Stranger

Fifty

This was it. Adrenaline blasted me into overdrive. The world blurred as I ran hard at the bunker.

Boy danced outside the bunker door. “I did it, I did it!”

“Great work. Now get behind the bunker. And keep off the goddam grass.” I looked down at the doorway. The metal frame inside the bag still held against the pressure of the door. Even so, it had closed now maybe halfway, leaving a two-foot opening. I heard pneumatics hiss. The steel frame groaned; there was the sound of metal on metal grinding somewhere inside.

“It’s holding,” I shouted. “But it might not hold for long.”

Then Phoenix’s voice rolled from the speakers. “Valdiva! Get out of here! You’re a dead man! I’ll crush you!”

“Yeah, you and whose army?”

“You are dead, Valdiva. Get away from here! Get away!”

The voice thundered across the plastic lawns away into the forest.

“You’ve got bunker boy all riled,” Tony said as he switched on his flashlight.

“I’ll go first,” I said. “He’s going to turn this place into a fun house the moment we go in there.”

Phoenix boomed like the voice of God: “YOU’RE DEAD MEN WALKING. D’YA HEAR? GET AWAY FROM HERE… LEAVE AND YOU’LL LIVE!”

“Sounds as if you’ve spooked him, too.”

Zak lumbered up with the heavy pack of dynamite on his pack. He turned ’round so I could pull open the zipper on the backpack. I reached in, tugged out a bundle of dynamite, then started to unreel the fuse that I’d carefully wound ’round it.

“Tony, hold the end of the fuse. Zak, stick close to the bunker wall… no-farther back from the doorway.” Suddenly this seemed crazy; to be standing there with five sticks of dynamite in my hand. Hell, I’d never used the stuff before. OK, I’d shoved the gleaming steel-shelled detonator into the center. But is that where it went? Jesus, sweet Jesus… “All right.” I took a deep breath. “Stay back. The trick is to use just enough to blow the doors… not bring the whole house down.”

Maybe Zak saw me hesitating, as if I doubted I could pull this off. “He’s got a lot of goodies in there, Greg. Do it.”

“Keep a grip on that fuse, Tony. If I yell ‘Light it!’ just light it anyway, OK?”

He nodded, his face grim.

The door was still trying to crush the steel frame. I heard metal groaning as I stepped over it. The outer door wasn’t my target. It would take a whole truckload of explosive to even dent that. My only hope was that it didn’t manage to force itself shut. If I was trapped in there… hell, I didn’t want to paint any mind pictures about that one…

As I suspected, Phoenix didn’t help me by switching on the lights. Instead I moved along that same decontamination chamber I had entered before, this time a flashlight in my hand. The light danced on the tiled floor; the fuse trailed behind me. I repeatedly looked back to see if it had snagged against the door that slid backward and forward as Phoenix tried to batter the obstruction to crud.

At that moment spray hit me in the face. Hell, he was using the decontamination procedure as a weapon. The disinfectant caught me squarely, shooting into my mouth and eyes. The stuff burned like fire.

Half blinded, I stumbled forward, still holding the dynamite in one hand, the flashlight in the other, and trying to steady my balance with my elbow. Then he hit me with the cold water spray.

“Getting desperate, are we, bunker boy?” I murmured. I had anticipated his suddenly appearing in the doorway with a machine gun to blast us. He must have hundreds of weapons at his disposal. But something told me now he wouldn’t have the guts to venture out of his safe house to face us.

“We’re coming in, Phoenix!” I yelled over the hiss of water. “We’ll find you.”

“You bastards. You won’t get close to me. You’re dead men… dead men!”

I reached the door to the locker room. Although hardly flimsy, it was only a fraction as thick as the outer door. Carefully, I set the dynamite down so it was touching the door.

Too much explosive? Too little? Dammit, I just didn’t know. Behind me metal shrieked as if in pain. I glanced back to see the outer door had all but crushed its way shut.

Taking a deep breath, I bellowed: “Tony! Light the fuse!”

The outer door had become a great champing mouth. It slid back, then rumbled forward to crush the steel frame. The fuse snaked across the mangled back pack.

“You’ve made yourself a tomb!” Phoenix ranted. “D’ ya hear me, Valdiva? I’m going to sit here. I’m going to enjoy watching you rot!”

Come on, Tony, do it… light it… if the door slides all the way shut it’s gonna kill the fuse. I looked ’round for something else to wedge in the door, but this passageway consisted of nothing but naked walls. I ran back to the outer door, tried to hold it back with my bare hands. Shit. I might as well have tried to stop the sun rising with nothing but my own two arms. With a hiss it rolled along the groove again to slam against the mangled frame, nearly pulping me in the process.

I glanced down as the flame ate the fuse, spitting sparks and fizzing. Then it ran through the doorway back toward the dynamite. Even the deluge of water from the showerheads didn’t slow it. Jesus, the fuse burned faster than I had anticipated.

Tony and Zak appeared to help me with the door.

“No, it’s too late,” I shouted. “Get back. The dynamite’s going to blow.”

They moved back sharply, waving Boy to get down. Inquisitive as kids are, he’d leaned out from behind the bunker to get a closer look.

My eyes hunted across the ground. There, in the plastic grass, I saw it: a crowbar a hornet had used to break heads. But the ground was mined beneath the lawn. I looked at it, searching for any telltale marks in the grass. Dammit. Nothing to tell where the bombs were. Hell, what else could I do? I stepped onto the astroturf, hoping I didn’t trigger a mine.

Thank you, Lord. I reached the iron bar, grabbed it, then ran back to the bunker door that had now closed the gap to around six inches. It slid back before returning to batter the obstruction. Cut into the floor was an inch deep groove fitted with a steel slot where the door wheels ran. I slammed the iron bar into the groove just as the door came hissing back. It glided over the iron bar like it wasn’t there. But just as I was thinking, Shit, it didn’t work, the wheel that supported the half-ton door must have run into the iron bar. With a jolt the door stopped dead.

Zak yelled at me: “Greg! Get back! It’s going to blow!”

Jesus, I’d forgotten about the fuse. I slammed myself against the bunker wall. The thunderous bang shortcut my ears. I felt a tremendous concussion in the center of my head. Instantly the bunker wall jumped at me, knocking me square in the face and flinging me back to the ground.

I pulled myself to my feet, my ears ringing, blood dripping from my nose.

“You all right?” The voice seemed to be part of the ringing. I looked ’round to see Zak and Tony helping me to stand.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Go see if we’re in.”

With flashlights blazing they squeezed past the crippled door and entered the hallway. I followed, shaking the dizzy sensation from my head. In the glow of the flashlights I saw water oozing from a fractured pipe. The explosion had blackened the walls, and every tile had shattered. I checked out the door inside the chamber. Fantastically, it still held tight in one piece, but it was the wall beside it that had staved in. I followed Zak and Tony through crumpled metal panels into the locker room. The explosion had picked up the vacuum packs of clothes, then scattered them ’round the place. Those white rubber sandals covered the floor as if a blizzard had hit it, covering it with blobs of snow.

So… I’d made it back again. I was back in the bunker, only it was different this time. No longer the prisoner but the invader.

When I reached Phoenix, and met him face to face, I wondered what he would say. Come to that, I wondered what he would do.