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“For the last time, John, I didn’t do it! And no, I cannot prove I was asleep, but neither can you, so drop it!” George snapped, but as soon as the anger was let out, tears came rolling down his cheeks. “You’re just as much at fault as the rest of us, and you know it. Pointing fingers and calling names isn’t going to help solve anything.” George looked at me, we nodded at each other, and crouched down to pick up Susan’s body, him at the legs, me at the head.
“But you were the one on guard! You let this happen!” After a brief silence John exploded again, shoving George away just as we were about to lift her.
“Enough!” I shouted in the hopes to stop a potential fight. “Ron died on your watch, remember that? You fell asleep standing up, and we cut you some slack. We’re all sleep deprived, John, it’s not like anyone has it any better. Now help us move the body, will you?” I nodded to George and went to pick up Susan’s torso, the weight of it almost too much to lift.
“You killed her, you move her.” He turned around and left the room.
George and I exchanged looks, simultaneously mad and happy he left, and picked the body up. We were struggling badly, but neither of us wanted to ask Kate for help. She was weaker than us, just as exhausted, and Susan was one of her great friends.
The morgue, as we came to call it, was at the very end of the hall, about twenty feet away, and the closer we got, the more the air itself filled with the smell of death. It felt as if with every step the temperature dropped a couple degrees and I could see George shiver with the cold every so often.
We both held our breath before we opened the door, lowered our looks to the floor to see as few bodies as possible, and dumped her inside with the rest. The hurry that we were in and the pump of adrenaline somehow made it all happen instinctively, but as soon as we were outside, with the door closed, we both crumbled down to the floor with our backs pressed against the wall, and started crying.
26 bodies. Male, female, children. Not even five feet from us.
I remembered the death of every single one of them. I started naming them in chronological order, and as dreadful as that was, it didn’t even come close to the sensation I felt when I made it all the way to Susan.
Who was next?
In a way, the people who were killed were saved. Judging by the wounds, they died quickly. The living, on the other hand, we lived in constant fear, unsure whether we even wished to wake up from our sleep or join the corpses in the morgue.
“Let’s get out of here, huh?” George broke the silence and helped bring me back from my existential crisis.
Six weeks ago the authorities sounded the alarm for nuclear fallout. After ten years of political threats, it was inevitable, and fortunately, we were prepared. Underneath every town there were dozens of bunkers, enough to house all residents under the age of 40. Each bunker could house 30 people with enough supplies to last three full years.
The bunkers were all the same. They had a long hallway connecting the 6 living rooms, with the kitchen and storage on one of the two far ends and a lounge with some old arcades and a ping-pong table on the other. The bathroom was shared and housed four sinks, two showers, and two toilets total.
Admittedly, the first day was very scary. Everything was new, we were in shock, we didn’t even know if the bunker was actually safe or not, but with every next day it became more fun than not. It was like camping without a fire. I quite enjoyed getting to know my neighbors a little better without having to worry about my, or their, neighborhood reputation. Underneath the facade we’ve all put up for the eyes of the public, some were actually nice people.
Aafter a week we received the first message from the outside. The national radio station managed to broadcast information about radiation levels in each area and made it very clear not to go outside until told so. The first ETA they have given us was 8 weeks and we were all happy it wasn’t a year or two.
The very next day, however, our good mood was cut by the most awful thing imaginable. We have found two of my roommates dead, one stabbed while asleep, the other’s throat slit when he likely woke up and tried to call for help.
What was a carefree and loving little community just hours ago was devoured by chaos in seconds.
One of the 21 people still alive, excluding children and myself, was a murderer, and there was nowhere to run and no help to get.
The bodies were moved into the lounge because there was no other place to put them, and we have organized a two man patrol to keep guard at all times. Nothing happened in the following days and were all trying to convince ourselves that whoever did it had some personal problems with Jeffrey and ended up killing Jack as collateral.
But as days went by, our minds started playing tricks with us. Not one of us could sleep. We were all convinced we were hearing footsteps and voices when we closed our eyes. Even the sound of another person breathing was amplified a hundred fold and horrible enough not to ever keep your eyes shut.
It didn’t take long for us to start passing out at random and the murderer took advantage of that. The third casualtiy was found 10 days after the first two. Nancy, strangled in the bathroom.
