Shelter
by Emily Ver Steeg
So we had this friend growing up, Reason Jones. His daddy was also Reason Jones so Junior was what we called him. He lived underground. And out in the country where the developers hadn’t gotten yet, and that was the most unusual thing. Everyone was saying it was uncertain times then, so you gotta do what’s best for your family, you know? And if that meant building your house into the side of a hill then good for you. But away from all the resources of suburbia? We just didn’t get it.
Everyone was saying it was uncertain times then, so you gotta do what’s best for your family, you know? And if that meant building your house into the side of a hill then good for you.
We all figured Junior’s daddy was off his rocker, but our parents figured the Joneses were too good for us. They came to church but not any of the rest of it. No little league, no rotary club. They didn’t have flowerbeds to tend. Maybe they were decorating and redecorating their underground house but how would we have known? Junior’s daddy was a doctor and his mom didn’t work so we knew they had money. And no one likes people with money who won’t associate with you. If you had money, you had to at least pretend like you didn’t.
But we thought Junior was pretty cool. He liked video games just like us and he would’ve wanted to play little league if his daddy would’ve let him. One time he let slip he was supposed to be homeschooled—which, weird—but his mom insisted friends were more important. More important than what, we wanted to know. But he didn’t say.
We wondered did his mom want friends and it was too late for her so she had to make sure Junior got some? Or maybe she didn’t like the whole underground house out in the country thing but she’d married a crazy person and now there you go. Nothing to do but go along with it.
We also felt bad because Junior’s mom was super good looking. Way hotter than our moms. She was slim and had long silky hair that hung all over her shoulders. Her skin was smooth and firm. She seemed like this tragic figure, this princess locked in a tower. Obviously we couldn’t tell Junior any of that. But when we saw her at church closing her eyes and raising her hands up to Jesus we just knew she was asking him to save her, or at least help her.
We’d never seen the underground house. Just heard about it and made assumptions. So we were pumped when Junior invited us over for a sleepover. His twelfth birthday. We’d finally get to see what it was like out there beyond the subdivisions and strip malls, and we could maybe see if Mrs. Jones really was trapped like we thought. Then we could tell our parents and rescue her.
She picked us up after school. Junior lived too far away to take the bus.
“So, like,” Duane said, “is it cool to live underground? Do you like it?”
It was too obvious. She’d know exactly what we were getting at. Way to go, Duane.
“It’s just like any other house,” she said, smiling at us through the rearview mirror. “But there’s no windows.”
No windows. Was that a code? No windows meaning no one could see what was really going on, meaning she was unhappy?
No windows. Was that a code? No windows meaning no one could see what was really going on, meaning she was unhappy? No windows meaning she herself could not see the light, both literally and metaphorically, meaning she was depressed?
“But you get used to it,” she said. “Junior’s dad got these cool lights so you almost can’t tell.”
“Can’t we talk about something else?” Junior said. On “else” he stomped his foot.
Mrs. Jones patted his leg and we wished it was our leg. “It makes you unique, baby.”
He looked out the window and we knew that was our cue to drop it. No twelve-year-old wants to be unique.
We turned onto a dirt lane surrounded by pine trees. After a couple minutes or so it opened up to a clearing with the greenest grass you ever saw. In the middle of the meadow was a mound with a door. Mrs. Jones stopped the car in front of it and we tumbled out.
“It’s like The Hobbit,” Roger said.
Junior rolled his eyes. “Original.”
But it had to have been original, because we were the first ones to see the underground house in person.
It all seemed normal. Just like our moms, she made us popcorn and peanut butter sandwiches.
And it turned out Mrs. Jones was right. It all seemed normal. Just like our moms, she made us popcorn and peanut butter sandwiches. Just like our moms, she told us to have fun and seemed to take joy in our fun. We played video games until dinner and almost forgot we were underground. It’s not like we ever noticed the outdoors at our own above-ground homes anyway. It was just neat-edged yards and pavement.
