His goons—I mean, friends—should be pouncing on us at any minute, stopping us.

  “You’re with me. You’re fine. Besides, you were going to see this anyway. I’m just showing it to you sooner. You’re the first.” He waved his arm to the side, giving me access to go inside once more.

  There was no way we weren’t getting into trouble for this, but curiosity drew me into the room. Blame living underground with literally nothing to do for my disobedience. A girl could only play cards with her brother so many times before she caused some sort of trouble just to break up the tedium.

  Several black and white monitors bolted to the walls ran choppy video feed, showing the outside world from various directions. The monitors and computer equipment had to be from the nineties—I’d swear I’d seen them in a museum somewhere. Squiggle lines disrupted the picture, distorting it every few seconds, but for an underground setup, it worked quite well.

  Trees swayed with the wind, but otherwise everything on the screens appeared dull and completely uninteresting. Very boring television for sure.

  “Well, it’s good to know we still have trees.” Not that I was against trees or anything, but if I’m breaking rules, something had better be exploding. When Marco did things like this, it made me question his IQ. No one knew for certain if he was an idiot savant or just an idiot.

  “No.” He waved me off, leaned over one of the large computers, and pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard. “That’s the live feed. I want to show you what we recorded this morning.”

  Once again, curiosity kept me from leaving.

  The swaying trees disappeared from one of the screens. While the others continued to record the outside world in real time, the third computer faded to black. It crackled a little, but after a few more button pushes, the screen filled with similar scene—like the one from a few minutes before. The only difference was the placement of the sun and the shadows it cast.

  I looked at him, unsure of what I was supposed to see. So far, it turned out to be nothing.

  “Give it a second,” he said. “Patience, impatient one.”

  Oh, if only he knew how patient I felt!

  After several more minutes passed without anything happening, I shook my head and started to leave. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’ve had—“

  “There!” He tapped the screen with his sausage link of a finger. “Right there!”

  I stood frozen, my eyes glued on the screen. Trees swayed as they always had, but the movement on the lower left side of the screen held me fascinated.

  At any other time, it wouldn’t have mattered as much as it did in that moment. Oh, we would’ve been captivated by the sereneness of it, of course, but it wouldn’t have been anything more than a chance encounter, something to be enjoyed but not necessarily unexpected.

  But this… this was definitely unexpected.

  There had been no singing birds, no crickets chirping, no dogs barking when I had stepped outside my dad’s bunker a few months before. The meteors affected all of life. Their wake left nothing but a soul-crushing silence.

  “Is that…” I could hardly believe what I was seeing. The words wouldn’t come.

  A doe grazed on the tall grass as if all was right in the world. It was nothing short of a miracle.

  Marco nodded. His smile couldn’t have grown any larger than it did in that moment. “Sure is. The first animal we’ve seen in months.”

  I stepped closer to the monitor. When the deer disappeared from view, I had him rewind it and show me again. “What do you think this means?”

  He stepped near my side, his shoulder brushing up against mine. “I think it means we’re finally going outside.”

  Chapter 2

  “Do you record everything?” I asked. The deer and its presence were fantastic, but now that Marco had shown me the video surveillance, other curiosities took over. Not that the deer wasn’t important—because holy crap, a deer—but I needed some questions answered.

  “Yep, everything.” Marco rewound the video and played the deer portion for a second time. “I still can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s amazing.”

  I nodded, barely listening. “Are the old videos on file?”

  “Only what’s important.”

  “What about the video from the night I came here?” I did everything possible to calm my outer self and appear indifferent, but my inner self begged to explode all over the place. My heart pumped at an insane beat. My hands began to sweat. “Did they keep it?”

  “I’m sure they did.” He paused the frame, freezing the deer in place. “Why?”

  I ignored the why portion of his question. “Can I see it?”

  He glanced at me, turning his attention from the deer. The corners of his mouth shifted slightly upward in more of a smirk than a smile. “I’m sure I can find it … if you give me a good enough reason to try.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you want, Marco?”

  This time his mouth broke out in a full smile and he crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking me. “A little bit of kindness can go a long way, if you know what I mean?”

  It didn’t take much to know what he meant, and I shook my head. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  His hands flew upward, palms out. “Whoa there, Tess. I said a little bit of kindness. I didn’t say a lot, not that I’m against taking that leap. Boy, would I take that leap, but you’ve got me all wrong.”

  “Really? Then you should probably wipe that stupid grin off your face if you want me to believe you.”

  His expression fell, becoming more serious. “All I want is a kiss. Maybe toss in a hug, too, just a little something to tide me over until we get out of here. Is that really too much to ask?”

  “Yeah, it kind of is. Forcing someone to give you anything they don’t want to give is wrong.” I’d rather burn my lips off than kiss Marco. I wanted to see the video, but I wasn’t that desperate.

  “I’m not sure what the big deal is.” He shrugged, as if shrugging nullified his crazy request. “If we hadn’t seen the deer and had to stay down here for however long, you and me, we’d be a thing.”

  “A thing?” I nearly chuckled, but I could see he was quite serious, so I didn’t. I held it together despite really wanting to have a good belly laugh. We’d never be a thing. Ever.

