Forsaken World (Book 1): Innocence Lost

by Watson, Thomas A.

  “Lance, the shelves are full, and even the floor is full of boxes,” Jennifer said, waving her arm around the room.

  Looking at a box in front of him in the ammo storage hall, Lance saw a shipping label with his dad’s name, and the box wasn’t even open. “We’ll find room.”

  “Come on,” Ian said, walking back to the master control area. “Let’s see what we have to do first.”

  Ian climbed in the chair and typed the same numbers for the entry door into the password box. All the screens came on at once, making them jump. One row of six flat screen monitors showed the security cameras. The screens on the left were on but with screen savers moving over them. On the very top row, the screens showed digital dials and readouts.

  “The powerhouse is in standby and still putting out ten thousand watts?” Ian grinned and pointed at the last screen with a dial in the green and others at zero. “Rads?”

  “Fuck me,” Lance said, looking around at the back of the massive room at the compact living area. “This is a fallout bunker. They use it for storage, but when we opened the door, remember hearing that hiss? It’s airtight.”

  “Let’s just see what we have to do first,” Ian said, grabbing the mouse. He opened the folder on the desktop and found the first file. He clicked it and was surprised to see a video launch.

  “Hey, guys.” Doug’s face filled the video player. The video was shot in the same chair Ian was sitting in. “This is the layout of what has to happen when the first group gets here. If I’m not there yet, I’m on my way. I will be there.” Ian and Lance both felt lumps in their throats. “If I’m not in country, just follow what I have laid out. Your family info log on your flash drive will give you the basic layouts. Now, if you’re here or were sent here, then the shit has hit the fan. While you’re here, stay armed at all times with a radio, and if possible, have someone at master control to keep an eye out on cameras.

  “First, fence. Without a fence, anyone can just walk up here. It will slow an attack and give an area that you know is secure. You will use trees for the first fence because the second inner fence will be put up in step ten. The first fence will be just over eleven hundred feet on each side, and the inner fence will be a thousand, enclosing five acres. If you go to the front gate and walk from the side, you’ll find trees that I have marked with white thumb tacks. When you get to a red thumb tack, that tree is a corner,” Doug said, and the video changed to someone walking around the front of the cabin up to a tree. “White thumb tack,” Doug’s voice said, zooming in on a tree that was about a foot around.

  Then the video showed a red thumb tack on a tree twice the size of the first. Then, the video went back to master control with Doug back in the chair. “The equipment is in the second shop. To get to it, go in the shop, and you will see a parts cleaner. Behind it, you will see where it’s plugged in, and like the socket box into the bunker, it has a keypad, and the combination is the same, but the keypad is upside down.”

  They watched the video as Doug and Lance’s dad, Johnathan, built a twenty-foot section, showing the tools and how to tighten the wire. Instead of the fence nails Lance and Ian thought they would use, Doug and Johnathan used screws and pieces of metal to secure the barbwire to the trees. Then, the two pulled out rolls of wire that Doug called razor wire. Threading the bottom strand through the roll, they screwed it up six inches from the ground. Each strand after that was six inches from the next with a roll of razor wire put on the fourth and top strands for a total of eighteen strands.

  Doug explained that hammering could be heard from a long ways off so to use the screws, and hammer only when you had to. When the fence was up, they stared with open mouths as Doug climbed the fence like a ladder, spreading out the razor wire, then Johnathan brought over a ladder. Doug wrapped regular wire around the top strand then ran it to the next and tightened it. The fact the fence strands barely bowed with Doug’s massive size showed just how much tension the barbwire was under.

  Doug and Johnathan kept running wire from top to bottom, connecting strands to the one above and below. All the vertical wire was just regular, heavy gauge bailing wire, and Doug explained it was just to make it harder to separate the strands. Ian and Lance looked at the close-up of the barbwire, and the barbs seemed awful long and close together.

  When the video finished, Ian looked at Lance. “This may take us some time.”

  “Nah, we’ll be able to use the electric buggies to run the strands and just tack them up fast then straighten them out.”