But Dr. Jones was there for dinner, and he was fidgety the whole time. Kept pushing his food around the plate and didn’t really join in the conversation. He wasn’t a big guy, like you might expect. His presence loomed large but his body didn’t. He was just a dad with glasses and a receding hairline. A little fitter than our dads, like maybe he was a runner, but other than that you’d never have known about his peculiarities just looking at him.
Mrs. Jones patted his hand. “Aren’t you glad Junior’s friends are here?” She smiled at him. We were beginning to think she wasn’t crying for help at all since she smiled so much.
Dr. Jones looked up from his chicken tenders and mac and cheese—Junior’s birthday dinner request—and tried to smile too, but his eyes remained wide with worry. “Happy birthday, son.”
“What do you think,” Mrs. Jones said. “We should have Junior’s friends over more often, huh?”
He nodded but didn’t look convinced.
We squirmed in the silence that followed until we couldn’t stand it anymore, and Simon said, “So this is like a real-life fort?”
He looked at us directly for the first time. “You’re right.”
“Sick.”
We were pre-teen boys obsessed with war and technology, and we were a willing audience. The lines on his forehead smoothed out.
“Go on,” Mrs. Jones said. “Tell them about it.”
“Y’all want a tour?” Dr. Jones said.
We all said “yes” in unison, except Junior. “I’ll just go wait in my room,” he said.
We helped Mrs. Jones clear the table and ran back into the dining room where Dr. Jones waited.
“Before we get started, let’s make an oath,” he said. “Repeat after me.” He raised his right hand. “I vow never to reveal what I have witnessed here tonight, on penalty of death!”
“Reason,” Mrs. Jones called from the kitchen.
“Okay, how about on penalty of never being allowed to come over again.”
We found these terms amenable and raised our right hands.
The tour started outside.
“What do you see, boys?” he said.
“Nothing?” we said.
We were standing right outside the front door. There was no porch or even any steps leading up to the house. Just a door in the side of a hill.
He clapped his hands once and said, “Nothing! Right!”
At this point, we had one question: How would the world end?
He went on to explain how he had bought the land at great cost from a farmer who almost sold it to some developers wanting to build a gated community. It was meant to be phase one in a plan to build out that part of the county, but when they couldn’t get this lot they just gave up. It was all or nothing apparently.
A stream we couldn’t see flowed behind the house toward a pond at the south of the property.
“If society collapses by means other than nuclear attack, we’ll have access to fresh water,” he said. “And provided the flora and fauna aren’t radioactive, we can gather edible plants and hunt for squirrels. Tastes just like chicken.”
We thought back over our chicken-tender dinner.
At this point, we had one question: How would the world end? Our parents always had the news on and we heard anchors and reporters talking in urgent voices about natural disasters and economic collapse, but all that happened other places, not here. Plus our parents didn’t even seem concerned. The TV was only on for noise.
“That’s what we all wonder, isn’t it?” Dr. Jones said. “‘And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilence, and earthquakes. All these are the beginning of sorrows.’ Sound familiar?”
It did not.
“Scripture, boys. The Word of God. Pretty descriptive of our times if you ask me. Climate change, North Korea, economic troubles, mass shootings, microplastics. And it’s only the beginning.”
This was… not what we wanted to hear. Why hadn’t anyone told us about this?
“So it’s important to be prepared for everything,” he said.
We looked at one another and knew that none of us were prepared.
Dr. Jones took us back inside and rapped on the door. “Faux wood,” he said. “It’s actually concrete reinforced by a steel locking mechanism.”
It was the only entry point into the Jones residence. To the left of the door was a keypad with a large screen showing security feed of different angles of the property. Various codes entered on the keypad would accomplish different tasks: turn on the electric fence, hermetically seal the front door, play the sound of dogs barking so as to frighten intruders.
“How come you don’t just get a real dog?” we wanted to know.
“Can’t waste the resources,” he said.
He showed us the lights Mrs. Jones had mentioned. Every lightbulb in the house was special-ordered from a startup in Seattle, and they mimicked the hue of the sun. They would rise and fall and shift in color and intensity throughout the day in sync with the sun’s path across the sky. The house itself operated on a geothermal system.
