A building buried in the sand? Certainly possible. “How many feet down are you?”
“Enough you can hop in. Just don’t land hard and you’ll be fine.”
“I am not joining you.”
“Why not?”
“You just saw how unstable it is.”
“Because of the windows. They’re the weak spots. See.” A sudden crack from under him dislodged his precarious perch. He went down, but not as far as expected. He barely remembered to put his hands out in time and protect his face. His palms protested the abuse.
Fuck, he protested the abuse. His midsection and legs hadn’t suffered because of a softer landing than expected. He blinked at the dust as it settled. When it did, he saw Nora crouched nearby, holding a torch she’d somehow lit.
“How?”
“I always have a lighter, and gum because some of us had to watch MacGyver growing up.” She flicked and a butane flame shot up.
It was then he realized the stick was actually a horn. And the squishy thing he’d landed on? The smell hit him, and his gorge rose. He scrambled off the body.
He ended up in a crouch, arms out as if it would fend off the sky falling. “What the fuck.”
“You say that a lot,” she remarked.
“It’s a good word for when shit is messed up. Like now.” He raked fingers through his hair.
“I’m a ‘shit’ kind of girl. Although I use the occasional fuck.”
“Are you seriously discussing swearing with me? We need to get out of here.” He raised his gaze to the ragged rim overhead. “It looks like it’s only about nine or ten feet to the edge. Maybe if I boost you on my shoulders you can climb out.”
“Why would we do that?” she asked, cocking her head, the fire at the tip of her horn illuminating her features.
“To get out of this hole.”
“Why? Don’t you see? We found the mouse’s secret passage to the ice fields.”
He glanced around at what appeared to be an old cafeteria. Trestle tables and benches. Counters at the far end. And an angled bank of sand-covered windows that had cracked, dumping a layer into the room.
Doors led off in three directions. The swinging ones at the back reminded him of those in a commercial kitchen.
“How is this supposed to lead us anywhere?”
She pointed past the mound of sand and broken glass that threatened to slice. “If you look over there, you can see where the mouse has traveled.”
A line of grime, much of it possibly shit, marked the once light-colored walls.
“You want us to follow that?” He was dubious about the idea. What if there were more mutant mice out there?
“Hell yes I do. By the looks of the signage,” she pointed, and he noticed the writing on the wall, “this was some kind of secret operation.”
“Doing what?”
“As if I know. Maybe if we check it out, we’ll find the next clue.”
“There is no way we can make it to any ice fields from here. We’re talking miles and miles to the northern edge of the continent. No building is that big.”
“You have a better idea?” she asked.
“Finding a way out of this hole,” he grumbled.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Lost in an old lady’s basement. He really needed to man up and get over it. He also didn’t need her to point out what a pussy he’d become so he snapped, “How can you be so nonchalant about the fact we’re in a hole in the ground?”
“Haven’t you ever watched Indiana Jones? This is our temple. Our booby-trapped maze.”
Put in those terms, he looked around him with a different eye. The place was well preserved with the glass having lasted until a monster broke it. They could probably search the building quickly and then, when she realized there was nothing to see, they could work on a plan to get out. “Fine. We’ll have a look around.”
“Sweet,” she exclaimed. “Hold on, let me get you a torch too.”
He tried to not grimace at the wet ripping sound as she tore the tusk from the beast and handed it to him. She was so unfazed by what she’d done.
As he closed his fingers around it, he couldn’t help but ask, “Were you raised in the woods?”
“City actually, but I spent every summer at a ranch.”
“And it taught you to use animal horns as torches?”
“Among other things. You coming?” She headed off, maneuvering the collapsed ceiling debris, making her way toward the door to the north.
This was nuts. So unsafe. So stupid to do while sober. “I should have looked harder for some weed,” he muttered as he followed.
The door opened with a firm shove and led them to a set of stairs going down into pure darkness but for their torches. They landed in a tunnel that branched in three directions. Nora went straight.
“How do you know where to go?” he asked.
“I’m going north.”
The tunnel she chose proved a little disconcerting when they saw the universal symbol for radiation.
Peter cursed as they passed. “Guess that explains the rat. Wonder how much it’s leaking? Maybe I’ll be lucky and just end up sterile.”
“Or you could become a superhero.”
The very idea had him snorting. “I am not the type to wear tights. Nor am I some Robin Hood. I steal for me. And only me.”
“What about family? Would you steal for them?”
“Of course,” he hotly retorted. “Although, it should be noted, my sister would be pissed if she found out. And she’s my only family.”
“Not anymore. She married, meaning you’ve just acquired a whole new one.”
“Yeah. No thanks. If you’d met her aunts-in-law you’d understand.” Lena, Lenore, and Lacey were older women who scared the piss out of him, and he couldn’t have said why.
“The triple L’s. I’ve heard of them. And by the sounds of it, they’re the equivalent of my sisters. They are always up in my business,” Nora huffed. “Because apparently every woman should want to get married and have babies.”
“And every guy needs to stop sowing his oats and settle down. I’d rather keep my bachelor pad, hook up when needed, and live my life.”
“Exactly!” She eyed him. “With maybe the occasional sleepover.”
“For morning sex and breakfast in bed. Most definitely.”
“You’d be cooking.”
He almost tripped. Surely, he’d misunderstood her implication.
They passed yet another radioactive warning symbol stamped onto a massive metal door, welded shut. He could almost feel it poisoning him.
“Stop flinching every time we walk by one of them.”
“Aren’t you a little worried we’ve been exposed?”
“I’m immune.”
“No one is immune from radiation,” he said.
“I’ve got really good genes.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize I traveled with a superhero. Must be nice to not worry about getting hurt,” was his sarcastic drawled reply.
“Very little can. That’s just fact.”
Her arrogance had no bounds. “I’m not too proud to admit I have limits.”