“Open the door-”

Gabriel typed frantically, modifying the code which he had installed across the vault’s basic systems to reroute power to the main external door. For the command ‘Reserve Power’ he inputted ‘0’. In the ‘Redirection List’, he copied ‘All’. Clara’s voice jittered over the transceiver’s speakers. Absorbed in his coding monitor, flashes of light caught his attention from the video feeds which he had assembled on the monitors above his head. The cameras were going out one by one. At first, he thought it was a problem with his programming–something he had overlooked in the vault’s automatic antivirus software, locking his access out of basic operations such as elevators and doors–but then the corruption struck in force, severing his control over the mainframe. There was no anti-virus on earth which he knew could contend with the volume and artifice of his trojans. This was something much more sinister. Where before, he could access personnel files and vault schematics, now displayed a chaos of information and distorted pixels. Suddenly, a horrible screeching sound transmitted over the vault’s internal communications systems, sounding over his audio interface. Gabriel turned down the volume on his own system so that the screeching was subdued to a mosquito's wine, and focussed on trying to open the exterior door.

Minutes passed. The video feeds went out until only one remained in the Habitation sector. Gabriel’s patchwork coding failed. The external door remained sealed. What the shadowy monster had done to the light bulbs–overloading and frying them–it was now doing to the vault’s circuitry. Its actions demonstrated a degree of intelligence and cunning which he had not suspected. It sent a shiver down his spine.

Gabriel’s fingers lingered on the keyboard, the blinking cursor awaited his command as his strings of code disappeared into dying systems. He turned to the video feed. Clara was a blip of light, golden, seraphic, and fierce. She moved like a shimmering pearl panther, leaping over a canteen table, upturning it to act as a barricade, and blasting the encroaching shadow with a shower of sapphire lightning. Andy followed after her as they retreated, a mere flicker compared to Clara’s solar radiance. They fought desperately, risking their lives to save the vault dwellers from ruin. But it was hopeless. Gabriel’s eyes scanned the few remaining video feeds, displaying the deeper recesses of the vault. There, the darkness amassed, congealing with the flesh of its victims. What they were fighting in the Habitation sector was a mere vanguard. Once the tide rose from Life Support sector below, they would be drowned, trapped underground.

“What is happening, Gabriel?” Plodder asked. The little garden gnome sat atop a desktop speaker, kicking his little legs as he observed Gabriel at work. “You look afraid.”

“I’m locked out of the systems,” Gabriel said. “Or rather, to put it more accurately, there are no systems anymore. They’ve been destroyed. Scorched earth.”

“Are your friends okay?”

Gabriel laughed, the words sounding ironic and sour in plodder’s cartoonishly squeaky voice. “They were just acquaintances.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means…” He could justify watching them die, he thought. Gabriel turned off the video feeds and sat back in his chair, chin to his chest. What did he owe them anyway? They had only met yesterday, and they’d threatened to smoke him out of his bunker because he couldn’t pay them for a simple job! They were mercenaries, this was their fate. They should never have gone down into the vault, although it was based on his recommendation. But this shadow demon thing had nothing to do with him. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his responsibility. He had helped them on their little salvage quest-turned-rescue mission as best he could. He had acted charitably. This sort of work normally cost a pretty penny, all of this hacking and monitoring, a lot more than mercenaries charged to kill a couple trolls. He had already paid his debt to them in full, whether or not they survived. With them trapped underground, he didn’t have to worry about them spreading the location of his bunker to other nasty mercenaries. As for the vault dwellers themselves–the surviving families–they were none of his business. Unfortunate casualties of a cruel world. This sort of tragedy happened every single day all around the world. Only, today it was happening within his purvey. But that wasn’t necessary anymore.

There was one video feed remaining–the camera above the canteen, displaying Clara and Andy fighting for their lives. Grimacing, Gabriel minimised the window–he didn’t close it–that didn’t feel right. Though, the window would close automatically once he withdrew his control over the vault systems. Typing the command, Gabriel sat quietly at his desk, fingers resting on his keyboard. His computer’s cooling fans whirred down as the stress on their systems ebbed. He closed his eyes and breathed softly, and after a moment, it was as though the events of the past couple days had never happened.

“Are they safe?” Plodder asked.