“We learned about that in science,” Duane said.
Dr. Jones looked surprised. “What about it?”
“Like it heats and cools your house from the earth.”
“Ah.” He chuckled. “This is different. The whole house operates on the geothermal system. Heating, cooling, electric. Everything.”
The rest of the sleepover we talked about the end of the world and how to prepare for the apocalypse.
“What’s that mean?”
“We’re completely off-grid.”
But we didn’t know what that meant either.
The house was one story, with enough bedrooms and bathrooms for Junior, his parents, and his grandparents, who would hopefully come live with them when the world ended.
“But, you know, we might have to live in the cellar,” he said, and pointed to a steel door with what looked like a finger-print scanner on it.
“Cool!” we said, and reached for the handle.
“Afraid that’s top-secret, boys,” Dr. Jones said. “Can’t show you. But I will say this, if your parents aren’t storing food, y’all won’t have anything to eat.”
Our parents were not storing food.
The rest of the sleepover we talked about the end of the world and how to prepare for the apocalypse. Junior just sulked and kept trying to change the subject. “What if it’s zombies, though?” we said. “That’d be cool.”
“It’s scientifically impossible,” he said. “Let’s play Manifest Destiny.”
We stayed up past midnight and expanded our virtual territories all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The next morning, Mrs. Jones dropped us all off, sleepy and with stomach aches from all the late-night sugar. Dr. Jones didn’t want our parents driving out to the house and snooping around.
After that night, we were obsessed with emergency preparation. We ran laps at recess to be physically fit, we looked up how to make squirrel traps on the internet, we hid cans of beans under our beds. Junior complained that all he ever did at home was prepare for an emergency, so he didn’t want to do it at school, too. But we were his only friends, so he didn’t have a choice.
We also stopped seeing Mrs. Jones as a sad lady with an overbearing husband. Her life seemed super cool and she’d been so nice and looked happy. To have the support of a beautiful woman… This only strengthened our love for her.
We formulated plans that involved sneaking out our bedroom windows during the apocalypse and hitching rides to Junior’s house, abandoning our parents to the flood.
At church they told us about Noah and how God told him the world was going to end, so he needed to build a big boat that would fit his family and all the animals on earth. Maybe Dr. Jones was Noah and his underground house was the ark. People must’ve thought Noah was crazy just like they thought Dr. Jones was crazy, which was partly our fault because we didn’t keep our oath after the sleepover. But if the world really did end, only the Joneses would survive whatever new form of catastrophe God sent. We formulated plans that involved sneaking out our bedroom windows during the apocalypse and hitching rides to Junior’s house, abandoning our parents to the flood.
*
Now, what happened later is hearsay. No one was there in the cellar for those five days except the Jones family, but based on all the gossip around town, we’ve pieced together a story we believe is mostly true.
About six months after Junior’s twelfth birthday, the President materialized on our screens: TVs, phones, watches, laptops. Anything connected to the internet. People stopped gardening, leaving their begonias half-planted. They halted in the middle of supermarkets, frozen peas thawing in their buggies. Our parents made us quit playing video games and watch with them.
“Fellow Americans,” the President said. “As you know, our military and intelligence personnel have been maintaining close surveillance on other nations that would threaten our democracy and our peace.”
North of town, Dr. Jones was ready. Whatever this announcement ended up being, he’d made an emergency plan for it. Nuclear fallout, global pandemic, terror threat, stock market crash, military coup. He’d thought of it all.
“Earlier this week we were made aware of a terrorist plot to target major cities across the U.S,” the President said.
Junior gazed wide-eyed at his father, and at the TV, and back to his father. Mrs. Jones held her husband’s hand tightly.
“We are declaring a state of emergency, and I ask that you leave your homes only if absolutely necessary, until we can be certain the threat has passed.”
