GREEK ISLAND
Jacqueline Druga
Greek Island
By Jacqueline Druga
Copyright 2011 by Jacqueline Druga.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Photos courtesy of: William Atkin and Survival Spot.
For the best in survival resources, Author, Jacqueline Druga, highly recommends the website, The Survival Spot, a highly informative and amazing site.
http://www.survival-spot.com/survival-blog/
CHAPTER ONE
In a hell world with little left, who would need an office? Apparently me. Perhaps it was my addiction to always being in charge.
My office wasn’t much. It probably could be better. But it was my office and living space. I made it that way. Building a counter top against the wall for my computer and work things instead of a desk, allotted me the room for a bunk and a cabinet for my clothes. But it was cool. However, sometimes being that close to the boiler room made it unbearable.
I was lucky that the temperature rarely exceeded 78. A person of my size in that closed in of space wasn’t comfortable. Often my wife would joke I sucked the oxygen out of a room. Christ, I wasn’t that big, an inch or two over six foot. It was the bulk I carried. It made me perspire easily. In fact, as I sat there that day I had a line of sweat just behind my back hairline, and it wasn’t from the temperature. I knew it was coming. It was time. I tapped the pencil in anticipation. I could hear his footsteps approaching. He was like clockwork, every month, same date, same time.
Knock-knock-knock.
A single strand of my hair fell forward and I swiped my hand across the top of my head pulling it into the ponytail I wore. I didn’t want to look frazzled. I swiveled my chair and called out, “Come in.”
Marcus entered. Not fully. He kind of stood in the door frame, holding on to the door. He was thin man, early thirties, and fortunate enough to have an olive complexion. He never looked sick, tired, or pale. “Hey, Captain, it’s the 26th. What’s the word?”
“Davidson hasn’t even been in yet. I’ll get a hold of him to do it.”
“Then you’ll come to the rec room and tell us?” he asked.
“As I always do.”
Then Marcus did something he rarely did upon exit. He smiled … widely, too. “I have a good feeling today, Captain,” he said. “A really good feeling. This is the day.”
“Last month …”
“Yes, but it showed promise. Right?”
I nodded.
“And it’s the 26th.”
I chuckled. “You’ve said that.”
“No, it’s August 26th. Today’s the day.” He hit his fist against his chest. “I feel it. I really feel it.”
I only nodded with a forced smile, and then Marcus closed the door.
I lifted the radio from my counter-desk top, and depressed the button. “Ray, come in, over.”
“Yeah, Captain, I hear you.” Ray’s voice was husky and raspy, so unlike his physical appearance.
Static.
“It’s the 26th, Ray, over.”
“Yep, I know. I was waiting for the call.”
Static.
“Did you take care of it? Over.”
“Not yet. Was waiting for you to give the go ahead.”
Static
“You got your go ahead. See me when you’ve got it. Out.”
For some reason I held on to the radio, tapping the top of it to my lips. It was the 26th. August 26th. Perhaps by some miracle Marcus would be right. One would only hope. I doubted it though. I was too educated to believe that.
Of course, five years earlier, my educated self would never have believed I would be sitting in a little office next to a boiler room.
August 26th.
The anniversary.
CHAPTER TWO
Five years before, it was just an out of control day. The heat was unbearable, humidity high. I was on a long, deserved leave from the Army. In fact, I planned it that way. I wanted to take time to work on and possibly finish my novel. Four weeks would be perfect.
I had always been a writer, prolific, too. Even when I was in combat, I pulled out my tablet and pen and wrote. Whatever I could. When I could. While other’s slept, I sat, light in my mouth, etching my thoughts on paper.
But when I was moved to a command position in the recruiting, I never realized the difference in pressure between that in infantry.
Suddenly my days grew longer. I felt guilty for wanting to devote a few hours in the evening to penning my creative endeavors. I hated the thought of taking that time away from my family, when I already spent so much time away from them.
Although I would proclaim my writing never took a back burner position, it certainly became something I didn’t do as often. An hour in the evening, sometimes more if my wife wanted to watch a movie or television program. A couple hours on Sunday and lots of car writing.
I longed to dedicate some time to my passion.
When my wife, Jade, suggested lumping together my R and R leave to do some writing, I jumped at that. I looked forward to the writing leave and anticipated it with so much enthusiasm; one would have thought I was planning an exotic vacation.
In a sense I was. I was escaping, even if it was to the regions of my mind.
Of course, the novel I was writing wasn’t paradise.
It dealt with nuclear war.
One of my favorite subjects to read and write about, I researched as if I didn’t already have the knowledge. I loved to research.
It was during a simple search that I discovered it.
‘Resort opens its door to the public’
Holy cow, I had forgotten about that. Project Greek Island. A complex underground bunker big enough to house 1,000 people for six months in the event of a nuclear holocaust. The structure was built in the sixties, kept secret, and revealed in 1995.
