Alicia Coast

Anna’s alarm clock fills the room with artificial sunlight. She rolls over. The clock reads 7 a.m., but she has been awake in the darkness for at least half an hour. Even in the aftermath of total, global annihilation, she is still an early riser. She turns off the alarm, pulling off the thin linen duvet, before swinging her legs over the side of the bed, sliding her feet into Louis Vuitton slippers.

Wiping sleep from her eyes, she shuffles to her wardrobe, guided by the soft glow of the LED floor lights. She chooses her workout outfit for the day; a dusty pink Victoria’s Secret front close sports bra and matching leggings, paired with her trusty white and pink Nike running shoes. The gym set had been part of her most recent modeling campaign. If only she had known at the time, it would be her last. She would have purchased more sets.

It’s Tuesday, boxing day. She heads across the bunker to the gym, still only using the floor lights. She may be a morning person, but she prefers to give herself time to wake up before assaulting her eyes with the bright lighting system Ian installed. He had wanted it to feel like they were actually out in the sun, but no matter how bright the lights were, they could never make up for the warmth of the sun.

When she enters the gym, the lights turn on automatically. Ian insisted on sensors in every room but the bedrooms, to prevent wasted electricity. She starts with a thirty-minute run on the treadmill. It’s a manual treadmill, requiring a lot more focus and effort than what she was used to at her gym in New York. As she got used to it, she found she actually preferred it. Her workouts felt more genuine, plus it saved precious electricity. The generators are still in great condition, but using them for a treadmill would be a waste of gas.

Next, she moves to the boxing trainer. Ian had insisted she learn to box, to better defend herself should she need to. She had always found his insistence on being prepared for the worst to be cute, but strange. Now, she’s grateful for it. 

The boxing trainer stands at eye level with her six foot, two inch frame. Two arms stretch out at each side, at shoulder and hip levels. She runs through her routine, hooking, cutting, and jabbing until her arms feel like they’re going to fall off. She doesn’t know who she’ll have to fight in the bunker, but she enjoys the workout. Sweating and famished, she heads to the bathroom.

The water in the shower is lukewarm, and a timer only gives her five minutes to clean everything. This is the worst part of life in the bunker. Okay, second worst. In her old life, she would spend at least an hour in the bathroom. Between showering, lotion, face masks, hair masks, makeup, and styling her hair, she used a dozen different products and always looked perfect. She had to. Everywhere she went, someone was going to take her picture, and she would be damned if they caught her unprepared.

Now, she was stuck with a quick rinse to wet her hair and body, scrubbing her body and hair with soap and shampoo before turning the water back on to rinse off. She misses her body lotion and her perfumes. She misses smelling like flowers in the summer and warm spices in the winter. As she dabs her lips and cheeks with her nub of Chanel lipstick, she realizes with sadness she doesn’t even remember what flowers smell like.

She used to have them everywhere. Ian would bring home a fresh bouquet every Sunday after his afternoon golf sessions, and the maid would change the vases in the living room, bedroom, kitchen, and dining room every three days. She still remembers the last bouquet Ian had bought her, bright red roses mixed with purple statices and blue irises. They were still sitting on the entry table, waiting for Ian to replace them, when she had to flee the house for the shelter.

Anna shakes away the memory. Returning to the bedroom, she changes into jeans, a black tank top, and black Michael Kors sneakers. After they were married, Ian had requested Anna fill the wardrobe in the main bedroom with clothes she wouldn’t miss every day. Not sure what would be necessary, she filled the drawers and hangers with jeans, sweatpants and leggings, t-shirts and sweaters. All designer brands, of course, but older. Things she didn’t wear often but couldn’t bring herself to part with.

Her nicest clothes sat in either the rubble of the house just a few yards from the bunker entrance or in her penthouse in Manhattan, either ruined in the blasts or looted in the aftermath. Either way, they were gone forever. There was no point in reminiscing about the past. It only made her sad.

It’s quarter after seven, time for breakfast. The kitchen is stocked with the most recently opened emergency food storage bucket. Anna chooses a packet of oatmeal with cinnamon and dehydrated apples. She starts the kettle to boil then pulls a bowl and mug from the dish cabinet. She pours the oatmeal packet into the bowl and two scoops of instant coffee into the mug. 

The water boils quickly, and she finishes preparing her breakfast. Blowing on her coffee to cool it down while she waits for the oats to rehydrate and cook. She thought she would dislike the dehydrated and freeze-dried food when Ian first brought it home. He had insisted they do a dry run, eating only from the bucket for a month. It had been easier than she expected, and took out all the planning when it came to food for that month. She found she actually enjoyed it. 

Cooking had never been her thing. Growing up, she ate for survival. As an adult, she ate for fuel. She never could understand her friends and colleagues who ate for social interaction or fun. The instant coffee, however, she still wasn’t used to. Ian had suggested adding powdered milk and sugar, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She drank her coffee black. Had been that way since she was thirteen. She just had to put up with the disappointing bitterness.

