Tim, a garbage handler in a post-apocalyptic bunker, loses the little he has. But then he finds Amy, the redhead with an attitude. Together, they will try to change the world they live in.
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Tim is one of those who shovel the shit and clean away th...
The Engineers built the bunker to keep us safe and to shelter us.
Their work is perfection.
The Manuals of the Bunker, Vol. 1, Verse 2
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The brownish muck and waste at my feet stank of decay and rot—strong enough to make me gag.
I grit my teeth to hold back the bile rising in my throat, seized the shovel, and began to fill my battered wheelbarrow. The stuff had to go to the compost heaps first thing in the morning. Frankie, my boss, would skin me alive if I wasn't done with it by breakfast.
A squelching noise made me stop. It came from above, from the dark maw where the chute entered our cavern's rocky ceiling. I took a step back and looked up, squinting my eyes against the glare of the lamps.
Another hunk of waste emerged, slid down, toppled, and smacked into the mound at the bottom of the chute—with a splash, spraying me with smelly, piss-colored droplets.
I sighed and raised the shovel to continue, but I froze as I beheld something yellow—an unusual color in all the shades of brown. Whatever it was, only a small part of it showed through the muck. Rounded, with golden, smooth skin—maybe a piece of vegetable. I held my breath against the smell as I got closer and pulled it out. When I recognized it, I gasped in surprise.
An apple!
As I wiped it on my pants, part of it yielded, soft and mushy, but the rest felt firm and invited my bite. It must have been years since I last had tasted such fruit, yet the memory of its sweet juice struck me like a hammer and made my mouth water. I suppressed the urge to gobble it down on the spot. I would share it with the old craner—he needed the food more than I did.
Wondering where he was, I glanced up at the ceiling, many meters above. The crisscrossing tracks of the crane between the bright lamps were hard to see, but then I discovered the grapple hanging over the mounds of compost at the cavern's remote, lower end.
I heaped two more shovels of muck on my wheelbarrow. Then I seized its handles, struggling to hold on to the apple at the same time. The compost piles were close to the crane's current position. So I could empty the barrow there, and then I'd climb up to the cabin and have lunch with the craner.
Praying to the Manuals that no one would see me with the fruit, I hurried down the path to the mounds.
I welcomed the ripe and earthy smell when I finally reached them. They stood higher than me, overdue for harvesting. Pumpkins and rhubarb grew on the compost, their broad, fat leaves green and fleshy.
A pair of buttocks rose between them. They were fleshy too—but not green.
I froze, watching the buttocks as they moved in a regular rhythm, accompanied by heavy panting and someone moaning. Flabbergasted, I stopped in my tracks and let go of the wheelbarrow, which hit the ground with a clang.
