Bunker: Boxed Set (Books 1, 2, and 3)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Bunker watched Jeffrey pile them up by his mother’s feet, counting at least twenty. The boy made eye contact with him. “That’s all of them, Mr. Bunker.”

  “Good work, now get everyone to safety like your mother said.”

  “Will Megan be okay? She sounds really scared,” Jeffrey asked his mother.

  “We’ll get her out, I promise. But you need to go take care of all your new friends. Up on the road, now.”

  Jeffrey nodded.

  One by one, the group filtered out of the clearing and into the brush, where the incline to the road was waiting for them.

  After the last one disappeared, Stephanie looked at Bunker. “For a moment there, I thought he wasn’t going to listen to me.”

  “He’s a good kid. So are the rest. They only wanted to help the girl, and that says a lot.”

  “Thanks for saying that. As a mom, I try to teach him to always do the right thing, but sometimes, I’m not sure I’m getting through. It’s tough with his asshole of a father always getting in the way. Plus, all the influence of social media and video games. Kids these days are hit from all sides with way too much information. And way too much opinion. It makes being a parent just that much harder. Sometimes, I want to scream.”

  “From what I can see, you did good,” Bunker told her in a firm tone. “But I have to ask, you said the phrase new friends a little bit ago. Doesn’t Jeffrey know these kids from school? It’s a small town, after all.”

  “We’ve always home-schooled him. It’s what his father wanted.”

  “You taught him?”

  “No. We hired a full time, live-in tutor. Cute girl. She was great until the divorce. Then she took sides. Since I wasn’t the one paying her, you know how that turned out. I’m pretty sure she was another notch on his conquest belt, too, though I could never prove it. And to think I trusted that girl.”

  “It happens.”

  “I mean, I get that he has all the money and power, but until recently, I never realized how many ways a man like him has to screw a woman. God, it never ends. Every time I turn around, it seems like he’s doing it to me again.”

  There was a long, awkward pause.

  “Wait, that didn’t come out right,” she said, looking embarrassed.

  He laughed, feeling his face flush. “I know what you meant. But we should really be focusing on Megan right now.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” she said, clearing her throat and taking a deep breath. “As far as I see, there’s only one way to do it . . . rescue Megan, I mean.”

  He nodded. “One of us is gonna have to go inside and get her.”

  “Yep, one of us,” she said while staring into the back of the bus.

  “And by that, I mean me. That’s why I wanted the belts. But I need you up here for counterweight.”

  “Wouldn’t it be the same if I just got in the back? Not on top?”

  “Up here is better. I think we’ll get a little more leverage that way.”

  “Really? I don’t see how. The back is the back, right?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. But either way, up here is where you need to be. It’s safer for you.”

  She looked up and nodded, not giving him any more grief about climbing up. Her hands and feet worked quickly, bringing her to Bunker’s position.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and was about to explain the plan, then realized he’d just violated her personal space rule—again. He pulled his hands away in a lurch. “Sorry, I keep forgetting.”

  She grabbed his hands and squeezed them. Her eyes were tight and fierce. “Focus, Bunker . . . Megan, remember? The little girl who needs our help.”

  “Right, right,” he stammered, unwrapping his fingers from hers. He pointed at the edge. “You sit there with your legs hanging over the back, while I go inside. But I need you to promise me something.”

  “Sure, what?”

  He lowered his voice, not wanting Megan to hear. “If you feel the bus start to go, you jump off.”

  She looked at the edge, then back at him. “You really think that’s gonna be necessary? I mean, we have all these rocks. And me.”

  “Well, if I were still a betting man, I’d say it’s three to one against. Maybe higher.”

  She blinked at him and didn’t respond.

  “So, promise me . . . You’ll jump off the very second you feel this thing start to move. Our number one priority has to be your son and the rest of the kids up there. Someone has to get them back to town.”

  She nodded, but kept silent.

  “I need you to say it.”

