Chương 21: You don't know how it feels to be me.

Purchased: Random Memory The bunker belonged to Jack—if it belonged to anyone. Technically, it had been his prepper neighbor's, but when things fell apart and people started panicking, the neighbor never came home. Jack knew about it because the guy had bragged at a barbecue a few summers earlier about the top-of-the-line bunker he was installing in his basement. At the time, Jack and his wife had laughed it off as a waste of money—but they'd also been quietly glad to know someone with a bunker, just in case.

A week or so after the world started going mad, the neighborhood lost power for a few hours, but Jack's neighbor's house was still lit up like a Christmas tree. That's when Jack decided to take a look. Inside, he found the bunker, the generator powering it, and enough supplies to keep him and Carly fed for twenty years. It wasn't just a bunker—it was an underground complex.

At first, they locked themselves in and told themselves they would wait for the world to return to normal, but as the world didn't go back to normal, they started inviting people to join them in the bunker. As they brought more people down there, word began to get out that there was a safe place at the end of the cul-de-sac on Cherry Street. Each new person who came to the bunker knew someone else they wanted to bring. The Parker family down the street invited Claire Delaney.

Claire invited her coworker Frank and his two boys. Frank brought his cousin, Jenny. And one day, outside a Walmart, Jenny invited George. George met Jenny in the cereal aisle, foraging for food. The store was lit only by a jagged hole in the ceiling and broken front windows. It stank of rotting meat. He moved quietly through the aisles, slipping packaged food into his backpack. He wore the only clothes he had left: Carhartt pants, a cotton shirt, a North Face jacket, and hiking boots taken from a camping store.

One pant leg was torn where he'd fallen days earlier, slicing his leg open on a rock. The six-inch gash was wrapped in a makeshift bandage torn from a dishrag. He'd meant to replace it with a shirt from Walmart, but the wound had already begun to burn. He was started to feel the weariness and heat of an infection. He'd checked the pharmacy first, but the shelves were empty. Suddenly, a sound from another aisle made him freeze. His hand went to the baseball bat strapped to his pack. He eased toward the exit.

The sound came again—crinkling plastic. He edged around the corner. A small woman stood there, stuffing Cheerios into her mouth. George hesitated. Slip away? Call out? He didn't want to scare her. After a moment, he tapped the metal panel beside him. Shave and a haircut… two bits. It was the friendliest thing he could think of. They talked while they filled their packs from the ransacked shelves. Afterward, they sat on overturned boxes in the shadow of the loading dock, eating and trading stories.

It wasn't much of a meet-cute, but George felt drawn to her. She was kind. There was something about eating and talking with another person that felt calming—almost normal—and she seemed to listen as the whole story poured out of him. He told her about Max and Kat and Christopher. And Jane. About the first weeks holed up in his apartment, and the night the building caught fire—how he ran into the street with everyone else.

He told her how he'd stayed with the others until the group broke apart: some left to find family, some vanished, some were taken by the strange machines that hunted them. George fell silent after that, and she nodded as though she understood. All of his kids had been living in the South before everything fell apart—two of them near each other in Atlanta. So he'd headed south, away from the winter and toward them. That was when she told him about the bunker and invited him to stay a few days before moving on.

She nodded to his injured leg and mentioned the medical supplies. So he went with her, back to the bunker, and met Jack and the others. That was three weeks ago. His leg had healed, and he'd found cleaner clothes. When he talked about leaving for Atlanta, the others nodded but said nothing. They knew about his kids, yet he could feel what they weren't saying—in the stories they told, in how they talked about the bunker, about safety, about there being room for more. It is dangerous out there.

Who knows what happened to your kids? You found a safe place. Stay. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. George went to sleep thinking about his children, and each morning, he found another reason to stay one more day. He heard about Red Dawn Radio for the first time in the bunker. Apparently, other parts of the world still had power—even internet. The bunker had a satellite connection, so news streamed in from everywhere.

A handful of small sites became hubs for reports of the strange things happening across the world. Red Dawn Radio was one of them, and increasingly the only site anyone checked. People drifted over to the computer, hitting refresh to see what was happening beyond the bunker's concrete walls. The site had an "anomalies" page that collected reports of the strangest events. Among them: the gravity pillars. In George's third week in the bunker, videos and articles about the pillars began appearing there.

Everyone gathered around the screen as the clips autoplayed one after another. The first video was shot in the parking lot of an outlet mall. A young woman recorded herself, unaware that the cars behind her had begun to move. She kept talking for several seconds before a cluster of vehicles lifted into the air. A low rumble crept into the audio. She turned, and the camera jolted—concrete, motion, confusion—before swinging back to the lot. The cars were shaking now, some tilting upward at shallow angles.

