Bunker (A Post-Apocalyptic Techno Thriller Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Bunker (Book 2)

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sneak Peak: REDFALL Chapter 1

  Sneak Peak: SHADOW GAMES Chapter 1

  Sneak Peak: LINKAGE Chapter 1

  Books by Jay J. Falconer

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  Note From the Author

  About the Author

  BUNKER

  Dogs of War

  Book 2

  Mission Critical Series

  Published March 23, 2017

  by BookBreeze.com LLC

  ISBN: 978-1544778433

  Written By Jay J. Falconer

  www.JayFalconer.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or business establishments or organizations, actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Jay J. Falconer

  All Rights Reserved Worldwide. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author (Jay J. Falconer) except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, publicity mentions, book/author recommendations, or announcements.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Jack Bunker kept an eye on the whirl of activity in the town square of Clearwater, Colorado as he slumped down in the back seat of an abandoned car.

  Everywhere he looked, he saw more townspeople cruising by. Most of them had a candle or a gas lantern in their hands. A few flashlights were providing light, too, but after the sweeping failure that had crippled the power grid, the rest of the mountain community was relying on the only other source of light: the moon.

  When the area around the car was clear, he unbuttoned his makeshift shorts and slid them off. It was time to replace them with long pants to hide his embarrassingly white legs and provide some warmth. A second later, his feet were inside and after a quick pull up, he was dressed in a full-length pair of jeans for the first time since he’d cut the bottoms off the other pair to help save the kids on the overturned bus.

  He fastened the lone button and yanked the zipper up to complete his cover-up, before stuffing the cutoffs into his duffle, where they’d probably remain until he got settled somewhere.

  Bunker got out of the vehicle and went back to his previous spot: fifteen feet in front of the entrance door to the small-town clinic, where his new friend, Stephanie King, was waiting.

  “That’s better. I thought I was going to need my sunglasses. Talk about a pair of supernovas,” Stephanie said when he arrived, her smile full.

  “Yeah, I’ve never liked my legs much,” Bunker said, wanting to change the subject. He looked around for her son. “Where’s Jeffrey?”

  She pointed at the ice cream parlor across the way. “They’re giving cones away before it all melts. Doesn’t look like the power’s coming on anytime soon.”

  “Probably not,” he answered, watching the adolescent step up to the takeout window of the confectionery store and take hold of a vanilla cone wrapped in a white napkin.

  The ten-year-old backed away from the purveyor and stood with the twin redheads he’d just met from the school bus accident. The girls were about half done with their melting treats, but Jeffrey looked determined to catch up.

  Bunker smiled when he saw the spread of creamy white across Jeffrey’s pale skin and freckles. “Looks like he missed. Must be out of practice.”

  Stephanie laughed. “Oh, I seriously doubt that. That boy has ice cream all the time. In fact, if I let him, he’d have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week. No, he’s just being silly for the girls. I never should’ve told him that the way to a girl’s heart is to make her laugh.”

  Bunker nodded, thinking of his first crush in school. “Ah, I remember those days well. Life was so simple back then.”

  “Yep. Just school, homework, and ice cream. Doesn’t take much to entertain that boy. As long as he has his science game to play with, he’s good for hours.”

  Jeffrey’s enthrallment with the educational device, Frankie’s Science Lab, was obvious when the three of them first met on the Amtrak train. But now that the EMP blast had taken it out, along with the rest of the electronics, the boy would surely miss it.

  Bunker couldn’t hold back a laugh as Jeffrey continued his antics for the girls. “Well, I don’t know, Steph. Judging by the way he’s interacting with those girls, he might be changing his focus to something other than science. Something a little more interactive and tactile, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, good God. Not yet. He’s only ten.”

  “Kids start early these days. Not like when we were their age. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know crap.”

  “Me either. But with social media, they’re exposed to way too much at too young an age.”

  “At least with the grid down, you don’t have to worry about that for a while.”

  “One good thing at least.”

  Even though Bunker had just arrived in this small town, its residents had been exceptionally kind and welcoming. Of course, showing up with fifty of their kids he’d just rescued from a bus hanging off a cliff didn’t hurt. It was certainly a memorable first impression, and a positive one at that.

  Good impressions were not what usually happened when he arrived in a new town, at least not while on assignment for his former boss.

  Actually, now that he thought about it, his last two jobs yielded the same results—the locals loathing his arrival, but doing so for two completely different reasons.

  He figured as long as he kept his body art hidden from public view, his new-found reputation and cover ID would remain intact. The blowtorch had eradicated the ink on the sides of his neck, but burning the rest of it off his body wasn’t going to be an option—not just due to the excruciating pain and lengthy healing process, but because it was nearly everywhere, covering his arms, chest, and back.

