Apartment 905 by Sahin, Ned (readnow .TXT) 📕

I don’t see any farm or house in the area, except for a small concrete structure somewhere in the middle of the land. A “NOAH’S ARK” sign hangs above the door.

We enter through the perimeter and close the gate. I put Elijah on his feet while Neman slides the gate’s bolt.

“Follow them!” I point to Kathleen and Toshi running toward the concrete structure.

Neman doesn’t hear me. He’s punching the Ricas while also trying to slide the bolt back to open the door. I use my knife to stab their heads and necks.

“Open the door!” Toshi yells while pounding the structure’s steel door.

It’s way too protected for only a few feet square area. It must be an opening to some kind of bunker.

Kathleen and Elijah bang their fists against the door as well. They all yell as loud as they can to be heard from inside.

We won’t be able to hold these Ricas much longer on the other side of the gate. There are at least fifteen of them.

My arms feel heavy as I try to stop and annihilate these savages. I hold my breath to avoid inhaling the stench of their tainted blood, but the sound of the steel door squeaking compels me to exhale. “Matt! Come on!” Kathleen yells while they run inside the structure.

“Go!” Neman says to me. “I will hold them as much as I can.”

I slash one hand of a Rica who was about to jump over the gate. Another tries to climb over while I give the knife to Neman.

“Please take care of Elijah!” he says. I look right into his eyes before responding.

“You will! Not me!” I say. I run toward the door while Kathleen holds it open.

“Neman!” I yell. He turns his head at us for a moment before the Rica that climbed over jumps on him. Another one slides the bolt back and opens the gate. The Ricas on the other side of the gate gather around him, kicking his body to a pulp. One Rica sticks his thumbs into Neman’s eyes. He screams in pain until he loses his voice.

Some Ricas run toward us showing their blackened teeth in their roaring mouths. I can’t stop looking at Neman’s face as blood oozes out of his eyes.

“Matt!” Kathleen yells. She pulls me inside while an elderly man shuts the door and rotates the wheel to lock it. It looks like a 20-inch thick blast-proof door to withstand a direct nuclear strike. I am pretty confident that Ricas can’t get through it.

“Follow me.” He climbs down the ladder, and we follow him through a cylinder corridor.

I feel like we are walking inside a tanker that is lighted up with small bulbs hanging on top of us every few feet.

He opens another thick door and moves to the side before entering it. “Come in,” he says.

Once we step inside, dozens of kids stare at us with curious eyes.

Chapter 28

“One-hundred and fifty kids!” Kathleen says in disbelief while taking another bite from her bunker made wheat bread.

“Yes, pretty lady. Almost 150…and we can have 50 more,” Murray, who let us in the bunker, says. In his 60s, this young soul has more energy than all of us.

Murray and his late wife had started building this shelter in the 1970s. They bought used shipping containers and giant fuel tank trailers. By connecting them in the shape of a comb, they had built this shelter in over three decades.

Their purpose was to provide a self-sustainable shelter in a nuclear war between United States and Russia. Even though the threat significantly decreased after Soviet Union had collapsed, they continued building this shelter as they thought about solar flares, EMP attacks, supervolcano eruptions, and other catastrophic events.

What makes this shelter unique is its residents— almost all of them are kids except Murray and his two adult sons Logan and Owen. The virus took Murray’s wife, but he made it to the shelter with his sons before things got worse. They have been hiding underground for three months with these kids who are the future of the world as they call them. That’s why they named this place Noah’s Ark.

“Where are their families?” I ask. I don’t think all these kids lost their parents or all of them are coming from orphanages. We are nowhere near any big cities that would have a significant children population anyway.

“Well… That’s a good question,” Murray says, nodding and lowering his eyes down to the table. People call a question a good question if it challenges them. I wonder why it’s a hard question for him.

He takes another spoon from his soup. Kids who are having their dinners in the cafeteria can’t stop staring at us. They probably haven’t seen anybody new here for months.

“Their parents agreed on leaving their kids with us. God bless them. I hope they are safe outside,” he says. Some of the parents probably were among those Ricas who chased us here.

“We only saw the entrance and this cafeteria, but this place must be huge to house this many people,” I say.

“It is. Logan will give you a tour after dinner,” Murray says.

Logan smiles as he nods. Owen is still in the kitchen filling the meal trays with soup and rice for kids.

“And I will show Elijah his bed,” Murray adds. He seems to be happy seeing a new kid on the block. It’s quite annoying that he didn’t mention us, though. Does that mean he doesn’t want us to stay?

“We don’t want to bother you, but we would appreciate it if you let us stay tonight,” Kathleen says. It looks like she read between the lines as well.

“Be my guest!” Murray says.

It’s a relief, but I hope he is sincere in saying it.

“Thank you, sir!” Toshi says.

After dinner, Logan shows us the compartments in the bunker. Most of the livable space is used for beds. These small size beds are stacked on each other in three rows at both sides of each room. He