Apophis by Eliza Lentzski Page B

me.  Her arm was still tight around my waist.  In our panic to get away, I hadn’t had time to feel uncomfortable by her closeness, but now that we’d stopped, I was acutely aware of every tense squeeze around my torso.
    “We're fine,” my father crisply informed the strangers.  He pulled himself up to his full, impressive height and threw his shoulders back.  I knew he was trying to look intimidating and strong, but they clearly outnumbered us and were armed. “We’re just passing through. We’ll be on our way in the morning or tonight yet if that’s what you’d like.”
    “I can’t let you leave.” My stomach dropped at the masked man’s words. “It wouldn’t feel right sending you on your way with part of your group injured.”
    I breathed a sigh of relief.  Maybe we’d be okay.
    “She hurt her leg and she’s in too much pain to go anywhere,” Nora informed everyone, speaking on my behalf apparently, and sounding brattier than usual.
    She trailed off when one of the men approached us.  He promptly stooped and picked me up.  He literally swept me off my feet and an embarrassingly girlie squeak slipped out of my mouth.
    “Is this okay?” he asked me.
    Nora looked unimpressed. “Yeah, I guess that works, too,” she answered for me again.
     
     
    We marched away from the woods and the mineral stream until we came upon a small, deserted town less than a mile away.  Well, I didn’t march. I was carried like some damsel in distress.  I felt ridiculous and embarrassed.  I didn’t know what to do with my head. I didn’t want to rest it against this stranger’s shoulder, but my neck was getting stiff from holding myself so rigid and erect.
    No one spoke, which fed into my feeling of foreboding.  No one asked who we were, where had come from, or where we were headed to.  And no one in our group asked the men who they were or where they were taking us.  I wanted to speak up, but I took my cue from my father and remained silent despite the questions milling through my brain.
    The little town was dark, just like every other city across the country.  Store-front windows were intact and the buildings were graffiti free. I wondered how this place had not been looted by bandits or even its own townspeople.  We turned into the parking lot of the town’s public high school.  “Welcome! Home of the Savage Heat” was written in magnetic letters on the front kiosk.  Its irony was lost on no one.
    I thought we were going inside the high school, but we walked right past the main building and marched in the direction of the sports fields behind the school.  We finally stopped when we reached a metal shack near the track.  It looked like it might have been a concession stand before the Frost.  The man who seemed to be in charge pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the blue metal door. He went inside and we followed.
    With no windows, it was pitch black inside the concession building.  It smelled like popcorn and dirt.  Our group kept moving and I lost my sense of place.  Where were we walking to?  How big was this building? I might have been imagining it, but it felt like we were traveling at a decline and walking into the earth.
    We stopped again.  I heard the jangle of keys coming from the front of the group, followed by the sound of a heavy metal door swinging open.  When the door opened there was a light glowing on the other side.  I tried to get a better sense of where we were with the addition of this new light, but there still were no windows and the walls looked like they were constructed of thick metal painted with the same kind of glossy, anti-rust paint you see on giant boats.
    We walked into what I could only imagine was an underground bunker.  More and more questions flooded my head. How big was this place? How was it lit up like a Christmas tree when everything else was dark?  How long had it been here?  Was this what Eden was like?
    We were now in a wide hallway when the