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  Apocalypse

  ( The Wasteland Chronicles - 1 )

  Kyle West

  In the year 2030, the meteor Ragnarok impacted Earth, rending the world a wasteland. Billions died, the sky went crimson, and the world entered an ice age from which it will not emerge for centuries.

  By 2060, what is left of the United States exists underground in the Bunkers. Where once there were 144, now only four are left – fallen for reasons of starvation, rebellion, or worse. For in the wake of Ragnarok are new and sinister threats, threats which do not yet have a name…

  Born into this post-apocalyptic world is sixteen-year-old Alex Keener, who has lived his entire life underground in U.S. Bunker 108. But when a stranger is let into the Bunker from the wastes, in defiance of protocol, all hell breaks loose… and Alex's life will never be same again.

  APOCALYPSE

  The Wasteland Chronicles, Volume 1

  by Kyle West

  For Dad: Thanks for the read and advice; not just in books, but in life.

  Chapter 1

  When a citizen of Bunker 108 turns sixteen, he or she is deemed old enough to start reconnoitering.

  Reconnoitering is dangerous work – not so much because of the Wastelander bogeymen that kept me up at night as a kid. There are a ton of ways to die out there – windstorms and cold not being the least of them.

  Always, when you go out of Bunker 108, you never know if you are coming back.

  Michael Sanchez drew lots with me that day. Michael was a seasoned vet, all hard muscle, and an officer to boot. I looked like a pencil in comparison – five foot seven, and one hundred twenty seven pounds. We were quite the pair as we walked out the entrance door, down the long tunnel to the exit of Bunker 108.

  I was nervous as hell. I had never been allowed into the Waste before. Not until now.

  Yesterday had been my sixteenth birthday.

  As we walked, I felt like I was in a dream – or a nightmare – I wasn’t sure which.

  I just hoped I didn’t have to use my rifle, even though I knew how. Everyone was required an hour’s practice each week at the firing range, minimum. Chief Security Officer Chan wanted everyone ready – for what, I didn’t know. We were told Wastelanders would kill for anything.

  So, we had orders to kill them first.

  Conflicts with Wastelanders are rare. But Chan likes to keep a close eye on things. A “kill first” policy prevents anyone from running away and letting others know that we’re here.

  That was what I was most nervous about – not the cold dry wind, the dead world, the red hazy sky stretching above, or the lack of sun dimmed by layers of meteor fallout. No – I was scared that we would find someone, and I would have to shoot him.

  We were now at the door. Large bold numbers, 108, were pressed into the thick metal. For my entire sixteen years, that door has served as the barrier between safety and danger, known and unknown, fake and real. And now, I was about to go outside for the first time in my life.

  Michael, the person I was partnered with, was twenty-four: tall, good-looking, with coppery skin. He went to the sun rooms often. Officers were allowed longer light baths than civilians. Officers had other perks and signs of status: cushier apartments, more meal credits, and more days off. Chan did everything to incentivize the people who kept him in power. Everyone wanted to be an officer.

  Michael twisted the wheel, his muscles bulging beneath his desert camo. It was colder and drier out here in the entrance tunnel. I hopped up and down a few times, trying to get some blood flowing. I felt my own desert camo hoodie bounce up and down on my head. The cold had killed a recon caught in a dust storm, two years ago. It never paid to be too careful.

  The wheel groaned as it gave, little by little. Finally, Michael opened it with a clang. He pulled it slowly inward until the Wasteland outside was revealed.

  The natural light, though dim, still blinded me. A cold rush of dry wind met my face. I raised my hand to shelter my eyes from dust. As my eyes adjusted, I could first make out distant red mountains, like upside-down, bloody teeth. Then, before the mountains were crimson dunes that looked like they should be on Mars rather than Earth. A dilapidated, rusted crane lay half-buried maybe half a klick out, where it had been since December 3, 2030 – Dark Day, the day where most of humanity, and most of life, died.

  “Welcome,” Michael said with a sardonic grin, “to the Wasteland.”