I couldn’t believe it.
Ecstatic, I broke the idea to Jade.
“A day trip?” she asked.
“Yes, it’ll be fun. Me, you, the kids. Three hour trip. What do you think?”
“Where are we going?”
“A bomb shelter.”
At first she laughed, and then she tipped that smile. “You aren’t joking.”
I told her all about it. How it was built, when, all the facts. I uttered the words with child like enthusiasm.
She was silent, then her smile returned. “Hal, I can just see you there with your camera. Oh, my God, what a great inspirational tool. Let’s do it. I can’t wait.”
Jade was perfect. So supportive. I grabbed her and kissed her and immediately went to tell the boys about our impending trip. They weren’t quite as excited as Jade or me. Then again, Brad and Jimmy were only twelve and fourteen.
But they presented well.
We were supposed to go on the eighteenth, but Jimmy ended up chipping a tooth while wrestling and we canceled. We tried again on the twentieth, but Jade had to work. The twenty-first didn’t pan out. It was pushing the start of school and I grew fearful we would never make the trip. Finally, the 26th came, no major problems, the car was packed, and the boys were waiting outside. Where was Jade?
“Jade, come on, I want to make the ten o’clock tour,” I said, walking into the living room.
She was perched before the television.
The newscaster was saying something like, “China has made its push …”
I shut off the set. “Let’s go.” I grabbed her hand.
“Hal, this is important. I want to watch.”
“So is this, sweetie.” I laid m
y fingers to her cheek, speaking in my best persuasive voice. “We can listen to the news in the car if you want.” I leaned into her and kissed her gently.
She shook her head. “No. No news. This is a family day.”
That surprised me. Jade was such a news hound. But it made me happy. I grinned, clutched her hand tighter and we left the house.
***
I would like to say the road trip was inconsequential. Unfortunately, anyone with children, even teens and preteens can tell you no road trip is easy. Even the short ones. We had to stop for restroom breaks three times, because no one could ‘go’ at the same time. It was a three hour drive. The boys didn’t fight or argue, they brought their miniature pocket music players. Jade and I played this stupid game called ‘Yellow’ where you call out when you see a yellow car and keep score. There aren’t many yellow cars in West Virginia.
For her and I, it was a nice drive. No music. No radio. No bickering.
We pulled onto the drive that led to the hotel property. You could see the roof top of the resort, buried in the lush trees of the mountains.
“Say, Captain,” Brad leaned between the front two seats. I raised my eyes to the mirror and caught his refection. He could have been me at that age. Pushing thirteen in a month. His hair rebelliously long to his shoulders and blonde, like mine was at that age. He may not have been my biological son, but he looked like me. So much so, people swore he was my offspring. I loved him no less than if he were, and I championed him at times because he reminded me of the youth I loved.
Following his typical, ‘Say, Captain’, I did my stock cringe. Though I found it funny that after four years he still called me ‘Captain’.
“How come we aren’t staying at this place?” he asked. “It looks cool.”
“It’s expensive,” I replied. “Too expensive.”
“What’s too expensive?”
“Over four hundred a night for the cheapest room,” I replied.
“So.”
“So? Brad. That equals over eight hundred because we’d have to get two rooms.”
“Why do we need two rooms?”
After a sigh, I replied, “Because I like to take advantage of your mother.”
He groaned. I smiled. That did it, he sat back. No more questions. I watched him intermittently in the mirror, doing what I thought he’d do. Seek ‘grossed out’ support from his brother.
“Hey, Jim, did you hear what he said?” Brad nudged his bother.
Jimmy removed one of his earpieces. “What?”
“He said he wants to take advantage of our mother.”
“He can be so foul.”
I fluttered my eyes in my typical arrogant fashion as I looked to Jade and mouthed the word, ‘foul’ in question.
She laughed.
Typical. She found amusement at my expense.
We arrived a few minutes early for the tour. After I paid the astronomical fee, I filled with excitement and readied my camera.
The intent of the facility constructed in 1958 was in the event of an all out national emergency; senators and leaders could go there and run the government. 112,000 square feet, it was huge. It had its own generator, meeting room, dorms, a cafeteria, hospital … you name it. A virtual city underground. They even had a television room for broadcasting and for receiving news. The site had been maintained by the government for thirty years before the need for it became a novelty. The hotel then took it over. Updating, refurbishing, rotating supplies.
They did it more so for the tours rather than the need. Even adding rooms named after the senators who were in charge during the construction.
I had heard about it all my life, read about it, but it was a reality and I was grateful for the chance to see it.
I was like a child in a chocolate factory. Even my family seemed enthused. Brad posed for a picture in one of the hospital beds. We all got a chuckle out of that until the tour guide scolded us for ‘touching’.
There were twenty-five of us on the guided tour, and it was supposed to last ninety minutes.
One third of the way through I had already taken close to a hundred shots.
