My Nuclear Paradise

Night

It wasn't safe to be out in the wastelands at night. It was an hour after dark, and I was still an hour from the Bunker. I was screwed.

My gun, a SPAS-12 shotgun, I kept held at the ready, never letting my guard down. The night was full of dangerous creatures, most of which wouldn't hesitate to have a go at me. And anything that would have a go at me was lethal. Unless I was ready. 

Nobody knew the true extent of what was out in these wastelands. All we knew was that everything was dangerous. Maybe not always aggressive, but always dangerous. I needed to get back to the Bunker. 

Bunkers were the only known safe places in the wastelands. They were government or privately built refuges, built to keep the radiation and threats out and sustain a group of people. Government built Bunkers, like the one I lived in, were underground fortresses, built with everything needed to survive. Food, water, electricity, weapons, armour, living space - the Bunkers had it all. Privately built Bunkers were usually smaller, and run from a house or near a house. They were usually built by 'preppers', people like myself who had foreseen an event in the future like this, and prepared for it. Everybody who was either unlucky enough not to be in or near a bunker was dead.

I'd survived the initial wipeout by, as the preppers put it, 'hunkering in the bunker'. I'd prepared well. I'd made sure I had enough food, renewable water, and oxygen. Most people weren't that lucky. Those that weren't instantly killed by the bombs either got picked off either by other people trying to survive, starvation, thirst, or the radiation got to them. I'd seen the bodies. They weren't pretty. Most had been eaten by animals, burnt by radiation or shrivelled up, becoming nothing but husks.

However, I hadn't built my bunker to withstand numerous attacks from animals, human or otherwise. I'd built it to survive a nuclear attack. Which, in its defence, it had done very well. But, the animals got through, and I'd had to find a new base of operations, lest I die from exposure. 

I'd been out looking for a new area to call home when I'd seen a flood light flashed in the air. After heading in that direction, I'd found the Bunker. Bunker 54, to be precise. After knocking on the front door, and proving through various challenges that I wasn't going to kill them, hurt them, steal from them or mutate into a zombie, they'd welcomed me in. I'd been given a bunk, access to rations, and a key into the Bunker. I'd moved all of my resources from my Bunker to Bunker 54, using most of the precious fuel we had for our truck. My first night in Bunker 54, I decided to write a journal of sorts.

This is that journal.