Page 24 of The Midnight Hour
We stare at each other for a long, level moment, and then Nicole drops her gaze, shrugging as she slips her hoodie back onto her shoulder. “Fine,” she says. “We are.”
I should feel victorious, or at least vindicated, but instead I’m only wary. There’s something dismissive about her tone, like wherever they’re going has nothing to do with us, and of course itdoesn’t. But, like Daniel, I want it to.
“Where?” I ask.
“North Bay. There’s a Canadian Forces base there, with a huge underground complex. Sixty floors.” She speaks almost as if she’s unimpressed.
I goggle at her for a moment. “Aren’t the Canadian Forces using it?” I ask uncertainly.
“Theywere,” Nicole replies with emphasis. “It was Canada’s most important air base. But the military has more or less been disbanded, and the place was basically empty, until someone took it over. At least, that’s what we were told.”
“TheCanadianmilitary has disbanded? But?—”
“After Vancouver and Toronto were hit,” she replies with a shrug, “and Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa…I can’t remember if there were others, but it’s in as bad shape as the U.S., more or less.”
“Ottawa?” That was only a hundred miles from the cottage. Have we been affected by the radiation, without even knowing it? The thought is both surreal and frightening, and yet I can’t devote any more headspace to an impossible, amorphous what-if. I suppose we’ll find out eventually, if we were. I picture myself suddenly starting to cough, or maybe a clump of hair falling out, and then thinking,yep, must be the radiation, just as expected…
I mean, everything else has gone wrong, so why not this, too?
“I had no idea so many Canadian cities had been hit,” I remark numbly. “Why Canada…”
“Because it’s next to the U.S.” She lets out a sudden laugh, high and wild, ending on a single, jagged note. “You guys are living out here like it’s the Stone Age, and you don’t realize the whole world has gone up in smoke?” She shakes her head, disdainful, while I continue to reel.
William Stratton hadn’t mentioned all the Canadian cities yesterday. I’d known about Toronto, but I’d assumed it had been hit simply because it was on the border, and the same with Vancouver. But Calgary? Ottawa? Edmonton?
This country is as ruined as the United States…and yet somehow up north is still safe? Well, I suppose it is, if there are sixty stories underground somewhere up by North Bay.
“So this base,” I say after a moment. “Are there people in it now?”
“So we’ve heard.” Nicole stares down into her empty coffee cup. “But we haven’t had any contact with them, so we don’t know for sure. But some people back at the bunker where we were before mentioned it as a possibility, so…” Another shrug. “Where else are we going to go?”
“But surely the military still has some kind of presence there,” I persist. It feels too easy, or maybe too alarming, to be able to walk right onto a huge military base, one of the most important in the whole country, and take up residence.
“Not as far as I know,” she replies. “The aircraft are gone, and the underground complex was abandoned about twenty years ago. They took all the equipment out back then. I heard it was used to film some sci-fi movie awhile back, but it’s basically been empty.”
Okay, so nota luxury bunker, then, but somewhere safe.
“How many people does it hold?” I ask Nicole.
“Four hundred underground.”
“Do you think it’s safe above?”
“I have no idea,” she snaps, and now she sounds irritable. “Do you think I actually know anything?”
“Your husband certainly was acting like you both did yesterday,” I retort. “With your radio communications with all these other underground condos.”
She lets out a laugh, this time a tired huff. “Trust me, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Frankly, I’m not sure I want to head down into another one.” She presses her forehead against her knees as she lets out a soft moan. “Do you know what I miss?” she tells me. “Mykitchen.”
I have no idea what to say to that.
Nicole lifts her head and looks at me with a mixture of earnestness and despair. “Don’t you miss your kitchen? Imagine sitting at your breakfast bar, the sun streaming through the window, sipping a latte, and scrolling through the news on your phone…don’t you miss that?” She drops her head back down on her knees and it takes me a few seconds to realize her shoulders are shaking with sobs.
“Nicole…” Awkwardly I scoot over to pat her shoulder. I don’t know this woman at all, and I think she’s had an easier time of it than most of us, yet in this moment I feel sorry for her. She is weeping as if her heart has shattered into a million pieces and she isn’t even going to try to put them all back together.
“Don’t.” She sniffs, then lifts her head to wipe her streaming eyes. “Don’t,” she says again, wearily, then she gives another tired laugh. “Thank God I’m not wearing mascara.”
I manage a soft huff of laughter, although I’m not really feeling it. I have no idea what to make of this woman. “What was your life like, before?” I ask. “I mean, I know what your kitchen looks like…”