  “Yeah, a thing.” He waved his hand between the two of us. “We’d have to. You’re the only girl here, you know?”

  Yeah, I knew that. Dad knew that, too. “That doesn’t mean we’d be ‘a thing.’ I hear celibacy is a growing trend among underground dwellers.”

  He cocked his head, seemingly confused. “Do you want to see the video or not?”

  “Not if it requires me giving you a kiss. I’m not that kind of girl. For me, even a kiss has to mean something.” Cole. My throat constricted a little at the thought of him. The kiss between us had meant something, even if it had been completely unexpected. That entire moment played over in my mind. For a second, I wondered if I could really walk out of the room and not see the surveillance video at all. Maybe I was more desperate than I thought.

  Marco nodded, his eyes lowered. “Okay, I’ll respect that. I was wrong to try and take advantage of the situation, but Tess, it’s hard living down here. It can get kind of lonely. I’m a guy. You’re a girl. I can’t help but hope.”

  He was creepy, he was more than a little odd, but he was also human. I understood the loneliness part very well—living for almost three months in Dad’s underground bomb shelter on my own just about did me in.


  “Marco?”

  He looked up at me but only made eye contact for a minute before lowering his eyes once more. Moments like these, where he appeared more like an overgrown child than an adult, softened my heart toward the big goof. “I think a hug would be fine.” I waited for him to make eye contact again. It didn’t take long for him to look at me. “But just a hug.”

  He nodded, and a smile crept over his face once more. “I’ll take it. Hugs are awesome.”

  I took a deep breath and released it as I held my arms open to him. Enthusiastically, he wrapped me in his meaty embrace, holding me a little tighter than I anticipated. I gave him a full sixty seconds before tapping him on the back. “Let’s not overdo this, okay?”

  He released me and stepped back. His face had turned crimson. “Thanks.” He wiped his hands on his jeans. “It’s been a long time since I’ve held a girl like that.”

  I doubted he’d ever held a person of the female persuasion in that manner before, but I didn’t say anything.

  He nodded toward the computers. “I guess it’s my turn to give up the goods now, isn’t it?”

  Give up the goods? Was that what he thought I’d done? Seriously? “It would be great if you could find the video for me, if that’s what you mean.”

  He turned his back to me. His thick fingers pounded the keyboard. “I’m not sure what you’re looking for, Tess. If anything were in the video, they’d tell you.”

  I knew this. I wouldn’t be having these stupid discussions about Cole’s existence with Dad or anyone else if the video showed a man carrying me to the hidden mountain bunker, but I wanted to see it for myself. I had to.

  “You know…” Marco tapped away, pushing so many buttons that I truly hoped he knew what he was doing. “We’ve been recording everything for months, many months, without any problems. But the night you showed up, everything went haywire.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He still had his back to me, but his big head shook from side to side. “See for yourself.” He stepped back after pushing one last button. He pointed to the screen where the deer had once been.

  At first, everything appeared normal. Though dark, shapes of trees swayed with the breeze. The partial moon hung amid the stars. The scene was peaceful and serene. Nothing strange at all.

  “Give it a second,” he said, “It gets weird.”

  Why must weirdness always follow me? I should be used to it by now.

  Lightening lit up the night sky. One bolt and then another. The trees swayed harder than before, moving like a stadium full of fans doing the wave. In the space of a few seconds, the lightening cracked the darkness several dozen times. With each bolt, the screen turned white. Nothing could be identified, no shadows at all. The screen always returned to show the crazy weather and its effects, even if it only lasted for a millisecond.

  In the left-hand corner of the screen, something moved, different from anything previously moving on the screen, and my shoulders tensed even though I couldn’t quite make it out. It had to be us—Cole and me.

  Then the entire screen—just as Marco said—went haywire. With no audio to go along with the video, I could only imagine the crackling and popping sounds that forced the image on the screen to seemingly shift and distort. Thick black lines crisscrossed the image. Bright white splotches splattered what remained. It looked like a child took a crayon to a photograph, destroying any semblance of anything recognizable. The camera bounced around, dizzying, speeding up to a point in which I had to turn away for fear of falling victim to vertigo.

  “You can look now.” Marco placed a hand on my shoulder.

  I brought my gaze back to the screen. My eyes squinted in preparation in case he happened to be wrong and I became blinded and dizzy again, only to find the entire screen black. Nothing.

  “That’s it?” How could that be it?

  “Give it a second.” Marco didn’t remove his hand, but I didn’t care. In that moment, the stupid blank screen bothered me more than his hand ever could.

  The darkness went on and on, and I looked to Marco. He only nodded toward the screen. I had to trust that we weren’t through yet.

  I watched and waited. Nothing happened for an excruciating amount of time, but I kept my eyes glued to the screen, afraid to look away for fear of missing anything, however minor it might be.

  As if a hand swiped a slate clean, my disoriented being filled the frame, replacing the blankness. No lightening. No dizzying effects. No squiggle lines. Just a girl with wide eyes, covered in blood, swaying on unstable feet. The trees stood still, unmoving, as if the background had been frozen in time.

