Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1-5)

This is what it feels like to be shot, he thought numbly. He spilled down the last few steps, lost sensation in his legs, crashed to the grating.

The bottom floor was nearly empty. One person stood beside the tiny hole. Another was half in and half out, boots kicking.

Marck saw that it was Shirly, on her belly, looking back at him. They were both lying on the floor. So comfortable on the floor. The steel was cool against his cheek. There were no more steps to run down, no bullets to load, nothing to shoot.

Shirly was screaming, not as happy as he was to be lying there.

One of her arms extended back out of that small black rectangle, reached for him past the rough cuts in the steel plates. Her body slid forward, pulled by some force beyond, pushed by this nice person in yellow still standing by the strange wall of steel where the entrance to his home used to be.

“Go,” Marck told her, wishing she wouldn’t scream. Blood flecked the floor before him, marking his words. “I love you—”

And as if by command, her feet slid into the darkness, her screams swallowed by that rectangular, shadowy maw.

And the person in yellow turned. The nice man’s eyes grew wide, his mouth fell open, and then his body jerked from the violence of gunfire.

It was the last thing Marck saw, this man’s deathly dance.

And he only distantly felt, but for a tremble of time, the end of him that came next.

3

Three weeks later

• Silo 18 •

Walker remained in his cot and listened to the sounds of distant violence. Shouts echoed down his hallway, emanating from the entrance to Mechanical. The familiar patter of gunfire came next, the pop pop pop of the good guys followed by the ratatatat of the bad.

There was an incredible bang, the roar of blasting powder against steel, and the back and forth crackle ended for a moment. More shouting. Boots clomping down his hallway, past his door. The boots were the constant beat to the music of this new world, music Walker could hear from his cot. He could hear everything from his cot, even with the blankets drawn over his head, even with his pillow on top, even as he begged, out loud, over and over, for it to please stop.

The boots in the hallway carried with them more shouting. Walker curled up into a tight ball, knees against his chest, wondering what time it was, dreading that it was morning, time to get up.

A brief respite of silence formed, that quiet of tending to the wounded, their groans too faint to penetrate his sealed door.

Walker tried to fall asleep before the music was turned back up. But as always: the quiet was worse. During the quiet, he grew anxious as he waited for the next patter to erupt. His impatience for sleep often frightened that very sleep away. And he would grow terrified that the resistance was finally over, that the bad guys had won and were coming for him—

Someone banged on his door—a small and angry fist unmistakable to his expert ears. Four harsh knocks, and then she was gone.

Shirly. She would have left his breakfast rations in the usual place and taken away last night’s picked-over and mostly uneaten dinner. Walker grunted and rolled his old bones over to the other side. Boots clomped. Always rushing, always anxious, forever warring. And his once quiet hallway, so far from the machines and pumps that really needed tending to, was now a busy thoroughfare. It was the entrance hall that mattered now, the funnel into which all the hate was poured. Screw the silo, the people above and the machines below, just fight over this worthless patch of ground, pile the bodies on either side until one gives, do it because it was yesterday’s cause, and because nobody wanted to remember back any further than yesterday.

But Walker did. He remembered—

The door to his workshop burst open. Through a gap in his filthy cocoon, Walker could see Jenkins, a boy in his twenties but with a beard that made him appear older, a boy who had inherited this mess the moment Knox died. The lad stormed through the maze of workbenches and scattered parts, aiming straight for Walker’s cot.

“I’m up,” Walker groaned, hoping Jenkins would go away.

“No you’re not.” Jenkins reached the cot and prodded Walker in the ribs with the barrel of his gun. “C’mon, old man, up!”

Walker tensed away from him. He wiggled an arm loose to wave the boy away.

Jenkins peered down gravely, a frown buried in his beard, his young eyes wrinkled with worry. “We need that radio fixed, Walk. We’re getting battered out there. And if I can’t listen in, I don’t think I can defend this place.”

Walker tried to push himself upright. Jenkins grabbed the strap of his coveralls and gave him some rough assistance.

“I was up all night on it,” Walker told him. He rubbed his face. His breath was awful.

“Is it fixed? We need that radio, Walk. You do know Hank risked his life to get that thing to us, right?”

“Well, he should’ve risked a bit more and sent a manual,” Walker complained. He pressed his hands to his knees, and with much complaint from his joints, he stood and staggered toward the workbench, his blankets spilling to the floor in a heap. His legs were still half asleep, his hands tingling with the weak sensation of not being able to form a proper fist.

“I got the battery sorted,” he told Jenkins. “Turns out that wasn’t the problem.” Walker glanced toward his open door and saw Harper, a refinery worker turned soldier, standing in the hallway. Harper had become Jenk’s number two when Pieter was killed. Now he was peering down at Walker’s breakfast, practically salivating into it.

“Help yourself,” Walker called out. He waved dismissively at the steaming bowl.

Harper glanced up, eyes wide, but that was as long as he hesitated. He leaned his rifle against the wall and sat down in the workshop doorway, shoveling food into his mouth.

Jenkins grunted disapprovingly but didn’t say anything.

“So, see here?” Walker showed him the arrangement on the workbench where various pieces of the small radio unit had been separated and were now wired together so everything was accessible. “I’ve got constant power.” He patted the transformer he had built to bypass the battery. “And the speakers work.” He keyed the transmit button, and there was a pop and hiss of static from his bench speakers. “But nothing comes through. They aren’t saying anything.” He turned to Jenkins. “I’ve had it on all night, and I’m not a deep sleeper.”

Jenkins studied him.

“I would’ve heard,” he insisted. “They aren’t talking.”

Jenkins rubbed his face, made a fist. He kept his eyes closed, his forehead resting in one palm, a weariness in his voice. “You think maybe something broke when you tore it apart?”

“Disassembled,” Walker said with a sigh. “I didn’t tear it apart.”

Jenkins gazed up at the ceiling and relaxed his fist. “So you think they aren’t using them anymore, is that it? Do you reckon they know we have one? I swear, I think this damn priest they sent is a spy. Shit’s been fallin’ apart since we let him in here to give last rites.”

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Walker admitted. “I think they’re still using the radios, they’ve just excluded this one somehow. Look, I made another antenna, a stronger one.”

He showed him the wires snaking up from the workbench and spiraling around the steel beam rafters overhead.

Jenkins followed his finger, then snapped his head toward the door. There was more shouting down the hallway. Harper stopped eating for a moment and listened. But only for a moment. He dug his spoon back into the cornmush.