Outside, the hellstorm of cobalt fire raged louder than any possible hurricane, and days passed before the vibrations in the air and the ground slowly ebbed. While the winds battered the building above them, David wept insanely when he wasn’t asleep, the rationed shots of morphine all that Ron could do for his friend. And every time he regained consciousness, the man began to scream, raking cracked nails across his sunburned face to rip away the dressings. Blisters had formed on every inch of exposed skin, and Ron didn’t know if his friend would live. And he was certainly blind. The medical supplies were only the basic materials, field-surgery kits for fast repairs to keep a wounded sailor alive until the corpsman arrived.
But there would never be any more corpsman or doctors. No relief ship, no helicopter, no cops. The two men were on their own until further notice. Forever. The journal was his only solace, and Ron wrote in detail about a tidal wave that swept across the nearby islands, broken aircraft carriers and battleships mixed into the churning brown silt from the bottom of the sea. A radioactive tidal wave. Every ship in the archipelago had to have been destroyed. The Geiger counter built into the wall was still registering high, but no longer spiking the deadly red line. The bombs used had to have been the so-called clean nukes that the Pentagon was so proud of developing. Bombs with ultrashort half-life isotopes in the warheads. In ten or so years, any island still in existence would be livable again. That was, if there was anybody left alive.
Trying to pass the time, Ron did a detailed inventory of everything the Navy engineers had stashed in their little bolt-hole. Emergency supplies for the base personnel. It was a criminal offense for him to even open a box to peek inside. But there was no law anymore, and he felt no remorse as he went through the government property. It all belonged to him now.
Ripping open a wooden crate full of bottles, Ron used his teeth to work out the cork of a whiskey bottle and drank directly from the neck, ignoring the rows of clean plastic glasses lining the shelf. Food wasn’t a problem; there was enough for twenty years, and quite a decent stash of weapons and ammunition. Enough to start a small war. But war was gone from the world for a while. Everybody would be simply trying to stay alive, way too busy to argue religion or political beliefs. Personal survival would be the only rule for those still in the world, and it would be the same here. Survival at any cost.
Standing, Ron took another deep swig from the bottle and walked over to where David sprawled in the bunk.
“Hey,” the wounded man whispered, a pained smile twisting his feature. “It’s not a dream is it? They dropped the Big One.”
“Looks like,” Ron said, placing the bottle aside. He felt cold. So very cold.
David sniffed. “You drinking booze?”
“Yeah.”
“Morphine is doing me fine, but you go right ahead and have one for me. Hell, have one for everybody!”
“There’s lots of food,” Ron found himself saying. He had no idea why. It was as if somebody else were speaking through him. God, what was he doing? Dave was his best friend. Pulling the 10 mm U.S. Navy pistol from his belt, Ron clicked off the safety, the tiny noise incredibly loud in the locked bunker.
“Trouble?” David asked, struggling to sit upright. He reached out a hand for Ron, and the man stepped out of the way. “Somebody at the bunker door?”
Ron felt a hysterical laugh bubble up from inside. “I wish to God there was somebody at the door,” he said softly, “but there isn’t, and there never will be. We knew the risks when we took this assignment. World War III, pal. We’re all alone and nobody is ever coming to rescue us.”
“Nonsense,” David began gently, a shaking hand rubbing his bandages. “Why, over on Kwalein Island they have an underground base the size of—”
“Shut up!” Ron screamed, his hand shaking so badly he almost dropped the weapon. “Shut the fuck up! There’s only enough food for twenty years! Twenty, that’s all!”
“So?” David asked, puzzled, leaning back in his bunk. “Hell, that’s plenty. A lifetime!”
Ron fired again and again at the blind man until the corpse fell off the blood-soaked bunk.
“Now it’s forty years,” Ron whispered, watching the body twitch and then go terribly still.
That was ten years ago. Long lonely years. Taking up the fountain pen once more, Ron shook his head to banish the memory of that insane day. But it had been a decade since he heard a human voice. The TV and radio never worked again, the phone only static. The CD player and VCR were junk, the computer useless. The hundred thousand Web sites of the Internet vanished in the first microsecond pulse of the nuclear detonations. His new URL was now www.gonetohell.com.
There were still ten thousand gallons of diesel fuel in the storage tanks for the generator that powered the lighthouse. But he hadn’t turned on the beam in years, first to save fuel, then out of fear others would arrive and discover his crime. Murder. That was the word. He was a murderer. Assassin. Coward.
Thousands of people were probably raping and killing one another across the world, but this had been while the ground was still shaking from the bombs. While the taste of civilization was still in his mouth. There had been enough food for forty men for one year, or two men for twenty years, or one man for forty years. The math was easy, the results unacceptable. He had wanted a full long life, but now Ron was paying the price for his bloody crime.
Sometimes in the dark, Ron could hear the dead sailors from the Navy base whispering, asking why he did it, calling him a traitor. He woke screaming, drenched in sweat and used up all of the whiskey to force dreamless sleep. When it was gone, he switched to the morphine, but now that was depleted, and the nightmares were tearing apart his mind, until he wasn’t sure when he was awake or asleep. David stood behind him a lot these days, never visible, but always there, reminding him that he had something to do. One last act before he could finally sleep.
Putting aside the pen, Ron slowly walked to the middle of the stairwell, checked the rope he had tied there yesterday, slipped the noose around his neck and jumped. It was that easy.
The shock of the noose tightening filled him with cold adrenaline when Ron realized in horror that he hadn’t tied the noose correctly. It was supposed to break his neck and kill him instantly. This was slow strangulation! Standing at the foot of the stairs, David watched him thrash about with those pure white eyes and did nothing to help. Clawing madly at the rope slowly crushing his windpipe, Ron managed to suck a sip of air into his burning lungs. Then another, and another. He was going to live. Live! With excruciating slowness, Ron started to climb the rope, going hand over hand back to the stairs.
That was last week.
He was ready to try again. David had told him what he had done wrong, so he wouldn’t fail next time. Knot the rope more, that’ll do the trick. Soon, he’d be asleep forever. Absolved of his crimes.
Oh God, please let me die this time.
“THAT’S IT, the rest is blank,” Mildred said, closing the journal and placing it flat on the table. “Guess he finally made it.”
Dean chewed a lip. “So he went mad from loneliness?”
She smiled sadly. “It’s called cabin fever. Almost got it myself once.”
“His mental failure was completely understandable,” Doc rumbled, joining the conversation. “Most crimes merely mutter their presence.
