Page 6 of Trade (After the End #7)

The people of the bunker were chosen, spared from annihilation, and now it’s our solemn and sacred duty to ensure the continuity of government and the future of mankind.

We all must play our part, and no one is more essential to our survival than those called to make the highest act of dedication, our unmarried women whose sacrifice ensures that our children go to bed with full bellies and humanity lives on despite the end of the world.

That’s the cue for the side door to open and for the unmarried women to file into their designated rows at the front of the Assembly Hall, right beneath the dais where the Administration sits.

The cue is different on this side of things.

There’s no dénouement, no appeal to save the children.

Instead, a red light flashes and an alarm blares three staccato bursts.

The door opens. Half of the guards troop through, clearing the way forward.

The others flank us on both sides, circling to the back to cut off our escape.

The women draw a collective breath and shuffle forward. As each one passes through the door, they raise a hand and touch the frame for luck. The gray paint has been rubbed away, the metal worn to a shine.

I pass into the Assembly Hall and immediately feel smaller than I’ve ever felt before. The mezzanine rises behind us with its tiers for the different departments and balconies for mothers, specialized occupations like dentists and mainframe repair, and retired bigwigs.

In front of us, on a dais so high we have to crane our necks to see from our wooden flip seats, the heads of department sit with their partners on either side of Neil and Rhonda Jackson.

Meghan sits beside Bennett. In my seat. She looks straight ahead into the dusty yellow air that fills the space.

She’s so young. She’s clearly trying to act cool and collected, but she has a kid’s nervous tics.

She fidgets with her hair or her coverall zipper, then catches herself and tucks her hands under her thighs before her attention drifts and her fingers wander again.

She rubs at a spot on the floor with the toe of her sneaker.

I’ve never felt older in my life. I take my seat, Amy to my left and Cecily to my right. Cecily lets the weight of her shoulder rest against me as a comfort.

I stare at Bennett, willing him to look down, but he’s as captivated as Meghan by the motes drifting through the stale air in the middle of the hall.

He’s not fidgeting. He sits ramrod-straight like his name is in the raffle drum that Barb rolls onto the dais.

Like this exercise is a terrible weight, and all he can do is bear it with dignity.

Sometimes, women panic and run. They try to fight their way out of the hall through the rows of people, but we’re trained to link arms and block them, and inevitably, the runners give up and someone guides them back to their seats.

I don’t want to run. I want to leap up onto the dais and rip Bennett out of his seat. I want to drag him down here with me.

I grab the anger with both hands, clutching it tight like an oxygen mask, like taking hits off it will get me through these next minutes.

“In accordance with the third amendment of the Articles of Incorporation, I hereby order the lottery to commence at once and with all due consideration,” Neil intones.

Susan Jordan and Gary Krause, the head of Safety and Compliance, move to their positions as official observers on either side of the drum.

Neil nods to Barb. She begins to crank the creaky brass handle.

The crowd whisper-counts the turns. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

The knot in my stomach tangles tighter with each turn of the tan wooden drum that is as freshly painted as Neil’s office door.

Barb slides the barrel bolt free. The little door falls open with a thunk. Not a single woman around me breathes.

Barb makes a show of shoving her arm all the way in and rooting around before she draws out a single pale-blue ticket.

She holds it high above her head so everyone can see.

Everyone’s head tilts back as their eyes follow the scrap of paper, squinting to make out the scribbled name even though the writing is too small to read from the audience.

Barb shows the ticket to Susan. Susan nods with great solemnity. Then Barb shows Gary. He jerks his chin, clasps his hands behind his back, and widens his stance, his jaw clenching.

The tension scrapes.

Barb walks over to Neil, each tap of her heels ringing out in the silence. She hands the ticket to Neil. He hardly glances at it.

I know before he says it, while he’s still inhaling the breath that’s going to say my name. I watch with dawning horror as he broadens his chest and puts away nice guy Neil as he assumes his Head Administrator persona. He doesn’t want to do this, but he has to, for the good of the bunker.