  * * *

  I followed Michael down the gravelly slopes of Hart Mountain. I pulled my hoodie far over my head to keep out the cold as best I could. It was late September, and got below freezing every night.

  Though I had seen countless pictures of the Waste before, I could not help but take it in with numb shock. All vegetation was short, squat, clinging for its life in the sand, cracked earth. Everything was dead – truly dead. What life there was had left long ago. I often imagined Old Cali, like in the movies I watched in the digital archive. I dreamed of a hot, sandy beach, the blue ocean and sky, the bright, heavenly sun without a cloud to bar its light. I loved watching those movies, and would spend hours in the archive living in a dream world and wishing I had been born a hundred years ago, and not 2044.

  We had been walking five minutes when Michael spoke.

  “You’re quiet, Alex,” he said. “I thought you’d be excited about your first recon. Some luck to draw lots the day after your birthday.”

  I didn’t respond. Michael fell into silence.

  He was right. I didn’t talk much. I didn’t see the point. I don’t really know why I’m like this – it’s just always been this way. Well, not always. I’ve seen a lot of death. It started with my mom, when I was seven. Then my little sister, also when I was seven. My mom had been giving birth. In a harsh world, death comes often.

  We were out of sight from home by now. I shivered as a particularly chilly wind blew. We passed a metallic trailer, shimmering in the late afternoon haze.

  “That trailer’s for dust storms,” Michael said. “You never want to be caught in one. It will be the last mistake you make.”

  We stopped in front of the trailer. Michael paused.

  “Let’s wheel around the mountain,” he said. “We’re taking the long route today.”

  “What’s the long route?”

  “Finally, some goddamned curiosity. The long route goes all the way around Hart Mountain. It’s about a five mile course, total.”

  He walked on. Michael was alright, for an officer. He had a wife and a kid. Like me, he had never seen Old Earth.

  My father had. When he was ten, the government had put him and his dad, my grandfather, in Bunker 108. My grandfather, Lorin Keener, was a brilliant immunologist. The government only took the brightest, the highest-ups, and the people with the fattest wallets into the Bunkers. I hate to think of all those people who died, but in the end, I guess it comes down to whoever writes the largest check or has the biggest brain or the prettiest face. Well over 99.9 percent of the nation was left to fend for itself when Meteor crashed down.

  The ones who survived are called Wastelanders, and we do what we can to avoid them, and to keep them avoiding us.

  Wastelanders aren’t like us citizens. For one, there are more of them. They are violent, brutal, barbaric, and do anything they can to survive. They are like animals, and they kill not just for supplies, but for fun. There have been several deaths during my life due to Wastelanders – men lost on recons, their bodies found later, half-buried in red sand. Sometimes, when raiders camped too close, Chan would order them eliminated in the dead of night. Losses sometimes happened.

  The U.S. left the Dark Decade with one hundred and forty four Bunkers. Some didn’t survive due to internal breakdowns, sure. But some were overrun by scared, starving people w
ho wanted the huge stash of food and supplies the Bunkers held. Now, in the year 2060, only four Bunkers are left: Bunker 76, Bunker 88, Bunker 108, and Bunker 114. Bunker 114 is not far from ours – maybe fifty miles. It’s sheer luck that it’s so close and still running. During the Dark Decade, a lot of Bunkers were built in the Mojave because of nearby L.A., San Diego, and Vegas.

  If there is a reason for secrecy beyond safety, I don’t know it. I know we are a center of xenobiological research, which might be important enough to keep the location under wraps. If such research were seized or destroyed, it would completely frustrate our efforts to understand what is going on at the Ragnarok impact site, nearly a thousand miles away in Nebraska and Wyoming.

  I’m glad I’m a citizen, living in a Bunker. We have warm beds, hot showers, and a safe life. Bunker 108 has a digital archive where millions of books, recordings, and movies are stored. I spend a lot of my off time there, listening to the music of the Old World, watching the movies, reading the books. We have a commons with a pool and a basketball court, among other amenities, including the sun room – fifteen minutes of pure, lighted bliss, giving all Bunker residents their daily dose of Vitamin D. Everything is warm, everything is in its right place, and people are happy – for the most part.