Halfway through, alarms started sounding.
The tour guide, Madeline, who had been so assured in her guiding with her, ‘this way, follow me’ looked quizzically up to the flashing red lights.
Her phone rang and she lifted it.
She turned her back, gasped, and lowered her head.
Within seconds a security guard flew past us, his radio blasting, ‘three minutes to lock down’.
Buzz-Buzz-Buzz.
Flashing red lights.
“Hal?” Jade questioned with concern, grabbing my arm.
Smug, I tapped her hand and whispered. “It’s part of the tour. Watch, she’ll bring us to another room.”
Madeline ended the call. “If I can get you folks to follow me, please. This way.”
“What’s going on?” someone asked. “Is this part of the tour?”
“Just follow me.” Then she turned and started walking.
We followed and I felt the sigh of relief from Jade.
“See?” I whispered. “They have to add some excitement for twenty-five dollars a pop. I’d do the same thing.”
No sooner had I said that another security guard rushed by. That was the only thing that irritated me about the little ‘show’. The guards seemed so reckless. Surely they were taking into account that people would be hurt.
We were ushered toward the news and media room. As we were doing so, I could see people running into the vault from the tunnel.
I paused.
“This way, sir,” Madeline said.
“Hal?” Jade questioned.
I looked back. The door began to close. As if automatically. And three security guys fought diligently to keep it open.
To no avail.
It slammed, locked and a light went off above it. My guess to alert that the door was secure.
I thought, and maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I heard people pounding.
But I didn’t get to stick around and find out.
We were brought into the news and media room.
Jade huddled close to me and I brought the boys into our private group.
“Calm,” I instructed. “This has to be part of the tour. Like visiting a haunted house. Remember Brad when we went and they made it seem as if zombies had taken over.”
Brad nodded.
“Same thing.”
“Hal,” Jade said. “I don’t get that feeling. What happens if this isn’t a fake thing?”
I secured my arm around my wife and tugged her into me with security. “Then we couldn’t be in a better place.”
“Listen up,” Madeline called for attention. “Please. Please.” She held her hands out. “I’m … I’m just as confused as you. This is Jenkins Brown. Director of the shelter and resort.”
Jenkins looked frazzled and that was putting it mildly. He ran his hand through his thinning hair as he took place in front of the wall of monitors.
He held up a hand to the emergence of voices, silencing them with a wave or two. “We’re going to be putting these on for as long as they stay,” he said. “I assure you this is not an act. This is real. More than myself, the television can explain. I will say this. You are safe in here and secured. No one else can get in or out. Even though we are privately funded we are on automatic and linked with the government. The doors are secure and can’t even be manually opened for seventy-two hours. Now, I’ll just …” Nervously he grabbed a remote and placed on the first television.
That was all I needed to see. It wasn’t an act. It wasn’t a set up. The CNN news broadcasters were trying to maintain their calm.
But how could they? How could they deliver the news and tell people what to do? It was impossible Just as it was impossible for the next fifteen minutes in the shelter. Impossible to stay calm, to not hold your breath. To not be scared as hell as we watched the reports of attack
s and the names of cities, that one by one, were disappearing and being destroyed by nuclear attack.
CHAPTER THREE
The attacks began on the United States soil roughly around ten-thirty AM, by six PM, we were running on generator power. EMP pulses had knocked out electricity, even in our remote location.
There were forty-two of us in the shelter. Only several made it from the rooms. And I couldn’t tell you how many waited outside the vault door. They had three days.
The television stopped playing, but the emergency broadcasting system came on every half hour. Most of the time it was the same reports. Stay inside. Stay below, blah, blah, blah.
Jenkins may have been the director of the shelter, but he was of little help. For the most part, people were panicking. They were upset, tired, hungry, and confused. Things began to get out of control with hysteria nearly right away. Only a select few kept their wits. People cried. They cried a lot. They had questions, with no one to give them answers. The select few who kept it in check, were the ones I called upon.
Ray and Marcus were two of them.
Ray was a maintenance man with the bunker. He knew it inside and out. No family to talk about so the circumstances of the war were the least of his worries. He barely seemed phased.
Twice he said to me, “I knew this was coming. I knew it. It had to.”
Marcus was a school teacher. He taught troubled teens and had this remarkable ability to turn a hysterical person into a calm one. I asked him to handle that aspect of everything while Ray and I worked out other details.
It was about an hour after the televisions stopped playing, around two PM, that the three of us formed the team. It wasn’t on purpose.
“I can’t just sit here,” I told Jade.
“What are you gonna do?” she asked. “You can’t leave.”
“No, we can’t. So we might as well prepare for the stay. Why aren’t they doing that?”
“Because it’s still early.”
“Sweetheart, some assimilation of organization will give these people some essence of structure and structure brings calm. We have to calm them down.” I sighed out and walked toward the door of the media room.
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