Chapter 13 #2
By the way he’s clutching a metal railing, I suspect he’s feeling as unsure about this as I am. “Today is one of those days from start to finish I couldn’t anticipate where things were heading. But I for sure didn’t expect to be traveling multiple stories underground at midnight.”
“Do you think this is safe?”
“A little late to ask now, isn’t it?” Chevy asks, just as the platform comes to a stop.
This area is clearly an entryway and is much cozier than the “outhouse” above.
There’s a tile floor that looks almost like a brick sidewalk.
Or, I realize, taking in the full space, like a brick porch.
There’s a set of grand double doors that look like they belong on the front of a mansion rather than underground.
They’re painted a glossy emerald green with brass doorknobs and a knocker shaped like a cowboy boot.
Porch lights are on either side, which look just as out of place, but I’m glad for the illumination. Right in front of the doors, there’s a welcome mat that reads Howdy Y’all with an outline of Texas around it. There’s even a doorbell with a camera.
“Do we send the elevator back up?” I ask, following Chevy toward the doors. “And if it was up there, does that mean Wolf isn’t down here?”
But no sooner have we stepped off the platform than it starts back up on its own.
Which leaves me with a feeling. As James said earlier, it does not bode well.
Especially because the solid platform of the elevator now blocks the surface and all the faces that had been peering down at us from view. We are officially sealed underground.
Wouldn’t it just be my luck that I have my first date in years and on the same night, I get trapped underground on the front porch of a bunker?
Thinking of Rose, I pull out my phone and I’m surprised to find that I still have service. “Huh,” I say. “Full bars.”
Chevy looks at his phone. “Same. Weird.”
I wonder if Rose is asleep yet. And if it’s bad form to text this soon after a first date.
No rules, I remind myself. Or, our rules.
Quickly, I send a message before I can overthink. You will not believe where I am! Can’t wait to tell you tomorrow.
Her reply is immediate, and that makes me grin. Take pictures! But if you’re in the bunker, don’t tell me details now. I prefer to hear them from you in person.
I’m still grinning when I slide my phone in my pocket, and Chevy watches me with the smallest of smiles.
I feel embarrassed for about half a second until I decide that’s dumb.
I don’t care who sees that I have feelings for Rose.
I’ve lived a long life and earned the right to grin foolishly at texts from a woman.
“I told Val we’re safely down here and I’ll let her know if they can join us,” Chevy says. He doesn’t add the other, more serious, possibility, which is one I think we’d both prefer not to think about. “Are you ready?”
“No, but I’m ready to get out of here. I’m suddenly not wild about small spaces.”
Stepping forward, Chevy knocks three times on the door with the boot knocker. “I feel a little silly doing this,” he says. “Who has a doorbell and a door knocker in a bunker?”
“It wouldn’t be a proper front door without a knocker, would it?” Wolf’s voice is a little tinny coming through the doorbell camera.
Chevy leans down, putting his eye close to it, like he’s trying to peer through a keyhole.
One of the big doors swings open suddenly, revealing a bare-chested, plaid-pajama-pants-clad Wolf.
Chevy jumps back, clearing his throat. Wolf casually leans on the doorframe, and I’m glad to see him up and about, though his normally jovial expression seems a little dim.
But I almost do a double-take when I realize part of why he looks different is that he fully shaved his mustache.
His body is a different story. I swear, I’ve seen him shirtless a few times and don’t remember the thick chest hair that fades over an impressive six-pack only to begin again around his belly button on down.
“It’s not a keyhole; it’s a camera,” he tells Chevy.
“I figured. I was just …” Chevy shakes his head. “Never mind. Is it okay that we’re here? You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’ve got trail cams hooked up everywhere, plus another security camera up in the outhouse. I’ve been watching y’all for twenty minutes. Might as well invite the whole crew down. I don’t want to have to give the grand tour twice.”
With that, Wolf turns and walks through the doors. Giving me a look as if to say why not?, Chevy follows, pulling out his phone as he goes.
I almost laugh out loud when I walk inside and see the coatrack from my Austin house in the doorway, a leather jacket hanging from it. I like that a relic from my past has been living its best life down in Wolf’s bunker.
Five minutes later, everyone is underground and we’re all trailing Wolf inside his bunker. It is truly remarkable—like nothing I’ve seen or could have imagined.
