The Day After Thanksgiving Ch. 02

I sat there for almost three hours waiting for the stranger to respond. Blind hope was telling me he was trying to get through. Grim reality told me he was experiencing the same dead silence I was. I tried to sanely rationalize the facts I was able to gather so far. A few hundred miles to the north and south of me was death row. I didn't know how far the blast radius reached, but I assumed it was one hell of a long way. So I could go east or west. East meant a short trip on dry land then I would reach the ocean. West meant a long trip across the panhandle then the ocean. I could make my way to the beach on the east coast and try to hitch a ride with a boat and head north up the coast, then hook a big left and head for home. If I couldn't find a ride on the east shore I could head back west and try to make it across the state. Then I would have to find a way north up the western side of the panhandle. I don't know how far the fallout from the second blast stretches out. Either way I am putting my life at risk just by leaving this shelter. I moved far from home to put things behind me. Now that I live across the country, home seems like a million miles away. My mother lives in Alaska, and here I am in Florida. 

It's amazing how people can adjust to just about any situation. When I first came rushing down here I thought this place was the pits. It smells like old moldy clothing. Everything feels cold and clammy. It feels like I am ten thousand feet below the surface of the earth. There is only one small window in one corner. It faces up. I guess the boss had it made that way for a reason. I don't know what the reason was, but I'm sure it had something to do with him being able to see out and no one else being able to see in. I have already learned to appreciate some of his paranoid ways. Now I am glad I have this bunker to hide in until I decide what to do. 

Part of me is afraid to leave here. The people outside seem like they are going crazy, and getting crazier by the minute. It sounds like every person behind the voices on the radio has a gun. I have seen movies about nuclear war. They always show this terrible cloud of radiation shrouding everything around the blast for hundreds of miles. Billions of tiny particles of death are falling slowly to earth from a sick and ruined sky. If the blasts are big enough for the fallout to reach me, then I am doubly fucked. I am in the middle between both of them. It occurred to me that it's very unlikely I won't be exposed to some of it even if I stay here hiding for six months. 

I heard a sudden hiss of white noise, and the radio exploded back to life with a blurt of profanity.

'Not ME mothafucka! Not ME!'

An angry sounding voice responded, the tone even and determined.

'Two of our troopers saw you shooting into the grocery store. You can give it up now or we'll put you down. You know you did it so put your guns down and wait for us.' A pause. 'Either way you're going with us.'

'I ain't goin' nowhere with you mothafuckas! Not ME! I shot them mothafuckas cause I wanted to and I'm gonna shoot your asses too! Not ME mothafuckas!'

The radio was silent for several moments. A somber sounding voice broke the deathly quiet. 

'Skip got 'im. He shot two more by the library steps before he could get him, though. That makes ten he got here so far. Count 'em, ten. I don't know how far back he started shooting. Let's pray he started right here in town. Tell base to get the trucks loaded and start gassing up. It's only gonna get worse.'

'Ten four that.' A reply came. 'Jess make sure my sister in Holly Hill gets on the first truck to leave from there. This place is gonna be a real clusterfuck come nightfall.'

'Ain't that the truth.' Jess responded. 'I'll see she's out by dark.'

'I copy you. Richard is insisting on staying behind to put the bodies away. He won't take no for an answer so I'm leaving him the keys to my Bronco. Make sure everybody on the train knows what he's driving so they don't shoot him up.'

'I hear you. Tell Richard I'll leave after the last truck is gone. If he gets caught up in any shit in the mean time tell him to call me on channel thirteen. Out.'  Jess answered. 

I just don't understand it. A few hours without the law on the prowl and people are killing each other on sight. It's like the whole fucking state of Florida is at recess and the teacher has her back turned. All the bad kids get to be as bad as they want to be. I suddenly realized that all those crazy people with guns will soon be looking for something all crazy people with guns seem to look for. More guns. And there I was sitting under one of the biggest gun shops in the tri-county area. I suddenly decided I had the courage to leave the bunker, after all. I decided to take a look around. I knew the boss would have all kinds of good shit stashed here and there. 

There is a row of metal lockers at the far end of the bunker. I expected them to be locked, but they were not. I guess he didn't want to have to fumble with keys if he had to come down here in a hurry. Or maybe he didn't plan on needing keys at all once he was down here. If I knew him half as well as I thought I did, he should have some pretty mean shit hid away. 

There were some kevlar jackets in the first locker. At the bottom was a stack of neatly folded black t shirts.  I picked the one on top up and unfolded it. It read S.W.A.T. in bright yellow letters. The next locker had a bunch of sweaters on hangers. They had similar colors and themes, like RANGER in yellow letters on dark green fabric. One of them was a black button up shirt with the word Sniper embroidered on the left breast pocket. Two pair of heavy duty looking boots were also in the second locker. Those might come in handy, if they'll fit me. When I opened the third locker I had to take a step back. It was like a scene from one of the Terminator movies. 

There were four stubby looking assault rifles in a bracket, all leaned to the side at an angle. Each one had a long curved magazine jutting out of the middle, with a spare magazine strapped to it with black tape. The guns were short and squat. A long cylindrical silencer was attached to the end of each barrel.
Under the bracket holding the guns was a single word written in chalk. MP90. I don't know what the hell an MP90 is, but I knew these bastards were nothing to play with. You can bet your sweet ass these things aren't legal. I pulled one of the guns from the bracket and hefted it, feeling the weight. It was light. I wrapped my hand around the stock, and the trigger seemed to find my finger with natural ease. Yeah, this gun was made for one purpose. It felt light and mobile. Each gun had two magazines. Eight full magazines and four guns. I would guess that he had about two hundred and forty rounds on the guns alone, not to mention how many rounds of ammo he had stashed in the bunker. 

