Sparen

I had pulled off of the highway, deciding I needed to stretch my legs and take a walk. 12 hours at the wheel with 2 hours of horrible sleep at a rest stop was not cutting it and I was getting anxious. I still had another six hours of driving left! The sign I had passed had said something about stopping in at historic downtown Sparen and seeing the sights. Eat, shop, see the sights.

Once I pulled off and got down to the road, there was a small sign with an arrow. Sparen. Not how many miles, just the direction. With a sigh, I turned and headed in the direction of the arrow and looked around at the countryside as I went. The old fashioned barns, the cows looking at my car as I went by, the old stone houses. It was all very oddly quaint.

Twenty minutes in, I was beginning to think I should turn around, I saw no sign of the town on the horizon. I shrugged. I'd come this far, I needed a break. I kept going. Another twenty minutes, I decided I was turning around at the next drive, but when I crested the hill, I could see the town in the distance.

Finally!

Geez. No wonder they didn't put the miles on the sign, people would never head this way if they saw how far it was!

The little town was cute and very old fashioned. Surprisingly, it was also full of people. Most of them seemed like locals, standing around and talking, smiling, laughing. Sitting in the diners and talking. Off on the far side of town, there was a sort of park with a parking lot and it was full of bikers. Not the nice kind that seemed like they would give you the shirt off their back, the kind that were loud and mean and trashed the places they stopped at. I frowned as I watched them all gather around a water fountain and pee on it, posing for a picture as they did. They were all laughing and the locals watched them worriedly.

I tried to ignore them as I walked up the strip and decided to go into a cute little ice cream parlor. It had several people sitting at the counter and a few people sitting at tables. I sat at the counter and when the man came over with his bright smile, I ordered a malt, then sat and waited while looking at the old pictures on the wall. The town was incredibly old!

The man brought my malt and I turned to pick it up, then noticed a young man lean on the counter next to me. His grin was sweet, but he looked young to me. I got that a lot, men always thought I was younger than I was.

"Can I get that for ya?" he asked.

"Already got it," I smiled. "Thanks anyway."

He sat down and as he did, I hopped off the high stool. "I have a long drive, I wanted to stretch my legs a bit," I told him. "Thanks for the offer."

I left and walked the other direction, away from the bikers who were now trying to work a picnic table off it's huge screws in the concrete pavilion.

The young man caught up to me, his gangly height making him tower over me. "Where ya from?"

"East coast," I told him vaguely. "You get people like that here a lot?"

"They come through about once a month when the weather's good. Have for years. Bud Hasslin was born here, but he was run off by his dad, now he brings all his friends through and raises hell till the staties come in and run'm off. They don't hurt no one, just mess with things like the park or the fountain or statue. What brings you to Sparen? You have family here?"

"No, I just saw the sign and needed to stretch my legs."

"Off the highway?" he laughed incredulously. "That sign's been there about six years and you may be the first to actually come. I'm..."

The young man was cut off as a siren started going off and his face went shocked.

It wasn't a test siren, it was an odd time of day and a Friday as well. The sky was completely clear, it couldn't be a tornado.

"Come on!" he yelled urgently, grabbing my wrist and taking off at a run between two old buildings. Other people were pouring out of buildings and running too, all in the same direction. I was terrified as I looked around at the frightened people, all sprinting full tilt to a hill with a concrete door in it.

"What's happening?" I screamed, trying to keep up with the boy's long legs.

"Don't slow down!" he yelled and I looked over. The bikers were all running too. Towards the same doors. There were men at the doors now, ushering people down, yelling for them to hurry up. They tried to yell at the bikers to stop, but the one in the lead yanked a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at the man as the bikers all filed down the stairs with the others. The young man and I were right behind them, the man with the gun right in front of us. The stairs seemed unending and there were only dim red lights to lead the way down.

What was happening?

We finally reached the bottom, then passed through more concrete doors into what looked like an inprocessing center. There were more men standing and urging people into huge steal doors that looked like they magnetically sealed. Beyond those doors, there was a second set. People pouring into a huge, cavernous space filled with tables and chairs, couches and bookcases. A huge living room fit for 300 people, easily.