  When it ended, Jennifer leaned over and closed the video. “Well, what can I do?”

  “Stay on the monitors, and radio us when you see anything, and I mean anything, so we can get back inside,” Lance said, getting up.

  “That’s it?” she cried out.

  “Hey, it has to be done so we don’t get ripped apart,” Lance snapped. “We’ve built fences—maybe not like this, but we’ve built stuff—you haven’t. Someone has to watch our ass unless you think we need to just work without a lookout?”

  “Fine,” Jennifer sighed, dropping her shoulders.

  Ian got out of the chair. “Jennifer, we’re all going to learn, but right now, you are the only one that can do this, and we are the only ones to put up the fence.”

  Seeing Jennifer giving in, Lance looked at his watch. “We have a few hours till sunrise. Make a plan, eat, and get started.”

  As they cooked, Ian and Lance made a list of what they would need from the video and how they would start. After food was ready, they woke up Allie and Carrie, and everyone sat down at the table. When grace was finished, Ian looked over at Lance. “You think we need to wear all that shit?”

  “Be prepared,” Lance said, grabbing his fork.

  Slowly picking up his fork, Ian mumbled, “Thought you would say that.”

  “It may be heavy and hot, but I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

  “Can I at least see the shop?” Jennifer asked, looking at them hopefully.

  “This evening, one of us will take you out there,” Lance told her between bites.

  “We want to help,” Allie said, sitting up straight.

  Ian groaned as Lance nodded, grabbing his glass. “Allie, you and Carrie will have to help, or we won’t make it,” Lance said then drained his glass. “That means you have to learn what we learn. Today, you two will learn how to watch the monitors and use the radio so you can tell us if someone is coming. That way, Jennifer can come out and help us sometimes, and both of you can too.”

  “That means no taking off to play, Allie,” Ian said, staring at her. “If you leave the monitors, someone could sneak up on us and kill us.”

  Allie’s and Carrie’s faces drained of color hearing that. “He’s right, girls,” Lance said, getting up to put his dishes in the dishwasher. “It’s going to be hard, but if we don’t work together, we all stand a good chance of getting killed. So can we count on you two? We won’t be able to keep an eye on you to make sure you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”

  Very slowly, the girls nodded. “We will do good,” Carrie said in a trembling voice.

  “That’s all I need to hear,” Lance said, walking over and patting their heads. He walked to the back of the cabin to the computer in the back corner and sat down. After eating another plate, Ian got up and put his dishes away then headed over to Lance.

  On the screen, Ian saw iTunes and a shitload of downloads. “What are you doing?”

  “Figure it won’t be up much longer, so I want to download as much as I can.”

  “Lance, there has to be thousands of DVDs down in the bunker.”

  “I know, and I’m not downloading many movies. I’m downloading songs,” Lance said and minimized the screen and pulled up an Amazon screen, and it showed a ton of downloads also. “I’m also getting books, info from boards, and a few programs.”

  Ian looked at the accounts. “Your mom and dad don’t have that much on any of your acco
unts.”

  “Oh, I know,” Lance said, holding up one of Doug’s credit cards.

  “Whoa, I want to get some stuff.”

  Lance handed over Doug’s wallet. “Get on my laptop. I’m downloading books on fighting, strategy, veterinarians, farming, and electronics.”

  “Lance, just from walking through the bunker, I saw a lot of books and some on those subjects.”

  “Well, with these, I know we have them.”

  Taking the wallet, Ian took off to the living room. “Okay, I’ll work on other books. For music, you concentrate on rock and dance.”

  Working on the downloads, Lance glanced at the monitors for the cameras and saw it was starting to get light out. Getting up, Lance saw the stack of downloads waiting and knew it was going to take several hours. “Ian, let’s get going.”

  After getting dressed and gearing up, they turned on their radios as Jennifer and the girls came over. “We will be in the bunker; please be careful,” Jennifer said, hugging them, followed by the girls.

  “Shit, Dino will be with us,” Ian chuckled. “He can take down a bear.”

