Shelter: Book 2, A Long Days Night (3 page)

Their hunger pushed them forward, no matter the cost, they continued to advance on us. They knew we had what they needed; food and water. My driveway was littered with broken motorcycles and two burning school buses. One bus ran into our vehicle trench, the other was stopped by an RPG that killed everyone on board. The air around us was filled with smoke and haze from all of the shooting and explosions.  Many of us coughed from inhaling the smoke from our weapons and burning vehicles. Our eyes watered from the smoke, our tears left tracks down our dirt and soot covered cheeks.  We smelled our own fear on each other. None of us ever expected to be attacked by multiple human waves. Their lives meant nothing to them, they ran head first into our relentless firing. At first many of us cried for the dead, we cried for the souls we killed, as the number of dead increased, we ran out of tears, no matter how many we killed or wounded, more came. They came at us from our front, from our flanks and from our rear. There weren’t enough of us to stop the invaders. We knew we were doomed. All of my plans were dying in front of my eyes. I’d known that we lacked sufficient numbers to stop a mass attack, I didn’t think different mobs and gangs would work together to attack us at the same time. I thought I had all the answers, all I really had was death. I’d become the Angel of death.

We were losing more than just the battle, we were losing people, eleven of us had been hit, some of the eleven needed urgent medical attention. Poor Fred, who was recently released from our medical center, was shot again. Eleven of us were shot, eleven of us were badly injured because I didn’t plan well enough. Eleven people were wounded because of me! I learned later than two of the eleven didn’t make it. They were hit by a lucky or I should say damn unlucky shot that caught them under their arm, the bullet was able to enter their chest through the arm opening in their armored vests. When the doc told me we’d lost two, I fell to my knees. I begged God for help. I feel everyone’s pain and suffering. I feel like there’s been a hole torn in my soul for the two dead. I can’t bring myself to ask who they were. When the invaders came at us from all points of the compass, I knew that no matter how many we killed or wounded we couldn’t win. We didn’t have the numbers to beat back such a large attack. Looking around at my neighbors, I knew we should retreat to the shelter. I remember it like it just happened, I pressed the auto dial button on my phone for John, I’ll remember our conversation forever,

“How’s it look from the cameras?”

“Not good. There’s too many of them.”

“OK,” I knew in my soul I’d waited too long. I should have done this earlier in the battle. Had I done so, maybe the two dead would still be alive, maybe the nine wounded wouldn’t have been hurt. My ego said we could win, my brain knew better, I listened to the wrong one.  I pressed the group ‘call all’ on my phone, I yelled, “SHELTER!”

Tears rolled down my cheeks when I said, “John, set off our remaining Claymores and the smoke bombs to cover our withdrawal.” I should have moved us out earlier, I could have, I should have saved more of us. We’re going to need all the bodies we have to retake our homes.

John pressed the buttons to explode our remaining mines and ignite the smoke bombs which fills the space around us with heavy, dense smoke. The words I spoke echo in my head every night, “Everyone to the SHELTER, let’s move it.”

Per our ‘go to hell plan’. Everyone fired off the balance of their current magazine before they headed to the entrance of our shelter. The healthy helped the wounded, the kids helped the doc and nurse, they stood ready with quick clot bandages which they slapped on wounds stopping the bleeding. The younger ones handed everyone entering the shelter a bottle of water and a wet washcloth so they can wipe the dirt off of their faces. Four guards stood just outside of the armored doors firing off full magazines to block anyone from getting close to us. I was the last one in the shelter, I turned to face the guards, “Come, time’s short. We’ve got to lock her down.”

After the guards entered the shelter, I spun the wheel latch locking the armored door. I locked the door right after the last of us ran into the actual shelter. I entered my PIN into the control panel ensuring anyone else who tried to open the door would get a warm surprise. When I closed the outer door, camouflage-covered the armored doors, hopefully hiding our main door from the invaders.  We should be safe unless the invaders have a large supply of high-quality explosives, even then, we have multiple sets of armored doors.

We’re safe inside the shelter. To ensure our safety, the main shelter was designed with multiple armored steel blast doors. Cutting through one doesn’t do anything except allow the invaders to face another armored blast door. All of the blast doors have their hinges on the inside. The handles on the outside of the doors are covered with metal plates. If the attackers tried setting off a high explosive to blast through the doors, the explosion would reverberate between the doors and steel walls killing the attackers. I lined the space between the doors with booby traps. The attackers are going to need very high temperature cutting torches to cut through the doors. As an added security measure, the doors are designed to counter cutting torches by being filled with reinforced cement. We should be safe in our underground shelter. If it weren't so serious it would be funny, we’re hiding right under their noses.

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We knew the day might come when we’d be overrun. If we were, we would need eyes and ears on the situation above ground while we hid under the fields. We built hidden cameras all around our property which feed to the monitors in the security shelter. After securing the shelter, Tony and I jog through the shelter to the security room, John is surrounded by monitors showing what the cameras see. As we enter his ‘office’ John smiles, he points to the monitor showing the hordes of people swarming into our fighting trenches. John looks at me, I nod my head in agreement. He turns a red key on a panel in front of him. A series of small blocks of c4 and homemade explosives covered with BBs explode around and in our trench. The BBs fly into the invader’s bodies, shredding them right before our eyes. A couple of the camera lens are covered in blood. Snarling I say, “I wish we could do that to all of them.”

Shaking his head, Tony looks at me saying, “And people think I’m the violent one. Jay, everything can be replaced, I don’t think we lost anyone in the battle.”