A countdown began and the men who had been ushering people in all came in and waited at the doors, screaming for people to hurry up. People carrying small, crying children, parents dragging slightly bigger children with them as they came in and collapsed.

"What's happening?" I cried again as the countdown hit zero and the doors all began closing, people still screaming on the stairs. A few more managed to duck in, then the doors were closed with a reverberating and chilling thud.

"Everyone quiet!" one of the men from the doors yelled. "Line up for roll call!"

The young man and I were close, he had veered off to the side to watch the stairs in worry. He looked upset now as he put an arm around me and clutched me like a lifeline.

We were third in line and I looked around frantically as people sobbed and held each other close.

"Name?" one of the men demanded.

"Dewey Carmichael," the young man announced. "And this is my plus one."

"Dew, you know the rules, if they aren't in the list..."

"My mom and sisters didn't make it! She won't take up extra room, look at her! She's tiny. She won't take extra rations either. A lot of people didn't make it, one more won't make a difference!"

The man sighed and looked me over. "Name, age and occupation," he demanded.

"Dip, 24, electrical engineer," I answered softly.

"Dip?" the man asked with a sneer. "Full name, ma'am."

"Serendipity Endicott."

"Likely name for you, Serendipity. You just survived the end of the world."

"What?!?" I asked, horrified.

"You two are assigned to room 43 for single couples."

"Wait! Wait, no! I don't know this man at all! I didn't even know his name before he said it to you just now! I am not sharing a bed with him!"

The two men looked at each other, then one shrugged. "He's only 18 anyway, they aren't likely to match and she has an essential job."

"Alright, you are both assigned to bay twelve for singles. Move along. Dew, show her where her room is."

Dew pulled me away from the line, but I yanked my hand away as soon as we got clear. "I want answers," I demanded. "What is happening?"

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Our town... it's one of 20 all over the world that was chosen out and a bunker built in the case of global nuclear war. The second those sirens go off, we have five minutes to get to the bunker before it closes. Some of the leaders of the town, men who were sent here for this reason, stay down here out in the inprocessing room to be here already in case the siren goes off. They send people here with important jobs, heightened genetics that have proven immune to a lot of sickness."

"Is this a certain thing? Not a drill? Not a way to test the towns reaction time?"

"No, I'm sorry. We do have times drills are scheduled, but never with the sirens. The sirens mean it's go time."

"So the world out there, it's actually destroyed?" I asked, terrified. "My family?"

"If it hasn't happened yet, it's about to. We're far enough down and far enough from impact sites, we might not feel anything. It will be hard for us to know when it happens. There's enough food here to last a couple decades, more with the hydroponics and greenhouses. There's a huge water reservoir well below us, far enough that radiation won't seep down that far, and we have scrubbers to. This bunker was made by top engineers and people who knew what they were doing. It's... an ark, of sorts. Meant to survive a global event. Solar flare would have been a pulse siren, asteroid would have been a waxing and waning siren, biological would have been a continuous waxing siren... they all have codes. Continuos nonfluctuating siren means nuclear warheads on a global scale."

"So what do we do?!?"

"Nothing... we live down here now. There are sun rooms, with pools so we don't grow vitamin D deficient, lots of other things too. We live down here until the sensors say the world above is safe again. Are... are you really 24?"

"Yes. I was driving to my new job out of college."

"You're so tiny," he breathed, looking me over again.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," I sighed, turning to look down, thinking about what he'd said. "Is there a chance people could make it to fallout shelters? Survive?"

"Maybe for a while if they weren't in an impact zone, but they aren't sustainable or air tight. They will die of radiation poisoning. It's better to hope that they died quickly and painlessly."

"Who set off the warheads?"

"No way to know from down here."

"I don't give a shit about your fucking list!" one of the bikers yelled at the man taking name's face, brandishing another gun. "Or fucking essential jobs! We are staying and you aren't stopping us!"

"Sir, you need to calm down," another man called, moving around and pointing another gun at the biker.