  She gulped, then whispered, “Okay. I promise. I’ll jump off if I need to.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Albert walked past his newly-assigned partner on Team Two and put his wide backside against the rectangular base of the memorial statue in the center of the town square.

  The towering bronze-colored structure was a likeness of Cyrus Clearwater, the town patriarch. The shadows being cast by the monument’s raised arms were long and pointing east, reminding him of a time not that long ago when he was sitting below the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt.

  Cyrus’ left hand was holding a huge spade-shaped shovel. In his right was a massive groundbreaking pick, both representative of the endless hours of hard work put in by the town founder and his family to forge a life in this lush but unforgiving wilderness.

  At least that was the story Albert had been told by one of his grade-school teachers. He couldn’t remember the old broad’s real name, but her saggy cheeks and the huge mole on her forehead were legendary. The kids called her Cyclops, that much he remembered. Not that any of it mattered. The tale of Cyrus Clearwater was ancient history to him.

  The man died way back in the dark ages—something like 1938, if he remembered correctly. Colon cancer was his downfall, he thought. Or maybe it was a brutal bear attack. He couldn’t be sure. Either way, the man got his ass handed to him and Albert couldn’t care less.

  He turned to his teammate standing to the right and put out his hand. “My name’s Albert.”

  “Dustin Brown,” the short-haired man answered, shaking hands with a doubly firm grip.

  Albert couldn’t believe the size of Dustin’s hand. It was both long and wide, reminiscent of what he would expect from a burly, 6’5” lumberjack.

  Dustin was tall, but not that tall, and he certainly wasn’t burly. He was maybe a buck-forty in weight, with a good portion of that in his massive, hooked nose. The dude’s deep-set eyes and stork-like physique made him look like something only the casting directors in Hollywood could conjure up for some movie shot in the starving deserts of Ethiopia.

  “Why’d you join this detail?” Albert asked, pulling his hand free from the grip and wondering if the underweight pencil standing across from him would snap under the first sign of pressure.

  “Seemed like the right thing to do when Sheriff Apollo asked me. For some reason, I just couldn’t say no. What about you?”

  “Always wanted to wear a badge. And maybe I’ll get to fire off a few rounds now and then.”

  “I’m sorry, what was that? Did you say you wanted to shoot somebody?”

  “Chill out. I never said that. But they must have a stockpile of weapons and a shooting range we get to use. Right?”

  “Honestly, that never crossed my mind.”

  “Oh, really?” Albert said, sizing up the guy’s answer. It didn’t sound legit. He decided to probe a little more, hoping to free the truth.

  “Don’t you want to test your skills and see if you measure up? I mean, what red-blooded American male doesn’t want to send some rounds downrange? They might even have some Tannerite we get to use.”

  “Tannerite?”

  “It’s a binary explosive,” Albert said, letting a smile grow on his lips. “It’s normally used for exploding targets. However, if you mix up a big batch of that stuff and shoot it with a high-powered rifle, it’ll send a garbage can into orbit. Been there, done that, if you know what I m
ean.”

  Dustin didn’t respond, so Albert decided to continue. “Well, actually, it was thirty pounds and my dad’s old, broken-down Ford Bronco. You should have seen it. It was epic. Looked like something out of Afghanistan when it was over.”

  “So that’s the reason you accepted this job? To blow stuff up?”

  “Yeah, sure. Part of it. But really, it’s all about the respect. You know, people doing what I say, when I say it. I finally have a chance to show all these assholes who the real Albert is.”

  “Okay, I can see that,” Dustin said, nodding slowly. “But remember, we’re only deputies. Temporary ones, at that. The Sheriff and Mayor are the men calling the shots.”

  “When they’re around, yes,” Albert said, pointing at the badge on his chest. “But when they’re not, this little piece of tin takes over and so does the man wearing it.”

  “Wow, and I thought I had issues.”