“Gloria Smith.” His voice rings out loud and clear to the very back of the hall.

In the mezzanine and the balconies, there is a collective gasp. In the rows around me, there is an exhalation.

Cecily grabs my hand and holds it tight. “You’re the smartest one of them,” she quickly whispers as the others immediately stand and evacuate the rows per procedure. “You’ll be okay.”

And then with a last squeeze, she’s gone, and I’m surrounded by guards. The hall has erupted in excited conversation and the thud of the wood seats lifting as people stand.

A guard takes my elbow and propels me toward a door to the left of the dais. For a few moments, he is steering me toward Bennett and Meghan who are both still sitting, silent, pale as ghosts and staring into the middle distance.

“Bennett,” I cry and stumble toward him, forgetting in the moment that he isn’t mine anymore, that reality is upside down and backward, that he is the one who did this to me. The guard jerks me back in line, another wraps his hand around my upper arm in a vise grip, and they hustle me away.

It happens so fast. We practically jog through the corridors. We take a security elevator to Level 1. I’ve never been to a numbered floor.

The elevator actually dings when it reaches its destination like all elevators did when I was young, before the buzzers all wore out.

The hallways are wider, and the light is different—gray—but a bright gray.

Disorder is everywhere, dirt footprints on the tiles, crates and barrels and every sort of container shoved against the walls.

One stack is so old and damp that the boxes have collapsed into each other, forming a leaning tower of moldy cardboard.

There is litter on the floor. Torn paper. Plastic peels. Dead leaves the shape of which I’ve never seen before.

And there are guards everywhere, some lifting and hauling things, others lounging against the wall, gawking as I’m hurried past.

I catch a glimpse inside a room, and it’s overflowing with rusty metal equipment heaped in piles that rise all the way to the ceiling. These must be storerooms.

Who was traded for a heap of busted parts for machines that don’t even work anymore? Our last utility vehicle broke when I was a kid.

We get to a pair of heavy, windowless double doors at the end of the hallway, and the posted guards swing them open. As soon as we’re through, they slam them shut behind us.

My guards prod me forward up a short flight of stairs, down another corridor, and through another set of solid double doors.

The closer we get to wherever we’re going, the more the atmosphere seems to buzz, and the grimmer and more menacing the men stationed along the way.

And it’s only men. I haven’t seen a woman since the Assembly Hall.

I don’t know how I’m walking on my jelly legs or why I’m going along with the guards like a good little soldier.

I always thought I’d fight, that when the worst happened, there’d be a fighter inside of me all along just waiting for her moment.

That’s what happens in stories, right? At the last minute, the heroine finds a strength she didn’t know she had.

I feel like when you dream that you’re awake and you can’t move your limbs.

I go where I’m led, down another corridor and through a curtain of heavy plastic strips dangling from the ceiling like in a walk-in fridge.

We emerge in a huge antechamber with a wall split with a seam from ceiling to floor. A wall that’s a door.

The door to the Outside.

My heart pounds in my ears as my skin breaks out into a clammy sweat. They’re really going to do it. They’re going to shove me out.

Brisk footsteps sound on the brushed concrete, and Gary Krause appears in front of me, flanked by two of his lieutenants, Ron Maxwell and Eugene Reedy.

I’ve helped Eugene’s wife out a few times before, sneaking her tea in the back of the cafeteria where she works.

I don’t know the particulars of her situation, but she doesn’t want to be tied to him a day longer than when the doctor declares her postmenopausal.

Now, Eugene stares at me with an intentionally blank face and bright, beady eyes. He’s excited.

I’m going to puke. My gaze darts around the cavernous room, notably free of the clutter lining the way here. A dozen guards stand around, watching us.

Gary clears his throat. “Sorry, Gloria,” he says, before his tone changes completely.