“Maybe not lost, but eleven of us got hit. Isn’t that enough? What about all of our work? What about our homes? What about the fields and crops in the ground?”

Tony wipes dirt off his face saying, “Jay, come on, you told us this was going to happen which is why you built the shelter. When everyone else thought you were nuts when they called you Chicken Little you kept going. You were right, everyone who said you were crazy is now regretting they didn’t follow your example. This is why we both spent a small fortune building this underground community. It was your vision, your out of the box idea of a way to keep us alive. How many would be dead if we didn’t have an escape plan?”

“Tony, I keep thinking if we didn’t have the shelter and stored food they wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“Jay, cut the shit, they would have hit us no matter what. They’re hitting every farm, they think the farms have food that’s been withheld from the cities. They think we’re part of the problem, not the solution. They’re going to eat everything they find, then they’ll check our crops in the ground thinking everything can be pulled out and eaten. They’re going to be surprised when they realize food doesn’t grow quickly and doesn’t come out of the ground cooked.”

“Tony, turn off the power, water and gas to our homes, maybe if they’re in the cold and dark without water they may leave quicker.”

“Good idea. John, where’s the master cut off switches?”

“Tony, Jay, I can turn off the power here, you’ll need to turn off the water and gas by the main door. There’s a line of red faucets, each has a sign over them with the name of the house they’re connected to. After you turn them down, there’s a chain and lock which will stop anyone from turning them back on.”

“Jay, stay here, I’ll be right back.” Tony jogs off to shut down the supply of water and gas to our homes.

John smiles saying, “That’s going to come as a nasty surprise to our uninvited guests.”

“John, how are you going to keep an eye on them without power?”

“IR cameras. We’ll see them, they won’t have any idea we’re watching them. We also installed a couple of surprises for them.”

“John, if you burn my house down or blow it up I’ll take it out of your hide. There’s no insurance coverage anymore. I don’t want to watch the house I paid cash for go up in smoke.”

“Jay, stop worrying, I promise you no explosions. We hid some containers of sleeping gas in your house, these are wired to my console. I’m hoping that late tonight they’ll be tired, they’ll quickly fall asleep, I’ll set off one of the tanks of gas in the room most of them are sleeping in. The gas will ensure they don’t wake up. We sneak back in and cut their throats. They’ll never figure out what happened. I want to convince them the house is haunted. I want to make them so scared they can’t wait to leave your home.”

“Should I cut holes in some of Lacy’s sheets?”

John laughs, saying, “That’s not going to be required. There’s no way I’m going to cut her sheets, I value my balls. I’ve got two laser projectors set up which will produce a hologram that will produce a ghostly image tied to the sound effects. I hope this will scare them out of your house.”

“John, these are all great, how are you going to power it when you just shut down the electrical power to my house? I also have to ask you, when did you install all of that crap in my house?”

John laughs, tears are rolling down his cheeks.

“John, it’s not funny. When did you install the laser projectors and the gas tanks? Does Lacy know?”

“Jay, who do you think let us in? Of course she knows, she wondered if you would find them and if you’d realize we were in your home installing equipment. We wired them into a separate electrical line so even if the house doesn’t have power, the special units are powered and controlled from here.”

“You got me there. I didn’t notice. When did you install everything?”

“About two weeks ago when you and Tony were away for a day.”

“OK, can you bring up the camera images so we can see what’s going on outside?”

John says, “The images will start on the monitor to my left, they will correspond to the cameras numbered on the chart on the wall.”  The first image is the front yard and our fighting trench.  We see people dragging bodies away from our front field. The wounded are helped out of the punji pits. Some of those who got caught in our hunting traps are being helped out of the traps, their ankles are broken, some have holes through their lower calf and their ankles are shattered.  They won’t ever be able to walk again. Most who stepped into our traps are going to need an ankle replacement, in the current economic situation they’ll never get one, they’re crippled for the rest of their hopefully very short lives. Many will get blood poisoning which will kill them within a couple of weeks. Some will develop gangrene-causing the loss of their leg or their death.

John says, “The wounded will never walk again. Many will lose their legs or their lives from infection. None of the groups have a doctor, without one, many of these people are doomed. Look at the pile of dead, we killed more than I thought. We did a really good job reducing their numbers.”

“John, what good did it do us?”

Before John can respond our doctor knocks on the wall, “May I enter?”

John spins around saying, “Doc, of course, what’s up?”

The doctor’s face is lined, his eyes look very tired, “I’m sorry to say, two didn’t make it. We did everything we could, the bullet got into their chests through the arm hole of their vest. Even a major trauma center couldn’t have saved them. Their internal damage was too great.”

Everyone in the security room falls speechless, I fall to my knees crying, I’m responsible for the death of two of my people.

Chapter 2

US Navy Captain Jefferson sits in the captain’s seat on the bridge of the last active Battleship, BB63, the USS Missouri. The bridge is surrounded by 17.25 inches of armor. He smiles, thinking,
the 12 1/8 inches of armor that provides an armored belt around the entire ship will stop anything the Chinese fire at the ‘Mighty Mo.’ He knows that the only weapon in the Chinese arsenal that can broach the Missouri’s armor is a nuke. He smiles because he knows the Chinese won’t fire a nuke out of fear they could be starting World War 3. He knows the Missouri is going to come as a shock to the Chinese fleet
. He looks ahead asking, “XO, are we ready?”