  Albert ignored the insult, deciding to drive home his point to his new partner. “I’m sick and tired of people judging me because of my weight. That’s why I took a sabbatical from this shit-stain of a town when I had the chance. Just ‘cause I’m heavy doesn’t mean I’m not a real person. Or that I’m stupid or something. It never ends. It’s just like with my hair. I can’t help the fact that it’s super curly. It came that way.”

  “You could cut it, though. Wearing it long like that must get hot in the summer. I’m guessing the Sheriff Department’s Rules and Regs call for high and tight, or something along those lines.”

  “I used to keep it short, but with my round face, it gave the cretins in school more ammo to cut me down. So after high school, I went with the long, scraggly look to portray a different persona. Hopefully backing a few of them the fuck off in the process. Being me in public is exhausting.”

  “I get that. People have been doing that to me, too. When you’re the skinniest kid in school, it isn’t exactly a recipe to make friends. Usually it just gets you a serious beat-down at lunch hour. But what really sucks is that it didn’t stop after graduation. I thought once we all got older, the slams and insults would’ve stopped. But they didn’t. Seems like every time I turn around, someone’s calling me stork or Starvin’ Marvin or something along those lines.”

  Albert held back a laugh, even though those nicknames fit Dustin perfectly. He didn’t want to insult the man or sound like a total hypocrite. “Yeah, I feel your pain. I may be slow of foot, but I can be agile when I want to be.”

  “Adrenaline can do that.”

  “You got that right, brother. We all know that mass times acceleration equals force, and trust me, there’s a lot of force in this body.”

  “You think we’re gonna need it? Force, I mean.”

  “No doubt. There’s no telling what’s gonna happen now that society is tumbling into chaos, right before our very eyes.”

  Dustin turned his head, then his shoulders toward the activity in the center of town. Albert’s eyes focused on the same.

  On the left was Charmer’s Market and Feed Store. On the right was a seven-pump gas station called Billy’s Pump and Munch. Both were packed with people milling about.

  “Stupid morons,” Albert said, pointing at the grocery store. “I wonder how many of them are expecting to pay with their debit cards? Not going to work, dumbasses. Neither are the cash registers. Or freezers. Or anything else.”

  Dustin chuckled, then nodded in the direction of the closest gas pump. “Almost as bad as the idiots standing in that line to get fuel for their gas cans. Pumps don’t work without electricity, people,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at Albert. “And they call us stupid.”

  Albert laughed. “Gonna be some generators running dry tonight.”

  Right then, he realized Dustin wasn’t a total goof after all. They certainly shared the same sense of humor, so far at least. Even so, he wasn’t quite ready to label Dustin a cool dude, but he was considering it.

  During his stints in LA and then the Big Apple, Albert had met a slew of candidates who turned out to be nothing more than Neanderthals who could spell. Well, sort of—their names at least, but getting the cement heads to follow orders was always problematic. Was it any wonder the fat stacks of cash always seemed to elude them?

  Stupidity is an endless commodity was his favorite saying. If he hadn’t shown up when he did in LA, the crew would’ve eventually perished, along with their inventory.

  “Look at them,” Dustin said, chuckling.

  “Maybe we should go over there and explain it to them.”

  Dustin smirked. “Nah, why bother? It’s not our job. I say we let ‘em figure it out on their own. Besides, watching those morons gives us something to do. It’s almost like we have our very own reality TV channel, right here in the center of Clearwater.”

  “Oh, shit!” Albert said, seeing two of the men near the front of the line put down their five-gallon gas cans and start throwing punches at each other.

  “What should we do?”

  “You go inform the Sheriff.”

  “What about you?”

  Albert looked at the gas station, then back at Dustin, feeling his blood pressure rising by the second. “Time to start earning my deputy pay.”

  “Are you sure? Those guys are pretty big.”

  “Yeah. Go. I got this.”

  Dustin took off running for the Sheriff’s Office, looking like an uncoordinated giraffe crossing the square. Jogging clearly wasn’t his thing.

