by KAYCE COLEMAN
The Bunker
The end is coming soon for us. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s the truth. Father is doing his best to protect us, but I think it’s too late. The girls are too young to understand, but they can feel something is wrong too. In the middle of the night, I can hear Father huddled and talking with Mr. Trujillo, messing with the old satellite radio we found in the fall-out shelter we’re all crammed into—we’re slowly but surely starving to death.
Everyone called paranoid old Mr. Simpson crazy for all of the security cameras and the underground bunker he constructed in his basement, but he was the first to see them descending from the sky. He died of a heart attack right there in his front yard wearing that dingy old house robe over his underpants and ancient tactical boots, brandishing a double-barreled shotgun at the clouds.
The ones of us who survived the initial assault: me, my father, my six-year-old twin sisters, most of the Yeung’s, little Sarai Temple, Jason Hodgkins, and Saul Trujillo, would have been dead days ago if Father hadn’t remembered the bunker. The entire neighborhood was leveled.
Even though it was terrifying, at first, it was beautiful. Imagine fourteen enormous and perfectly spherical orbs gliding closer and closer in a formation of concentric circles.
When I was a little kid Father used to sit me in his lap and let me hold his drafting pencil while he made big fluid circles with a spirograph. The orbs reminded me of those long-ago circles, except they appeared to be made of jet-black fire because their surfaces roiled and churned like those videos you see of the sun. It all happened so quickly that I never even got to see what the news or government had to say about them. But I did hear the emergency system blaring as we all stood watching on the lawn, hypnotized.
In what seemed like no time, green military choppers were surrounding the orbs. They stopped in unison and began whirling like blazing black dervishes. Each orb began emitting a thick lilac-colored vapor that engulfed the whole of them. All you could see was a massive pastel cloud with choppers buzzing around it like bees at a picnic. All was quiet for about ten minutes when suddenly one of the green choppers fired on the cloud.
The cloud showed no real indication of being harmed, except the place where the missile had exploded on its surface, where the targeted spot darkened to a deep aubergine. At that, the entire cloud started to pulse like a sinister purple heart, and my knees nearly buckled with the weight of panic that engulfed me. And that’s when it happened.
There was a shock of utter silence, then a forceful wind blasted me backward right out of my shoes. It toppled our entire neighborhood like a petulant child knocking over its toys.
The windblast sent the helicopters spiraling toward the ground, their deadly blades tearing through everything in their path, which ended in a fiery crash. People’s faces were stretched in horror. It was like being stuck in a real-life adaptation of Munch’s The Scream. The neighborhood was a mess of swirling dust, strange colors, and horrified faces copied over and over. Heavy silence pressed down on my ears, and my body was racked with pain. I was wedged into the branches of the huge old oak tree that had been standing regally in our yard for as long as I can remember. Now, it leaned over, almost parallel to the ground. I felt certain my left arm was broken and was gingerly untangling myself when I saw Father emerge from the rubble that used to be our house with Mya, one of the twins, on his hip. She was sobbing hysterically but appeared to be unharmed. Mia was clinging desperately to his back and bleeding from the forehead and mouth. Father’s right pant leg was ominously dark below the knee with what could only be blood.
I looked around, my ears in agony as a keening, high-pitched ringing reverberated through my skull. After extricating myself from the heavy branches of the oak tree, I stumbled over to my father and relieved him of Mia, who immediately lunged for me when she saw me. I searched her all over with my good hand, anxiously looking for the source of the blood. There appeared to be only small cuts and bruises. Mya was too hysterical to let anybody else touch her, and she clung to Father ferociously.
Father stumbled drunkenly down the street towards the Simpson house, and I followed. I never looked back up at the sky. I was too terrified.
It felt like the end of the world. My neighbor, 19-year-old Jason Hodgkins, was frantically pacing back and forth in the middle of the street, muttering to himself and pulling at his greasy lime-green hair. His pale skin was blotchy from distress and streaked with dirt. Father had to actually slap him to make him coherent, but he appeared to be uninjured. We found little Sarai Temple curled into a fetal knot inside an overturned recycling bin in front of what used to be the Williams’ place. We looked for Mr. and Mrs. Williams and called out to them, but they were nowhere to be found.
