Nightfall by Ellen Connor

long. The noises—I was sleeping, woke up and ... panicked. I’m sorry.”
    â€œYou’re Welsh?” Mason asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI might accept your apology if you tell me how you have electricity.”
    Dr. Welsh stood from his stool by the long lab counter and ambled forward, hands in his pleated pockets. “Hydroelectric power pumped by an underground generator. Pretty nice, huh?”
    â€œThis isn’t just a basement,” Mason said. “It’s a bunker.”
    â€œThat’s what I always thought. Glad of it too.”
    â€œSo you have hot water?” Ange asked.
    â€œYup.”
    Jenna cocked an eyebrow. “I should’ve kissed this guy.”
    â€œYou still could,” Welsh said, his smile affable as he looked Jenna up and down. Mason had the sudden urge to try taking the man’s head off. “But I recommend you shower first.”
    â€œ He didn’t mind,” she said, hooking a thumb toward Mason.
    Welsh shook his head. “If survival means kissing somebody who smells like you, I want no part of it.”
    â€œWuss,” Tru said.
    â€œCertified. Look, do you have to sit right there? I have research—”
    Mason laughed as he pulled upright. His back felt pricked by a thousand hot needles. “You listened to a lot of CDs, didn’t you, Welsh?”
    â€œProbably while he was ironing his Dockers,” Tru added. “ Très cool, Harvard.”
    â€œNo,” the doctor said, frowning slightly. “Never had the time. And I went to Cornell.”
    Tru smirked. “Whatever, Harvard.”
    Jenna sighed and sliced the air in a dismissive gesture. “Enough. Can somebody hazard a guess about that thing at the pit?”
    Tru hopped down from the counter. “The one on two feet? He was messed up. Like, Edna levels of messed up.”
    â€œWait,” Welsh said. “What?”
    Jenna shrugged. Apparently they’d come so far that a beast-man cross was merely shrug worthy. Take it in stride or go mad. “This monster we saw in the woods,” she said. “Out by that pit.”
    Welsh seemed frustrated as well as perplexed. “What pit? And who’s Edna?”
    Mason found he enjoyed the doctor’s muddle of frustrations. Only natural . The guy shot me.
    â€œDude,” Tru said with a sigh. “You are seriously behind.”
    While Mason sat quietly, the others spent the next twenty minutes telling Dr. Welsh how they’d assembled, heard the ham radio broadcasts, and made the suicide run.
    He used the time to assess their unsuspecting host, a guy as tightwound as they came—all hospital corners and spit shines. A man living by himself for more than a week, isolated and losing his grip, could have let the place go to seed. But every surface in the bunkerstyle basement lab gleamed, and rows of neat books, clothes, journals, foodstuffs, and medicines lined shelves stacked four high.
    Despite his panicky trigger finger and the fist-worthy way he eyed Jenna’s rack, Welsh seemed like a thinker, maybe one who could sort out this new natural order. If any such thing still existed.
    Mason took another look at those shelves, gratified by the provisions they’d have available for their defense: first aid, books, blankets, matches, hygiene products.
    â€œAnd then there’s the one outside,” Jenna finished.
    Listening, Welsh paled. But his eyes lit with a curious fire at the news. “A dead one?”
    â€œYeah,” Ange said. “The thing turned into a man after it died. Jenna killed it.”
    â€œShe shoots, she scores.” Tru made a crowd-goes-wild noise from where he’d settled on the floor. He was cleaning his rifle. Good soldier.
    Welsh seemed oddly focused. “So there’s a body outside?”
    Mason sat a little straighter. “What of it?”
    The scientist seemed like a man who knew how to pick his battles. Apparently this was one