William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

Several days after the confrontation in the lower bunker, Larkin was working in the Command Center, sitting in the security force’s office in front of a computer connected to motion sensors on the surface. A camera at the bottom of the stairs in the main entrance was pointed up at the concrete blockhouse, which appeared to have survived the nuclear explosion twenty miles away relatively intact. It wasn’t one hundred percent radiation-proof, however, so the two blast doors at the bottom and the entrance chamber between them were still sealed as a precaution. In places around the project, radiation and atmospheric monitors, as well as radio antennas, had been run up concrete tubes topped with hatches powered by electric motors. Those hatches had been opened within hours of the explosion. The bottom ends of the tubes were sealed and shielded so no radiation or anything else dangerous could leak down through them, and the tubes were too small for anything living to travel through them except insects.

Larkin had heard rumors that fiber-optic cameras had been raised through similar tubes so those in the bunker were able to look around outside, but he had never seen any proof of that. If the rumors were true, it was likely only Graham Moultrie and maybe one or two other people had access to the video feeds from the surface. And it was possible the whole business simply wasn’t true.

From time to time, the motion sensors Larkin was monitoring had detected something moving around up there. The movements were brief and seemed totally random, though, so the consensus was that they were caused by bits of debris blowing past the sensors in the wind. It was unlikely any animals were left alive, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. By now they would be pretty sick and starving, though, and if they approached the sensors, it would be by accident, since there was nothing around them to eat.

Like any former soldier who had spent hundreds of hours on boring details, Larkin had developed the ability to pay attention to what he was supposed to be doing and let his mind wander at the same time. He was thinking about some plot developments in his novel when he saw a red light pop up on the grid displayed on the computer’s screen. That meant something up there was moving enough to trigger the sensor. Larkin expected the light to disappear as the wind blew whatever it was out of range, but instead it glowed steadily and then was joined by another and another.

Larkin sat up straighter and identified the location on the grid. It was about a hundred yards away from the blockhouse above the project’s main entrance. Several objects were moving around there.

That still didn’t have to mean anything. A whirlwind could have whipped several bits of debris into the air. Hell, Larkin thought, it could be a tornado. Did they still have tornadoes on the surface? Nobody really knew. There could be any number of explanations…

But even though Larkin knew that, logically and intellectually, a bit of a cold shiver went down his spine. He was no more immune to the fear of the unknown than any other man, and these days, the surface was a vast unknown.

A woman named Andrea Marshall was working with him today, checking back and forth between views from the cameras located in various areas of the project. Without taking his eyes off the screen, Larkin said, “Andrea, take a look at this.”

“What is it?” she asked as she swiveled around in her chair.

“I’ve got movement up top, more movement than I’ve seen before.”

“These bogeys don’t act like animals.”

Indeed, the red dots marking the movement shifted position slowly and deliberately. Like somebody’s walking around up there , Larkin thought.

Then he sat forward suddenly as more dots appeared, leading in a fairly straight line. The dots at the tail end of the line faded and then disappeared.

Andrea had stood up and moved to look over Larkin’s shoulder. She let out a startled, “Holy—! Something’s moving fast up there!”

Larkin checked the grid again and said, “It’s coming toward the blockhouse. You’ve got a camera pointed up the stairs—”

“On it!” Andrea whirled around and lunged back to her station. Larkin stood up and hurried behind her chair. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the bogey was still advancing rapidly, and then Andrea let out a shocked cry.

Larkin looked at the video feed and saw a cloud of dust filling the stairwell. Chunks of concrete came bouncing down out of that cloud.

“Oh, hell, Patrick! What… what happened up there?”

“Something just hit the blockhouse.”

“You mean another bomb?”

Larkin shook his head. “No. Something rammed it at high speed, something like a truck. Probably aiming to bust the door open.”

“But a truck would have to have somebody driving it, or at least aiming it. Who—”

Larkin pointed at the camera feed and said, “I think we’re about to find out.”

A vaguely human shape had formed in the dust. Now it came down the staircase slowly, step by step, becoming more and more visible…

Until Andrea screamed as a monster’s face loomed on the screen.

Only it wasn’t a monster, Larkin realized a moment later as Andrea shrank away from the screen, stifling another scream. He leaned closer. The lines of a human face were still there in the thing looking up at the camera, just terribly distorted. The man was gaunt to the point of being skeletal, with his cheekbones pressing so sharply against his skin it appeared they might tear through. Much of that skin had sloughed off, leaving raw, oozing sores in its place. Most of the man’s hair had fallen out, including his eyebrows. Only a few tufts remained around his ears. Blood had leaked from his eyes and nose, leaving dark brown streaks. His mouth hung open as he breathed heavily, and Larkin could see that he had only a few stumps of teeth left in pale, dead-looking gums.

“Nosferatu,” Larkin muttered, reminded of the vampire in that classic movie. His nerves were stretched taut and his heart slugged heavily in his chest. He wasn’t scared by what he saw on the monitor, exactly, but he was definitely shocked.

“What… what is that thing?” Andrea had to force the words out.

“Someone suffering from extreme radiation sickness. The guy lived through the concussion and thermal waves, so he must have been underground somewhere. But he either came out too soon or his hiding place wasn’t shielded well enough. He looks like he caught a lot of grays.”

“What?”

“The unit of exposure of a human body to radiation. His symptoms look pretty systemic. He’s probably got half a dozen tumors eating him up from the inside, as well as what we can see on the outside.”

Andrea stared up at Larkin and asked, “How can you be so… so calm and analytical?”

Larkin let out a grunt of humorless laughter. “I promise you, I’m not calm at all. I feel like jumping out of my skin.”

That was probably a poor choice of words, considering what they were looking at. The thing on the stairs, which wore tattered clothing, clumped on down, mostly out of range of the camera. A bony fist came into view, then fell. The motion was repeated several times.

“He’s knocking on the door,” Larkin said. “He wants to be let in.”

“Ohhh,” Andrea said, the sound coming out as a low, choked moan. “He… he can’t get in, can he?”

Larkin shook his head. “I don’t see how. This guy’s at death’s door, and even if he was in perfect health, he couldn’t bust down that door. A SWAT team with a battering ram couldn’t bust down that door.” He reached for an intercom and pushed a button on it. “Graham, this is Patrick Larkin. You need to come in here.”