  He could accept living with a pair of disfiguring two-inch scars on his neck, but he wasn’t willing to cover himself with dozens of scars, even to hide all his sins.

  Before the blowtorch decision, he considered checking into a tattoo removal center to see what they could do. However, that would’ve created a paper trail and raised too many questions, risking his former employer, Connor Watts, learning of his location.

  Jack knew the rule like everyone else who’d joined the group: nobody walks away and lives to tell about it. Yet, despite his boss’ ruthless reputation, that’s exactly what h
e’d done.

  If he continued to wear long-sleeve shirts, the truth about his past would stay hidden. So far, his plan seemed to be working. As long as he stayed in character and didn’t get noticed, there was little chance anyone would track him down under his new name. Especially now that the grid and communications were down.

  At this point, only Stephanie King had caught a glimpse of the artwork on his back. She may have noticed some of the ink on his forearms, too, when he was shirtless and turned away earlier that day. However, with the Internet offline, she wouldn’t be able to look up the meaning of the numbers and symbols.

  He figured he was safe—for now, anyway. The most condemning tattoos were on his chest, and those he could never let her see—or anyone else in town, for that matter. If word ever got back to Watts, he and his loyal men would come gunning for him and anyone else who got in their way.

  Bunker felt a tap on his outside shoulder. He turned. It was one of the kids from the bus.

  “What’s up, Tommy?” he asked the boy.

  “My dad told me to give you this,” the tall, lanky kid said, his eyes blinking rapidly. He held up his hand and gave Bunker a lunch-sized brown paper sack.

  Bunker hoped it wasn’t money or some other gift he couldn’t accept. “What is it?”

  “Open it,” Tommy said, bobbing on his heels. “Dad said to tell you to share it with Stephanie, before it goes bad.”

  Bunker opened the bag. Inside was a pile of thinly sliced roast beef. No bun, lettuce, or anything else. Just a big batch of Arby’s-style meat.

  Tommy continued, “Charmer’s is selling their meat super cheap before it goes bad. Dad made me promise not to eat any of it on my way over here.”

  “Where is your dad?”

  Tommy turned and pointed to a round, stocky man who was about the same height as the kid. Their resemblance to each other was uncanny: same curly hair, wide nose, and chipmunk cheeks. No doubt they were related.

  Bunker raised his hand and sent a single head nod as a thank you.

  Tommy’s father gave him a thumbs-up signal, then turned his attention to the elderly woman standing next to him.

  Bunker put his hand inside the sack and pulled out a clutch of roast beef. He held it up. There were almost no strands of fat in the beef. “Ah, the good stuff,” he said.

  Tommy licked his lips.

  Bunker took a wad of slices and split them equally between Stephanie and the delivery boy. Both of them devoured the food like a couple of starving T-Rexes. He gave them another round of slices before putting some into his own mouth.

  The flavor exploded on his tongue. “Damn, this is good. I forgot how hungry I was.”

  “Me too,” Stephanie answered, her mouth full. She smiled at Tommy and the kid grinned back, both of them working their teeth to grind down the food.

  “Is all their meat this lean?” Bunker asked her before cramming another handful into his mouth.

  “Yep. Charmer’s get their beef from a cattle ranch outside town. Doesn’t get any fresher than that.”

  Charmer’s Market and Feed Store was on the left side of Clearwater’s central square. From what he’d been told, Charmer’s was the only true mercantile in the area, not counting the postage stamp of an ice cream shop on the adjacent corner and the newly-built convenience store and bait shop across the street. The long line of shoppers snaking its way across the grassy square from Charmer’s seemed to confirm that fact.

  ‘The Event’ earlier that day had sent everyone scrambling. The grid had failed across the area, plus all the electronics seemed to be fried. He expected as much, given what he’d seen that day during his train ride.

  A sudden flashback tore into his mind, replaying the important events of the day: meeting Steph and her son in the Sightseeing Car, the locomotive stalling in the mountains, and then the falling aircraft narrowly missing the front of the train.

  It still seemed like an impossibility: the airliner getting caught in a wicked updraft, sending it to the side at the last second. When he saw the wide swath of tracks missing, he knew how lucky they all were.

  He could still smell the smoke in his nostrils from the fiery crash that took the unmarked, all-white plane deep inside the canyon along the river. If not for a miracle gust of wind, that brutal end would have been his destiny, too.

  Bunker figured the unusual combination of failures meant only one thing—a high-altitude EMP blast. Nothing else seemed to fit the facts he’d gathered thus far. No mushroom clouds. No signs of radiation poisoning. No widespread destruction. Yet the power was out and electronics were useless.

