I’m still catching up on Inktober this year, and in the interest of time (and so I don’t have lethal levels of anxiety) I’ve decided to focus my stories on just the days I actually have ideas for. I’m still doing all of the drawings, which you can find on my Instagram if you’re curious to see them (although they’re not much to look at considering my focus has been the stories more than the inking).
Day 4’s prompt is “radio”. As you can tell, my drawing isn’t even inked. I really struggled with this drawing, I’ve never drawn radios before. I feel like I’ve never really even used a radio that wasn’t attached to a car or vehicle. I gave it my best, but I figured it was enough to get my story thoughts flowing.
I may have drawn my own mash-up of a CB/Ham hybrid. Who knows.
Good morning. My name is Gillian Haig. My friends and family call me Gilly. I’m seventeen years old, nearly eighteen now. My date of birth is November 4th, 2008. I’m in a bunker I found in Blandford, Massachusetts, just off the turnpike, by the animal hospital.
If anybody can hear me, please help.
“Good morning, Gilly.”
I’ve lost count of my days. I kept track on my wall, but then I missed a day and now I’ve lost track of them all. I think I’m three days behind, which means this is day 139. But I don’t know.
It’s day 140, Adler corrected in his head. Not bad.
I slept badly again. Whatever tree or animal that bangs on the roof at night kept me up again. I’m too scared to go outside and check. I’m not brave enough to check even in the daytime.
Smart girl. It’s not safe to go outside. Adler remembered hearing the girl on the radio say she didn’t have a protective suit or weapons in her bunker. Better not to go outside without protection.
Today’s inventory is: four boxes of cereal, sixteen cans of soup, three cans of vegetables, two packs of jerky, two cases of water, one candy bar.
I think that’s enough to keep me going for a while yet, I just have to keep up with my ration schedule. Because, well, it still won’t last forever, will it?
No, it won’t.
I’m almost at the end of my notebook, although my pen is still going strong, thank God. Power, water, and heat are still on. Somebody’s looking out for me somewhere. Thank you, if you are. Somebody must be out there, if this is still running.
I have to believe somebody’s out there.
“I’m here,” Adler said aloud, his voice still sounding foreign to his own ears. He rarely spoke aloud, but when he did it was always to Gilly. It was just a shame she couldn’t hear him back.
I feel like it’s a rainy day today. There’s no window, but I can just tell these things. It’s Fall if I counted my days right, so it’s a rainy day today.
I kinda remember what the rain smells like.
#
Good morning. My name is Gillian Haig. My friends and family call me Gilly. I’m seventeen years old, nearly eighteen now. My date of birth is November 4th, 2008. I’m in a bunker I found in Blandford, Massachusetts, just off the turnpike, by the animal hospital.
If anybody can hear me, please help.
“Good morning, Gilly.”
I don’t know the day at all anymore. I tried to count again, but I keep getting mixed up. Today is my first unknown day.
“It’s day 159, Gilly.” Adler told her from across the room. He was lounging on his bed, eyes closed as he listened to her speak.
Today’s inventory: three boxes of cereal, twelve cans of soup, two cans of vegetables, almost two cases of water, one pack of jerky, one candy bar.
I think my birthday might have passed…so I guess I’m quite possibly eighteen now. I’m an adult, free to do whatever I like…so long as I don’t leave the bunker. Ha. For my birthday party, I’m going to eat the candy bar. Something close to normal, I think.
Holy fuck, that was delicious.
Adler ignored the grumbling in his own stomach, saliva pooling in his mouth as he heard the faint crinkling of plastic wrapping. He’d eaten his small supply of candy months ago.
“Happy birthday.” He said quietly to the empty room, knowing Gilly couldn’t hear him. Still, he hoped she knew that somewhere, someone was wishing her a happy birthday. Something close to normal, as she put it.
My notebook is done. My fault for journaling so much, but now I get to move onto the walls. I’m not thinking about when my pen runs out. I’m just doing each unknown day, one at a time.
I cut my hair earlier today too. There’s a pile of brownish-red hair in the corner now. It’s just under my ears, so at least it’s not in my way anymore. There’s nobody to tell me I look ugly, which is a first. Because, well, high school.
There’s nobody to tell me I look beautiful, either.
