Holger’s bedroom is dimly lit and smells even more stuffy than the living room. His bedsheets visibly need a changing, and dark blinds keeps out most of the daylight. Dan notices the bed is placed at an odd angle, and he realizes why as Holger kneels down and pulls aside an old, worn-down rug, revealing a hatch in the wooden floor. He opens it and reaches down to pull up a flashlight.
“Follow me,” he says, placing the flashlight in his belt. Then, he climbs down a ladder fastened to the inside of the hole in the floor.
“Ozzy, stay,” William says, following his uncle. The German shepherd sits down and watches his owner disappear out of sight.
Dan glances at Mille, who’s staring at the hole with a highly skeptical look.
“Is that like a hidden basement or what?” she whispers.
“I have no idea,” Dan admits. “Do you want to go first?”
Mille steps back and waves him forward.
Dan takes a deep breath before he sits down and climbs down the rusty steps. The descent is longer than he anticipated, maybe twelve feet before he finally feels solid ground underfoot. He turns and is blinded by the flashlight.
“Where’s the girl?” Holger’s voice asks.
Dan is too stunned to answer right away. He looks around to see not a basement but a long, narrow corridor stretching as far as the light reaches. The ground is dirt, but the walls are made of planks and wooden boards. The ceiling is just high enough for Holger and Dan to be standing upright, but William has to crane his neck slightly.
“Holy shit,” Dan whispers.
William sends him one of his crooked smiles. “Wait till you see what’s at the end.” He looks up through the hole. “You coming, Mille?”
No answer, but after a short while the steps creak, and Mille comes climbing down very carefully. She looks around, appearing just as surprised as Dan. “What is this place?” she asks, stroking her arm.
“That’s a good question,” William says, looking at his uncle. “What do you call it, Holger?”
Holger shakes his head. “I don’t call it anything.”
“Well, let’s name it … Fort Holger!”
Holger bares his baby teeth in a silent grin. Then, he turns and paces down through the corridor, bringing the flashlight and causing the rest of them to follow along quickly so as to not be left in the dark.
The corridor goes on for what feels like a hundred yards with no turns or forks. Finally they reach a door with no visible lock but only a small panel of numbered buttons. Holger glances briefly over his shoulder before typing the code. The lock beeps and the door can be opened.
Holger steps through it, and an automated light turns on on the other side.
“You first,” William says smiling and stepping aside. “I’ve seen it before. Mind the step.”
Dan squeezes past him, steps down a single step onto a vinyl floor and sees a surprisingly large room. He stops in the doorway and stares around at what looks most of all like a pretty regular apartment. If it hadn’t been for the lack of windows and the big, heavy wooden beams supporting the ceiling, Dan would never have guessed they were still underground.
There’s a kitchen area with a stove and two large refrigerators, a dining area with a table big enough for four people, an old couch with a flat screen TV and a bookcase stuffed with books, and a home office with three laptops. The shelves in the kitchen are stuffed with cans and jars and something that looks like dried herbs and fruits.
But this is where the similarities to a normal home end.
Next to the dining table is what looks to Dan like a mini hospital, complete with a full array of surgical instruments, pill bottles and even an operating table hinged to the wall. On the opposite end of the room are two large metal cabinets with heavy padlocks, clearly marked with the next: FIREARMS, KNIVES & MACHETTES, EXPLOSIVES.
Holger has gone to the office area and activated one of the laptops. The screen shows eight live feeds from around the property, both inside and out—and the purpose of all the cameras suddenly becomes clear to Dan.
“This is insane,” he mutters as Mille steps past him, glaring around in stunned silence.
The fact that Holger built a big underground room is impressive enough. It must have taken him years—not to mention the structural knowledge and skills it would take—but that he also turned it into a seemingly perfect survival place with everything you would need to outlast a minor nuclear war …
“You haven’t seen it all yet,” William says, putting a hand on his shoulder, pointing to a door Dan didn’t notice until now. “Come on, I’ll show you the other rooms …”
TWENTY-ONE
Finn is staring blankly at the plate in front of him. The lasagna has gone cold but still it smells good. He just doesn’t have any appetite. That’s an understatement, really; appetite is no longer a feeling Finn understands. Food is an unknown concept to him.
The only thing still present in him is the thought of Lone. That she’s walking around out there right now with all the other lost souls. So many people dead all at once; it’s unfathomable. And yet, Finn really doesn’t care about all the rest of them. He has no relatives, no kids or siblings, so why would other people’s fate matter to him? All he cares about—all he ever really cared about—is Lone. And Lone is dead.
“Try to eat something, Finn.”
The voice causes him to lift his head and blink sleepily. Henrik is looking at him with an expression of warm concern.
“You’ll feel better if you eat,” the neighbor says, pointing to the plate.
Finn lets his eyes wander around the table. He has actually forgotten where he is and who else is present. There’s Trine, of course, Henrik’s wife. And Trine’s mother—Finn can’t recall her name,