We have since made every safety precaution we could think of. We gathered all the people in only two of the five rooms, three people were on patrol at all times, noone was allowed anywhere alone, everyone’s personal items was closely inspected, but to no avail. Over the days the bodies just kept coming. Necks snapped, throats slit, people suffocated in their sleep.
Whereas sleep deprivation somewhat helped deal with the death of the adults, it could never dull the death of a child. Each time a child was found dead the entire community went silent for the entire day. The air was so dense with morbidity one could slice it like a loaf of bread.
The eight weeks we were looking forward to at the beginning have become the worst game of survival. We were all glued to the radio station at all times, our only means of salvation, and yet it had been quiet since its very first broadcast.
Six weeks in, we were down to four people. John, Kate, George, and me. We were mostly in the kitchen, even though none of us ever felt like eating. It was the furthest away from the lounge, the radio station was there, and the bathroom was relatively close, too.
We didn’t talk. We only sat in silence. Kate and George were just staring into thin air, John was forcing himself to a cracker and I was lying down on the floor, tossing a ball into the air. We were all just waiting for it to be over, be it dead or rescued. At that point I believe none of us truly cared anymore.
Suddenly, the static sound of the radio station pierced the silence. A male voice came on, again informing us of the radiation levels that none of us had the slightest clue about. The number he mentioned was lower than the last time, but we dared not get excited.
The voice, however, explained it was safe to leave the bunkers.
We all looked at each other, shocked by the information. There was happiness in our eyes, but also fear. One of us was responsible for the death of 26 people, and none of us would feel safe knowing who their neighbor just might be.
With the new information in hand, ready to go back into the great outdoors, we sat round the table one final time and agreed on two things.
Never to talk about the events in the bunker.
To move, each on one end of the country, and never meet again.
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Ooo I can never completely trust the person who diffuses the situation and highlights the spread of blame… this is so well put together, you drop straight into the action, using carefully chosen dialogue to set a scene and draw us into this distrustful dilemma. You carry the emotional strain of living in this situation for a period of time fantastically, not stating how long they have been there until a way in gives the reader the immersive ‘endless’ feeling the character faces.
I just love this line, probably true of most people, a subtle background touch there ❤ the body turning up, and the way what had been an experience people were trying to make the best of takes a sudden turn to the premise set out in the beginning, it adds weight to the characters and drops a little ‘knowing your neighbors’ hint that comes in lovely at the end.
a simple line that casts such a shadow over the main character, both of doubt and empathy, emphasizing the weight of the struggle to come. The duel fear of wondering if they want something just as much as they don’t, the ever present axe waiting to drop should they close their eyes. I wonder if it is the same person who killed everyone, you set up a situation where with so many dying, and no way of really pinning down who did it, did someone else snap part way through and join in with the killing? Could they killings have been by a variety of people? Could more than one person left alive here have taken a life in the fear of suspecting someone else? Or could there be someone else in there with them… although no one could dare suggest that without instantly drawing more suspicion to themselves, a perfect set up really!
The ending is just brilliant… it really got me wondering about the killer… the fact that it was someone they had lived alongside for so long, a little note in there about how little we know our neighbors. For all they know, there was a serial killer on their street the whole time, someone who tried so hard to resist the urge in the bunker, but in the end couldn’t give in. Not providing a solid motive for the killings is just the perfect final touch, if they hadn’t had enough food for everyone for so long, or if there was some other pressure, but instead you force us to face this without an excuse.
Yeah, the narrator does seem both innocent and not. ^^
Thank you! I really wanted to emphasize how mundane, in a way, dealing with a dead body became (oh, just help me move this and stop being so upset, will you?), how mentally fatigued they were because of all the events, and I'm happy to see it came forth.
I actually wanted to play more with that line, add some more to it, but am actually happy I didn't. It says just enough, and leaves just enough to the reader. :P
There could very much be more than one killer. Pointing fingers only creates more chaos because you can't prove anything... But if you kill the person you believe is the killer... well, you might have solved the problem. And you might've not.
