Free AfterAge by Yvonne Navarro

room. An eye-watering amount of daylight spilled from a high row of northern windows with open shades and the creature began a frenzied squirm under its dark covering.
    "Quickly!" Perlman slid a two-inch iron rod free of its slots in a metal door and swung it inward, then pulled a flashlight from a wall hook and snapped it on, illuminating a flight of stairs sinking into blackness. "Down there." C.J. needed no further prompting and within moments had the stretcher down and through another open metal door, finally resting it against the back wall of a small empty room. Then he backed up and looked around curiously as the vampire quieted.
    "Fallout shelter," Perlman explained. He pointed to a pattern of crisscrossed streaks on the back wall. "I pulled down the shelves and threw out the old rations. Most of it was dust anyway. I wanted a clear, secure space and this seemed perfect. The door is nearly impossible to break and I added iron bars at the top and bottom for extra strength."
    "The door certainly looks strong enough," Calie agreed. "But a trapped vampire might just rip right through the walls."
    Perlman waved at the room with a childlike pride. "This was built to withstand a bomb strike." His eyes found Calie's. "The inner walls are steel-sheeted and it's a fireproof building. All the floors and ceilings are reinforced concrete, and the supporting walls are concrete blocks built on steel rods."
    "What's that?" C.J. motioned to a small screened box high at the juncture of two walls and the ceiling.
    "A battery-powered light and home video outfit. In the morning I'll be able to see how he acted during the night."
    "If it doesn't get out and kill you first," C.J. muttered. "Speaking of which, we gotta fix that window.”
    “Window?"
    "We took off a metal screen and broke a window to get in," Calie told him. "You won't be safe if it's not fixed."
    "I never thought to ask how you got in," Perlman admitted sheepishly.
    "Yeah, well, you'd better start , Doc." C.J. crammed another cigarette into his mouth angrily. "We've only known you an hour and you've already pulled some dumb-ass moves."
    "Never mind, Dr. Bill." Calie put her hand on Perlman’s arm and he jumped. No one had touched him since Mera. "C.J. always gets antsy toward evening. But it is time to get moving."
    "Okay," Perlman said hastily. "Just leave him, I guess. Or should we untie him first?" He regretted the question as soon as C.J.'s withering stare found him. "Right. Let's just close it up. I'll come back later and turn on the camera."
    "I'll tell you what," Calie said. "You lock up here and we'll go fix the window. Then you can let us out.”
    “Sounds good to me," the doctor said.
    C.J. took a pull from his cigarette, then crushed it out. "We'll be back in half an hour."
    Perlman reluctantly watched them go.
    ~ * ~
    For an unsure quarter of an hour Perlman thought they weren't coming back. Perhaps they didn't want anything to do with him—he must have seemed like a maniac, dragging a vampire into his hiding place and stuffing it into a closet, and they only knew part of his plans. It was fortunate that they'd left him alone for a while, since he was just about explained out and C.J. had been painfully accurate in his assessment of the doctor's scant forethought. As he made his final arrangements, locked up the "vault" and readied the light and camera, it dawned on Perlman that Calie and C.J. were a total mystery to him. Where had they come from? Were there others as well?
    "Hi." His heart stuttered briefly at the unexpected sound of Calie's voice. "We're back." Her smile was reassuring, but C.J. looked even more apprehensive. Perlman checked the time; they were down to under an hour before sunset.
    "We thought you might like to stay with us tonight," Calie said. Her dark eyes were purposely wide and guileless. "C.J.'s not convinced your little prison will hold the prisoner."
    "What?" Sudden doubt welled: in all this time, Perlman had never seen these