Okay, things weren’t entirely the same. Gabriel now had a gnome companion to keep him company. “No,” he said. “I think they made a bad decision going down into that vault.”

“Do they need our help?”

Gabriel’s shoulder sank. “I cannot, anymore.”

“But, the black paint they were fighting. I saw it getting closer. Did you see that too?”

“Yes.”

“Then we must help them.”

“I cannot,” Gabriel repeated, firmly. “That’s it. I’ve done what I can.” He shrugged.

“No,” Plodder shook his little head. “They are your friends.”

“No they’re not,” Gabriel barked, folding his arms and spinning around on his desk chair to look away. “I don’t have any friends.” Tears welled in his eyes, and he struggled to control his ragged breath.

The silence between them stretched.

Finally, Plodder spoke. “There was once a gnome called Peanut. He was the first of our kind. Peanut travelled the world, breathing life into garden gnomes like myself, rescuing us from the eternal black of non-existence. In exchange, we made a promise to him: when the time came, we would fight his war.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Once awakened, I found myself suddenly with friends, garden gnomes like myself who had been blessed with life. We played together while the humans slept. Hide-and-seek in the moonlight, and catch the toad in the tall, wet grass, while owls hooted overhead, wondering what mischief we were up to that night. Each morning, when the sun rose, I would pose beside my wheelbarrow, beaming with joy and remain still so that the humans would never learn of our secret lives. When the sun would set, a new magical night of laughter awoke! Us gnomes made friends with the ants and foxes, the rabbits and woodlice, all creatures who loved the moonlight, and danced with us, a celebration of life. We tended our gardens, made homes for the insects, protected them from storms and the crushing feet of men, housing them inside our porcelain bodies when came the plight of pestilent spraying chemicals during spring, and the biting frosts of winter snow.

“Many months passed before Peanut returned. I must confess, I had forgotten his face, and the promise I had made in exchange for this gift of life. Peanut’s expression was grave, pitted and scratched, as though he had fallen through the sharpest thorn bush into the most jaggedest gravel. He gathered us on the darkest night and proclaimed that if we wanted our freedom, we would have to fight for it. No more secrecy, becoming statuesque at the sight of humans. No more lawn mower accidents, or dogs marking their territory on our faces. I admit, those days were rough, treacherous at times, but the way Peanut described it, it made us sad. As he spoke, it was as though the moonlight grew brighter, burning away our favourite spots of hiding beneath the hedgerow. He was a master of words, and patriarch of all gnomes, knowing our hearts and minds as a spider knows its web.

“Preaching atop the most magnificent marble bird-bath podium you could ever find, he declared that this world was built for us gnomes, and that the humans had conquered it while we slumbered in non-existence. As he spoke, my heart turned bitter, like a peach fallen to the mud, eaten by worms. Just as he had breathed life into our bodies, now so he breathed hatred.”

Gabriel was stunned, but too enthralled in the little gnome’s story to speak. Plodder bowed his head and went on. “We attacked them in their sleep. Some of the things I did, I am not proud of. I only knew humans as the enemy. I did not know that some of them loved garden gnomes.” He raised his head, eyes meeting Gabriel’s for a moment before turning aside. “Peanut’s campaign of terror was insatiable. He would not stop at conquering one street, he meant to dominate the entire world: four streets lined with houses and gardens, and a petting zoo at the edge of the eternal wilderness. It was there that we met our gravest foe. Though we had bested the mowers and spades, sabotaged the great crushing wheeled machines and subjugated the canine menace, we were unprepared for what bounded inside that petting zoo. A sinister evil in the soulless eyes of horned beasts. Devilry and callousness. The dreaded pygmy goat.”

Plodder pulled his big red hat over his face, huddling his arms into his chubby chest. Gabriel’s heart was wary that this was all some big joke, with him as the butt. But there was no hint of insincerity in Plodder’s voice. The gnome shuddered, crouching beside Gabriel’s mouse pad. Every logic-driven instinct in Gabriel was screaming that this was a lie. The contradictions with his own sense of reality were dizzying.

