The Last Bunker, page 6
part #4 of EMP Survivor Series
“I’ll be fine,” Shelly said reassuringly.
Kayla nodded and then headed off on her own path toward the hospital. Shelly lingered behind a moment, watching her daughter leave.
“How much farther until we reach this camp?” Shelly asked, finally looking at Weber.
“An hour tops,” Weber said, and then he looked at where Kayla had vanished. “She’s going to be fine, you know.”
“I know,” Shelly said. “Move. We’re wasting time.”
Shelly followed Weber and then glanced one last time at her daughter before she was completely out of view. She felt another dizzy spell but made sure not to stumble. She couldn’t appear weak now, not with Weber with her.
“Everything all right?” Weber asked.
“Just keep your eyes forward,” Shelly answered. “The only thing I need you to worry about is taking me to the gangs. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Weber answered.
Shelly would have to dig deep to finish this mission. It was integral to their cause. And while Weber hadn’t shown any signs of taking advantage of the situation yet, the day was still young, and there would be plenty of opportunities for him to betray her if he chose.
11
The radio signal that Tanner tracked wasn’t far from the island. However, it was only a few miles away, and the coordinates brought them to an old radio station. The large tower was still intact and looked like it had survived most of the initial looting and chaos.
“The location is pretty isolated,” Tanner said, glancing around the parking lot filled with all the disabled vehicles that were here when the EMP had gone off. “I don’t know if anyone would have stuck around, though.”
“I didn’t have any enemies with the local radio DJs,” Charlie said. “So, whoever is doing this was simply using the radio tower here to boost their signal to reach us.”
“How do you want to handle what we find inside?” Tanner asked.
“You mean if the person is still there?” Charlie asked. “We take him alive if we can. We need to know what they know, what kind of threat they’re hanging over our heads.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tanner said.
“Let’s go,” Charlie replied.
Charlie and Tanner moved quickly through the parking lot and toward the front entrance of the radio station. They remained on high alert for any threats lurking, but they reached the station’s opening unscathed.
Charlie and Tanner fell into an old rhythm, clearing the corners of the building as they pushed through quickly and efficiently. Aside from a few overturned chairs and the vending machines being looted, the place had no real signs of the catastrophe that had befallen the rest of the country. But they found no signs of life inside.
“Everyone’s gone,” Tanner said as they lowered their guard.
“But this place still somehow has power?” Charlie replied.
“They could have a backup generator,” Tanner answered. “If it’s old, it could have survived the EMP.”
Charlie worked through the scenario, trying to understand why someone would have gone to the trouble of trying to make all of this happen.
“Let’s spread out and see if we can find the actual room where the signal comes from,” Charlie said.
The pair separated, and while they didn’t lead with their weapons anymore, they both still had their guard up. Just because they were alone now didn’t mean that couldn’t change at the drop of a hat.
The radio station was small, with only four booths inside. One of the super local stations handled some of the smaller communities in the mountains. It was the kind of station where hearing your voice on the radio still carried weight around the nearby small town.
“I’ve got it,” Tanner said, shouting from inside one of the control rooms.
Charlie joined him and saw the feed of the loop being broadcast. The control panel was set to its frequency, but the signal had been amplified.
“They opened it up,” Tanner said, examining the electrical work. “They rewired it to scan for our radio frequency properly.”
“If they knew how to find the frequency, then it must have been someone associated with the Bunker,” Charlie said. “Did the Bunker have any backup contingencies if Sir was killed?”
Tanner shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. That man had more layers than an onion. There was no end to it, just peeling and peeling. I have no idea what else he could have done.”
Charlie stepped away from the controls and took a deep breath. The last thing he wanted right now was for the Bunker to be involved with this family.
“It’s like we’re stuck in this never-ending cycle, and I don’t know how to escape it,” Charlie said. “No matter what I do, that past keeps pulling me back in!” He kicked a chair, and it flipped end over end until it crashed into the wall.
“Don’t let it get to you,” Tanner said. “Until we know what’s going on, we shouldn’t let our emotions get the better of us.”
Charlie knew Tanner was right, but it was hard to curb his frustration.
“Now what?” Charlie asked. “We know where the signal was coming from, but we don’t know who set it up or what they have planned.”
Tanner stared at the control panel. “I might be able to look at the components used to manipulate this equipment. If the devices used aren’t common, it might help us narrow down where the person obtained the equipment.”
“Right, sure,” Charlie said, antsy. “I’m going for a walk.”
Charlie stepped out of the control room, needing some air, and he returned to the entrance and stepped outside.
The sun was warm against his face, and he shut his eyes to brace himself for the sunshine. He should have known better to think he had finally escaped his past. But how much longer would it haunt him?
Perhaps forever. Because of Charlie’s terrible deeds when he was part of the Bunker’s schemes, he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it. And out of all the horrible atrocities he had committed, one came to the forefront of his mind above all others.