I somewhat wanted to write it a way that the killer would be known to the reader, but not to any of the characters, even the killer himself, and have him suffer a mental disease, but I believe this strikes much closer to home, so I went down this route instead. :p
Yes! Which only adds to the entire mental stress of the occupants in bunker because they're constantly left wondering who it could be, rethinking all the memories they have together. I imagined it like someone sitting in the corner, watching their neighbors as they passed by and thinking of them: "Could it be him? But the way he handles meat three years ago at his barbecue party... I don't think so... But he was very bad with his dog and not a single neighborhood animal liked him. Tracy, maybe? She's always been kind of shy and lonely, and just weird in general. Oh, Bill! He's the tough guy type. He's got a skull tattoo on his right shoulder and has always been around those shady bikers...." and so on, and so on...
Maybe I should've put in more of this. :P
Yep. No higher motive. Just killing for the sake of killing. The very worst kind.
That's some creepy gentlemanly agreement.
Great story.
Nothing scarier than semingly senseless killing and carefree perpetrators.
Should we trust the narrator? :)
Yeah, especially with the killer now going completely unpunished :3
That's up to the reader to decide, and very happy to see you point it out :D
Thank you for stopping by! :D
Without getting into the details of whodunit...is the narrator reliable? Is the narrator pathological? Is the murderer one of the other three? I think this oversimplifies what you have created here. Maybe you didn't intend it, but you achieved a state of universal paranoia that will prevail in the world once the survivors emerge from the bunker.
This is an apocalypse. We've seen the movies, read the books. Danger lurks everywhere. Resources are scarce, violence pervasive. When the people leave the bunker they may separate from each other, in the illusion that they are escaping danger, but there is no escape from the new order of the world.
When you say the dead may be better off, you suggest that perhaps death is the only peace any of the survivors will ever know.
That says it all. Good job!
It does, indeed, go beyond the bunker, at least for the four of them. The psychological impact of it, at the very least.
Yes, the world outside was bound to have changed too, but I think we, as people, very much adapt to whatever we are faced with - so long as it doesn't mess with our heads. :P
Exactly! :D
thank you! And hopefully you can excuse my late reply!
I'll be looking for your stories. I get distracted and busy, so I hope I don't miss them. Good writing!
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Thank you so very much!
You have a great day too!
This brought tears to my eyes and creeped me out -- EXCELLENT writing in a lot of ways. It was like rolling Ten Little Indians, Lord of the Flies, Downfall, and some real facts from both the disaster at Chernobyl up together ... also complete with a grasp of human nature and how irresponsible we sometimes show ourselves to be in terms of not wanting to get to the bottom of how lots of people beside ourselves are harmed and killed. Justice for the dead swamped out by the desire to move on with life... it is not just a fictional occurrence...
I used to read a bunch of mysteries, and so I did try to "solve" this, based on the clues at hand. It takes superior physical and emotional energy to just kill 26 people, especially when one considers necks snapped, throats slit, and suffocation. That eliminates the vast majority of women from consideration. It also takes about that same amount of emotional and intellectual energy to narrate the whole account in situ... and I also notice the narrator is throwing balls in the air to let off some excess nervous energy while others are drained and can barely eat. By contrast: it also requires conservation of energy when not at "work," and I notice the narrator coming from sitting and lying down a couple of times. The narrator is also perfectly acquainted with the design of every bunker, and all security measures. If I were investigating these crimes after the fact, I would consider the narrator my chief suspect.
That is an absolute honor to hear. Thank you!
Yes! Exactly. It is based off true human traits more than any would want to admit, and it's exactly that kind of apathy and the desire to just keep on going on into another day without actually fighting to save ourselves from imminent threat/death. We worry instead of taking action too much, and very often end up in our very own loopholes of nothing but anxiety.
Though given the first two victims were killed while asleep, and third on the toilet, it could still be a woman, given how fatigued they all must've been due to insomnia/nightmares. It could also be that it wasn't only one killer. In a reply to another comment, I touched the idea of how a person could kill another because they were convinced they were the killer, and were just tired of how ineffective pointing fingers was. Worst that could happen was another person dead, the death of which attributed to this mysterious killer, and the best that could happen... well, they'd kill the killer. :P
The narrator is indeed a great suspect. Though he struggles, he also has enough strength still to lift the upper (heavier) half of a human body and carry it. And exactly as you pointed out, whereas others were staring into nothingness, or forcing themselves to eat to not starve, he is casually playing with a ball, suggesting he has energy to spare, however scarce.
Great observation!
Thank you for reading! :D
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