C10 Billy Wild's DugOut

Billy Wild pushed the shopping cart to the far side of the construction site. He stopped at the foot of the earthen slope that descended into the square-block excavation where the foundations

for pharmaceutical companies were about to be built before the world came to a stop for everyone.

Only Bill could detect the slight hole, the size of his pinkie finger in the earth, near the bottom of the slope. He took a long look around the site and listened closely for any threatening sounds. He felt safe.

He slipped his finger through the small earthen opening, and then slipped it through the hole left by the missing lock on the door. The façade of the door, with its illusion of earth, was fashioned from a powder of dirt on adhesive paper, which then attached to the surface of the door.

Billy pulled the door open with his pinkie finger. Several rats ran across his feet and ran off in different directions. He pushed the shopping cart inside and ducked his head to enter. He shut the door behind him.

The inside of the Dugout resembled a small tool shed. When Billy discovered the construction site, there had been a small tool shed left behind, not far from the Dumpster.

Billy began living in the Dumpster while he built the Dugout. He spent nights digging out a small cave from the mound of dirt with a bowl. He then carried the dirt away, to be spread on another part of the site. He brushed it over the surface of the dirt that was already there, carefully brushing it over with a toothbrush he found, to make sure no one could detect any sign of change.

He took apart the tool shed, board by board, and stored it in the Dumpster. He was lucky to find a few tools left behind. He worked on the Dugout for a year, installing planks as he dug deeper into the slope of earth, bracing the walls and ceiling.

After using up the wood from the tool shed, he found other planks around the city and pushed them home in the shopping cart. He reinforced the Dugout some more. He really didn’t care about the earth collapsing on top of him. He just wanted a warm place to live the rest of the time he was alive.

It was better than being shoveled off the street by Sarah’s Soldiers and taken to the Incinerator. So many people were dying on the street that all the cities in the country had adopted Sarah’s suggestion of using the Incinerator as a quick way to dispose of them. The government was willing to fund construction, provided the cities reached certain annual quotas. Failing to do so could bring large penalties at a time when all of the cities were broke and expected to remain broke for some time.

Billy had often witnessed groups of Young Zealots taking peo- ple away in a van, marked the Incinerator, when the victims still appeared to be alive. Sarah Palin had encouraged them when she instituted the program, to “use your own best judgment in adminis- tering the services we offer.”

And then, at an international conference on overpopulation, she exclaimed, “Darn it! We’ve got too many people on this planet! Do the math!”

Billy had never seen the Incinerator, so he wasn’t sure if it even existed. He was never sure if anything existed unless he could see it. Billy wasn’t sure of anything anymore. But he was sure the Incinerator was no more appealing than the death chambers at Auschwitz.

Once he was inside the Dugout, Billy turned back to the earthen door and stuck his finger through the tiny hole and gently pulled the door shut.