The war ended long ago, but nobody told us. I remember the sirens, the screeches of people running through the streets unknowing where or when the bomb had hit. Somehow my mind had planted the idea that I had but sixty seconds to grab my closest and most useful positions along with my wife, son, and daughter to the shelter. That was 14 months ago…or at least thats how long ago it feels, the only clock down here stopped working weeks prior and with no perception of day and night, its fairly hard to judge time.
Times a funny thing; this human creation that dictates our lives so obscure and yet always around, I think often of time down here… theres quite a lot of time to think about time.
Our food supply has been running short lately, they said pickled herring can last forever, “I suppose we’re the first family to prove them wrong” I joke with my daughter as I moved my king into checkmate.
Chess games melt together, queens turn to knights, turn to bishops as if you’ve played every possible way, well, when its the only thing you can play for months on end that may just be true.
But away from that tangent, I had made my decision already, as family head, that my son in all his frail 13 year old statured self, was to be the lucky pioneer to try and scavenge whatever food he could find on the surface. I thought long about this, and well; nuclear radiation cannot stay active for that long right? It was a sacrifice which had to be made.
“Knock knock knock” the sound may as well had been bullets piecing my heart, an outside noise; a noise not made by one of us but from the obverse side of out reinforced steel hatch. It was terrifying and exhilarating at once. I let with speed, thoughts of military rescue rushing through my mind, perhaps it was saviors taking us on a helicopter to safer parts of the now war torn United states, maybe- I froze in my tracks. “it could be looters” I had read in one of those dystopian novels by that Orwe-somethingorother about the possibility of looters after a country had fallen to shambles. They wanted to kill us I bet, or steal what rations we had left, I couldn't bear even the though of anything happening to my dear Mary. Maybe they're savages, looking to eat the only real food source left-us. I couldn't take any chances, rallying the troop of my family we barricade the hatch with the sewage pipes we had hit when digging the bunker.
We warily sat back down in our makeshift living room/dinning room/bathroom, really the only room down here, and tried to relax. The cd reader had yet to fail and so the music of the 1980’s filled the room, that was our mistake. Who knew sound carried so well through reinforced concrete, for the banging on the hatch only grew louder and louder till it was as if a battering  ram was continually being slammed down like a piston.
Inaudible mens voices started shouting down through the trapdoor, as the metal bent inwards, we knew there was no stopping such persistence.
Finally, they breached. We said our goodbyes as I picked up my .350 and aimed directly at my children: my family would not suffer.
I couldn't tell if the first shot came from me or the now descending men…