She finishes her breakfast and washes the dishes within fifteen minutes. A single drop of dish soap is all she needs to clean the spoon, mug, and bowl. She does a quick inventory of the pantry. She won’t need to open a new bucket for two months. Each bucket was supposed to be enough to feed two people for one month. Since it’s just her, each buck lasts two months. As long as nothing happens to the air, food, or water supply, she can stay in the bunker for at least ten years.

It’s a lonely thought, she recognizes, but it is reality. She turns from the kitchen to find something to read in the living room when she hears a sound she hasn’t heard in nearly two years. There is a knock at the bunker door. Startled by the sudden sound, her hand flies to her mouth.

She doesn’t make a sound. She doesn’t even turn toward the door. Instead, she leaves the kitchen, walking down the short hallway, past the bathroom and what would have been the children’s room if they had had any, into the living room. She crosses the long space and steps through the door to the utility room, then the gym, then the security room at the back of the bunker. All the while, the banging on the door follows her.

In the security room, Anna brings up the main door camera. Hope that it’s Ian rises up in her, but she pushes it back down. The man is large, in height and girth. He clearly hasn’t struggled for food, and the hard life of survival has chiseled his muscles. She can only see his biceps, bulging from cut off sleeves of what was once a leather jacket. Ian was also tall, and his dedication to the gym kept him strong. 

Blonde hair pokes out from the biker helmet covering his face. He isn’t Ian. Ian had black hair he kept short on the side, but not buzzed. The top he let grow out to two inches, which he styled with gel every morning. He visited the barber every three weeks to keep the neat style. Anna had never seen him with his hair any longer than that. She doubted she would recognize him any other way.

The man continues to bang on the door. She can see something in his right hand, a hammer. His left hand is bandaged across the knuckles and she can see a gun holstered to his belt. If he’s saying something, she can’t hear it. The twelve-inch thick steel and concrete door lets little sound through. If he didn’t have the hammer, she likely wouldn’t have heard him at all.

She could turn on the microphone and speaker. They should still work, though she hasn’t tested them since she locked herself in. She decides to leave him there, hoping he’ll give up. It’s too much of a risk, she knows, to let a strange man into her safe space. Besides, he survived for two years without her help.

If Ian were here, she would be less afraid. He would know what to do. How to help the man or get him to go away. For two years she’s waited for him to make his way back to her, checking the cameras every day for a sign he’s come back. Scurrying out of the emergency hatch in the dead of night to clear the cameras and vents of debris. Two years is a long time to wait when the world is in ruins. It’s a long time to be totally alone, with only the voices of the emergency broadcasts and survival camps as company.

She had first met Ian at a dinner party hosted by her new manager, Darren. She had only been with Darren for a little over a year, having fired her mother after a falling out over a Victoria’s Secret campaign. Anna wanted to do it. Her mother thought it was too much. Too trashy. What would the people back home think?

Anna didn’t care about the people back home. They had always treated her like trash. The only daughter of a poor mother who got pregnant way too early. She had left that life behind when a scout noticed her at a department store fashion show. At sixteen, she moved to New York, got her first contract, and became the breadwinner for her and her mother. Things moved quickly. The cameras loved her, the brands loved her. She was a top model by eighteen and a supermodel by twenty.

The dinner party was to celebrate her new contract with Louis Vuitton. Ian, a lawyer partnered in his father’s firm, attended with a client who happened to be good friends with Darren. Anna had suspected it was a setup from the start. Darren wanted her to date. Dates attracted paparazzi. Anna didn’t care. From the moment she met Ian, she knew she only wanted him.

His family’s firm was one of the most successful law firms in New York. Their clients ranged from musicians to producers to models to politicians. He was smart, clever, just like her. He wore his Ivy League education with pride, but didn’t fault her for her lack of one.

When she revealed her humble upbringing, he didn’t look down on her or with pity, like many others did. Instead, he lauded her for her work ethic and willpower. When she wasn’t modeling she was networking. Always planning the next few steps. 

They were married within a year, purchasing a penthouse in Manhattan he let her decorate to her heart’s content. She arranged for it to be featured in Architectural Digest. She planned to retire in her early thirties and launch her own interior design company. Then they would start their family.

The couple spent their downtime at the family property near Canandaigua Lake. Ian showed her the bunker the first time she visited the property when they returned from their honeymoon. She thought it was eccentric, but didn’t say anything at the time.

The bunker had been built by Ian’s grandfather during the cold war. Having grown up in WWII and serving in the Korean War, he was paranoid of another major world war. He built the bunker to protect his growing family. Ian’s father maintained it and then Ian. Every time the couple visited the bunker, Ian would run emergency drills. If his parents were there, they participated too. 

Ian ran Anna through everything. He made sure she knew how to maintain the bunker’s water and electrical systems, how to keep the vents clear, how to use the cameras and security system. He was thorough, if a bit paranoid. A paranoia Anna has become grateful for.

The first bomb dropped on a Sunday in the early fall. Anna was at the house relaxing after the five-hour drive from Manhattan. New York Fashion week had just ended and she was looking forward to the downtime. Ian had gone with some local buddies to play golf. A weekly tradition whenever they visited the area.