  “Make sure if you see something, call out which door you are going to open,” Lance said, pulling the charging handle back on his AR, chambering a round.

  “I will,” Jennifer said, jogging over to the stairs. “I’ll call when we’re at master control.”

  Lance and Ian moved to the back door as the girls ran down the stairs to the basement. Dino was standing at the door, waiting for it to open. “Dino, don’t even think of running off,” Ian said, racking the charging handle of his AR.

  “It’s clear outside, and we are ready,” Jennifer said over the radio.

  Grabbing the squawk box on his chest, Lance pressed the button. “Opening and heading out.”

  They opened the door, and Dino trotted outside. They watched him start to sniff around and take care of business. “My god, Dino has to move further away from the house to take a dump,” Ian gasped. “Someone could trip over that and break a leg.”

  “We need to find a shovel and get it away from the cabin,” Lance said, looking around.

  “Screw that,” Ian huffed, bringing his AR across his chest. “I’m getting the water hose and spraying it down. I think after this fence, we will be too tired to lift shit.”

  They walked across the yard to the shop. Taking out the monster key, Lance opened one of the double doors. Turning on his tactical light mounted on the AR, he swept it around the room and reached over, turning on the overhead lights. The room had several large, heavy duty tables and heavy duty counters on the walls with tools mounted in the center of one wall by a large parts washer.

  Ian walked over and grabbed a flathead screwdriver. Flipping the four-socket outlet open, he found the keypad. “This is bullshit,” Ian said, pressing the code in. “They had this cool James Bond shit, and we didn’t even see it.”

  “The computer in the bunker doesn’t have wireless anything, so we never picked it up. The security cameras are running from the computer in the basement,” Lance said as the tool board gave a click and slid to the left an inch. “I never would’ve thought to check for this from our parents.”

  “You know, in the cabin, there is the small gun safe, the bows in the racks, the computers in the basement and beside the kitchen along with the stuff in the basement,” Lance said, looking around the shop, and waved his arm around. “There’s stuff here also. Just enough to convince someone if they broke in to be satisfied.”

  Nodding as he slid the tool board down, Ian chuckled. “I don’t think we could’ve gotten away with hiding porn under our mattresses.”

  Lance walked over after the tool board was slid away, exposing two doors. Using his key, Lance unlocked them. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said, opening one of the doors. “I can’t believe Jennifer saw me waking up with morning wood.”

  “Yeah, I’m sleeping in our room tonight. I woke up with a woody and stand up to have Jennifer run over from the kitchen. I ran away from her like a bitch.”

  Using his tactical light, Lance turned on the lights, and they just looked around with open mouths. “Look at all this stuff,” Ian said, moving between stacks of supplies. Along one wall was a CNC machine and a lathe. “That’s a 3-D printer,” Ian said, moving over to a table beside the CNC.

  Lance moved over and looked around to see other metalworking machines. “That’s the biggest 3-D printer I’ve seen, and that’s a 3-D scanner,” Lance said, pointing at another table.

  “Wonder what’s in the storage units in here?”

  “It will have to wait,” Lance said, moving to the back corner upon seeing the spools of barbwire and stacks of razor wire. He looked over at ten-foot-long rolls of chain-link fence and poles. “I’m really not in the mood to fight with those.”

  They started moving the materials they needed outside. It only took an hour, and they just stared at the pile. Lance pulled out the keys for the ATV sheds and unlocked the padlocks. He had to unlock several before he found the two electric buggies. “That’s not where we left them,” he said, climbing into one.

  They hooked up small trailers and pulled the buggies over to the supplies. Grabbing the cordless drills and extra batteries, Lance drove to the front gate with Ian behind him. The front gate was made of one-inch pipes running horizontally six inches apart and set with massive pipes. On each side of the gate, extensions made from one-inch pipe like the gate ran thirty feet.

  Attaching the first strand six inches off the ground to the gate using clamps, they pulled the spool to the first tree. Lance moved over and grabbed the heavy leather welding jackets that they had seen Doug and his dad use to protect them from cuts.