“It is our belief that we have neutralized this threat,” the President said. “However, due to its extent and the parties involved, we cannot be certain that particular aspects of this plot have been fully prevented. It is for this reason that I am speaking to you now. I have grounded all flights until further notice. I have contacted the governors and mayors of certain states and cities targeted, and will be working closely with them to ensure American citizens remain safe. We are declaring a state of emergency, and I ask that you leave your homes only if absolutely necessary, until we can be certain the threat has passed. As we are able to share more information, we will do so. Thank you, and God bless the United States of America.”
The screens went blank. Later, when the details surrounding the terrorist threat were declassified, we found out the President had censored the major networks to prevent the endless speculation they usually aired during breaking news. Not knowing how to fill the time, they decided not to fill it at all.
Dr. Jones knew what he was dealing with. He took Mrs. Jones and Junior to the cellar and turned on the other TV in case more news broadcasts came through. He gave them a quick demonstration on using their gas masks and called his parents, telling them to pack bags and gather their non-perishables. He tried calling his in-laws, but they didn’t answer. They’d made it clear several years ago that they didn’t want any part in his “absurd fantasies.” Still, he thought now that he’d been proven right maybe they’d change their minds.
Wearing his own gas mask, he drove to his childhood home and thought of the world his son would grow up in. No weekends spent camping and fishing, no carefree summer nights causing trouble with friends, no formal education. All Junior would know would be survival.
Within thirty minutes he was at his parents’ house. His mother had packed too many bags.
“Mama, you’re not going on vacation,” he said, removing her nice dinner dresses from her suitcase.
“They were expensive,” she said. When he took clothes out of her bag, she put them back in.
“They’re just gonna take up room,” his father said, trying to grab the dresses from her hands.
She started crying. “How’m I supposed to decide what to keep? No one even gave me enough time.”
“Fine, fine,” Dr. Jones said. “Just take whatever you want.”
His father, on the other hand, only packed enough for a weekend.
“Don’t you need more?” Dr. Jones said.
“How long do you think this’ll last?” his father said.
“I mean, maybe forever.”
“He can just use your washer,” his mother said.
Dr. Jones didn’t have the energy to explain that hand washing was their likely future. He looked at his watch. An hour had passed since he left home and he wanted to be with his wife and boy.
“Just wear some of my clothes if you run out, Dad,” he said.
He made everyone wear gas masks during the ride home, so no one was able to speak.
Meanwhile, our parents kept close watch over us, preventing our escape to the Jones residence. They made us play cards with them, or do puzzles, or learn the rules to ancient board games. They found old radios in the attic and tried to charge them, until they realized the radios were so old they needed batteries, which we didn’t have.
Our twelve-year-old bodies couldn’t stay awake long enough to sneak out, and we woke the next morning realizing we never would’ve left our parents anyway.
We waited for them to finally go to bed, but they insisted we sleep in the room with them. They blew up air mattresses or dug sleeping bags out of closets. Our twelve-year-old bodies couldn’t stay awake long enough to sneak out, and we woke the next morning realizing we never would’ve left our parents anyway. We showed them our caches of canned beans and our moms used them all to make soup.
But the town’s resolve lasted only a day or so. Families grew restless and poked their heads outside. They walked across the street to chat with neighbors. They drove to the store, which had never even closed, to replenish food. If it weren’t for the silent blackness on all our television screens, we would’ve forgotten about the terror threat.
But not the Joneses. Dr. Jones succeeded in keeping everyone in the cellar that first afternoon. In the morning, Mrs. Jones started upstairs.
“What’re you doing?” her husband said.
“Breakfast?”
He opened a canister of freeze-dried patties of unknown ingredients. “These’ve got all the nutrients we need for the day.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s great, honey.”
“We only get to eat one?” Grandpa Jones said.
“Gotta ration,” Dr. Jones said. He passed them around and everyone took a bite. Junior tried not to make a face.
“Any hot sauce?” Grandpa Jones said.
They stayed down there the entire second day and the entire third.
But on the morning of day four, everyone woke up stiff and grumpy. No one had showered. And it turned out the patties weren’t quite enough to fill you up for an entire day. And they’d already played all the games in the cellar.
… when Mrs. Jones raised it to her mouth to take a bite, she gagged and threw it across the room.