When Charlie had gone to Sir and made his case that he wanted out, Sir said he would grant Charlie his freedom and protection against any repercussions against himself or his family, so long as he completed one final task.
There was a small faction within the intelligence community who saw Sir for what he was, but Charlie’s final mission with the Bunker was to eliminate that faction. Sir had tricked his adversaries into thinking he would be in a location where he was giving up classified material. When the teams arrived at the site, they didn’t find Sir. Instead, they found Charlie waiting for them in the weeds.
Even though Charlie had the element of surprise, he was still drastically outnumbered. Sir believed Charlie would have been killed, but he survived. Looking back on it, Charlie didn’t recall the actual fight. Perhaps his mind shut off, and he became something else, some animal in the mood to hunt and kill. He didn’t know how long the fight had lasted, but when it was all said and done, Charlie vividly remembered the faces of the people he had killed.
After the fight, Charlie remembered standing in the center of the dead bodies of the fallen agents and officers he’d killed. He was responsible for all the blood and carnage and horrified by the lives he’d taken. The nightmares that followed after that night didn’t stop for months. But even after all these years, he could see them as clearly as if he were again standing in the middle of all that death.
“Charlie,” Tanner said, calling his name from the station. “You need to see this.”
Charlie wasn’t sure what Tanner had found, and he disappeared back inside before he had a chance to read his expression.
But when Charlie returned to the control room where Tanner had been tinkering with the electronics, he held a folder.
“I found this inside the components,” Tanner said. “It’s addressed to you.”
Charlie frowned when he saw his name scrawled across the front of the large envelope. He took it from Tanner, who had already opened it and knew what was inside. And when Charlie saw the pictures, he finally understood what this was all about.
The faces in those pictures were the same as the ones he’d killed that fateful night so many years ago. Charlie studied each of their faces until he found another piece of paper containing two pieces of information. The first were coordinates, no doubt a location of where this person wanted Charlie to go next. And the second was a message. It was clear, concise, and to the point, sending chills of fear and anger down Charlie’s back.
“Old debts need to be repaid,” Charlie said, reading the note.
“Does that mean anything to you?” Tanner asked, reading the message.
Charlie nodded. “Someone wants revenge for what I did to them.”
It was only a matter of time before the past caught up with Charlie. And now, whatever this person planned to do, it was directed at him. Charlie only hoped he had what it took to stop the madness before it destroyed his entire family.
12
It was all-consuming whenever Benji started a project, especially a complex one. The rest of the world vanished, and he concentrated on the task. It was almost an involuntary response. His brain shifted into another gear. But the older he’d gotten, the more he’d been able to control it.
Benji’s teachers had called his hyper-focus a superpower. And while it did come in handy, it was also difficult to stop once he was started. He was left behind on a family trip because he was studying math equations in his room. It was for a trigonometry test he had come up for the local high school, and he was in the zone, figuring out problems.
It wasn’t until his family reached the airport that they realized they’d left Benji at home, and when they returned, they found him still in his room on the floor, staring at the equations he was trying to solve.
But the task in front of Benji was more complex than anything he’d ever attempted to solve. It was the most intricate of puzzles and math and technology. There was no schematic for what he was looking at, and whoever had created it had decades more experience and training than himself.
But Benji had always enjoyed the challenge of breaking off more than he could chew. The only way to improve was to push yourself beyond your limits. Benji enjoyed dangling himself out over the edge.
It was the thrill of the unknown and the unexpected. Whenever Benji started a new project or attempted to solve a new problem, there was the excitement of endless possibilities. While some people didn’t enjoy not having all the answers, Benji loved not knowing what would happen next.
One of the downsides of his intelligence was being able to figure out most things very quickly. On the other hand, he had always been able to do it for as long as he could remember. So, when it was the rare opportunity for him to uncover something, a path where he didn’t know it would lead, he never felt more alive.
It wasn’t until the hand was on Benji’s shoulder and squeezed hard that he turned around and realized he wasn’t alone.
“I’m hungry.” Maggie stood behind him with Peanut Butter, panting happily by her side. She was only three, and her vocabulary was limited to a handful of phrases. Telling people she was hungry was one of them.
“Is there any food in the pantry?” Benji asked, wondering how long she’d been standing there.
Maggie shook her head, but Benji wasn’t sure if he believed her. She didn’t enjoy fixing things for herself, but her brother, Harry, usually would take her off and make her something, but Harry wasn’t with her.
Benji’s mother had found Maggie, Harry, and Peanut Butter on one of her excursions days after the EMP attack. Their parents had been killed in the chaos that followed, and she had brought them back to live with them.
They were nice enough, but it was obvious to Benji that they would have rather been with people they knew. Benji’s family might have been friendly, but they were still strangers. They had emotionally remained an arm’s length from his family since they had arrived.
Benji didn’t blame them for it. He would have done the same thing if he were in their shoes. He couldn’t imagine losing his parents.