  Setting the spool on the back of Ian’s buggy, they ran it through twenty rolls of razor wire. Ian jumped in the back as Lance drove away from the gate. He could follow the marked trees very easily now that he was looking for them. With Ian guiding out the barbwire and Dino trotting along beside him as he drove, Lance couldn’t believe he and Ian never noticed the thumb tacks in the trees.

  The trees Doug had marked as posts weren’t in a straight line but were within a few feet of the line from the gate to the tree marked as the corner. The gaps between the tree “posts” averaged ten feet. Grabbing the drills, they just tacked it up, leaving a lot of slack. All along the line, they saw where trees had been cut away from the fence line. All the stumps had been cut down to an inch above the ground, and any close to the line had been ground down.

  As Jennifer sat watching the two driving back and forth stringing up barbwire, she taught the girls how to use the radio. As she watched them and the monitors, she explored what was on the computer and found massive amounts of movies, books, and educational courses.

  She wanted to see what was going on, but the master control had no internet access. With Allie and Carrie staying at the master control, she got on the computer in the basement and found it was moving like molasses from all the downloads Ian and Lance had going.

  Giving up, Jennifer sat back down with the girls and found Lance and Ian starting on the east fence. She watched them put a stack of the big rolls of shiny wire that Jennifer remembered Doug calling razor wire. “Can you two watch them while I go fix some lunch?”

  “We’ll watch them and tell them if something comes,” Allie said, staring at the monitors like it was the best movie ever.

  Carrie squeezed into the chair with Allie. “Don’t worry; we’ll call them if we see anything.”

  Jennifer ran upstairs and fixed sandwiches. When she came back down, the boys were halfway done with the north fence. Glancing at the clock and seeing it was almost noon, Jennifer grabbed the microphone. “Lance, Ian, lunch is ready.”

  They watched Lance stop the buggy, grabbing his push to talk box on his chest and adjusting his throat mic. “Let us finish this strand.”

  “Jennifer,” Allie said, pointing at one of the monitors. “When they go past the next tree, we can’t see them for a few
seconds till they get to here.”

  Jennifer relayed what Allie said. “Tell me when you lose me and when you see me again,” Lance called back.

  “Lost you,” Jennifer said as Lance drove down the line. “You’re back.”

  “It’s a hundred-foot gap.”

  Looking at another monitor that was closer to the house, Jennifer could see the buggy but couldn’t see a lot of detail and relayed it to Lance.

  “Makes sense,” Lance called back, and she saw the buggy moving down the line. “The area Doug marked off would have coverage from inside.”

  After a quick lunch, the boys went back to work. Jennifer watched the west fence go up very fast as the boys raced back and forth on the buggy. When the boys rounded the last corner back to the front gate, Jennifer just shook her head.

  Starting off on the first part of the fence they put up, Jennifer watched them spread the circles of razor wire along it. With the rolls of shiny spools on the bottom, fourth, and top strands of barbwire, Jennifer noticed they spaced them evenly apart.

  Jennifer watched as they connected something that had a handle like a jack halfway down the fence. As Ian cranked the handle, the bottom wire became tighter. When most of the slack was out, they tacked it to all the trees, and Jennifer could see that the wire wasn’t held tightly against them.

  When the bottom strand was attached to all the trees, Ian went back to the jack thing, and the bottom wire got extremely tight. After Ian couldn’t move the handle anymore, he and Lance went along the line and fixed the wire firmly to the trees. Moving further down the line, Ian and Lance attached the wire tightener and grabbed the cordless drills.

  Watching the two as she scanned through the files on the master control computer, Jennifer could tell they were getting faster each time. When the sun touched the horizon, Ian and Lance were on the back, or north, fence line. After putting up the buggy and locking the shop up, soaked in sweat and bone tired, they headed inside.

  As the two pulled off gear, the girls grabbed it and hung it on the wall. “Holy shit,” Ian huffed, dragging his feet as he headed to the living room. “I’m so tired I can’t even see straight.”