The Glass Elevator

The alarm wasn’t supposed to go off yet. There was still so much that had to be done before we would be ready for the evacuation, but I must have dozed off somehow and well… here we are. Kurt heard the sirens first, nudging me in the ribs. “We have to move,” he growled at me. I hate waking up to the sound of his voice when he’s like this, irritable. We’re all stressed, understandably so, but don’t take it out on me. I’ve always told him the energy he gives me will be given back tenfold.

I shot a look at him. “The alarm wasn’t supposed to go off yet. I didn’t even know I fell asleep,”

“Okay well it did and you were. Must be nice, princess. Some of us have been up all night securing the bunker so sleeping beauty is going to have to pitch in now too,” he shot back. I wish he would get off my case. Five years ago this annoyance would have really gotten to me. Not today, Satan, at least not out loud. I gave him a sideways smile before responding quietly, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve just been so tired, I guess.” He kissed my forehead and handed me a wad of tattered rope.

Of course he would assign me the worst job. I supposed I deserved it for dozing off like that and who knows how long I was even out. Theodore, our long haired tabby crept up beside me, melodically purring as I began unscrewing the bunker vault. “Thee,” I began, “You know it’s not safe for you to come with me. I’ll be right back.” Kurt scooped up the pathetic ball of fur with one hand and secured the rope around my waist with the other. I began securing the belay, snatched my helmet and gloves and began my descent. The alarm going off meant that we had exactly 1 hour to clear the debris and stock and secure the bunker for the evacuation. Thankfully Kurt did most of the heavy lifting already, but he made sure to leave the messy work for me. And it was work that I couldn’t slack on, because if it wasn’t done right, it was going to be a very unsettling few months for us.

I signaled with my flashlight to let Kurt know I had hit the ground so he could throw more rope down. The first room of the bunker was something of a decoy. It was meant to look like a hole in the ground. I had to feel around the bottom of the clay sodden walls for a small lip, that was the door. The lip was just a rusted metal handle, completely hidden from the naked eye. Once I felt it, I wedged two fingers down and around the underside of it to feel around for the clip. I attached my rope and gave it a good tug, which then signaled to Kurt that he would need to attach the pulley and spin the rope taut, which would then crank the door open just enough to slide in. This room is what we call the drop. There was enough of a ledge all the way around the perimeter of the drop to simply stand,maybe a two inch step-space, but that’s about all you’d be able to do. I stepped inside, still clipped to the bottom of the door and felt around with the tip of my toe. Somewhere off to the left was a smooth marble stone, that’s what I was looking for. Once I found it, I brushed the side of my foot around it in a clockwork motion and then waited a moment for it to ‘click’ into place. Then I unclipped my rope and jumped.

Level two always felt much further down than it actually was, probably because it was just a freefall in pitch blackness. By now I knew to keep my legs tucked and brace for the landing, because the first time we tested it out I sprained an ankle. The steel flooring was Kurt’s idea.I still remember him hauling truckloads of industrial steel bricks into our home before we had even thought of digging out a second level. I thought he was nuts then, and now I think it would have been nuts not to. Of course, that was five years ago now. So much has happened since then.I slipped my boots off, then I reached up above my head and felt around for the light switch. The small red button could easily be mistaken for a pebble, possibly my only genius idea for this whole enterprise.I hit the button hard with a punch and a set of dimmed blacklights buzzed and flickered. With the lights on, it was easier to spot the fire safety glass case which housed our bunker box. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough to spot the reflective cover of what used to be a cremation box for our son. Now it held matchboxes, fuses and a sachet full of gunpowder. Back when the world was normal and the air was safe, Kurt and I had a beautiful life together. It was pure luck that we even made it this far.

When I found out I was pregnant, it was just the beginning of the Overtaking. During that time, we all just assumed the economy was failing. Everyone was learning how to hunt and gather, learning about native plants and foraging. Kurt and I took several courses on survivalism, even taking to backwood camping, both with and without shelter. And all of this while I was pregnant. I only made it to seven months before I went into a long and excruciating labor. When I gave birth, he was breathing on his own, we had monitored him for three days and he maintained strong, much to everyone’s surprise. But on the third day, we laid his little head down and never opened his eyes again. The irony in the fact that we use his cremation box for explosives instead of ashes was never lost on me. That baby would have been seven now and I hadn’t even bothered to name him the poor thing.