Dr. Jones handed out more patties and everyone silently took one, but when Mrs. Jones raised it to her mouth to take a bite, she gagged and threw it across the room.
“That’s it,” she said. “I’m making eggs.” She started up the stairs.
“Mary Ellen, we can’t go up there,” Dr. Jones said.
She turned around and looked down at her husband. “Why?”
“The President.” He gestured to the blank TV.
“What’d she say?”
“There’s a terrorist attack so we have to take shelter!”
“Threat, Reason,” she said. “Not attack.”
“But there could be one! Some cities are still in danger and—”
“For God’s sake, you think a terrorist will bomb some random town in Georgia?”
Everyone else stared at husband and wife, nutritional patties raised halfway to their open mouths.
“Atlanta! They could bomb Atlanta!”
“We’re over an hour from Atlanta.”
“Nuclear fallout could still reach this far.”
Mrs. Jones sighed. “Who said it was nuclear?”
“It’s the most likely option.”
“Reason,” she said. “Reason, you don’t know that.”
“We have to be prepared.”
“I’ve been prepared,” she said. “And patient. God. I just… I can’t anymore.”
She walked upstairs and her in-laws followed, discarding their patties on the way up. Only Dr. Jones and Junior remained in the cellar. They nibbled their patties until Mrs. Jones returned and gave them each a plate of scrambled eggs. Then she left the cellar again.
Later, when we heard about this fight from some of the nosier people in town, we didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, our love for Mrs. Jones made us want to take her side. She really was isolated, maybe even oppressed. Or she’d been deceived or blinded by love. But then again Dr. Jones had technically turned out to be right, sort of. There really had been a threat, and he’d been the only one prepared. And if we’d been married to Mrs. Jones, we would’ve wanted to protect her from the terrorists too. Did that make us as crazy as Dr. Jones? We hoped not. But we did kind of understand at least.
Dr. Jones had technically turned out to be right, sort of. There really had been a threat, and he’d been the only one prepared.
On day five, everyone was out shopping. Our parents dragged us to home goods stores and electronics stores and department stores and malls. As we followed them, dragging our feet, phones started beeping and buzzing. We pulled them out of our pockets and purses, and tuned into our news networks of choice. The President appeared to us once more.
“Fellow Americans, I’m happy to say this day, that democracy has won.” She paused for effect. “Thanks to the tireless efforts of our defense team and my advisors and cabinet, I am pleased to lift the state of emergency and let you all know that there is no longer any threat.”
We cheered and high-fived strangers.
Dr. Jones and Junior, who had remained in the cellar alone, sat unmoving in front of the television long after the President’s announcement was over. At one point, Junior looked over to his father, who was crying. Mrs. Jones came down and sat with her husband, holding his hand.
“Junior, baby, Grandma is fixing us some supper. Why don’t you go help her,” she said. Junior went upstairs, and everyone ate without Dr. and Mrs. Jones, who stayed in the cellar until the next day.
Dr. Jones left for a while after that. Junior didn’t know where he went, but Mrs. Jones said he needed rest and help from other doctors. When he got back, he apparently couldn’t practice medicine anymore. He’d been writing false prescriptions to amass an emergency stockpile of medication. But he was always prepared and had built up enough savings to retire early. He even hired contractors to build a new house, this time above ground. They flattened the top of the hill and put the new house on top of the old one. Dr. Jones had a stairway installed so that the old house would still be accessible.
Then Junior had us over all the time. We’d have sleepovers in the underground house, where everything was the same as it had been before, like a time capsule. Except something wasn’t the same about Junior. We’d jump on the old couches, run around the house like an obstacle course, and pretend it was our fort and we were soldiers in war. Junior always took it a little too far, like it was a rehearsal or something. Dr. Jones encouraged him to play outside or sign up for soccer or read books. He said forts could be above ground or that they could be medical forts for helping people. But we could tell that Junior never quite believed him.
Emily Ver Steeg grew up outside Atlanta, GA, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she teaches writing for immigrant and international students. She received her MFA from The Writer's Foundry at St. Joseph's University.
