Part III

Chapter 11

The Long Walk

Dante, Daniel and Lillith ran to the underground tunnel system connecting Cleveland and Detroit. Some parts would lead them under the lake, and some would not. The tunnel formed a sort of reel-to-reel system.

A stairwell led them underground. Barley any light shone down there, save some torches held by random people in the army.

There was a square, and then an underwater tunnel then another underwater square. Each square was near a city.

Continuing through the tunnel would be a very long trip, seeing that Detroit was far away from Cleveland.

As they traveled through the tunnel, they suddenly came across a giant junction. Getting there took about three hours of walking. Daniel took a right at the path. The group of people walked south for another three hours of walking. It then became a dead end due to a cave in. They turned around and began walking north for six hours until they got to the underwater tunnel.

When they got there, Dante issued a rest. It was dark outside and the children were getting tired. Dante took a few paces away from the rest of the group and lay down and went to sleep himself. When he woke up, it was still dark, but he saw a light ahead of him. He walked towards it.

It was Lillith. She was holding a light to the glass and watching the fish swim by.

A school of trout serenely floated by the glass, making no noise but opening and closing their mouths as if they were out of breath.

Lillith never heard Dante walk up behind her. He stood beside her for a while, watching her beautiful face shine with awe. He calmly said “Amazing isn’t it?” Lillith jumped at the sound of his voice.

“It’s only me, Dante.”

Lillith nodded, still surprised. She answered “Oh, hi. Did I wake you up?”

“No,” he lied “I usually get up at this hour anyways.”

“I was just watching the fish. It’s amazing that even as we speak, people are getting killed violently and yet these fish seem to find peace. To think that our fate will be decided in these next few days will be chosen. Live or Die. There is no in between.”

“That’s kind of a grim thought for such a serene time.”

A trout straggled behind the school. On one of his sides, a sea lamprey was hooked. Lillith frowned. “What’s that?” She asked and pointed at the lamprey.

“It’s a seal lamprey. They have a parasitic relationship with fish. They take the life out of it slowly. Like us.”

Lillith tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“We have attached to the government and through killing Ordinaters, we are draining the life out of the government.”

“That’s, somewhat deep.”

Dante laughed.

Lillith giggled.

Dante stretched and said “Well, I think I’ll go back to sleep.” He turned around and started to walk away but felt Lillith grabbing his shirt.

Dante turned around slowly. What happened next totally surprised him.

Lillith moved up and started to kiss Dante. They slowly reclined and reclined to the floor.

When Dante woke up, his clothes were off and thrown in a pile somewhere above his head. The same situation was for Lillith. Her hand was on his chest. Her chest was slowly rising and falling. With angel like gentleness, he put Lillith’s clothes back on and then he put his back on.

After about an hour, Dante began banging the butt of his pistol on the metal plating of the floor. People began waking up really quickly.

The long walk continued.

Another day of walking unsettled the people, but what really disheartened them was another dead end.

A pile or rubble stood in the doorway. A trickle of water ran from under the rubble and trickled back towards the cavern. Daniel shook his head, “We can’t go that way, and it just leads to the dead end that we found yesterday.” They went that way anyways.

Dante could see far ahead. A section of the glass tunnel had been entirely removed. The glass around it was also cracked severely. Apparently, the rubble had collected from whatever caused the tunnel to break.

They turned right again and walked down towards the cavern. They kept up a relatively fast pace. AS they got closer to the middle of the tunnel, they heard industrial noises. A large section of the wall had been chiseled out and revealed a large open cavern. Daniel chipped a rock sample with one of his rifles and looked at it. “It appears to be some form of Zinc. Like the kind that’s used in firearms.” He said.

Further inside it, miners were drilling into the different rocks, hoping to find some valuable minerals

Dante could see some large trucks at the far end of the cavern. Dante crept up to a vehicle and tossed the man who was working it. He shot him once in the chest with his silenced pistol. He was wearing the badge of an Ordinater troop.

Dante climbed up into the drill, and had it come out of the rock it was currently in. Dante fiddled with the controls, and began to drive it towards another drill machine. The foreman was operating this drill. The regular worker had gotten sick that day, or that’s at least what he thought. It turned out that he found out some of the secrets of a secret government project and was ‘silenced for the good of national security’. The foreman didn’t give it a second thought.

Dante plowed a fast turning drill into the side of the drill. The side was punctured instantly and the engine ignited. The other drill exploded, hurling superheated chunks of some metal into the air. The only part of the foreman that was found was a torso and a head.

The superheated chunks of metal flew into the air and hit the rocks above the area. Above, there was a natural gas pocket that was undetected. The metal scraping against the rocks created a spark and then they ignited. The group of people made a mad dash to the other side of the cavern, boarding the trucks and driving like hell. The cavern was coming down around them.

They had enough room for all the people in the army. They drove out of the cavern and back into the passageway between the cities. They were now on the Cleveland side.

The miners in the lower levels did not know of the peril from above until the entire ceiling came down on them. Not a single worker survived.

The homeless motorcade solemnly drove through the tunnel. At this rate, they would be in the city around sundown. At least that’s what they hoped.

The sounds of the cavern collapsing echoed even in the underwater tunnel.

Tarhiel’s Office

4:55 PM

Tarhiel was sleeping when the phone woke him up.

“Who is this?” he said groggily.

“I was over the mine near the tunnel system, when the ground exploded under me,” the desperation in his voice was sincere “Something ignited the gas pockets under the mine and the entire mine collapsed. I don’t think anyone survived!”

“Fuck!”

“And then there were still miners trapped under the cavern. Before the rest of the earth came down I saw a bunch of people running for the cars at the far end of the mine.”

“Fuck!” The line went dead. “So, Dante is here. This could make things very interesting…”