David Robbins - Doomsday

Up on the rampart, Patrick Slayne swore. “Look out! Keep quiet! There are at least three of them and they have rifles!”

“There were four.”

Slayne took this to mean Anderson had killed one. “Stay down, damn it! I don’t want you shot!”

“There is no one left.” Soren stepped from behind the Block. “It’s safe to come down if you want.” Risking a quick look, Slayne saw the big construction worker standing in the open, holding his hammer.

“They’re all dead,” Soren said.

Slayne slowly rose partway. Could it be? he wondered. When he didn’t draw lead, he stood fully erect.

“They’re dead, you say?”

Soren nodded.

Still not convinced, Slayne descended the stairs. He held the MP5 ready, swinging right and left, alert for movement.

Soren stayed where he was and motioned. “Back there are two of them.”

“Two?” Slayne moved past and drew up short at the sight of the prone forms. He saw their brains leaking out and noticed the blood on the hammer. “Sweet Jesus.”

Soren held Mjolnir high in the air. “Odin has protected and delivered us.”

“You don’t believe that?”

“I follow the Ancient Way, Mr. Slayne. The Way of the Elder Gods. I worship Odin. I revere Thor. If you understand nothing else about me, understand that.” Soren paused. “Wait? Where’s Alf?” He looked toward the west wall.

“Mr. Richardson didn’t make it, I’m afraid.”

“A shame. From what I saw this past month, he was a decent man.”

“Mourn him when we bury him. Now we need to collect these bodies and their hardware and organize a burial detail.”

Soren nudged one of them. “Who were they? Why did they try to kill us?”

“You’d have to ask them.”

“It makes no sense. Why did they sneak in here and take potshots at us when they could just as easily have waited outside the walls until we saw them and then ask to be admitted?”

“I suspect they were scavengers, looking for whatever they could steal. They were probably trying to figure out how to get into the bunkers when we came out and caught them by surprise.” Voices and a commotion caused them to turn. Kurt Carpenter and five others were hurrying toward them from A Block. All except Carpenter were armed with rifles or shotguns.

“Sorry it took us so long, Patrick. The bunkers are soundproof, as you well know. If I hadn’t told one of the techs to switch on an outside audio pickup, we wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. We heard the shots and had to get guns and load them and—”

Slayne placed a hand on Carpenter’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Kurt. We’ll rig cameras out here so from now on when we’re in the bunkers we can see as well as hear.”

Carpenter gazed about them. “I don’t see Mr. Richardson.”

Slayne gave an account of the clash. He stressed that Soren had had more to do with the outcome than he did.

“I’m extremely sorry to hear about Mr. Richardson. As for you, Mr. Anderson, excellent work. We must protect our own at all costs.” Carpenter gave instructions to two of the others to bring shovels and picks. Then he turned back to Slayne. “A grappling hook, you say? That’s how they got in?

“Not exactly a common household item, is it? And not something a person carries around with them unless they intend to use it.”

Carpenter’s brow furrowed. “So they had to have known the compound was here.”

“No mystery there. You had a dozen or more contractors working on your dream at one time or another. The excavation crews. The brick layers. The concrete pourers. The electricians. The plumbers. Then there are hunters and hikers who must have happened by. Throw in any locals who wondered what in God’s name was going on out here, and there must be a hundred people who know where the compound is.”

“And here I thought that building it in the middle of nowhere would ensure some degree of security.” Carpenter sighed and regarded the dead men. “We’ll see more like these, and perhaps worse. But we can’t let them prevail. If we must fight for our right to exist, so be it. But let’s not do it haphazardly. Just as our country had its army and navy and marines, we must do something similar.” Soren broke his silence. “Excuse me for saying so, sir, but you make it sound as if the United States no longer exists.”

“It very well might not. And call me Kurt, please.”

“What was that about doing something similar?” Slayne prompted. Carpenter gazed solemnly out across the compound. “What we need, gentlemen, is a fighting force of our very own. Men and women pledged to keep intruders like these at bay.” He smiled. “What we need are our very own warriors.”

Sunday dawned cloudy and chilly. Before anyone ventured outdoors, Patrick Slayne donned a hazmat suit and conducted his routine morning tests. The previous evening, he had huddled with Carpenter and Deepak Kapur and worked out how they would go about installing remote sensors on the walls. The sensors would be linked to the computers and relay radiation readings as well as the data from bio and chem sniffers.

When Slayne deemed it safe, Carpenter gave the word and everyone emerged from the six bunkers and converged on a grassy area between B Block and the moat. Carpenter encouraged them to bring food and drink and to relax and enjoy themselves, but there was an air of tension. He mentioned it to Diana Trevor, who said it was perfectly normal, given the uncertainties they faced. Carpenter intended to set some of those uncertainties to rest. It was a few minutes before ten when he came out of C Block and stood under a maple tree, the leaves of which were turning brown earlier than they should. The buzz of conversation stopped. He smiled, then began what he believed to be the most important speech of his life.

“Good morning, brothers and sisters. For that is what we are, you know. We are all of us brothers and sisters in adversity. The greatest adversity the human race has known in modern history.

“We’re nor just a collection of strangers culled from all walks of life and thrown together to sink or swim as the whims of fate decide. We share a common bond, a common goal, a common need. The bond is that of survival, the goal is to continue to survive, the need is for us to continually adapt to whatever challenges our drastically changed world throws at us.”

Carpenter stopped and gazed at every one of their upturned faces. “I would like to cement that bond. I would like for each of you to start thinking of those around you not as strangers but as your family.” He waited for snickers or objections, but there were none.

“The Family,” he repeated. “I have been calling us that for some time now. Look at the person next to you and you will see why. We are all in this together. We are all a family in adversity. So from this day on, that is how we will refer to ourselves. The Family.

“A great writer once wrote a book about three Musketeers. You might have heard of it or seen any of the many movies made. There is a line from that book and from those movies that applies to us, as well. One for all, and all for one. It sums up all that we are. A Family, one for all and all for one.” Carpenter gestured to encompass the Blocks, the moat, and the high wall. “Look around you. If we’re a Family, what does that make our compound? From now on we will call it our Home. Start to think of it as that. Say it in your head. Get used to the idea. We are the Family and we live in the Home.” Someone spoke up. “That’s all well and good, but what if we don’t like some of our brothers or sisters?”

“What’s unusual about that? Every Family has conflict. They work around it as we’ll work around it. The important thing to keep in mind is that we can work anything our if we put our minds to it.” Carpenter waited so they could absorb all that he had said so far. Then he went on to the next phase.