Sitting back in his chair, Gabriel caught his breath. A familiar sense of anxiety covered him like an itchy woollen blanket. Gabriel breathed slowly. Focussing on the cowering gnome, he counted to ten, sorting his thoughts. In the past twenty-four hours, he’d witnessed a shadow-demon transform human flesh into an abomination. As far as apocalypses went, the fae creatures which sometimes roamed outside his bunker paled in comparison. Gabriel had remained relatively sheltered from the horrors of the apocalypses. The world was a far more evil place than he had recently expected, yet also somewhat more spectacular. Plodder had miraculously come alive–that much was evident–so why couldn’t other gnomes have done so too?

“I think I believe you,” Gabriel said.

Plodder raised his head, peeking up at Gabriel from beneath his red hat. “You were in doubt?”

“I’m sorry. But you must admit, it’s pretty ridiculous. A land of gnomes killing humans and fighting goats? And a gnome-Jesus?”

Plodder cocked his head. “That is how I remember it.”

Gabriel’s heart swelled. Assuming his story was true, the poor little gnome had nothing left in the world. No people. No home. And Gabriel had forced him to live out his suffering. “It’s okay,” he said with a weak smile. “You’re safe now. That’s all in the past.”

“Not in my mind, it isn’t.” Plodder hopped down from the speaker, turning his black from the glow of the monitor array and paced across the desk, staring into the darkness of the bunker. He squinted, thick eyebrows like slugs sloping down his brow. “I fled. I was afraid. My brothers and sisters were smashed to pieces. The agonised screams… the shattering of clay… They haunt me to this day.” Plodder shuddered. “The pygmy goats chased us, and our allies–the foxes–betrayed us, fearful too of the pygmies' wrath. They hunted us in hiding, free to rule the world with the humans gone. I was cowering beneath a tower, stacked with human supplies, when two goats found me. They toppled the tower, and a flood of paint fell upon me. My final memories were drowning in a bucket that had landed on my head. Suspended in paint, my mind wandered to that first night of precious sentience, when I had first gazed at the stars and held hands with my friends, until finally, my thoughts faded away.”

Plodder rubbed his eye and turned to face Gabriel. “I am probably the last of my kind. I know what it is like to lose all of my friends. Perhaps if I had fought alongside them, things would be different. Maybe I could have made a difference. Perhaps more of us would have survived, not just little old me.”

The face of a ghost flashed in Gabrile’s mind. He hadn’t always lived alone, afraid of the outside. Long ago, when the cataclysm hit, Gabriel’s technical expertise had bought him into a governmental job. He had survived on the surface, sheltered away inside a base. Yet, as the world collapsed, the government divided into gangs, living above became unsafe. Escaping underground, he had connected with an online community of techies. They’d playfully dubbed themselves ‘Nerds of the Apocalypses’, and shared all the knowledge they had on the cataclysm and zones. Some spoke about a unified governmental project which was set to keep humanity from the brink of annihilation, but none within his merry band were the wiser. They spent their days building a network, establishing nodes, and securing power sources. Some had plans to release the network globally, others simply wished for the others’ company, speaking as much about their woes as they did coding. An online community–like those of old–isolated by distance, yet thriving.

Within a week, half of his acquaintances went quiet. The group suspected a latent apocalypse had struck. Later, they heard reports of an asteroid impact. The situation worsened. One by one, his friendly nerds died or disappeared. Within a month, it had been just Gabriel and an engineer named Harris left. Their last correspondence was over five years ago now. Gabriel had only survived because he lived alone, closed his doors, and never dared to venture outside.

“It’s okay,” Gabriel said. “Fear is natural.”

“Fear perhaps, but cowardice…” Plodder raised his head. “Cowardice is the mind’s tyranny.”

Gabriel’s heart raced. The guilt he had squashed down rose inside him like a flame. He stood up, but couldn’t tell what for. It had been no lie - there was nothing he could do. The vault was no longer working, and no amount of programming could repair a faulty wire. Something on his display shelf caught his eye: a black knight figurine from Gabriel’s favourite book. A hero. Scanning his bunker, his eyes fell on the piles of junk, much of it salvage in need of repair. Amongst the junk were a few items he had never intended to use: a bicycle with a punctured wheel; an old, unsharpened replica sword; a motorcycle helmet missing the chin strap and a battery-powered floodlight.

“What do you suggest I do?” Gabriel choked out. His throat was tight. His heart was racing.

Plodder looked at him with solemn, glistening eyes. “What you must.”