Part 7 (1/2)
Andy shook his head. ”B ... busy. S .. sorry.” He then laughed.
”a.s.shole,” Emma said then turned to Cody. ”Andy is joking. He'll be by tonight. We'll get pizza.”
”Pizza?” Cody asked.
”Yes and we'll ...” Emma stopped talking when the alarm on her phone beeped in a siren style mode. She grabbed it. ”Oh, G.o.d. Yellowstone erupted.” She jumped up and swooped the baby into her arms. ”We gotta get to the hole. We have four minutes.”
”Run, Gam, run,” Cody said.
Emma raced toward the front door and Andy stopped her before she ran out. ”Andy, what? The ventilation pipes need to be checked before we go down there.”
”I ...” Andy nodded his words. ”G ... got. Go. Re-retract from b ... below.”
With s.h.i.+vering breath, Emma nodded. ”Hurry. You don't have much time. The cloud is on its way and it will sweep you away.”
When she said that, Cody screamed.
”It's ok, baby, we're gonna be okay.” Emma, cradling the child, raced back to the kitchen. She opened the bas.e.m.e.nt door, pulled it closed behind her and ran down the steps.
She ran across the unfinished bas.e.m.e.nt to the laundry room and to the tall white cabinet next to the was.h.i.+ng machine under the single well window. It wasn't a cabinet at all. When opened it exposed a metal door.
Emma quickly punched in her code. The door slid to the right and she went inside. With the baby she raced down a twenty-foot hall until she arrived at another door. That one was open. She ran inside, sealed the door, and set down the baby.
The room resembled a family room. ”Stay here, Cody. Play with the toys.”
Cody nodded, and Emma ran into another hall. She arrived to see the ventilation system already on its way into the shelter. Andy had beaten her to the punch by manually lowering it.
”Come on, Andy,”
She looked up and down the halls and didn't see him. She had to worry about Cody, so she returned to the family-style room to hold her granddaughter.
She waited.
One minute, two.
Surely the cloud pa.s.sed. But no Andy.
After ten minutes, Emma knew he wasn't arriving.
”I guess it's just you and me,” Emma told Cody. ”Thank G.o.d I have you, baby. Thank G.o.d.” She kissed the child. ”Maybe Andy came in one of the other entrances. What do you think?”
Cody nodded; she didn't seem scared at all.
”Let's go check.”
The 'hole' was huge. It was actually as big as Emma's ranch home, but built underground. A family-style room, a kitchen and eating area, two sleeping rooms, showers, and toilets. The hydroponic room and the storage facility, which held the tank of water, were bigger than the other rooms combined.
There were two other entrances into the 'hole' other than the house.
One was a door in the storage area. It led down a small tunnel to a hidden hatch in a nearby storage barn. The other was located at the far end of the shelter, another tunnel that went to the yard. It was a steel tube, much like the ones in the bunkers of the eighties.
But Andy was nowhere to be seen.
Emma gave Cody some cookies and turned on a cartoon for her. After about twenty minutes, the child grew restless and Emma grew irritated.
”What the h.e.l.l, right?” She asked Cody.
”Right.”
”It's been close to a half hour. Jeez. Let's find him.” Emma sighed, grabbed Cody, and left the shelter. She secured it again behind her, and they emerged back into the bas.e.m.e.nt.
She heard footsteps above her head, and she walked back to the kitchen, holding the baby.
”Andy,” she called out as she opened the door. ”What the heck. This was a drill. Yellowstone erupted. You died.” Her final words trailed as she saw Andy cringe and then noticed her father standing there. ”s.h.i.+t.”
Stew folded his arms and looked at Andy. ”So you're encouraging this?”
Andy lifted his hands.
”You know, Daddy,” Emma said, ”he is encouraging because he's smart. He knows why civilizations didn't survive when they should have. The Bog People. Ice Age Eskimos. All died in the middle of doing something because they weren't prepared enough. That won't be me.”
”Uh, huh.” Stew nodded. ”You aren't an Ice Age Eskimo. Or a Bog Person.”
”I certainly hope not,” Emma said. ”I have no plans to die in an extinction level event.”
”You're a nut,” Stew said.
Andy laughed.
”Oh, you think that's funny?” Emma asked. ”No sleep over tonight, pal.”
”Emma,” Stew scolded. ”This behavior with Cody ...”
”Will save her life one day,” Emma cut him off. ”So there.”
”Maybe you should have let Val watch ...”
Emma's loud gasp silenced Stew. ”Bite your tongue.” She gave a quick look to Andy. ”Did you hear that? He wants the spy to watch my granddaughter. Uh ... no, Daddy. I don't even like when she visits him. He speaks Russian to her. Lord knows what vile things he is saying.”
”Um, Em?” Stew said, ”The Cold War ended. Val is a doctor, not a Russian spy, and you need to stop this.”
”I hate him.” Emma folded her arms. ”I hate him, Andy, and he hates me.”
”He does not,” Stew defended.