Normally I would just unlatch the fire case, but knowing this was the last time I would purposefully be in this room, it was time to booby it. I unlatched myself from the rope and gave it a good pull so that Kurt knew it was time to retrieve it. Then I pulled my shirt up over my head, wrapping it around my fist, and smashed the safety case in. I set my watch to count down 30 seconds, snatched the bunker box and pushed the wall behind the fire safety case, until it gave just enough to trigger the glass ceiling to shut.

30: I began spreading the gunpowder across the steel floor, tiny pings echoing from floor to ceilingI didn’t have even a second to waste; I had to start knocking in the barrier to get to the fireproof pane.

25: I began frantically digging through the crawlspace behind the safety box, feeling around desperately for the sliding door. In 20 seconds, the entire room would be transformed into an oven and I’d be cooked.

20: I finally grabbed a hold of the slider and gave it a good tug. I only had one shot at this, because once it latched, there was no opening it back up.

15: The slider stuck a bit in the wall and when I jimmied it, it whipped open with tremendous force, causing it to close nearly all the way.

14: In a split second, I squeezed my shoulder through the crack between the door and the wall.

13: I pushed my back in with the strength of a thousand me’s, wedging my body inward. I squeezed myself into the glass vault, holding the door with just the toe of my boot.

12: I pulled a fuse out of the box.

11: I lit the fuse and threw it into the gunpowder terrain.

10. I slammed the door and latched it shut.

9: I gave the latch a good tug for reassurance.

8: I slumped back against the furthest far in my new 6x6 space. And then…

7

6

5: I watched all of our hard work burn to a fiery crisp.

4

3: Pulled the lever and slowly watched as the room ahead of me, growing smaller and smaller, rose from flames to ashes. And the clock counted down to one. Definitely feeling the effects of being stuck in a levitating box underground, I tried to calm my mind. Now was not the time to remember how extremely claustrophobic I was. With every movement above the surface I could feel a slight sway, scraping the clay outside of my enclosure. Without much space for oxygen, I tried to control my breathing. “You can do anything you can visualize. Manifest the calmness,” I quietly repeated to myself.

I collapsed into a puddle on the glass bottom of the vault, listening to the cranking of the levy as it halted to a stop. In pitch blackness, I could hear my heart pumping out of my chest. I glanced at my watch. If this didn’t work we would be fried like the rest of the neighborhood. Two minutes passed. I recalled a time when I was pregnant and the first bomb touched down. I was hiding in our safe room in the upstairs bedroom closet. Sirens sounding off, warnings coming through on the tornado system urging everyone to “please stay in your homes until further alert.” At the time, Kurt was working late hours, so it was just Theodore and I. I scooped him up and locked us both in that safe room, feeling like my chest was caving in the entire time. I thought about Theodore during that time, how he had curled up into the softest ball on my lap. His pur was the only thing that calmed me down enough to dose into a slumber. When I woke up to deafening silence, I knew it was over.Thee was still there,seemingly adhered to my belly. I opened the door, hoping, praying to the universe that Kurt was safe out there. To my surprise, he was hunkered right outside the safe room, surrounded by toppled furniture: a dresser, thrown haphazardly on its side, the headboard of our bed forming a makeshift roof over him. I still remember what he said when we finally locked eyes, “ You really will sleep through anything.” I replayed his words in my head. Just the sound of his voice could bring me down from a panic. I doubt I could have slept through this.

I began pounding on and kicking at the ceiling. “Come on,come on, come on.” I thought we were so clever boobying the whole underground system until now. We had designed the vault with a specially engineered glass material that was supposed to begin breaking down as soon as the heat hit it. My body heat should have done the rest of the work of dissolving away layers of wall and ceiling but it was beginning to feel as if I had created a coffin for myself instead. What a way to go.

The levy system was too fragile to detach from too. If I rocked the vault off the tracks, I would fall to my death and Kurt would never make it to safety. The way we built it, the push track connected by a concrete ceiling with an intricate wiring mechanism attached to the rail. A series of block signaling that Kurt designed could only shift the vault in one direction. Once the top panel and the wall panels dissolved, we would be left with a platform that I would have to manually activate as a sort of elevator, which would take me up to the concrete ceiling, so I could shine my light through the manhole cover in our garage, and that would let Kurt know that it was time to lockdown and prepare to descend. Then I would input the code on my side; the manhole cover would pop open and Kurt, Thee and I would descend all the way down to the lowest level, to safety. That would work… if only I could get the glass to disintegrate. So much for flawless design.