Anna was watching some reality show she doesn’t even remember when an emergency broadcast interrupted her show with the breaking news. A bomb had hit New York. She watched in silent horror over the next twenty minutes as bomb after bomb was dropped on major cities across the U.S., and the world.

She tried to call Ian, but the lines were flooded. The plan was clear; she had to get to the bunker and wait for him. She didn’t even change her clothes, just grabbed her purse and fled for the outdoor office that hid the entrance to the bunker. Within a few weeks, the phone lines were down. Television lasted around six months, playing the news around the clock to update the surviving populations on the situation and where they could seek help.

Soon, the only way to communicate was through radio. Survivors would plead for help. Officials would ask anyone with decent shelter and supplies to help where they could. Anna watched the cameras for weeks, looking for Ian. She watched as group after group of desperate survivors, some her own friends and neighbors, scoured her home. Some, she knew, were looking for her. They hadn’t told their friends about the bunker. Most though, were just taking the opportunity to loot. 

Three months in, the main house and the building housing the entrance to the bunker collapsed, leaving the emergency hatch as the only way in or out. Still, she waited for Ian. She followed the routines he had put in place for maintaining the bunker. She listened to the radio, but never reached out. Never offered shelter or food.

It’s still unclear who dropped the first bomb. The devastation was global. It seemed every major power had unleashed everything they had. In the end, no one came out on top. The earth was destroyed, populations decimated. 

“I know someone’s in there!” The shout startles Anna out of her memories. She looks at the computer screen. The man is no longer at the main door. She can’t see him on any of the remaining cameras.

“Let me in, you bitch!” The voice is muffled. She can barely understand him. She steps out of the security room into the gym. His voice is louder there, but still muffled. He’s standing at one of the air vents. “I know you’re there. I’ve seen you come out at night. You think you can keep your shit all to yourself?”

If Anna wasn’t sure earlier about helping him, she is damn sure now. His location is concerning. The emergency hatch can only be opened from the inside, but if he knows he is near a vent, he could get in. Anna moves quickly to the bunk room, pulling open the bookshelf door. She enters the arsenal. Ian had taught her to use every gun in the collection, just in case. She grabs a pistol, makes sure it’s loaded, and clips it to her hip. An extra mag goes into her back pocket.

Anna returns to the vent above the gym. She has to get rid of the man. He’s still shouting, and the noise could draw others. “I’m gonna get in there, and when I do, I’m gonna do things you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmares.”

Anna is pretty sure she could imagine what he had in mind. She remembers then that Ian had installed more than just cameras for the security system. She enters the security room and checks the system. The command center is still operational. She returns to the vent.

“Okay, I’ll help you.” She tries to keep her voice calm. 

“It’s about damn time,” he yells. “You rich assholes only think about yourselves. I bet you’ve got enough food in there for an army.”

“I’ve got food,” she says. “And water. Go back to the main door. I’ll let you in.”

“You better, or I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

She returns to the cameras and waits for the man to return to the entrance. It takes a while. The rubble is deep. She has no idea how he managed to get through it in the first place. 

When he reaches the door, she presses the button for the intercom. “I’m gonna open the door now. It’s heavy and takes a minute to do.”

The man nods. He’s no longer wearing his helmet and she can see his face clearly. An eye patch covers his left eye and a large scar crosses from above the left eye to the bottom of his right cheek. He pulls his gun out of the holster and she knows she is making the right decision.

Below the camera controls sit a series of buttons labeled by room; entrance, kitchen, living space, main bedroom, bunk room, and so on. The buttons for the entrance are unique. Like the other rooms, there are controls for power and the intercom. For the entrance, another button sits inside a hinged glass box labeled “Turret.”

Anna looks at the button, thinking about what she is about to do. This man, she knows, will kill her the moment she opens that door. She’s not going to let that happen.

She opens the glass box and presses the button. For a moment, nothing happens. She can’t see the door hidden in the ceiling that hides the turret. Neither can the man. He’s looking directly at the door, waiting. The entrance intercom was broken by an early attempt to break in, before the building collapsed. She doesn’t hear the turret fire, but she sees it.

Light flashes in quick succession from the ceiling into the thick body of the would-be intruder. His body jerks as he’s hit over a dozen times in the head, arms, and torso. She watches his body drop, before pressing the button again to close and put the turret back to sleep.

Anna watches the cameras for a week, only leaving the room long enough to eat or go to the bathroom. She sleeps in the chair in intervals, and when she wakes, she watches the saved footage to ensure she doesn’t miss anything. No one comes. If anyone is missing the man, they don’t know where to look.

She decides to leave the body where it is. It would be too difficult to get it out of the tight rubble, and too much risk of being seen. She will have to leave the bunker, eventually. The foliage around the cameras will grow and the vents will get covered in debris. She will have to be more careful to not let someone else see her.

The man was right about one thing. She is a selfish asshole. She always has been. There is only one person she cares enough for to open that door, and she will wait for him forever.