Every biker there, a full dozen of them, pulled guns out and aimed them at all of the men in charge. "Put the fucking gun down," the biker snarled. "Finish your fucking roll call and forget about us. Assign us one of those bays for single people, we want it to ourselves. Don't say you don't have one, half the town is still out there and not in here."

The man holstered his weapon, but one of the bikers went and took it, then the others took the guns off the rest of the men in charge.

I clutched my purse close, my handgun in it.

The bikers were assigned a bay, then they arrayed around the men and stood and watched as more people were checked off the list and assigned rooms or bays.

I moved back to watch what was happening and Dew moved with me, sitting next to me on a couch as I peeked over the edge at the men.

A few other people joined us, watching the men as well.

The men finally finished with the last of the people and as soon as they did, the leader of the bikers took the list from him and began looking it over. "Go sit down," the biker demanded of the men who were all hovering nervously. "We're running shit now."

"You have no idea how..."

"Shut the fuck up," a larger biker sneered, pressing his gun right between the man who had spokens eyes.

"This doesn't need to go this way, Bud," another man spoke calmly, his hands up. "We know the running of this place backwards and forwards. We won't bother any of you and you can all do whatever you want. Be the muscle. The running of the facility takes actual know how, years of training. We can just do the labor part of it and you can run everything."

"You each have someone with you at the controls at all times," Bud snapped. "What happens first?"

"Well, first, we get everyone changed into what we refer to as cleansuits. We don't want outside contaminants in the facility. We have more than enough for everyone ten times over again. I have to announce it over the intercom, have people come and get them, get decontaminated and change over by the medbay. Then we do job assignments. We have a lot of people missing, we'll be spread thin. It was meant for more than twice as many people."

"Just get on the fucking com and get people dressed," Bud snarled, moving to sit down with the list as he looked it over.

Dew pulled me along with him when he was called and I jerked away, scowling at him. "I'm not a fucking doll to drag around!" I hissed.

He turned red and looked away quickly, pain in his features. I remembered then that he was alone, he'd lost his family too and he was basically just a kid still.

When the man at the desk demanded all of my things and my clothes, I gave him a flat look, then looked at the biker who was learning at a woman down the line. Opening my purse, I tilted it, showing him the gun, then handing it to him. He glanced at the biker, then tucked it under the desk.

The 'cleansuits' were basically white scrubs like nurses wore. I wasn't happy with it, but I couldn't complain too much. I was alive.

Dew told me he would show me to our bay, but I ignored him, going back out to the couch to sit down and watch the front. I wanted to know what was going on. Dew sat next to me looking stressed.

"You don't want to get their attention," he whispered.

"No one pays attention to me," I whispered back. "They overlook me."

"I didn't. You have a fantastic chest and a great ass, no one who looked would overlook you."

"Wow, rude."

"What? You made it clear you see me as a kid. I can be honest now, right? You have a super tight little body. That suit masks it a little, but not a lot. What are they doing?"

"It looks like they are prioritizing jobs and seeing who can be substituted where."

A man sat on the other side of me, also watching. "Saw what you did," he whispered. "Smart. Did I hear you right, you're an engineer?"

"Yeah," I answered, glancing at the older man.

"You'll be in a good position to help shut these boys down if you know enough about the system. Get enough of them in their bay and you can seal their door, keep them from getting out. Make them give up their guns to get food. If we get most of them in the bay, we can overpower whoever is left, get their guns."

"I'm assuming there will be technical manuals?" I asked, still watching.

"At every single job, even janitorial."

"Then I will find out how to do that first thing. Do we have video feeds?"

"They are in the security bay, maybe engineering and a few other places, but if not they can signal engineering if we're able to communicate what we need. I'm Gary."

"Dip."

"Unfortunate name."

"My little brother called me that from the time he was two until he died at six. Leukemia. I just sort of kept it to honor him."

"Now I feel like shit. Geez."

"My entire name is unfortunate, don't sweat it. It could be worse, I could be named after a pet snail in an idiotic cartoon."

He gave me a confused glance and I knew he didn't get it.

"Give me a pen," Bud demanded of the man who was going over a panel with two others. He handed Bud a pen looking confused, but went back to what he was doing. Bud began making marks on the roster.