  Right now, Bunker 108 has a population of four hundred, and is run by Chief Security Officer Chan. He’s a little harsh, but he keeps things in order. I just try to dodge him when he walks the corridors.

  Michael and I arrived at the north face of Hart Mountain. As we walked I stared at the distant, red peaks. I was used to the confines of the Bunker, and seeing so much open space was surreal.

  “Jesus…” Michael said.

  I stopped short. “What?”

  Face down in front of us, hidden by some wispy scrub, lay the body of a man, stabbed several times in the back. Small traces of purple slime oozed from the wounds. He wasn’t moving.

  Michael knelt beside the man, placing a hand on his neck.

  “There’s a pulse,” Michael said.

  I wondered why Michael was checking for a pulse, and not shooting him. That was standard protocol: if you found a Wastelander, you killed him, end of story. But after looking at what the man was wearing, I saw why.

  The number 114 was emblazoned on the sleeve.

  “Is he from that other Bunker?” I asked.

  For some reason, my eyes drifted up, focusing on a distant boulder. Something was off about it.

  Then I realized what it was. A woman’s face was peeking around its side.

  Chapter 2

  I knew exactly what I was supposed to do – tell Michael about the woman, and have her eliminated.

  It was so simple, yet I didn’t open my mouth. She was a Wastelander. A real one. She could tell people where she saw us, and the entire security of Bunker 108 could be compromised.

  She might have been the one to stab the man in the first place.

  Yet I didn’t say a word. I just stared out there at that giant red rock as the evening’s shadows stretched, feeling like an idiot. By now, the woman had long disappeared. I wasn’t even sure if she had been there. I could only remember her face, pretty, even with the distance, framed by long, black hair.

  Was it only my imagination?

  Michael’s voice snapped me back to attention.

  “Alpha Patrol to Base – do you copy, over?”

  “Base to Alpha Patrol, what is your status, over?”

  “We found a man, stabbed several times in the back. He’s unconscious, but there is a pulse. I think he’s from that other Bunker, over.”

  The handheld radio went quiet. I took my attention off the boulder, and looked at the man. Those sharp blue eyes that stared upward had held thoughts, once. Now, they held nothing.

  Why was he here? Why had he been killed?

  “If he’s from Bunker 114, what’s he doing out here?” I asked.

  He had to be here for a very important reason. Officer Chan would be most interested in this.

  The radio crackled to life.

  “Alpha Patrol, what is your location, over?”

  “Two miles onto the long route, over.”

  “Can you give a description of the man, over?”

  “Male. Age: 35-45 years. Ethnicity: white. Short of stature, with black hair. He carries nothing – no ID, no gun, no pack. God knows how he made it this far.” Michael sighed. “He may have been murdered and robbed. There are three deep stab wounds in the back – one on the lower right back side, and two more to the left of the spine. Each of them has blood and dark pus oozing through his clothes, over.”

  The wind blew cold and dry, covering the man’s pale face in a thin layer of red dust. The sun faded behind hazy clouds above the distant red mountains. It was now night. It was high time to get back.

  “Alpha Patrol,” said a voice, icy and clear. It was CSO Chan. “We’re sending a team to transport the man to base. If he came from 114, it must have been for an important reason. Remain where you are, and keep an eye out for hostiles. There may be raiders in the area. Do you copy, over?”

  “Copy that,” Michael said.

  “Good. Over and out.”

  I watched where I had seen the woman. The boulder became shrouded in shadow as the dim sun dipped below the western mountains. She was long gone by now – if she knew what was good for her.

  For some reason, I felt pointing her out would have been wrong. Maybe I’m soft. Maybe if it had been a man instead, I would have felt differently. Yet, no matter how I rationalized my decision, I couldn’t make the sick feeling in my gut go away.

