Tom had just finished bringing his family's supplies over to Rachel's underground bunker, and was getting Raven and Michael settled. Mary was at the base of the ladder, catching the extra pillows and bedding they were going to use tonight. The five of them had decided they would go "puppy pile" for the night, shifting to their wolf form and curling up together to share body heat. It was the warmest and most comfortable way for them to sleep in the shelter, which was ten feet underground and was a constant fifty degrees or so. The other advantage was their vision as wolves was better, and lighting was almost nonexistent. "Rachel, do you have any more double A batteries? We should stockpile down there for the flashlights."
"I'm not sure, I brought down the new stuff from the drawers already."
"Did you get them from the remote controls? Flashlights that don't work? Toys and games?"
"No." She looked outside, the sun was just rising but they had all the curtains drawn to keep the harmful light out. "Let me grab what I can, just give me five minutes." Moving around the house, she found a few dozen easily and a few other types as well. The other sizes she left in the drawer, the only flashlights that still worked were the headlamp LED flashlights they found in a box in the back of the shelter. "Hey, Tom, did we ever figure out why those flashlights work and nothing else does?"
"They were underground, and the bunker is surrounded by steel rebar and sheet metal. The electromagnetic pulse wasn't strong enough to take them out." He thought for a moment. "You know, that's something we missed. We should go around to the empty houses, and grab batteries and check their basements to see if we find anything else working. Above ground there's nothing anymore that still works." It was true, you didn't understand how vulnerable your society was until in a moment you had everything taken away. Power, lights, transportation, even the ability to go outside. Flick a switch and you are back in the dark ages.
Rachel was just about done collecting batteries from all the toys in Raven's room when there was a knock on the door. Moving into the living room, she sniffed. It wasn't a Pack member, it was a human. Two humans. She mind linked to the others in the house. "Two people are at the door, the adult is female. I'm going to check it."
"Wait for me." Tom moved up from the safe room, grabbing his Colt 1911 pistol and placing it in the back of his jeans on the way. He silently lowered the hatch and told Mary to move to the top of the ladder. If anything went bad, she would secure it from the inside and protect the children. When dogged from the inside, no one would get in without a shitload of dynamite. "OK, I'm ready. See what they want."
Rachel put her back to the wall, out of the way of the door should it be kicked open. "What do you want?" She snuck a peek through the glass, the woman was in her twenties, with long brown hair in a ponytail, and was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. She was holding a girl who looked to be about six years old.
"Please, I need shelter. The sun is coming out. Please, if you're still alive you must have a place to wait out the day." Rachel used all her senses and her wolf; the woman was frightened, but not aggressive. After a quick mental communication, she unlocked the deadbolts and opened the door. The woman came in, nervously squeezing her daughter. "Thank you so much. I'm so glad I saw the curtains move earlier, I was running out of time and it isn't safe out there on the road." She set her daughter down. "My name is Abigail Dawson, and this is my daughter Autumn." Her daughter peeked around from behind her mom and waved hi.
"Rachel Mendez. Come on in, we need to talk. You look absolutely dead, have you had anything to eat?"
"Not since yesterday." She looked around the house nervously. "When all the cars died, we noticed our eyes starting to hurt so we ran over to the ditch. There was a drain culvert running under the road, we went in there and in hindsight that hiding place saved us. Everyone who stayed up on the road, we found dead or blind that night." Rachel was gathering up some ziplock bags full of grilled meat and some bottled water, along with some fruit juice. "We started walking and have been at it all night. It's rough out there. I can't believe what has happened."
"What do you mean?"
"There are so many dead. Those that aren't, well, they are taking whatever they want. They took our backpack, our food, everything. If you resisted, they just killed you." She looked down. "They had gangs of youth... drunk, horny and there was no one to stop them. I was glad I heard them, we left the road and walked around even though it took half the night. We barely made it here."
Rachel had been sharing the conversation over the Pack bond. "Alpha, what do you think?"
Her dad's answer was simple. "Follow your gut. If you can help them, we should help them. I can't see more innocent children dying."
Rachel packed everything into a plastic shopping bag and waved for them to follow her. "Come on, you're right. We need to get underground, you can eat down there and continue your story." Using the link, she told the two kids and Mary to shift to wolf form while Tom remained human. She told the children to remain in that form until told to shift back. They were safer in that form.
Rounding the corner, she saw Tom had already raised the hatch and was going down. "This is my neighbor Tom. Be careful going down, it's pretty dark down there."
Abigail helped Autumn get onto the steep ladder, and when she got to the bottom Tom gave her a headlamp. Looking around, she quickly spotted the one large and two smaller dogs. "MOMMY!! PUPPIES!!"
"Be careful dear, we don't know if they are friendly." Abigail was looking down the ladder, trying to help her.
"Don't worry, they are very good with children." Abigail went down the ladder, then made room for Rachel after the hatch was closed and secured. "There is a tiny bathroom in the back, it has a sink but we have to conserve water so just get your hands and face wet then wash up and use a little more to rinse off."
"Oh, thank you." She moved her daughter back there, sharing the dim light from the headlamp. A few minutes later, they were sitting around the small table with Rachel and Tom, digging into the food.
"Don't be shy," Tom said. "With the freezers down, we cooked every piece of meat we could last night. I haven't eaten that much meat since we went to Fogo de Chao last year in Seattle." He smiled at Autumn. "And it's too bad you weren't here earlier, all the ice cream melted."
Abigail paused between bites, clearly she was starving but she didn't want to be rude. "How bad is it in Salmon?"
Tom looked at her. "It's as bad as anywhere, I guess. We're far enough out that we don't see as many people. It was weird when it happened, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm a firefighter in town. The problem was, we had no phones, no radios. We couldn't start our fire trucks, we couldn't even get the doors open to the firehouse. Plus, we lost all the water pressure. We sent people out, told people to get to the basements. I rode my bike home to take care of my family, and in only fifteen minutes I got sunburned."
"You don't look bad."