  Albert sucked in a breath and put on his warrior face, then charged across the street. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but it was time to see if his new gig would change people’s perception about him. His old persona, at least. The new Albert needed to stay locked away and out of sight until the time was right.

  When he arrived, he wedged his shoulders in between the two combatants, both of whom were at least six inches taller than him. He turned sideways and put a raised forearm on each man’s chest, shoving them apart.

  “What’s going on here?” Albert asked, his voice choppy and out of breath.

  “You need to leave, Albert. This doesn’t concern you,” the bronze-skinned man said, his voice deep and his chin stiff.

  Albert recognized him as town mechanic and former high school acquaintance, Burt Lowenstein. A man whose fingernails were always dirty and so were his coveralls. His BO was legendary, even before he became a professional wrench.

  “Well, actually it does,” Albert said, pointing to his chest. “You see this badge? It says Deputy Sheriff. I know you flunked English and all, but those words mean I own your ass and you need to do what I say, Burt.”

  “Yeah, right. So what genius decided to give a tub like you a badge?”

  “Sheriff Apollo. And just so you know, my partner just went to get him. He’ll be here any second.”

  Burt looked around, then brought his eyes back to Albert. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, pressing the tip of his index finger into Albert’s chest, once for each word. “It’s just you and me, fat ass. Just like old times.”

  Albert knocked his hand away and refrained from retaliating. He didn’t want to give away his recently acquired skills. He puffed out his heaving chest. “Raising a hand to an Officer of the Law is a felony, Burt. You need to stand down, right now, before I have no choice but to arrest you.”

  “Officer of the Law? Oh really, now?” he said, laughing. He brought his face in close and changed his tone to one of anger. “That’s not gonna happen, Albert. Ever. Do you remember what happened senior year after you turned my ass in for that chemistry experiment you did for me?”

  “Yeah, I remember. They expelled you. Should’ve paid me the two hundred. I warned you.”

  “No, not that. I’m talking about what happened a week later in the parking lot of Seven-Eleven. When me and my boys paid you a little visit.”

  “Yeah, that was like ten years ago. A lot’s changed since then.”

  “Just in case you forgot, you cried like a li
ttle bitch after it was done.”

  A series of flashbacks entered Albert’s mind, all of them filled with fists, pain, and blood. “I’m not that guy anymore. Besides, it was four on one. Not exactly a fair fight.”

  Burt ran his eyes up and down Albert’s physique. “Well, it’s just you and me now, jumbo,” he said, ramming his finger into Albert’s chest again, this time with double the force.

  “I’m outta here,” the man behind Albert said.

  “You just gonna let him leave, Officer?” Burt asked with attitude after leaning to the right to look past Albert.

  The boiling in Albert’s chest wanted him to lash out physically at Burt, but he quashed the idea. He swallowed hard, then licked his lips to make sure his words came out crisp and firm. “He’s of no consequence here. I figure you started this and he’s just an innocent bystander. Probably just protecting himself against you, like the rest of us have been doing all our lives.”

  Burt looked down at his feet and shook his head before bringing his eyes back up. A sly smile appeared on his lips as he held his arms in front of his waist. He brought his filthy wrists together, side by side. “Okay then, arrest me.”

  Albert had two ideas roaring in his brain. The first was tied to the man he used to be before he left this town, and the other was bubbling up from the new and improved version of himself.

  One plan would result in pain for himself and the other was targeted for Burt—the overconfident and unsuspecting Neanderthal standing within easy striking distance.

  Albert decided to keep his secrets a secret. He grabbed the man’s wrists with both hands. As expected, Burt reacted in an instant and grabbed Albert’s right thumb, bending it back with extreme force.

  The pain was intense, sending Albert down to the pavement on one knee. “Eeeooww,” he said, bending his elbow and swinging his body around to keep Burt from breaking his thumb.

  Before Albert could take another breath and plead for him to stop, a rush of wind whistled in from the right. A moment later, a black nightstick came into view and landed on the side of Burt’s head.