A small puff of vapor clouded at his lips and wisped away as he heaved the blankets off of him. He picked up his watch and almost dropped it, it was so cold. He opened his mouth wide and took a deep breath and let out warm air onto the watch and picked it back up and pressed a button. A bright alien-colored light showed that it was five twenty-eight. He sat up and pulled on his boots and stood up. He walked over towards his steel table, the heels of his boots squeaking up against the tile in the pitch dark. The drawer on the desk was made out of a different metal and had rusted and corroded over the years. It took him a second, but it finally scratched and squeaked its way open. Inside laid his six-inch hunting knife and sheath, red bandana, and the binoculars he stole from the house next to his old one. Wrapping the bandana around the lower half of his face, he could still feel the crusty remains of sleep on the sides of his nose and eyelids. After wiping them away, he clipped the sheath to his belt and put the leather strap around his neck, letting the bulky binoculars swing and bump his chest. Turning on his heels in the black, he found his way to the concrete stairs and climbed only a few before he had to crouch down and unlock the padlock and chains. As soon as he did so, the door was outlined with a faint yellow line. He could see the freezing mist start to pour in. He pushed up the door a little bit and scanned the area from there to his nets, which was difficult because of the tall weeds. He looked for a long time. He took a deep breath from behind his bandana and reached for the spray bottle of ammonia and bugzapper switch and flipped it to on. He could hear the little machines buzz to life and saw little blue balls of light turn on all around the field. He raised the door some more until his whole face was shone. His short black unwashed hair was immobile in the breeze. His wide brown eyes reflected the young sun. Little clouds of air formed at his mouth outside his old bandana. His chocolate brown skin contrasted with the frozen plants and weeds icicled around the yard, like little stalagmites forever frozen on the abandoned wasteland of Earth. It was windy.
He closed the door again and blindly waved his hand in the air, searching for the light chain. Finally, his hands grazed the old brown chain, so he grabbed it and pulled it and a single bar of fluorescent light dimly cascaded a thick milky light over everything in the room. Everything looked like it was covered in a light coat of white-out.
Pulling an old tin box out from under his cot, he lifted open the lid. Inside laid his old pictures of a life almost totally forgotten. He saw the faded bleached-blond hair on a young face that once smiled; long, flowing brown hair that curled inward at the ends raising an eyebrow jokingly for the lens; a soft pink face, eyes squinting from the flash of unseen cameras; and his driver’s license. He dug around, ruffling through the yellowing photos, until he found his laminated doctor’s ultrasound of his unborn third. He stuffed the picture into his front pocket and put the box back under the cot. Walking over towards the stairs, he put his right foot on the second step and stretched out his left arm and pulled the light chain, introducing black back to the room.
He shoved open the heavy steel door with his ammonia spray bottle hanging from his pocket and climbed out, shutting the door gently. He dug in his jacket and pulled out a ring of keys. He walked over towards the bolted shed that was about thirty yards from his bunker, and unlocked all of the padlocks, letting the chains dangle and swing, clanking against the rusted wall of the shed. The door slid open noisily. The man stepped in and flipped on his flashlight. He waved the beam around the room examining the three walls. One wall was filled with different blades like knives, machetes, axes, hatchets, a crowbar, and a few homemade spears. On another wall hung different assortments of tools like power drills, hammers, sledgehammers, a jackhammer, a few saws, and three chainsaws which had a few fuel drums lying underneath. He picked up a machete and its sheath and strapped it to his belt. On the far wall was the mans collection of scavenged firearms such as his heavy machine gun, a few submachine guns, an M16A2, two AK-47s, a bolt- and a lever-action rifle, a semi automatic rifle, and six shotguns. Sitting beneath that wall were cases upon cases of looted ammunition. There was a table in the middle of the room that was about ten feet long and five feet deep. What layed on this table was the man’s massive collection of stolen, scavenged, looted weapons. There were 36 different pistols ranging from his seven Desert Eagles, sixteen magnums, to his five .22 rimfire handguns. Beside them laid his twenty four hand grenades, his four smoke grenades, and his nine fragmentation grenades. In the far corner stood his ten bottles of liqour he set aside with his ten hand towels for his Molotov cocktails. Under the right half of the table laid more cases of ammunition, a box of silencers, and an assortment of blade sharpeners along with more fuel for his chainsaws. Under the other half of the table lay his flamethrower and his flamethrower’s fuel. He went through the box of silencers and picked the longest one and put it in the holster that hung from the side of the table. He went to the wall with the heavy firearms and picked up his 7.62mm Tokarev semi automatic rifle SVT40 and draped the lanyard around his shoulder. He went through the cases and picked up two magazines for the Tokarev. He went back outside and shut the doors, locking all the locks again and sprayed the whole door with a thick coat of ammonia. He started trekking towards the woods.