When we got to the Simpson house, Saul Trujillo was already there with Mr. and Mrs. Yeung. All three of them were covered from head to toe in soot and grime. I imagine we looked just as worn and tattered to them as they did to us.
That was all two weeks ago. Thankfully, Father and Mr. Trujillo remembered Mr. Simpson’s bunker. The bunker was outfitted with first aid kits and freeze-dried packs of food that Father said were much like what he’d had to eat in the army in Iraq. We had some slow running water and bottled water, but we were still filthy. It took three days for everyone to listen to Father’s admonishments regarding the liberal usage of the supplies. I guess it’s hard to make terrified, half-crazy people squeezed together in a small hot concrete room to listen, especially when several of them are small children.
It’s as if the others felt like rationing would be admitting that no one was coming to save us. In fact, we never even talked about it. Maybe the adults did though, maybe while I slept, but maybe we all just felt the same: it was too terrible to think about what happens next, let alone talk about it.
I still felt the same way I did immediately after the blast: I didn’t want to look up. And it wasn’t even just THEM, whatever or whomever THEY were, but the bodies. I try my hardest to forget, but the carnage haunts me. I found a stash of Barbital wedged into an ancient metal lunch box with this pen and paper and some nude magazines. I guess men will be men, even old crazy ones. I remembered reading an article about barbiturates when I wrote an essay in English class about addiction. I know it isn’t very smart to take them, but the bottle says the Barbital is expired. I just can’t bring myself to care about some possible future where I’m addicted to pills. They knock me out, and dreamless sleep is honestly worth the risk. It may be selfish, but I have hidden them from Father and the others.
For now, I journal and comfort my sisters and Sarai, and I sleep. One of these days I’m going to wake up in my bed and realize that this was all a nightmare.
Bondju
I don’t know what or who I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t THEM. I’m still astounded by their sheer size. Father is 6’4”, and they tower over him easily. Some are eight, or maybe even ten, feet tall, but they look like us. And when I say us, I mean like me, Father, and the girls. They are humanoid. Black-skinned—truly deep black skin that nearly glistens in the light like onyx. Thick-lipped, strong-jawed, and heavy-browed with wooly, matted hair trailing behind them in heavy locs that nearly touch the ground. They are completely naked, yet somehow, they don’t seem to be, because their skin is engraved with images and symbols from head to toe; and some of them are even encrusted with brilliant stones. They are the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
This is what happened to us today.
Father’s leg was much worse off than he had let on. He had a deep cut down the length of his calf and his leg had swollen to the size of an inner tube. Mrs. Yeung, who is half-blind, was the first to notice the smell, and she was doing her best to care for it with the limited supplies and language barrier, but I was getting more and more certain by the moment that I would lose my father. There still had been nothing more than white noise on the satellite radio, and the bunker felt like being inside of a concrete tomb.
I had run out of Barbital and hadn’t slept for three days. Instead, I sat rocking and holding Father’s hand as he sweated and cried and uttered feverish delusions about my long-dead mother. It was slow torture, but at least my anxiety and the gangrenous smell of Father’s leg kept me from feeling my hunger.
I was near the point of insanity and cursing God in my head when we all heard it: The loud screeching sound of the bunker’s hatch being ripped from its hinges. Hot urine leaked from me involuntarily as the hatch thudded to the ground. It was followed by a booming voice so deep it reverberated in my bones.
“Stay Calm. 保持冷静. शांत रहो. Mantenga le calma.”
Old Mrs. Yeung screeched. I threw my body onto Father’s, holding him, still seeking comfort from his unconscious body, and the twins scuttled over to me, burrowing themselves underneath my arms and holding onto my sides with a vice-like grip. Jason Hodgkins started sobbing hysterically again, pulling at his hair and repeating over and over again that he didn’t want to die. Mr. Trujillo lunged for little Sarai, covering her body with his, and the Yeungs huddled together, speaking rapid Mandarin.
The voice repeated those words loud and deep and clear as if the bunker were kitted with surround sound:
“Stay Calm. 保持冷静. शांत रहो. Mantenga le calma.”