“Where’s Harry?” Benji asked and returned to the device before him, eager to return to work. “He will make you something if you ask.”
“He’s outside,” Maggie answered.
“Then go and get him,” Benji replied.
“He won’t let me,” Maggie said.
Benji frowned and then turned around again to look at Benji. “What do you mean, he won’t let you?”
“He told me not to go outside,” Maggie said, then she shrugged.
The last thing Benji wanted was a distraction, especially when he had the opportunity to do something good for the community. If he could figure out a way to replicate the Phoenix device using this technology the enemy who attacked them had left behind, it could completely change life on the island and… well… life everywhere.
But Harry and Maggie were always with one another. Harry hovered over his younger sister like a concerned parent. He was protective of her, and if Harry didn’t want her to go outside, then there must have been a good reason.
Benji stood, and Maggie and Peanut Butter followed him out of his room and into the living room. He saw the back of Harry’s head through the window. He was standing on the porch, looking at something in the woods.
Before Benji stepped outside, he turned back to Maggie. “Stay here.” And then he looked at the dog. “Sit.”
Peanut Butter dutifully sat next to Maggie, and Benji opened the door and stepped outside to join Harry on the porch.
Benji and Harry were almost the same age. Harry was, in fact, slightly older than Benji, but because of Benji’s intelligence, he often felt much more senior than kids his age. Sometimes he even felt older than his parents.
“Harry, what’s going on?” Benji asked, looking at him.
Harry was fixated on something in the woods, almost lost in a trance. “I didn’t want Maggie to see them.”
“See what?” Benji asked, glancing into the woods, following Harry’s line of sight. He still couldn’t see what the boy was looking at.
But there was nothing in the woods that Benji saw.
“There were bodies,” Harry answered, glancing into the woods. “They were being dragged over there.” Harry pointed in the direction he was looking.
“Bodies?” Benji asked, and then he remembered the illness taking hold of the community on the island.
He had heard his parents talk about it and how some died. It was the reason everyone was quarantined. But Benji didn’t know why someone would be dragging bodies out here. This was his family’s land, at least a significant portion. Benji doubted that his father would have allowed the town to bury the dead on his land.
“How many?” Benji asked.
“I don’t know,” Harry answered. “But they were out there working for a while.”
Benji still didn’t see or hear anything, but the rough waves along the shoreline masked the sounds of the woods.
“Did anyone come to speak to you?” Benji asked.
Harry shook his head. “They just brought the bodies out.” He finally looked back to Benji, and he saw the fear on the boy’s face. “Are we going to die?”
Benji formulated his response carefully; he knew Harry wasn’t looking for the truth. He was looking for comfort and reassurance. “We’re going to be fine,” Benji answered. “So long as we stay near the cabin and don’t interact with anyone, we’ll be okay.”
“But what if the sickness comes here?” Harry asked. “I don’t want to die, Benji.”
It was the fear in Harry’s tone that worried Benji. Whenever people were frightened, they never thought straight. Fear was a powerful emotion. He had seen what it had done to people after the EMP and didn’t want that to happen again.
“We’ll be fine,” Benji said more calmly, trying to combat Harry’s nervousness. “Why don’t you go inside and get Maggie something to eat? She’s hungry.”
“Yeah, okay,” Harry replied, but then he glanced again at the woods. “She hasn’t seen any dead people before. That’s why I didn’t want her to come outside.”
“She didn’t see your parents die?” Benji asked and then immediately regretted asking it. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, it’s okay,” Harry answered, looking back at Benji. “We talked about what happened to our parents, but no, she didn’t see their bodies. I didn’t want her to remember them like that. It’s not a pleasant thing.”
Benji realized what Harry had seen and how that had changed him. Benji had seen dead bodies in the streets during their pilgrimage here. He had even killed people, albeit with a drone strike. Benji understood how different he was from other children at times like this. He didn’t believe he was a kid anymore, and the way Harry looked at him, searching for guidance and understanding, only confirmed it.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” Benji said.
“Yeah, me too,” Harry said, but he glanced out to the woods one final time before he returned inside, where Peanut Butter barked happily and Maggie asked him to make her some cereal.
Benji remained on the porch, staring into the woods where Harry had seen the bodies. Much like the curiosity with Tanner’s device, he felt that same instinct pull him out toward the woods. He wanted to know exactly what Harry had seen, and the only way for him to do that was to investigate it himself.
But before Benji stepped into the woods, he retrieved a face mask from inside. His father had prepared for all sorts of outcomes in a post-apocalyptic world, and a pandemic had been one of them.
Protected with his N-95, Benji still approached the area cautiously. He didn’t want to misstep or spook anyone if they were still nearby.
But when the smell finally hit Benji, he stopped, stepping back. Even the protection of the mask couldn’t completely filter out the stench of the dead. And when Benji saw the hole dug in the woods, which was a massive pit, and the bodies down below covered in what he believed was lime.