"What the fuck is that shit up to?" Gary grumbled.

"Do you know him?" I asked in a whisper.

"Everyone knows that psychopath. He was a fucking smart kid growing up, but he was cocky and thought he was above it all. The rules didn't apply to him. He rewired the school's entire computer system to show nothing but porn on every monitor and they had to hire someone to come in and fix it. Even the macbooks that kids brought home. It was a shitball move, but he acted like he'd done something clever. He graduated and applied for one of the program grants for the bunker, but he was denied. He demanded a grant and to be given a priority, but the council refused. He tried to reprogram the doors to stay open, but the security on the bunker sent off all kinds of alarms. When the FBI showed up, he was set down and struck from the list altogether. His dad kicked him out and he was removed from the town. A few years back, he started coming back around with his new friends and causing shit, tearing things up. He got worse and worse every time he came, pissed off that he wasn't getting a rise or causing an uproar. We just called the staties and ignored them. It's a goddamn shame they happened to be here when the sirens went off," he spat angrily.

Bud stood up and handed the man the list again. "Call up those names I have x's by," he demanded. "Hurry up."

The man looked at the list, then his face went pale as he went to the intercom and sat down. He began calling people up one at a time and on the fifth name, I realized they were all women. He was calling up women from the list in a certain age group. I wasn't surprised at all when my name was called, but I waited until there were several women already up there before getting up and moving to blend in the middle of them.

"Call my boys up," Bud demanded when the last name was read.

I was pretty sure I knew where this was about to go.

As soon as the bikers were all gathered around the front, standing near Bud and leering at all the women, Bud stood as well.

"Alright, we're fucking stuck in this shithole, we ain't gonna be stuck without any pussy. All of you take your clothes off, drop them at your feet. You'll be allowed to put them back on, but we want to see what we've got to choose from. Stop standing there and do as you're told!" he yelled, pulling his gun out. "You, fat and ugly bitch, come here. Don't bother taking your clothes off, no one wants you. The rest of you get your clothes off or I blow this cunts head off!"

I quickly pulled my clothes off and stood with my arms crossed, huddled in on myself and trying to stay small.

"Now line up and spread out a little. All in a row, right here in front of us."

"Most of the women were crying, but I was pissed as I stepped up into line and looked down at the ground, still trying to hide myself.

"Hands up high, chins up high!" Bud yelled. "All of you, right now! I aint fuckin' around! No one cares about this ugly bitch anyway, I'll be doing the bunker a favor!"

I looked up and held my hands up just above my head, staring up at one of the air cycling vents.

I was going to kill this asshole.

"Allright boys, have yourselves a good look. Make sure you pick one you want, it's gonna be a fuckin' while. Crane, you can go first."

"Not you, boss?"

"Nah, I can pick from what's left, I ain't super picky as long as she can suck cock."

The tall younger man stepped up and started moving down the line, pausing to look at a few of the women as he went. He paused in front of me and looked me over, but I stared up angrily at the vent and refused to look at him. He went on to the end of the line, then came back down, looking over each girl more carefully, even touching and forcing legs apart to feel between legs.

He got to me and I gritted my teeth as he groped my breasts, then kicked my legs apart and reached down to touch me, then slide a finger into my entrance. I winced and grimaced and he stood up straight to look me over again.

"I want this one," he called, pulling me out of line by my wrist.

"Let her get dressed," Bud called, nodding. "What's her name?"

Crane let me go and I fled to my clothes, yanking them on, humiliated as I saw the entire bunker in the large room watching.

"Name," Crane demanded from right behind me, taking hold of my arm below the shoulder and pulling me to the front with him. There was already another man looking over the line.

"Serendipity," I whispered, trying to stop the tears from welling up.

"She's essential," Bud announced. "She'll have a job. You want another?"

"No, I'm fine with getting her at night and her off time," Crane shrugged. "What is she?"

"Engineer," Bud grunted.

"Well fuck," Crane smirked, tilting my face up to look at him. "She's got a fuckin' temper too," he grinned. "I like a bit of fire."