  I held my breath, watching a version of myself that I didn’t recognize. When her vacant eyes locked onto the camera, both Marco and I took a collective step backward. It was as if watching a horror movie, and I waited for the possessed girl to climb through the television to eat our souls.

  “That gets me every time.” Marco breathed in heavily and released it slowly as if calming himself. “I’ve seen it enough times you’d think I’d be prepared for it, but every single time it freaks me out again. I mean, jeez, do you see that look on your face?” He waved at the monitor.

  Of course, I saw it. It would be burned into my brain forever. What happened to me?

  “Do you remember any of this?”

  It took me a second, but I shook my head. I couldn’t say that I did. It was as if a chunk of time had disappeared from my memory. I remembered Cole carrying me through the trees. I remembered lying on the gurney with Richard straddling me as he attempted to save my life, but everything in between those two moments was gone.

  My deranged counterpart on the screen mouthed something I couldn’t quite make out. Dad? Cole? Without sound, I’d never know. She stared dead on at the camera, unblinking, and I stared back, doing the same.

  Blood ran from her nose and the corners of her eyes. Blood blackened the white of her teeth as well. How did I know to look for a camera? How did I even know it was there? I looked like a meth head who had a bucket of pig’s blood dumped on her at the prom. I doubt I’d even think to look for a camera in my normal state of mind, let alone when I was completely out of it.

  She crumbled to the ground, unconscious, and I could’ve sworn it was only then that the trees began moving with the breeze again.

  The door swung open, spilling artificial light into the dark video room. Marco and I turned to see Dale, one of Richard’s buddies, standing there. “Damn it! You’ve been told not to come in here.” He pointed a long finger at Marco. “If I catch your ass in here again, so help me I’ll put my boot up it. Do you hear me?”

  Marco turned into a withering boy-man and quickly nodded several times. “I only wanted to show her the deer. I thought she’d like it.”

  Dale glanced at the screen where my creepy self lay sprawled on the ground. “That doesn’t look like any deer. This isn’t a toy, Marco.” He pushed several buttons on the keyboard and the screens went back to viewing the outside world. “This equipment is old, so stop screwing with it.”

  “I knew what I was doing.” Marco tried to defend his actions, but it came out sounding like a kid insisting he hadn’t eaten any cookies when crumbs lined his mouth.

  Dale smiled. “You were trying to impress her, right?”

  Marco didn’t say anything.

  “Do you think she’d be impressed to know you come in here and watch the videos of her sleeping, taking a shower, and getting dressed?” He turned to me. “Does that impress you, Tess? Here we are, trying to survive the shittiest thing to have happened to mankind, and now you’ve got yourself a Peeping Tom to worry about, too.”

  “I don’t do that, I swear!” Marco moved his head from side to side as he looked from Dale to me. “He’s lying! I don’t do that, Tess. You got to believe me.”

  “You have cameras in my room? In the showers?” What kind of an idiot am I? My lunatic self can spot one on the side of a mountain, but I hadn’t seen even one while
healthy and in my right mind?

  “They’re everywhere, and I swear we try to keep him out of here, but he’s got a real thing for you, so….” Dale shrugged. “I guess, depending on how you look at it, you might consider it a bit flattering. The big guy likes you.”

  There we go again—a thing. And no, I didn’t find it flattering at all.

  “You going to tell my dad?” Marco’s hands twisted together as he waited for Dale’s answer.

  Dale shook his head. “And start unnecessary trouble? No, not this time. But no more, you got it? No more. This room is off limits to you, so keep it that way. Besides, I think he’s going to let everyone in on the deer situation later on today anyway.”

  Marco nodded, turned to me, and smiled. “Yeah, wasn’t that deer something else?”

  The deer? With everything I’d just learned about, I’d forgotten all about it.

  Chapter 3

  “You do realize this is a suicide mission, right?” My brother slammed the issued backpack on his bunk. The sound of the zipper ripped across its metal teeth with Toby’s apparent anger.

  I simply packed my bag as I’d been instructed, not knowing what else could be done to change the direction this was headed. Dad’s silence led me to believe he thought the same thing.

  Dad had tried and failed — we’d all been there at the mandatory meeting when Dad had argued that one deer didn’t prove anything, but Richard had pretty much shut him down with the wave of his hand. “You’re wrong,” Richard said. “That one deer, as you so put it, is everything.”

  Everyone’s faces expressed the same concern, but only Dad had the courage to mention it out loud. No one else spoke a single word to contradict the man who held our fates in his hands.

  “Inside this place, I’m in charge,” Richard reminded us, staring each of us down. “My word is law, and if I say it’s time to go, then it’s time to go.”

  “He’s an idiot.” Toby removed the sleeping bag from his bunk and rolled it up. “Richard’s going to get us all killed. His goons have been trying to make contact with someone, anyone, outside these walls and haven’t had any success.” Toby rambled, filling the silence. “Either no one is out there, or, worse yet, someone is watching and waiting, keeping silent, and once we step outside they’ll vaporize us, just like they did to everyone else.”