William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

The heavy canvas bags sailed over the rock wall. Trevor said, “I’ll boost Bailey up! Can you catch her on that side?”

“Yeah. Come on, there’s not much time!”

Larkin leaned the rifle against the wall as he saw his granddaughter’s head appear at the top of it. Bailey scrambled onto the top of the wall, which was about a foot wide, and balanced there precariously with a frightened expression on her face.

“Granddad!” she said when she saw Larkin.

“Turn around, slide off, and drop, honey,” he told her. “I’ll catch you.”

She swallowed, nodded, and followed his orders. Her weight made him stagger a little as he caught her, and he couldn’t help but think about the mines under his feet. He hoped whoever was in charge of activating and deactivating them back in the command center was on the ball.

Trevor climbed onto the fence, swung a leg over, and dropped, falling to his knees as he landed. He was up in a hurry, though, grabbing both bags.

Larkin set Bailey on the ground, grabbed the rifle with his right hand, and took Bailey’s right hand with his left. “Let’s go,” he said.

Trevor said, “Patrick, has something else happened?”

Larkin looked at his son-in-law and said, “We’ve got less than fifteen minutes.”

Trevor practically gulped. “Come on, Bailey.”

They had just turned away from the fence when Larkin heard a man shout, “Hey, over here! That’s where they went.”

“Go!” Larkin said as he urged the other two toward the bunker. “Bailey, stay with your dad! Don’t slow down! Both of you keep moving!”

“Patrick, what are you—” Trevor began.

“Just get underground,” Larkin said, his jaw tight with strain. He turned around and faced toward the fence again. He gripped the AR-15 in both hands now.

He heard Trevor and Bailey running away and was glad of that much, anyway. More shouts came from the other side of the fence as Larkin backed away from it. He stopped when he was certain the distance was more than fifty yards.

A man’s head appeared suddenly at the top of the fence. He pulled himself up and rolled onto the narrow perch.

“Go back!” Larkin shouted at him. “It’s not safe!”

That was just about the stupidest thing he could have said, he realized, although it was certainly true.

There was very little safety to be had in the world today. Not enough for all its billions.

The man on the fence ignored him and turned his head to shout, “There’s some sort of compound in here. Hurry!”

Larkin lifted the rifle to his shoulder. The man glanced at him but in his terror didn’t seem to comprehend the threat. Larkin swallowed. Already, Moultrie and his security force had killed people today in order to protect the Hercules Project. It didn’t matter that they had been fellow Americans. As of today, that concept didn’t really exist anymore. Once the missiles and the bombers were in the air, there was only us and them.

And them included not only the Russians and the North Koreans but everyone who wasn’t a resident of the Hercules Project.

Larkin’s finger was about to take up the slack on the trigger when the man on the fence shouted to whoever was on the other side, “Helen, bring the kids! Now!”

Larkin couldn’t shoot.

But as the man swung his legs over the fence and poised to drop, he shouted, “No, don’t—”

The man leaped.

His feet hit the ground and he disappeared in a blinding flash of flame and noise. Larkin flinched away from the blast as rocks and dirt clods sprayed through the air. Other things might be spraying, too, but he didn’t want to think about that. A cloud of smoke and dust billowed up from the site of the explosion, hiding the grisly results.

Larkin turned and raced after Trevor and Bailey. There was nothing more he could do here. He hoped the mine going off would discourage anyone else from trying to climb over the fence, but it didn’t really matter, he supposed. Die in an explosion now, die in an explosion in ten or twelve minutes, what was the difference?

But all the missiles might not make it through, he reminded himself as he ran. Some of them undoubtedly would. The United States would be changed drastically and forever. But would it be wiped out? Would the U.S. and Russia keep lobbing nuclear death at each other until everything was gone?

Larkin had no way of knowing. None of them did. All they could do was try to save what they could. Save who they could.

He was aware of the seconds ticking by with each running stride he took. He couldn’t help but glance at the sky, although he knew it was unlikely he would actually be able to see doom descending toward him. If it was all over for him, he wouldn’t know it when the time came, unless there was a split second of awareness, the tiniest shaved fraction of time when he felt his atoms being blown apart…

There was the concrete building that housed the bunker entrance. The door was still open, with armed men standing around it. Graham Moultrie was one of them. He waved Larkin on. Larkin wasn’t surprised to see Moultrie. He figured the man intended to be the last one in, the one to close the door on whatever happened in the outside world.

More explosions sounded from around the property. More mines going off as fear-crazed people scrambled over walls and fences and tried to find shelter from the storm, somewhere, anywhere. Breathing hard, Larkin pounded up to the small group at the entrance. Moultrie gripped his arm and said, “Glad you made it, Patrick.”

“My son-in-law… and granddaughter…?”

“Inside with the rest of your family.” Moultrie summoned up a grim smile. “Go and join them. Everybody’s gathering on the lower level right now.”

Larkin managed to nod. He hesitated long enough to say, “You don’t need… more help here?”

“We’re all right. Go on, Patrick. You made sure they had a place to come, and they all got here. You should be proud.”

“The missiles?”

“Some have been knocked down or blown out of the sky. But more than half look like they’ll get through.” Moultrie’s face was bleak as he added, “I’m giving it two more minutes, then we’re buttoning up tight here.”

Larkin nodded. A few people were still trying to get things out of their vehicles and carry them into the project, but if they had any sense they wouldn’t make any more trips out of the building.

Carrying the rifle, Larkin went into the building and started down the steps. Several people were in front of him, and others followed. When he reached the landing where the stairs turned back, he paused for a second to look back up at the entrance with the afternoon sun shining through it.

How long would it be, he wondered, before he saw sunlight again?

Would he ever? Would anyone inside the Hercules Project?

Larkin didn’t know the answer. He took a deep breath and kept going down.

A lot of people were in the lower bunker, but the cavernous space was so large it didn’t seem particularly crowded. The noise level was pretty high, though, since plenty of them seemed to be talking at once. Once Larkin had been passed through the double blast doors, including a fingerprint scan to confirm his identity, he searched for his family, his size allowing him to move through the press of people without much trouble.

A hand came out of the crowd and clasped his arm. Larkin looked over and saw Adam Threadgill standing there. Threadgill’s wife Luisa was with him, and beyond them Larkin saw their daughter Sophie and her husband Jack Kaufman.

“Patrick!” Threadgill threw his arms around Larkin and pounded him on the back with one hand. “You made it.”