Wargames
We must be the only two people left on Earth, forced to survive together in this fallout shelter.
Originally published as part of Pile Press Issue 07.
We must be the only two people left on Earth, forced to survive together in this fallout shelter, Dodo writes in her latest, possibly final, journal entry. The only ones lucky enough to be close by when the sky ignited.
Sensors read as still unsafe to venture out, but who knows. What choice do we have, anyway?
For all the honest and attentive members of her platoon, it had to be Private Kit “Dodo” Wesson and her fellow soldier, Nigel “Dingo” Ramsey, left alive down in this concrete bunker and unable to make sense of any of the dials and numbers on its many instruments. She and Dingo spent more time at bootcamp on KP duty for mouthing off—peeling potatoes or scrubbing dishes—than on any equipment training or survival tactics. It’s no wonder food stores have dwindled down to scraps, with eating perhaps her only competency.
And probably even that skill won’t be all that handy above, Dodo thinks, knowing she must soon venture out into the blasted wasteland where hunger is only one of many fears to face. She looks up from her finished words at the little table topped with—besides her journal and stubby pencil—two dirty mugs, some spilled powder drink mix around its empty container. A clipboard with graph paper listing numbers and dates. A deck of cards several faces short of full. More crumbs, stains. Her eyes settle, finally, across the room on her young comrade.
Dingo has started to pack up his personals from the upper bunk. Taped to the ceiling is his one photo: in a fading portrait, he is standing proudly with his parents on the day he shipped off. As he eyes fondly and reaches to grab it, Dodo hears him softly murmur, “I was just a kid then.” She knows that photo well, and it makes her think of her own parents.
The rueful smile forming on her face is broken by a staccato buzz erupting out of a small intercom speaker affixed to the rear wall. It fills the musty room and its occupants with immediate panic.
“Oxygen sensor!” Dodo cries, “We’re running out of air here!”
“Get in gear, Kit! Let’s suit up!” Dingo hops uneasily off the bed, and the photo flutters to the ground behind him.
The buzzer sounds out again. The two draftees finally remember a little of their training and get into their biohazard protection suits with a quickness that would’ve made Sarge proud for once. The mildewed yellow rubber hangs loose on their shoulders and arms, likely sized for more strapping nuclear warriors. Dodo helps tuck the extra inches of the pant legs into Dingo’s boots before he does the same for her.
Dodo is donning her facemask, trying to ignore the dust inside she forgot to clean out, when a red light flashes on overhead.
“Proximity alarm...” Dingo starts a shout that ends in a loud whisper. “You think it’s survivors?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, kiddo.” With so much idle time down here, Private Kit Wesson has secretly dreamed of earning a medal, maybe even a battlefield commission. Service. Respect. Her hope pinned on the imagined victories that will, at the very least, kill the nickname Dodo once and for all. “It’s definitely an atomic monster out there. Maybe a pair of them.”
“I’m not ready to go yet!” Dingo is yelling again, muffled and hollow-toned, through his own—
CLANG! CLANG! The atomic monster pounds on the bulkhead doors above. Kit could almost mistake it for neighborly knocking, if the thought of a scaly glowing third claw prying at the doors didn’t come into her pessimistic mind first.
She moves to the base of the stairs. “Shhh, it’s here. It found us.” Kit looks back with finality at the empty weapons locker.
Dingo joins up next to Kit, close and quiet, and they watch as the heavy rusted latch rotates out of its cleat. Metal grinding against metal howls down into the room and into her bones. The darkness of the stairway and the anticipation of her doom dilates her eyes.
When the door cracks open, blinding light pours in. As Kit lifts her hand to shield her eyes, she worries, Is the sky still on fire? After all this time hiding, is there no hope for the earth to heal from its destruction?
The door swings all the way out and slams against the exterior wall. The monster is nothing but shadow and silhouette. Puzzlingly, Kit sees not much glow of radiation as it wrenches at the door’s other half. Those steely protectors, ripped away from her like nothing.
The atomic monster at the top of the stairs to their fallout shelter comes into focus. “Okay, kiddos, c’mon up! Time for lunch already.”
“Aww, just one more hour? Please, Mum!” Nigel is still not ready to go yet.
“Nah, no whinging about it, my li’l Dingo. You heard me buzz you up twice.”
Nigel starts up the stairs, trudging. He pounds the boots with every steep, heavy step.
“Don’t you dare wear all that gear inside,” says Mum. The atomic monster turns away from the old fallout shelter entrance still in their back garden. “You and your sister take that junk off right now and come wash up.”
Kit is already halfway out of her suit. “Good work, Private. I think your stomping scared the monster off. We live to fight another day. Let’s scavenge the surface later for supplies to make us some noisy weapons.”
“That’s brilliant!” Nigel looks back over at Kit and salutes, “It’d be a real honor, General Wesson.” His gloved hand extends and opens towards her, revealing the King of Hearts.
Service. Respect. And now, courage. General Kit Wesson of the Royal New South Wales Regiment, Australian Defense Force.