High Pressure System: Part One by K.D. Kinney Page A

overhead. If it hadn’t been, no one would have been going anywhere. That much I knew. The beautiful, warm, spring day wasn’t enough to settle anyone’s nerves. Not even mine. Families joined together in tight groups and I struggled to maneuver around their slow moving knots that tied up the flow of traffic. Armed National Guard troops lined the street. They really didn’t need their guns as they gave directions to distressed evacuees. I was one of those distressed, helpless people that needed directions when I got turned around. I was terrified I’d miss my bus. There was no backup plan for people who didn’t heed the order and make it on time. All the landmarks I was used to looking for were impossible to find with the people that filled the streets. A nice guardsman showed me where I took a wrong turn. I had to backtrack against the current of people for an entire block before I found my way again, rejoining the stream until I found
South Evacuation Lot 73
.
    “Rachel Gardener,” I muttered, gripping the dog carrier handle tight, almost afraid to look the woman in the eye that asked for my name. She could have stopped my dogs from leaving with me. She nodded, allowing me to join the people in the parking lot waiting for the buses.
    “Bus four fifty-seven. You might want to let your dogs walk a little. You have a long ride.” She gave me a pained smile. Obviously this wasn’t any easier for her. I let out a long slow breath of relief when I didn’t have to make a scene.
    The dogs romped around in the grass briefly as the rapidly expanding crowd filled the parking lot. I found the sign for bus four fifty-seven and waited at the end of the line as our group was herded onto the bus by more armed guardsman. I smiled at the young girl in front of me that was trying to calm her yowling cat in a cardboard pet box. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one bringing my pets along. I also spotted a birdcage, a couple more pet carriers, and a beta fish in a bowl being carried by a kid with a wet shirt.
    I muttered soothing words to the dogs on my lap even though I gripped the handle tight with sweaty hands and my shoulders knotted up as the overcrowded bus took me with one hundred fourteen strangers to
Underground Bunker 3897
. The more time we spent on the bus traveling further away from the city and heading deeper into the desert, the more I dreaded arriving where we were all going to live together.

2
Bunker Welcoming Committee
    We were all bewildered when we exited the bus into the middle of what looked like the remnants of a massive dirt moving operation. Far from civilization, perfectly landscaped mounds dotted the desert with newly constructed dirt roads winding around them and the piles of excess dirt, rocks, and concrete debris. We were led to a perfectly manicured grassy hill circled with newly planted trees that seemed totally out of place.
    It looked as if we were all walking into a hovel in a hillside. However, I was pleasantly surprised once we entered through the heavy metal doorway. The building entry was brand new and the lobby looked as if it was from a high-rise apartment in downtown with rich wood accents and fake ficus trees in the corners. Where there should have been elevators, another set of heavy doors opened to basic concrete staircases leading down.
    A young man stepped into the lobby from the stairwell and he waited until all eyes were on him before he spoke. I wasn’t the only one still in shock. The mood in the room was already somber even with the frazzled parents attempting to console their fussy children, and some cranky, well-dressed couples with more luggage than they could carry whispering unhappily to each other. Mostly all the others were quiet and appeared to be a bunch of conformists like I was.
    “Rather impressive.” A man that was close to my dad’s age nudged my elbow with his and gave me a reassuring smile. He only carried a single suitcase and stood all by himself.
    I nodded