“When we finish this discussion, the doors will be opened, and you will walk outside of your own volition. There you will be met by one to five Outsiders. You will comply with their instructions. You will not attempt to flee. You will not commit any act of violence or retaliation against them. You will not speak to them. When they are done, they will leave, and at that time, you will return to the doors and wave at the camera you see mounted to your upper right. Do you understand?”

I blink and stare at my dad’s old friend. My brain is stuck on one to five. One to five. Five.

“You will hear a horn, and you will strip. All garments must be left outside, including underwear. You will go through decontamination and be readmitted to the bunker at that time. Do you understand?”

Gary pauses again. I can’t answer. I can’t think. My blood is pounding too hard. It’s all I can do to keep the pressure in my veins from blowing up my heart into meaty chunks.

“If you fail to comply with any of these directives, you will not be permitted reentry. Do you understand?”

He hardly waits a second before he continues the lines he’s clearly recited so many times that he delivers them by rote.

“If you do not immediately and willingly comply with the Outsiders’ instructions, you will not be permitted reentry.

If you fight, if you flee, if you communicate with the Outsiders in any way—verbal, written, or hand signal—you will not be permitted reentry. Do you understand?”

This time he waits until I nod.

“You may choose to disrobe here so that your clothes will be waiting for you when you return,” Gary says. Eugene licks his thin lizard lips.

Before I can weigh the option, Gary coughs, prompting a response, so I shake my head.

“That is your choice,” Gary says. He holds out his hand, and Ron puts a clipboard in it. “Now, you’ll need to sign that you’ve been apprised of the procedure and the consequences if you fail to comply.” He clicks a pen and passes it to me. “Initial here. And here.”

He points. I initial. GLS. Gloria Lynn Smith.

I should have signed the paper Gloria Walker. I’m not Mrs. Bennett Smith anymore, am I?

I hover the pen over my signature on the last page, seriously wondering if I should ask for a fresh copy, if I’ve made a mistake, when Gary takes the clipboard away.

“All right. Let’s do this,” he hollers. Guards pull down thick metal chains, heaving with all their strength. Gears grind. Metal shrieks. Slowly, without a second more warning, a crack of glaring white light appears.

Gary and the others back off toward the plastic curtain. Two guards in gas masks slowly pull the chains that draw the bay doors the rest of the way apart.

I’m frozen in place. Alone. I glance over my shoulder. Everyone is wearing gas masks now. Where is mine?

I turn to ask and see the line of guards behind me have all picked up poles, ten or twelve feet long. Some have wrench-like heads attached, some have cafeteria trays welded to the ends. They remind me of the phalanx of Macedonians with spears in Dad’s book on Alexander the Great.

A guard—maybe Eugene—prods my back with his pole, shoving me forward until I have to take a step or trip and fall.

They’re not giving me any time. Everything is happening too fast. The widening crack is now several feet across. The blinding light is ebbing. My eyes still burn, but they’re adjusting. The world past the huge metal wall isn’t black blotches and shadows anymore.

It’s technicolor. It’s Oz.

A cafeteria tray jams into my back, and I stumble forward into the colors. Air hits my face, cool and rich and fresh. So wondrously fresh. I inhale, and my lungs feel raw and brand-new.

My vision isn’t right. I can’t focus. I scrub my eyes and blink.

The pressure disappears from my back. I stumble forward a few more steps, and I’m Outside.

There are cracked slabs of grayish asphalt under my feet. Over my shoulder, a mountain rises into a blue sky. The bunker is under a mountain. I didn’t know.

Green trees tower to my left and right. The sky and grass and trees—everything is the vibrant, pure version of colors I’ve only ever seen in faded illustrations in books.

The sky is higher than I ever imagined. The horizon is impossibly far in the distance. I can’t see the sun, but I can feel the warmth of its shine on my face.

And oh God, the air, it’s so sweet.

For a split second, I forget why I’m here.

Then I notice the box truck parked two yards down the drive.

And the man standing next to it with a machete strapped to his thigh.

Waiting for me.