“Your haircut looks beautiful.” Adler was smiling, picturing Gilly in his mind’s eye, seeing the girl cheerful of her birthday, a fresh haircut to celebrate. His own hair was a ratty mess, the grey of his head hair and beard hair mixing together and falling to his shoulders now. It probably aged him twenty years, not that he had a mirror to check.
I really miss Erin today. I tried to draw her on the last page of my journal, but it’s so bad. It looks nothing like her. Instead, I wrote a list of the things I love about Erin. They’re more like her than my stupid drawing is.
You laugh at all of dad’s jokes, no matter how dumb or embarrassing they are
You always helped me eat my vegetables so I could get dessert quicker
Your shoes
That time we broke into the pool at night and swam with your friends
Your smell…and your voice
Adler could hear the cracking in Gilly’s voice, knowing it wasn’t from the radio. She was crying now.
His heart hurt listening to her.
You always took my side with mom and dad
You always bought me books for my birthday
You screamed so loud at all my gymnastics meets
You told me to run when the crawlers came…
She was gone for a while, but when she came back the usual pep in her voice was gone. Adler looked up from his book, having read it dozens of times by now, as his radio crackled to life for the second time that day.
The scratching sound is back. I keep telling myself it’s a raccoon, or a fox, or a cat or squirrel, or something that’s not one of them because I don’t have any weapons and I can’t make them go away.
They can’t get in. They would have gotten in already if they could, I figure. I don’t know if they can hear me. The walls are probably thick, considering this is a bunker…
To drown out the sound, I’m going to recite poetry from my favorite book, Ariel, by Sylvia Plath.
“Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.”
#
Good morning. My name is Gillian Haig. My friends and family call me Gilly. I’m eighteen years old. My date of birth is November 4th, 2008. I’m in a bunker I found in Blandford, Massachusetts, just off the turnpike, by the animal hospital.
If anybody can hear me, please help.
“Good morning, Gilly.”
I had a nightmare last night. I dreamt that crawlers go into my bunker and began to crawl down the walls. I had nowhere to run. They all had Erin’s face.
It’s getting more and more real that I’m running out of food. Every day I talk into the radio, and every day nobody hears me. I don’t even know if I’m turning it on right, I never used a radio before. Maybe I’m the last person left, and my power’s on because it’s just…on.
Can anyone hear me?
“I can hear you,” Adler said to the radio. quietly, his voice reassuring. I’m listening, Gilly.
He was seated at the tiny metal table, his butt numb from the uncomfortable metal folding chair, doing his only puzzle. He was beginning to know where are all pieces go completely by memory now, the scenic picnic scene already forming on the table’s surface.
I haven’t decided if I should go the way of my dear Sylvia, or if I should just go outside and take my chances. The problem is, I don’t really have a great method of doing either. I don’t even have an oven to stick my head in. Just this stupid camping stove plate thing.
At her words, Adler paused his puzzling, looking to the radio. His eyes went to the disconnected mic that lay next to the bulky machine, the frayed wires damaged beyond repair. Not for the first time, he felt immense frustration at whoever had owned this bunker before he’d found it, abandoned and infested with mice.
Not that the mice were a problem anymore.
I have a camping pocketknife dad gave me for protection, so I guess I can always use that. It’d be better to use it to kill myself than explore the outside.
I don’t want to die, though.
“Have hope,” Adler said to the radio, willing some sort of magic to carry his voice through the machine to the hopeless girl on the other side of the country. "Have hope.”
He’d worked for days straight, trying his best to somehow reconnect the mic to his otherwise functioning radio. With no user manual and even less training of any kind in electronics, it was clear that Adler was never going to get the radio to work beyond more than a listening device.
He’d been in his bunker for three weeks before Gilly’s voice had appeared in the silence of his underground hideout, her timid and frightened voice crackling into existence before slowly solidifying into the girl he knew today.
He’d played with the radio endlessly, but Gilly was the only channel that he’d ever received where somebody was actually speaking to him. Everything else had been radio silence, and he’d long since bothered changing the channel. He left Gilly’s channel on 24/7, not wanting to abandon the girl for even a moment.