“I modeled it after Jerry Henderson’s famous Las Vegas bunker,” Wolf tells us, walking backward through the entryway. “Not in terms of the 1970s flair. I prefer a modern farmhouse vibe. But with the idea of creating a house that felt real.”
Indeed, I’m shocked by how walking through the front doors transports us into what legitimately could pass for a real ranch-style house, complete with windows overlooking realistic-looking outside, which Wolf takes us to see first.
“Might as well start with the star of the show,” he says as we follow him out to what could almost pass for the real outdoors with turf for grass, fake trees, and an entire flagstone patio complete with furniture.
“Holy sky, Batman,” Kyoko breathes, spinning and staring up to take in what’s above us. “Wolf, this is epic.”
He grins. “Thank you.”
I can’t even find words as I tilt my head up. Above us, the roof—ceiling? top?—of the space extends beyond what I can see. Tiny lights give the appearance of stars against the dark navy color. It could almost pass for a real night sky.
“Look—there’s the big dipper!” Val says, pointing.
“And the moon.” Kyoko shakes her head. “And it’s exactly the same phase as it is outside right now.”
“How?” Even James’s single-syllable word is infused with wonder.
“LED lights,” Wolf says. “And timers.”
“I think what my son means to say is how did you do all this? Not just the … sky.”
“I bought this property knowing it had caves,” Wolf says.
“In fact, beyond this, there are other tunnels. I’ve mapped most of them now.
This cavern is the largest, and the location was the best for what I wanted to build.
I engineered the plans, got them approved by the state, and hired a company who specializes in doomsday bunkers for billionaires. ”
I lean closer to Wolf. “Not to be … indelicate, but this couldn’t have been cheap.”
He flashes me a rare grin. “I may not act like it, but I’m also technically a trust fund baby. I just put my dollars to different use.”
Hidden use in plain sight is more like it.
With the way Wolf chooses to live publicly—the wild clothes, the hole-in-the-wall bar, the beat-up truck—I’m sure no one would ever guess that he’s the extravagant-underground-bunker kind of wealthy. Even if he does still bear the Waters name.
And beyond that—I’m sure not a single person would suspect that Wolf would be the one to have designed it.
“Do you want me to show you behind the curtain, so to speak?”
I’m not sure what that means, but we’re clearly all curious.
Wolf pulls a remote out of the pocket of his pajama pants and presses a few buttons.
In seconds, there is a light on the “horizon,” which is really the furthest reach of the cavern.
The whole space illuminates like there’s a sunrise, and I can see how Wolf achieved the outdoor effect. At least, partly.
Various sizes and colors of lights mimic day and night.
The effects are enhanced by murals painted on the walls of the cavern, rising to form a dome-like shape over top of us.
With the “sun” now up, the stars have disappeared, and Wolf keeps pressing buttons, sending the whole space into a fast-forward version of a day, with a light acting as the sun moving across the “sky.” The surprisingly smooth, domed ceiling is painted a deep blue and dotted with white, puffy clouds.
The whole thing reminds me of being a kid and going to the planetarium at the science museum.
Val walks to the far wall of the cavern, reaching out to touch the mural that gives the illusion of trees and hills in the distance.
I realize when I walk closer that the painting depicts downtown Sheet Cake in the distance, along with the town’s water tower and even the high school football stadium.
Not very detailed, but still recognizable up close.
“Who did this for you?” Val asks. “It’s incredible.”
“I hired an artist from Austin,” Wolf says. “It’s going to need touching up and some updates soon. Are you interested?”
Val spins so fast her long hair almost whips across Wolf’s bare chest. Her eyes are wide. “Absolutely. This is … incredible. I would love to touch up. Or update. Anything at all.”
“We’ll talk,” Wolf tells her with a quick smile.
Remembering Rose’s request, I take tons of pictures to show her in the morning.
Though they hardly do any of it justice.
Certainly not the outside space, which Wolf resets to night as we head inside—to keep his circadian rhythm, he says.
But even the immaculate three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath ranch home just looks ordinary in photos.
Not like a whole home created inside of a cave.
Pictures just can’t capture the remarkable thing Wolf has built here.
I wonder if maybe I could request a private tour sometime for me and Rose. It might make a perfect next date—though that would make it a date including Wolf Waters as a third wheel.
Maybe better for our fifth or sixth date.