We all fell silent except for the whimpering of the children. Then one of THEM glided into the bunker. It was much too large for space; its head nearly scraped the ceiling. It was no longer speaking to us at all but rather, over us in a throaty clicking language that reminded me of Xhosa. If I had wanted to run, I couldn’t have because my legs were like lead weights, so I held on to my family for dear life. I felt its presence coming closer, and my eyes jerked up involuntarily, right into the iridescent pools of deep purple that were the eyes of the towering being. And suddenly I felt calm. Awe and calm. The creature blew a palmful of some sweet-smelling powdered substance into my face, and the room spun around me as I fell into unconsciousness.
When I woke up, Father was lying next to me, sleeping deeply. He was no longer in the bloodied and filthy khakis he’d been wearing for seventeen days. Instead, he was pristinely clean and completely naked. I looked down and noticed I was too. I recoiled from my father’s nakedness, but I could not help but notice that he looked much healthier. He looked perfect. I felt a surge of relief that was rapidly overtaken by panic as my eyes scoured the room for my baby sisters.
“Mia! Mya!” I shouted.
The same deep and disembodied voice boomed over my head. It filled the entire space in perfect, unaccented English. “Your young are safe. They require hydration and sedation. Please. Stay calm.”
It was only then that I began to take note of my surroundings. I was in a completely empty room that was somehow lit from within, though I saw no mechanisms that resembled lights or speakers. We were lying on a cool surface that was firm but not hard, and cool to the touch; it felt almost moist, like compacted soil.
I ignored the voice urging me to be calm and shouted, “Wh-where I am? Who are you? Where are my sisters?! What is wrong with my father?!? Why won’t he wake up?!? Please!!!”
“Stay calm,” it repeated.
I became hysterical, screaming and kicking and punching the walls. My father’s stillness unnerved me. Was he dead?
The voice did not speak again, but soon the room filled with sweet-smelling lavender vapor.
When I woke again, I was alone.
I scuttled over to a corner and sat clutching my knees, trying to cover my nakedness, screaming for my family and crying until I exhausted myself. When I finally fell silent, the disembodied voice returned.
“We are Bjondu. You are in the home place. You are the children of Bjondu. Your place is a dying place. Here you will live.”
“Where is my family?” I managed to croak, my voice hoarse from screaming and crying.
“You are Bjondu.”
“My father? My sisters?”
“Our sons and daughters are well. As are you. Rise.”
I felt the wall I was propped against begin to move, and I scrambled away from it.
“Rise!”
The voice boomed in command.
I stood up and clutched my arms around my body as the walls of the room shuffled and shifted like a Rubik’s cube before coming to a stop. The wall immediately in front of me was no longer opaque. It was like a two-way mirror revealing a funhouse corridor that appeared to stretch on for miles and miles. The surface of the mirror quivered and rippled. I approached, stretching my hand forward to touch it. I immediately felt a moist sucking sensation that yanked me forward.
I lost all sense of myself as I traveled. The movement was so fast it felt like I wasn’t moving at all, then was spat out onto a beach of sparkling black sand. The sky was a misty pink. Four blazing-orange spheres were sinking into the horizon of a deep purple sea.
The air was humid and filled with the sound of rhythmic humming, drums, and crashing waves. A cool breeze kissed my skin. I searched for the source of the humming, and behind me, I found a towering wall of strange trees. I could see some warm light emanating from somewhere beyond the tree line. Luminescent beams of lilac light caused the trees to shimmer. The humming and chanting and drums beckoned me like a siren call. My feet carried me through the trees in time to the rhythm of the music.
A blazing black fire stood in the center of a clearing. The tall, stately beings were gathered around it, chanting and jumping to the drums being finessed so intricately they seemed to be speaking words of a language I once knew but forgot. I knew the drums were speaking to me because I felt my heart in my chest and my lungs expand and contract to the tempo.
The drums were speaking histories into my spirit. They were telling me my name. The cadence of the drums began to steadily increase, and a searing stinging began in my fingertips and shot up my arms as if I was being electrified. I yelped in surprise as intricate patterns laced themselves rapidly up my arms and legs and across my belly, burning a fiery path up my spine to the base of my neck. I fell to my knees and heaved, vomiting a fountain of bile before slumping to the ground. I turned onto my back, and millions of brilliant stars sparkled above me like diamonds.
Feminine voices began to trill to a fever pitch around me in what sounded like triumph as I lay there breathing in the sultry air. My entire body throbbed as the flames receded. I understood.
I was home.
I was Bondju.
To be continued.