She moved closer as one of the cars tipped forward and slammed onto the one behind it. That's when she started backing away. A loud crash followed, and she screamed—the video dissolving into a blur of flashing images for several seconds. When it steadied, she was farther back—fifty yards or more. Something was rising from the center of the lot. At first, just a point—like the tip of a massive black spear. She retreated again as it grew, forcing the surrounding cars to tumble and slide away.

The structure climbed higher and higher until it became a towering obelisk. After ten minutes, it stopped—hundreds of feet tall. The wrecked cars formed a rough skirt around its base. Every so often, one would shift loose and roll down into the heap below. The video cut. The next one began. The next video showed another pillar—same black material, same pointed tip—but this one stood a hundred yards offshore, its top jutting twenty feet above the surface.

The man filming stood on the beach, speaking in Japanese as a storm rolled in and waves crashed against the structure. He zoomed in just as another wave struck. They all saw it. Water slammed into the exposed tip and surged upward—but instead of falling back, most of it drifted over the pillar, suspended in the air. It carried on, moving slowly as if gravity had loosened its grip, until it passed the far side. Then it dropped—falling cleanly back into the sea. The video ended. So did the memory.

Purchased: Random Memory The next memory began on the heels of the previous one. When he opened them, he was in a small, windowless bathroom, tying his tie in the mirror. He needed to set out some snacks for Christopher before work. This was years and several jobs before Chicago. Life was still normal, at least as normal as it ever was when Christopher was here.

"I gotta go, bud," George shouted from his room. He sat down on the corner of the bed, slipped his shoes on, and waited for a response, but none came.

"Christopher?" George stuck his head into the boy's room and saw him reading on his bed.

"Alyssa will be here in three hours. Until then, you've got the TV and the video games." Christopher didn't answer but held up a green book. George squinted at it to read the title.

"And Tolkien, of course. Bye, buddy." George blew him a kiss and walked to the front door.

"I'll see you at four. Five if I get caught up at the office." He slipped out the door and locked it behind him. He was halfway down the long central hallway that always reminded him of living in a hotel when he heard the lock click open on the door behind him. Christopher stuck his head out.

"Dad. I don't want you to go. Can you say you're sick today?" George walked back and hugged him, then held him at arm's length.

"We've talked about this. I'll be back soon. Do you want me to bring a pizza home tonight?"

"No. Just stay home. I hate being alone all day."

"You won't be alone. Alyssa will be here soon. I think she's bringing a movie."

"I don't like Alyssa. She makes gross food and talks on her phone all day."

"Listen. This weekend, we'll go to the beach." George said. He opened the door and pushed Christopher gently toward it.

"Go on." He didn't budge but just put his arm on the doorframe and looked at the ground, shaking his head.

"Hey, buddy. I can't be late for work. It is just a few hours." Christopher shook his head.

"I know it's hard, but I'll be back soon."

"I want to be at mom's. There is nothing to do here. Why do I have to come?" Christopher said.

"Because I love you, and that is what the court says," George sighed.

"And you know I don't like it when you say that."

"But it's true!" Christopher shouted.

"All you do is work. Besides, Mom said I don't have to come if I really don't want to."

"She may find the court has something to say about that," George said.

"But why do I have to come and Max and Kat don't?" Christopher said.

"Because they are older than you are," George said.

"Then I want to grow up!" Christopher shouted.

"Christopher, I have to go to work," George felt an edge creep into his voice.

"Get inside."

"I hate it when you call me that." George stood up and pushed the door open. He grabbed Christopher by his upper arm and pushed him inside the house. He tried to pull away, but George gripped him tighter and dragged him past the threshold. Inside, the boy dropped to the floor and cried.

"I have to go, Christopher. Why are you throwing this tantrum? You aren't a baby anymore. Alyssa will be here at noon and make lunch for you. There are chocolate donuts in the freezer. Why don't you get some for yourself?" Christopher crawled over, wrapped himself around George's leg, and sobbed.

"Just stay." George bent Christopher's arms off his leg and snapped his finger in his face.

"Hey! That is enough. This is not OK. I am leaving. Let go of me right now. I have to go." George pulled his leg away from the boy and pushed him backward so that he could close the door. He stepped back out into the hallway and locked the door again. Christopher's crying crescendoed on the other side of the door.

"Jesus Christ," George swore under his breath. He checked his watch. The traffic was already building on Ventura. He walked down the hallway and left the building. He started the car, and the stereo continued playing the CD George had been listening to when he got home yesterday, and Tom Petty's harmonica and spartan drums filled the small space. George reached to turn it off and turned it up instead. George blinked to clear his eyes and backed out of the parking space.

He told himself he'd call Christopher from work and apologize. He swore again under his breath and pulled into traffic. The memory ended.