In the couple’s bedroom, Mark found that he and the man of the house had been close to the same size. He packed two complete changes of clothes. The tennis shoes were a size too small, which disappointed Mark. They were nicer than any he had ever owned. Mark returned to the kitchen and began scavenging the cupboards. He packed enough food and water for several meals. He then walked into the living room and studied a shelf filled with paperback books. Mark smiled at the wide selection, picking up a Steinbeck and a Hemingway, adding an Orwell and something called Desperate Times. He tossed them into the backpack and he cinched down the flap.
Mark’s plan was, should he survive the night, to put at least twenty miles between himself and Kansas City. He envisioned a base camp, someplace outdoors, somewhere wooded with a stream or a river. He would spend a few days there and use the time to come up with a game plan.
With daylight fading, Mark slipped out of the house. He wanted to get back to the park and recover the tripod, along with the rest of the ammunition he had left in the restroom. Once he was there, Mark was confident he could find his way back to Pendleton’s house. He felt certain that he would find Rodney there. If Mark’s suspicions proved to be true, Rodney would be the first to die. Mark crept along the alleyways, hiding behind parked cars and garages, straining his ears as he listened. By the time he reached the park, the sky was a deep shade of purple. Mark ran across the road and set his sights on the concrete bathroom, roughly two hundred yards away.
Mark paused to catch his breath inside the bathroom. He packed the remaining magazines into the backpack. By the time he stepped outside, the black sky was filled with twinkling stars. Mark walked straight across the park, finding a sign that identified Oak Street, his eyes barely able to read it in the starlight. Pendleton’s house was on that street, but Mark wasn’t about to stroll up to Pendleton’s house. He would take the alley across the street, trusting that he would find the house by listening for the generator.
Mark moved slowly down the alley, cautiously crossing the side streets. As he crossed the sixth or seventh of these streets, Mark heard the telltale thrum of Pendleton’s diesel generator. Mark walked another three blocks before stashing his backpack between two trash cans and a brownstone garage. The sound of the generator was much louder here. Mark began slipping between the houses. He stopped when he spotted the house. The house was blazing in electric light. Mark narrowed his eyes, seeing dark shapes out in the big screened porch.
Mark knew that if he got close enough the yellow light and the Schmidt and Bender scope would be able to help him zero in on his targets. Following the alley, Mark moved in short bursts until Pendleton’s house appeared. Using all of his acquired skills, Mark slipped along the side of the house that sat across Oak Street from Pendleton’s Victorian. It struck Mark as being somehow obscene, seeing so many lights on inside one house. Dark shadows drifted past the windows. Mark studied his surroundings and found what he thought was the perfect spot to reattach the tripod to the rifle. The dark brownstone across from Pendleton’s also had a front porch, with four foot walls to hide behind. Moving an inch at a time, Mark crawled up the concrete stairs on his stomach.
Carefully, Mark refitted the tripod onto the M40A5. He had a flash of anger as music suddenly exploded from the house. Mark recognized the distinct sound of The Police and he shook his head. He imagined a Russian soldier playing Tina’s CD’s to entertain his buddies, while they waited to take their turn on top of her. Slowly, Mark lifted his rifle into place, setting the tripod onto the foot wide ledge, on top of the short wall. He then removed the lens covers from the scope and settled in behind the rifle.
“You rotten bastard,” he whispered. “You are so dead, Rodney.”
Rodney sat out on the porch, surrounded by Russian officers. They were drinking and all of the men were smiling. With trembling fingers, Mark pinched the bolt and chambered a round. He then dropped the crosshairs until they rested between Rodney’s eyes. “This one is for you, Gadget,” he whispered.
Just then, three other men emerged from the house. Mark gasped. Pendleton and Allenby, wearing their finest suits and carrying large snifters, sauntered out and lit up cigars. Following them, much to Mark’s horror, was Colonel Klinger. He was still dressed in his battle fatigues and he also carried a snifter. Allenby offered Klinger a cigar and he took it from him. One of the Russian officers joined them and he also received a cigar from Dean Allenby. Mark felt as if his head was about to explode. He set the crosshairs upon Colonel Klinger, dead center between the eyes, and Mark pulled the trigger.
Chapter 34
The sound suppressor was no silencer, and the sound of the gunshot sent the men scrambling. Mark quickly found Rodney in the scope and he fired. That gunshot sent the men to the floor of the porch. Mark nearly screamed when he saw Klinger crawl over to Rodney. Somehow, he had missed. Mark couldn’t believe it. Now, Rodney was climbing to his feet. There wasn’t a mark on him. “Blanks,” muttered Mark. “Of course, you dirty son of a bitch, you gave me blanks.”
