Bunker 127

A Story by DarkHunter

After the nuclear meltdown in World War III, the only survivors in America now lives in bunkers, sheltered from the radioactivity outside. The only resources are in other bunkers around the land.

The anti-air gun slowly turned on its platform, finally coming to a stop with the missiles facing directly at the Bell UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter flying above Bunker 36.

“Goddamnit Evans, the hell are you waiting for? Blow the f****r up!”

“Fine, fine! Just give me a sec, the launcher’s not being a good boy.” said Evans as he pushed the PG-7VL rocket into his RPG-7 once again, it got stuck and refused to budge.

“Oh jeez.”

He sighed as the AA gun below took aim at the flying bird above and fired. The missile that shot out, red and sleek, flew at Evans at a breakneck speed. He jumped back, closed his eyes, and braced for impact.

Right before getting turned into a funeral pyre, the heli dived down suddenly and knocked Evans out of the side.

Before falling to his death, he reached out and grabbed the floor of the ship. As he pulled himself back up, he saw the missile glide dangerously close to the blades of the spinning rotors above.

He cursed and got back inside the bird.

“That, was way too close.” said Evans, almost to himself.

“The hell do you mean “That was way too close.”? I could see the f*****g serial number on that thing! Stop taking a nap back there and shoot your rocket, shithead!” the pilot yelled from the front.

Evans looked around for the RPG, fervently hoping that it hasn’t fallen out the other side. It didn’t. He dragged it out from under the seat, gritted his teeth, mumbled “Come on…” and pushed the rocket in the chamber again. It clicked in obediently.

“Oh now you obey me.” He grumbled as he lifted the launcher to his shoulder, the hazmat suit that he wore crinkled as the heavy weapon settled. Evans pressed his black face mask to the scope and took aim at the AA gun.

He watched as another missile came out of the firing chamber and pointed at them, this time, it wouldn’t miss.

Evans took a breath, breathed out, and pulled the trigger.

The rocket shot out of the barrel with a small explosion that knocked Evans back into the floor, he got up and gazed as the rocket sailed gracefully though the air. It hung there for a moment, suspended above the menacing machine. And suddenly, as if an invisible string had been cut, the rocket dropped like a stone, right as the AA gun fired.

Evans watched in a mixture of pleasure and astonishment as the two collided in midair. The resulting explosion blossom out until it engulfed the whole of the wall the AA was stationed on. Broken bricks and metal shrapnel flew everywhere with every explosion that followed, and the side of the wall slowly cracked, and broke off from the top of Bunker 36, taking the still burning AA gun with it.

Evans looked in satisfaction as the machine that had nearly taken his life, fell hundreds of feet down to the radioactive wasteland below.

“BOOM! Now that’s what I call an explosion!” yelled the pilot.

Evans put the launcher down and said, “Take the bird up, I’m going to survey the damage.”

The rotors of the chopper spun faster, and as the ground grew farther and farther, Evans got a good view of the whole of Bunker 36. Everywhere on the roof was on fire.

“We’ve taken out all the weaponry, Bunker 36 is now defenceless.” Evans noted.

“Good,” the pilot called back, “so we call it a day?”

“Yeah, let’s head back to Bunker 127.”

“Will do.”

The fiery hell that 36 had turned into slowly got smaller and smaller as the bird gained altitude, until it was just a small red square. Faraway in the distance, Evans could see the remains of a once large city, now filled with the corpses of the unfortunate victims of nuclear war. The Empire State Building, now just a twisted metal tower, loomed over the broken city, like the scythe of Death. This is where the first warheads were dropped. Ground Zero.

In the past, Mt. Dallinger was a low-lying mountain with a lot of trees and surrounded by other hills just like it. In other words, just your average mountain. But it was also because of its unremarkable nature that made it the perfect place to build Bunker 127, the secondary command center.

After the end, the mountains had transformed from a pretty, scenic forest, to a barren wasteland that resembled Mars.

“Almost to 127,” the pilot called, “ETA two minutes.”

Evans looked out as the helicopter neared a flat platform at the top of the empty mountain. Dirt and debris flew all around as they softly landed on the platform.

The pilot clicked off some controls and the rotors on top slowed, and stopped. For a few seconds, there was silence, then a loud rumble came from the ground below, the ground opened, and the platform slowly sank into the mountain taking the helicopter and its two passengers with it.

After what seemed like an eternity, the dirt walls around gave way, and they descended into a large glass chamber. Evans looked around at the room and saw people wearing the same hazmat suits as him all around outside the chamber.

With a click, the platform sank into the chamber’s metal ground. Suddenly. The helicopter started moving forwards and off the platform, propelled by the mechanism on the floor of the platform, similar to a running machine.

When they were completely off, the platform rose up once again to the top, ready to receive the next bird that stopped to roost there.

© 2015 DarkHunter

My Review

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Featured Review

Tevo77777

The font is comfortable to read, this is a comfortable and pleasing font. The story is a good start as far as I know and is perfectly reasonable as intro or chapter in a "book".

The dialogue is more or less realistic, and is a bit refreshing.

Now down to the issues:

One, your paragraphs are like two to three sentences in a big font.

Two, your paragraphs need to be spaced out, it's weird when they are crammed together like they are trying to make out or something.

Three, you only released this much plot for this reasonable story. You should have made more.

For this I will have to rate it a "good rough draft. I will raise the rating when you fix the issues I mentioned.

Posted 8 Years Ago

1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Reviews

ReedWrite

Wow, Darkhunter...this is EXACTLY the kind of book I love to read. I am a huge fan of military infused novels/stories...as well as political thrillers with military protagonists. Over the past couple years, I've researched military info (read hundreds of books, blogs, etc) to build a knowledge base for the military protagonists in my own novels. So any chance I get to read more, I'm on it like white on angel dust. You have a great grasp on mechanics...and a nice flow to this piece. I love the dialogue. I did notice, however, that first 1/3 section did not have indents...not sure if that was intentional or a transfer/computer glitch. I also noticed one line you might want to fix. Looks like an extra quote sign got plugged in, and the ? should go inside your quote mark. All punctuation on dialogue goes inside the quotes...but I'm guessing you know that and it was just a typo. We all do that, for sure: “The hell do you mean “That was way too close.”? I love, love, love this, and am putting your other writing on my readers list. Please keep writing! Pam