He lit one of his matches and inspected the floor. Behind him, a loud rending of metal was followed by a crash. A hot gust of wind rushed down at his back seconds later, and the match went out.
Now I have two matches.
How much of the floor did you see?
Not enough. I can’t remember.
The Old Man got down on his hands and knees and edged toward the drop. He looked hard into the darkness below. Moving his hands about, he looked for something to toss onto the floor below, but the floods had swept the tunnel clear. He took a water bottle and emptied it. The water felt warm and did little to quench his thirst. His back and shoulder muscles spasmed painfully as he lifted his head to drain the bottle.
Maybe you have hurt yourself.
He dropped the empty water bottle into the darkness below and heard it immediately bounce around on the floor.
The ground is not far.
Gently he lowered himself down and found the floor far sooner than he expected. He swept the ground, feeling for the water bottle but it was gone. Cautiously he walked toward the circle of light below the opening in the ceiling high above.
Looking up he could tell it was a manhole. High above. On a street maybe. He could see nothing beyond its thin light.
How do I get up there?
There are still the wolves to consider.
The Old Man turned in a circle.
The room is big. A cave almost. Somewhere there must be a ladder to the manhole.
Moving cautiously, he used his hands to find the far wall. Once he found it he moved along the sides of the wall until he came to a rung mounted there. He pulled on it and the rung tore loose from the wall with a rotten metallic puff of dust and concrete. He found the next one higher up and again the rung came out in bits of concrete.
I cannot trust the others.
Someone’s poor workmanship has made this place your grave.
There is another way out.
He continued along the wall. He came to one corner, then another, and halfway down the wall, the opening he had come through. Another corner and halfway down the next wall he found a new opening. It was darker than the rest of the room and he felt a cool draft of air.
He lit a match and scanned the dark ahead. It was a large tunnel with a channel running down the center of it. Just inside the wall were written large black letters that trailed off into the darkness.
He checked the entrance to the tunnel for signs or a placard that might indicate where the tunnel went and just as the match was about to burn the tips of his fingers, he moved to the other side of the entrance looking for some kind of sign that might indicate the purpose of the tunnel. On the floor a pile of boxes were stacked in a corner. Then the match went out.
Damn.
He stood still in the darkness.
I am down to my last match. What were those boxes? I saw letters. Like the military. A long series of letters and numbers.
It could be debris. Just empty boxes piled in a corner.
But the floods after the thaw would have swept them away.
They swept them here. Here is “away.”
I have to check.
It is your last match. If the boxes contain nothing then you will be stuck. You will have to climb the rungs.
I will light part of the boxes on fire. I can tear off a flap.
He moved next to where he thought he had seen the boxes in the last moments of match light. When at first he didn’t find them he panicked fearing he’d imagined the boxes. Soon his waving hands caught the side of a box.
Cardboard.
Watch out for the brown spider.
He ran his hands over the box. It seemed dusty but whole.
No floods have touched this box.
The four flaps were open and he gently tore one away.
He took out his last match. A nightmare of dropping the match or even breaking it, flashed across his mind. He shut out the evil thought and took hold of the match between his thumb and forefinger.
He struck the match and lit the flap.
There were three boxes on the floor. Military boxes. He had seen their kind before. Such things were often found salvaging.
“MRE” was written on the side and then a long serial number. He tore the other three flaps off the top box and made a small fire. Nearby he found a tumbleweed that had fallen into the sewer and broke it up, adding it to the tiny flames.
It won’t last long.
He went to the top box and looked in. Three brown plastic packages lay on the bottom. He had also seen these before. In the early days. MREs. Survival rations.
The second box contained a five-quart plastic canteen that felt full. It was wrapped in camouflage material and had fasteners.
It must attach to a pistol belt.
A couple of wool blankets lay beneath the canteen but when the Old Man shook them out he found a centipede. He slammed his huarache down on it angrily.
He ripped up the two boxes and added them to the already fading fire. He pulled the third box close to him.
The centipede looked dead.
It is now.
He added it to the fire just to be sure.
He opened the box. Inside he found a military flashlight and many batteries. He also found a small penknife.
He tried the flashlight. It was dead. He unscrewed the bottom of the flashlight and threw the dead batteries off into the darkness and tried two new ones. A cone of yellow light erupted cleanly into the darkness ending in an oval against the wall. He had a flashlight.
The fire guttered to wispy ashes. The Old Man sat in the cool darkness for a moment and then clicked on the light with a dry chuckle.
MAN IS INCAPABLE OF PEACE. Carved into the concrete wall of the old sewer, each blackened letter rose three feet high. Someone had used a blowtorch to etch the message against the wall of the tunnel that led away from the big room.
The Old Man’s light played across the words as he considered their meaning.
He’d eaten an entire MRE. It had been two days since the snake on the road. The water in the canteen tasted stale and he poured it out, filling it again with the water from his bottles.
He ran his fingers over the letters. The blowtorch had left melted waves when it traveled over the surface of the wall.
He had a steady hand.
How do you know it’s a “he”?
It feels like a “he.”
Someone did this after the bombs. Not long ago. Maybe five years. Ten at the most.
How do you know?
The boxes.
He is right. Was right. Man is incapable of peace. What’s left of the world confirms that.
So he came down here. Spent all the time that you and the village have been surviving, barely, and carved these words no one will ever see?
These words will be