Colonel Klinger was now standing on the steps of the porch. He waved in Mark’s direction. “Master Sergeant SleepingBear,” he shouted, “is that you? We need to talk!”
“I’ll be there soon, Josie,” whispered Mark. He unsnapped his holster and removed his .45. He then began creeping toward the stairs.
“A lot has transpired since we last spoke,” shouted Klinger. “You have nothing to fear!”
“You lying piece of shit,” shouted Mark. He then ran down to the lawn and across the street. He stopped twenty feet from where Klinger stood and he raised the .45. He aimed for center mass and fired off three quick rounds.
Klinger didn’t move. “Master Sergeant,” he barked. “Stop shooting, that’s an order.”
Mark’s ears were ringing. He thought that Klinger must be wearing some sort of body armor, so he took aim for a head shot. Klinger stared at him with something that looked like pity. Mark pulled the trigger and the .45 bucked in his hand.
And still, Klinger stood his ground.
Mark lowered his gun, wondering how Klinger had replaced his ammunition with blanks. Mark took aim at his own boot and pulled the trigger. There was an explosion and the gun kicked, but no bullet struck his combat boot. Ears ringing, he shook his head. “How did you do it?” he asked. “Wait a minute, why did you do it? How could you betray us?”
The other men had all gathered behind Klinger and they watched as he walked over to Mark. None of them held a weapon on him, which surprised Mark. What surprised Mark even more was the sight of Lindeman, standing at the back of the porch. Tina and Wen emerged from the house and they stood behind him. “Put that damn thing away,” said Klinger. “Hell, you might as well throw that damn thing away.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look around, will you? None of us understand. Come on up and have a drink. I’ll fill you in on what I know.”
Mark shook his head. “I heard the gunshots. I heard the battle. How many people died today?”
Klinger stopped and stood in front of Mark. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nobody died. There were no casualties, not a single one.”
Mark held his hands up in front of himself and shook his head. “You don’t actually expect me to believe that, do you?”
“You can believe whatever the hell you like. I don’t give a shit what you believe. I’m telling you that not a single bullet was fired today. The Russians had us dead to rights, we were completely surrounded. We fired, they fired; you should have seen it. Why, just thinking about it gives me goose-bumps. The looks on their faces was priceless. They opened up with a barrage of automatic gunfire, from barely thirty meters away, and not a single man fell.”
“I don’t believe you. That’s impossible, sir.”
“He speaks the truth,” said a man from the porch, in a voice that was decidedly Russian.
“And now we’re all friends? Am I supposed to believe that, too?”
Klinger gav
e a short laugh and shrugged his shoulders. “What, are we supposed to put up our dukes and slug it out? Master Sergeant, you need to wrap your head around what happened out there, today. Whatever it was, it wasn’t caused by anything of this world. Some folks are calling it an act of God and others are saying its E.T. Everyone agrees that it’s all tied together with the big die-off. Personally, I don’t have the faintest idea of what’s going on. What I do know, and what my Russian counterpart happens to agree with, is that we had better stop killing each other. That seemed to be the message.”
Mark felt as if his breath had been sucked from his lungs. “I don’t understand,” he said, “what should we do now?”
“Personally, I’ve never believed in aliens. You can do whatever you want, but I’m going to pray.”
Mark stared up to the porch, into the faces of the men and women who stood there. What he saw was fear, tempered by the belief that whatever they were up against, it was bigger than anything of this world. If they were to survive, they would need to work together. Out of habit, Mark dropped the useless .45 into his holster. He and Klinger stepped up onto the porch and suddenly, a dozen voices were explaining to him what had happened.
After his long nap, Mark stayed up late into the night. No one seemed to want to sleep, even the Russians stayed up until dawn threatened to cast daylight upon them. Mark said his goodnights and returned to the RV. He wasn’t sure if he could sleep, but knew he wanted to try. He quickly undressed and opened the door to the back bedroom. Tina was on the bed, covered up to her bare shoulders with a sheet. “Are you serious?” he asked.
Tina narrowed her eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“What are you doing out here?” asked Mark. “Won’t George miss you?”
“George already has a girlfriend. Besides, what makes you think that I’m interested in George?”
“Give me a break, I’m not stupid. I saw the way that you two were looking at each other. Get out of there. Go back to your guestroom. I don’t want you in my bed.”
“Look, nothing happened between George and me. You have to believe that. He said that his dad would insist that I slept in the guestroom, because you and I aren’t married. What was I supposed to say to him? I thought we were trying to make a good impression. I love you, Mark. Let me prove that to you. I’m afraid. I’ve never felt so afraid.”
“So, why aren’t you back inside the guestroom?”