  It all fit the pattern. However, without more information, Bunker couldn’t be sure of any of it. Nor could the Mayor or Sheriff, who were huddled with a pack of citizens ten yards away.

  Bunker wasn’t a technical expert by any stretch, but he’d read his share of technical magazines and science fiction novels during his free time since high school. That same span of fourteen years had also included two stints of employment, both of which made his skin crawl upon reflection.

  He wasn’t proud of all he’d done for brother and country; however, if it weren’t for all the bad decisions he’d made, he never would’ve been here, in Clearwater, at this exact point in time. Without him, the busload of kids he’d rescued would’ve met their deaths at the bottom of Clayton’s Ravine. It was the first truly heroic thing he’d done in a long time.

  For the moment, he didn’t hate himself, and that was a positive first step. His personal ledger of good deeds versus evil acts was still horribly out of balance, but saving dozens of kids had to count for something. If not, then he was doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the flames of hell.

  His eyes wandered across the square and landed on a busy seven-pump gas station called Billy’s Pump and Munch. Bunker pointed at the establishment’s sign and smirked. “Gotta love that name.”

  Stephanie rolled her eyes. “I don’t think the town council was too fond of it at first, but when Billy Jack explained how much cash he was going to dump into downtown, they approved his plans in a heartbeat. Funny how that works.”

  “Money talks.”

  “Yeah, even from a long-haired hillbilly like him. Though I think he should’ve spent some of that money on some new teeth. I’ve seen hockey players who look better.”

  Bunker laughed, appreciating her humor.

  She continued, “When he decided to add a bait shop and convenience store, Grace Charmer wasn’t too happy about it. Not that I could blame her, especially when it happened right after her husband died.”

  “Judging by the line in front of her store, it hasn’t hurt her business too much.”

  “That’s what the town’s planning commission kept telling her, but she still flipped out. Not too surprising if you know her.”

  “She’s the one who attacked the customer with the broom earlier, right?”

  “Yeah, for stealing soda, apparently. From what the Sheriff said, I guess it was one hell of a catfight.”

  Tensions were understandably high but the citizenry seemed to be handling the day fairly well, probably due to small-town values where everyone was a neighbor and friend. At least on some level.

  There was certainly more of the community he hadn’t seen, so it was possible for looting and altercations to be breaking out all across the area and he’d never know about it. But something in his gut told him that wasn’t the case. Not here. Not in this quaint little community—a destination where summer tourists flocked when the sun started its boil atop the arid deserts of Arizona and New Mexico.

  Bunker was thankful he wasn’t in his brutal hometown of South LA, where there’d certainly be widespread trouble escalating by the minute. If the EMP blast had affected life in southern California like it had here, the City of Angels was probably tearing itself apart by now.

  Bunker knew as well as anyone that mixing a major catastrophe with millions of desperate people usually results in lawlessness and anarchy. Especiall
y when the citizens are already living on the edge and angry about their meager existence.

  Bunker kept an eye on the ongoing conversation between the Mayor, Sheriff, and eleven of the townspeople. It looked intense based on the animated facial expressions. He tried to read some of their lips between the arm waving and finger pointing, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Occasionally a phrase or two would land on his eardrums, but he hadn’t heard enough to determine if the group was chatting about him or his mysterious background.

  He was about to make a joke to Stephanie about the free floorshow, but held his tongue when the group seemed to reach an agreement. Smiles erupted on the faces of the citizens, then handshaking ensued before they split up into small groups and headed off in different directions.

  “Here they come,” Stephanie said, referring to Sheriff Apollo and Mayor Buckley. She took the empty food sack from Bunker and crumpled it in her hand. “Do you want me to run interference?”

  “Let’s see what they want first,” he answered, checking the bandages on his neck. They were still secure and covering up the wounds he’d given himself before he set off on his ‘walkabout’—a term Jeffrey had coined to describe Bunker’s one-way train ride to nowhere.

  “Mr. Bunker,” the Sheriff said, “I’d like you to formally meet our esteemed mayor, Mr. Seth Buckley.”

  “Damn fine to meet you, sir,” Bunker said, putting his hand out for the customary shake.

  The Mayor grabbed his hand, wrapping his oversized grip around Bunker’s palm like a suffocating octopus. “Likewise. Jack, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Jack Francis Bunker is my full name, sir. But you can call me Bunker or Bunk, like everyone else, if it’s easier.”

  Stephanie giggled. “Francis? Seriously?”

  Bunker shrugged, shooting her an embarrassed look. He wasn’t sure why his lips decided to reveal his middle name, but they did. Usually he was in full control of himself, but for some reason, his skills were slipping, mainly around Stephanie.

  He decided to disguise his overshare with some friendly banter. “It’s not like we get to pick our own names, now do we?”