Brotherhood of the Last Shelter

Unplug It

The smell came first.

It wasn't the bitter tang of burned plastic or the dry soot of Donald's soldering iron. It was the thick, sweet stench of rotting meat, carried down the new ventilation pipe right behind our fresh park air.

The fan wheel didn't hum smoothly anymore. It made a wet, sluggish sound, like it was cutting through greasy mud instead of cool wind.

Donald dropped his wire strippers. He took two quick steps toward the air shaft, his hand going over his mouth and nose.

"What is that?" Donald gagged, his eyes watering. "Did something die in the duck pond?"

"No," Marcus whispered from his canvas bed.

The old man tried to push himself up, but his arm shook so violently he fell back against the concrete with a dull thud. His skin had turned a sickening ash-grey. His eyes were wide, staring at the ceiling in pure terror.

"Marcus?" Luggard rushed to his side, grabbing his shoulder. "What's wrong? Is it the wound?"

"The red cable," Marcus choked out, pointing a trembling finger at the open wall seam where Donald had clamped our brass leads. "The 600-volt line... it doesn't just run trains, boy. It connects to the old drainage pumps under the city morgue. When the power died... the pumps stopped. The runoff is flooding the lower levels."

Before Donald could move, the alien regulator board on our workbench let out a sharp, high-pitched squeal.

The semiconductor plate Donald took from the dead hound's spine began to glow, not with the warm orange of heat, but with a cold, sickly purple light. The current from the transit line was feeding it, but the alien metal wasn't dropping the voltage anymore.

It was transmitting.

A sharp chime cracked inside my head, loud enough to make my vision blur with white light.

System Warning: Foreign Resonance Detected. Grid Intercept hijacked by Hostile Beacon. Shelter Cloak: Compromised. Entity Proximity: 15 meters and closing.

"Donald, unplug it!" I yelled, my voice cracking in my dry throat. "Unplug the converter now!"

Donald lunged for the wooden board, but the moment his boots crossed the center of the room, a massive thud hit our steel door from the outside.

BOOM.

The impact was so violent the entire concrete frame groaned. Dust showered down from the ceiling joints, coating our hair and our food crates in fine white powder.

Luggard fell onto his hands and knees, shielding Marcus with his own body.

"James!" Luggard cried out, his voice thin with panic. "The lock!"

The heavy mechanical wheel in the middle of our door didn't turn, but the solid alloy plate bowed inward by half an inch. Deep, jagged claw marks tore across the outside of the metal, screeching like nails on a chalkboard.

It wasn't a hound.

Hounds were small, lean, and made of thin iron pipes. Whatever had just thrown itself against our door hit with the weight of a delivery van.

BOOM.

A second hit buckled the top anchor pin Donald had driven into the masonry. The concrete around the hinge cracked, spitting chunks of stone onto the floor.

"Donald, cut the wire!" I pulled the bent iron pipe from my belt and stepped in front of the door, planting my boots into the stone dust. My heart was pounding so hard against my ribs I couldn't draw a full breath.

This was my fault. I thought the system was giving us a free pass. I thought Marcus had the answers. I let us get comfortable in a locked basement, thinking a few bolts and a fan could hold off the end of the world. In my first life, I watched my brothers die because we were weak. In this life, I was about to get them crushed because I was arrogant.

Donald grabbed his heavy pliers and clamped down on the thick copper lead running into the wall.

"It won't cut!" Donald shouted, sweat pouring down his dirty neck as he squeezed the handles with both hands. "The insulation melted! The copper fused straight to the terminal!"

The alien plate on the workbench flared brighter, the purple light casting long, twisted shadows across the walls. A low, rhythmic clicking came from inside the brick air shaft behind us.

The creatures weren't just at the door.

They were inside the ventilation flue.

Through the green iron vent Donald had taken down, two long, pale appendages slid out into the room. They weren't metal. They were made of grey, rubbery muscle wrapped around jagged bone spurs, twitching blindly as they tasted the air.

"Luggard, the fire extinguisher!" I yelled, keeping my eyes on the shuddering front door.

"It's empty, James!" Luggard's voice was shaking. "We used them both in the depot!"

A wet, tearing sound echoed from the vent as the thing in the shaft forced its bulk through the brick opening. Mortar crumbled, and a bulbous, hairless head pushed into the light. It had no eyes, only a wide, split jaw lined with three rows of human-like teeth, dripping thick yellow bile onto the concrete floor.

It smelled of the city morgue and sewer muck.

The door gave another sickening screech as the creature outside threw its shoulder into the dented steel again. The top hinge tore free from the wall, leaning inward by three inches. Through the gap, I saw a thick mass of black cables and twitching red eyes in the dark tunnel.

We were caught between two monsters, trapped in our own safe room.

"James," Donald breathed, letting go of the melted wire. His face was dead white as he pulled his heavy wrench from his belt. "We can't fight both."

Marcus coughed, blood flecking his pale lips. He reached out with his good hand, grabbing my pant leg.

"The cutting torch..." Marcus gasped, his eyes wild with pain. "The gas tank... throw the tank into the shaft and light the line... blow the intake."

"If we blow the intake, we collapse the whole ceiling on our heads!" Luggard screamed over the screeching metal.

"It collapses the tunnel outside too!" Marcus shouted back. "It's the only way, boy!"

The creature in the vent dropped its front limbs onto our floor, its wet grey skin glistening under our flashlight beam. Its split jaw opened wide, letting out a deafening, wet hiss that rattled the metal crates on our shelves.

The front door bent again, the second hinge groaning under impossible pressure.

I had ten seconds before the door fell.

I looked at Donald. I looked at Luggard.

I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a neat blueprint from the system.

I grabbed the heavy oxygen cylinder with my left hand and struck the lighter in my right.