Suddenly, Gilly began to sing, something she did from time to time. It was some teen song, something he wasn’t familiar with, but Adler enjoyed listening all the same.
When she finished singing, Gilly let out a long sigh, before going quiet once more.
#
Good morning. My name is Gillian Haig. My friends and family call me Gilly. I’m eighteen years old. My date of birth is November 4th, 2008. I’m in a bunker I found in Blandford, Massachusetts, just off the turnpike, by the animal hospital.
If anybody can hear me, please help.
“Good morning, Gilly.”
Last can of corn was for breakfast. I’m definitely going to miss that. Corn was always my favorite, especially at summer barbecues.
My tooth fell out while I was asleep. I think I grind my teeth when I sleep, that’s why. It woke me up, my back tooth just in my mouth. I almost screamed.
I ran out of toothpaste so long ago, I guess I knew this could happen. I only had that little travel tube to begin with anyway. But still, I’m way too young to have teeth falling out, right? Crap.
Adler instinctively ran his tongue over his own teeth. He’d been blessed to have brought a decent amount of toothpaste with him into the bunker, raiding a drug store on his escape from the city. Unfortunately, toothpaste had been the only item of hygiene product he’d managed to grab, and the bunker wasn’t well stocked when he found it. He’d risked three trips out a nearby town to gather supplies before shutting himself up for good, figuring he’d wait it out until the military got everything under control.
That had been over a hundred and fifty days ago.
At least it’s my back tooth, so nobody can tell. I mean, if I ever even see another person again.
Those things out there definitely don’t count.
Adler sighed softly, forcing the images of the grotesque creatures outside that had once been the population of his hometown in Washington. Whether it was due to the bunker itself, or simply his location, he hadn’t encountered any signs of crawlers above him. Unfortunately, Gilly didn’t seem so lucky.
They all lost their teeth when they got sick. I remember seeing the teeth everywhere, they were all over my school hallways and classrooms, shiny red and white. Not having teeth doesn’t make them any less scary, though.
I just have bad teeth, right? I got cavities all the time, and I always had to use special sensitivity toothpaste. I’m not sick… I haven’t been outside in, like, hundreds of days. I dunno, I lost count. But yeah, definitely not sick.
Just in really bad need of a dentist.
Adler looked at the five tubes of toothpaste he had been rationing carefully, wishing not for the first time that he could go find her.
#
Good morning. My name is Gillian Haig. My friends and family call me Gilly. I’m eighteen years old. My date of birth is November 4th, 2008. I’m in a bunker I found in Blandford, Massachusetts, just off the turnpike, by the animal hospital.
If anybody can hear me, please help.
Adler had his usual morning greeting on his lips, his mouth half-open, but he froze. Her voice was quiet, tense.
Something was wrong.
I think they’ve found me. They’re scratching and banging. I can hear them, they- they’re growling-
Adler heard her make a small gasp, almost a yelp. He was on his feet, staring at the radio. His heart was racing.
They’re banging on the door. The keypad turned red when I came in and beeped, but I don’t know how to lock it! What if it didn’t lock?! Oh God…
She was crying now, her panic obvious. Adler could hear a faint banging in the background, her finger still on her microphone button.
“Go check the lock.” Adler urged her, his body tense as he listened. “Secure the door.” It was the first thing he had done once he’d found this bunker, reinforcing the electronic lock with as many wood and metal scraps he could spare. He realized she hadn’t done the same, relying on the simple mechanism that had been built to be air-tight against possible nuclear fallout. It hadn’t been built for the crawlers.
I don’t want to climb up there again. Oh God, I’m scared.
There was definitely a bang there. He distinctly heard it, like fists on metal.
I only have this stupid pocketknife-
Her voice suddenly got louder, and Adler heard her become mixed with static.
Hello? SOS! Help! I need help. My name is Gillian Haig, they’re coming!
Adler paced back and forth, his hands knotting in his hair, then at fists by his sides. Tears were welling up in his eyes, hating the helpless he felt as he listened to Gilly’s distress.
Anybody, please help-p-p-p
She cut out, static replacing her voice momentarily.
“No!” He yelled, running to his radio, furiously fiddling with the various knobs to try and find her again. “Gilly!”
When the static disappeared and Gilly came back, all he heard were her screams.