"I could get used to this." I said to myself.

A woman's voice came screaming over the radio.

'NOOO! Give her back!! Give her BAAAACK!!!'

The voice was cut off abruptly by the sound of a gunshot then the radio was silent again. I snapped the gun back in the rack. I suddenly didn't want to hold it any more. Like I had picked up a stick to find it was a poisonous snake. Two hundred and forty bullets. That could be two hundred and forty lives. 

"Maybe I can't get used to it." I whispered to myself.

I looked through all the lockers while I thought of what might be going on in the world outside. I could tell that some people were trying to enforce some kind of thrown together form of marshal law. People were running rampant through town shooting anything that moved, from the sound of it. The troopers were forming some king of land train to get as many people the hell out of town as they could. But where were they going? I might be wasting my time here if I could join them. I might get my ass shot full of lead in the process, too. If people were running around shooting every man woman and child in sight, wouldn't a large caravan of unarmed civilians be an easy target? Even with troopers riding shotgun some crazy asshole with an AK47 could kill dozens of people. Dozens. I can understand them wanting to leave town. I know after they saw the man shooting up the grocery store and the library, all they could think of was what would happen if they did stay. 

And most importantly, why the hell are they shooting at all? 

I remember watching an episode of this late night sci-fi series. It was like a cheap knock off of The Twilight Zone. It was about a little town full of ordinary looking folk. Some huge calamity happened, like a volcano erupting, or something. I don't remember what happened, but I remember they were cut off from the outside world and in great peril. People were dying from the calamity left and right. At first they made a big effort to escape. When they realized escape was impossible they turned on each other. In the end only one person made it out of town alive. Turns out the whole town was part of some government experiment. The last man standing was picked up by a black helicopter and whisked away into the sunset.

People are capable of being civil so long as they have their every day niceties. You take away their electricity, shopping malls and fat cat suv's and they turn ugly real quick. I guess I wasn't really surprised that people were killing one another on the streets above me just because they could. I just never thought I would happen. I was so caught up in the facts of what happened I hadn't really thought about what it meant to anyone but me. I've seen all the big budget catastrophe movies, but I never once gave any thought to what it would be like facing such a huge tragedy in real life. I was facing the end of the world. If I stayed in the bunker I had to face it alone. If I wanted to live I had to leave the bunker and step into the hell waiting for me outside.

I could almost see the two mushroom clouds slowly dissipating into the atmosphere. Both of them were melting into a vapor of poison radiation that will spread with every little breeze. I was stuck between the two of them. I knew time was running out, so I decided I would risk a look out of the little window. Maybe after I looked out I could make up my mind. 

I opened the wooden cover. There was a metal hook hanging from the ceiling behind the window. The cover had a wood staple beat into one end, and it caught on the hook to hold it out of the way. The window was dirty and thick. The glass had to be at least an inch thick. It was probably bulletproof, or maybe thick plexiglass. It looked like it was slightly tinted. I peered up through the grimy little window. It was dark outside. The faintest hints of light were visible around the edges of the window. I pressed my face close to the window to get a better look when the world suddenly went pitch black. I pulled back, realizing I was staring at the bottom of someone's boot. 

"The lights are on. Somebody's in there." I heard a voice say.

"Let's do this." Another voice replied, followed by a loud ratcheting click.

I snapped away from the window and put the cover back in place. I've seen enough movies to recognize that sound. It was a shell being chambered. I stood there stock still for several minutes waiting for the next sound. I heard footfalls from above me. I turned the cb radio off then killed the lights. I stood there with my hand on the light switch listening to the footsteps above me. One set of footsteps turned into two. I heard muffled voices at random. A few words came through clearly, most were muted garble. The men seemed to be walking around looking for something. I could hear glass breaking, then the sound of something heavy crashing to the floor. That had to be the gun cases on display. Man, if the boss is alive he will kill someone for that, I thought.

"Stop tearing shit up man. We're just looking for flashlights. You don't need no more damn guns."  An irritated voice said. 

Suddenly I heard the loud screeching of tires. There were yells coming from all directions. A single shot was fired, followed by the tinkling of broken glass. I flicked the lights back on and ran to the lockers. I opened the first locker and grabbed one of the kevlar jackets. I slipped the jacket on then grabbed one of the guns from the third locker. I looked it over quickly and found a small slide bar on the side. I pushed it down then ran back to the light switch and turned the lights off again. I trained the gun on the bunker door in the darkness.  

There were several moments of confusing racket. It sounded like someone was scuffling across the floor. Then someone started screaming.

"You killed Jacob you fuckers! You killed my brother! We was just looking for flashlights! We was just looking for..."

His words were lost in a loud bray of gunfire. I jumped and almost shot the bunker door full of holes. Soon several guns were firing above me. The gunfire seemed to go on forever. I was shaking all over and gripping the gun tightly. Finally the gunfire stopped. I heard more footsteps above me. It sounded like six or seven people walking into the store. I heard footsteps close to the bunker door, getting louder as they approached from above. They stopped directly overhead. Someone was standing at the register. 

"Forget that fucking money man, it's useless." Someone said. 

"I'm not looking for the money you dumbass. I know the owner of this place. And I know he keeps a stash." The voice replied. It was a young man, by the sound of the voice.  "His nephew told me he keeps it hid over here somewhere, and he says he has some hella bad shit dude."

I could hear a fain rustling noise. The person standing at the register was feeling his way around, looking. I could hear his shoes scrubbing against the green outdoor carpet as he searched. I held my finger tight against the trigger. I had the gun pressed hard against my body. I held my breath.

The door to the bunker slid open suddenly, and I found myself staring up into the man's eyes. 

Fade To Black