  The cold wind never abated, blowing on my already numb face, stinging me with shards of sand, cracking my lips dry. At long last, flashlights crested the rise behind us. Voices signaled the arrival of reinforcements.

  Four men approached, their faces lost to darkness.

  “Where is he?” the one in charge asked, whose voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Down here,” Michael said.

  Two men pointed their guns into the darkness. Everyone else, myself included, lifted the body, one person per limb. Together, we lugged the man back to base.

  Michael explained everything on the way, but I kept silent. I was thinking of the woman. They asked me several questions about what happened. I answered in monosyllables, echoing everything Michael had already said. There was no use in saying anything about the woman now. If I did, I would be severely disciplined, at best, for not speaking up earlier. At worst… I didn’t want to think about that. Now that I was sixteen, I could be tried as an adult, and the holding cells in the Officers’ Wing were mighty small.

  When we reached the vaulted door of Bunker 108, I felt intense relief. The outside of the door, though metallic, was the same dull brown as the terrain. Unless you were right up on it, it was almost indistinguishable from the mountainside.

  The door was opened from the inside, revealing an officer. We stepped inside Bunker 108 as the officer shut the door and twisted it shut behind us.

  We were safe. I had finished my first recon, but for good reason, I didn’t feel all that proud.

  Lights in the entrance tunnel flashed on overhead, revealing the six of us carrying our burden inside. We left the rocky tunnel and entered the atrium. The receptionist’s desk was empty – Deborah had either gone home, or was at the Caf.

  Next to the half circular desk stood my father, Steven Keener, waiting with a gurney and a nervous orderly at his side.

  My father was thirty eight years old. His brown hair, always disheveled, was streaked with gray. Dark circles underlined his hazel eyes, giving him the appearance that he hadn’t slept in days.

  He shot me a worried glance as we put the man on the gurney.

  “Dad…”

  “Not now, son. Go eat. We will speak later.”

  My father and the orderly started wheeling the patient toward the medical bay, flanked by the officers.

  My father was always busy. Between his duties as sen
ior doctor and his own pet project of researching the xenovirus, it was hard to find time with him. He sometimes put in over a hundred hours a week at the lab, all while caring for patients. I didn’t see how it is possible.

  After handing off my rifle to the quartermaster (a small armory was kept near the front desk), I headed to the commons to kill time before dinner. In the corner, several officers and a few civilian women were watching a movie on the big screen. A couple of kids were playing ping pong in the corner. I sat in a chair in another corner, and watched some of my classmates play basketball.

  In a community of about four hundred people, you know everyone, and everyone knows you. Not enough to be your friend, per se, but enough to have a sense of who you are, who your friends are, and what you are about. It’s hard for me to imagine what life was like in the cities – like old L.A., where the population was in the millions. A world where you didn’t know everybody seemed strange and scary to me. Maybe it was for them, too. Only a few in the Bunker remember those times well. Most of the old are gone. A lot went crazy, living underground – or so I’ve heard. But I’ve never heard of anyone born underground who went crazy.

  I don’t think it’s that bad. I have the archive, and someday, I will be a doctor here, too, like my dad. Maybe even sit on the Citizens Council like him, though he rarely attends because of his duties.

  I am no one special – scrawny, quiet, and a little too smart for my own good. That’s what my dad says, anyway – that last bit, not the scrawny and quiet thing. My goal: to exist and survive, and to not get in the way. When you get in the way, other people make trouble for you. There is only one true friend I can claim, and her name is Khloe. We’ve known each other from the cradle, but we have been distancing lately. I don’t know if it’s just us getting older or whether it’s because she’s hanging with a different group.

  I reached for my sketchbook in my pack. Drawing is one of my ways to blow off steam, and I have a knack for it. As I sat in my chair, I just let the pencil move, not really paying attention to what it created. Ten minutes later, without realizing it, I had finished a sketch of the woman I had seen, as I had remembered her. Her face was slightly shaded – I remember an olive complexion, black, silky hair, and pretty, almond eyes. I was amazed by the amount of detail I remembered, but much of it was probably my imagination. She had been pretty far away.