“Because, Mark, Mr. Pendleton gave the room to the Russian General, or whatever he is.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Don’t be this way.”
Mark stood in the doorway and crossed his arms. The world he lived in had suddenly been turned upside-down. The only thing that Mark understood was that he understood nothing. Did character, morals, scruples, or even love, have any place in this odd new world? Mark was beginning to have his doubts. Then again, maybe they had never been so important. He stared at Tina’s bare shoulders, at the way her auburn hair tumbled across the pillow. At that moment, he wanted her, perhaps as much as he had ever wanted any woman. Still, he hated himself for wanting her. Tina stared back at him and their eyes locked. Tina’s smoky gaze threatened to spark a fire inside of him.
And inside Mark, the battle raged on.
The end
I would like to take a moment to thank you for your support. I can’t say that enough. I am continuously humbled by the kind words of my readers, both old and new. Special thanks to Sue Rush McInnis and Teresa Hessler for their help and support along the way. You gals are the greatest.
I am a one man band of sorts, armed with only a high school diploma and an overactive imagination. I do the best I can. I have a regular job and devote as much time to my writing as humanly possible. When I feel that I’ve done all I can, I publish, warts and all. I hate imposing on my friends for editing help and quite honestly: I simply can’t afford to hire someone. Maybe someday that will change, but for now, it’s just a fact of life. My hopes are that the stories are good enough to help you see past my shortcomings as a writer. I never claimed to be an English Major, only a storyteller.
God bless you and yours.
Added Author’s notes
I’d like to begin by thanking you and to say that I hope you enjoyed the story. More importantly, I hope you were able to take something away from your reading experience. Being an indie novelist, I don’t have the luxury of outside opinions to let me know if I missed my mark. I write, rewrite, edit, and publish; warts and all. As they say in the business, it’s like dressing up your child to be shot.
One of the many wonderful aspects of the technical revolution is an author’s ability to address thoughts and opinions, even actual events, as they arise. Today is the 2nd of May, 2014, 10 weeks after Bunkers was published, and I would like to take a minute to clear something up: I’ve read some of the reviews of this story and I would like to address those that accuse me of rushing to slop together an ending. I can assure you that I did no such thing and that my ending was conceived long before this story was ever written.
I grew up during the Cold War era, a time of great uncertainty and terror; the dark years where this story is rooted. I vividly remember the air-raid drills and being ushered into our school’s excuse for a fallout shelter. Even at that tender age, I knew that there would be no surviving a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Everyone I knew, everything I loved, anything I had ever dreamed of, would be completely annihilated in the blink of an eye. As a child, I couldn’t let my mind go there. If and when the Doomsday Clock ticked down to Nuclear Midnight, I imagined a great hand appearing in the clouds which would pluck the missiles out of the sky, saving humanity from self-destruction. I suppose many of us shared that same delusion.
My story began with that type of ending in mind. I wrote of a world that was spiraling out of control, poised on the brink of a nuclear holocaust. I wanted to leave you with a message of hope; an impossible twist in a nightmarish scenario. If you feel that I cheated you in the process, I apologize, for that was not my intention.
For the record: I do not believe in fairy tale endings and I have absolutely no faith in the egomaniacs that currently control these hellish weapons. In the 10 weeks since publishing this story, very little has happened to restore that faith. Russia has since taken Crimea and stands poised to invade Eastern Europe, which the mainstream news media has seized upon to speculate upon if this could be the beginning of World War Three. I’m sure this has greatly pleased the sponsors of these newscasts.
Let me get back to my message: would you rather I ended Mark’s story on a more realistic note? If that’s the type of tale you wish to read, let me suggest Nevil Shute’s classic: On the Beach. I couldn’t go there with my story; it’s already been done, and done by one of the greatest writers to ever put a pen to paper. No, like it or not, I’ll continue to deliver the same type of drivel that I’m known for. I’ll continue to strive to lead my readers down a path, only to pull the rug out from underneath them at the end. The last thing I want someone to say is that they saw my ending coming from a mile away, for (in my own mind) there is nothing more shameful than that.
That’s pretty much all I wanted to say. I might add that just 10 weeks ago, it was inconceivable to think that a Boeing 777 could vanish into thin air. At the time of this writing, for all intents and purposes, the story of Malaysian 370 has ended. In this day and age, how could this happen? And given the fact that such a thing has actually happened, isn’t it plausible to think that it might happen again, on a much larger scale? We certainly can’t rule it out. Which brings me back to my childhood delusion of vanishing nuclear missiles: perhaps I wasn’t so deluded, after all.
Thanks again for your continued support. Live, love, and laugh.
Sincerely,
Nick
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