NINETEEN FIFTY-NOW

A group of high school friends break into an abandoned 1950’s government bomb shelter for an end of year party when, without notice, nuclear war actually breaks out. Left with only the supplies, clothes and technology stored in the shelter from the 1950’s, they have to learn to start new lives completely alone… or are they?

1. BOOM

“This is insane.”

“Would you calm down?”

Bobby cleared his throat and lifted his phone up, “I am calm… I’ve got like 2 bars here. Where is this place anyway?”

Jessica blew her hair out of her face, “I told you, it’s over this way.” She pointed straight ahead then to the right, “Or maybe…”

The sun beat down on the group of teens as they pushed their way through brush and trees. It was still only May, but it felt like summer had been here for weeks already. Some of the group had been to the abandoned bomb-shelter before. It had been locked up for years but recently a few kids had been able to crank the door open using a tire iron they’d found.

“Wait… there it is!”

“Finally” Scott groaned as he readjusted his backpack and the bottles inside clinked.

The seven teens approached the huge lead door and worked together to pry it open. It creaked open slowly.

Scott peered into the dark black hallway, “Is there even any power in there?”

“Yeah, we found these generator things that you can turn on,” replied Jessica.

“They still work?”

“Yeah, I guess…” Jessica was interrupted by Evelyn pushing past her.

“This is gonna be lit, muthas!” Evelyn announced to no one in particular as her tiny frame disappeared into the darkness inside.

Jessica had known Evelyn since kindergarten. Even though Evelyn’s family were very strict, she was the wild one. Always getting her and Jessica into trouble. Jessica didn’t mind though. When Evelyn was around, you knew good times were to be had.

“This is stupid,” Safana said to Bobby.

“Yeah, like I don’t want to survive all of high school and then die by misadventure,” Bobby replied.

“Die by what?”

“Misadventure. I read it on a sign by a lighthouse once… well, a picture of a sign by a lighthouse that I saw on Reddit,” he sheepishly admitted as they followed the group inside.

The bomb-shelter was built in 1959 as a backup command centre for the government during the Cold War. It was in the middle of the countryside, about a half hour drive from the city. If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t know it was there.

Even if it was well hidden, the inside was huge. A multi-story building that went down four levels. Full of common rooms, offices, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. It was like a time-capsule from 1959. Nothing had been touched since the government abandoned it in the early 1960’s. Old landline phones. Boxy old television sets and the kind of furniture the teens had only seen when their parents made them watch the first Back To The Future. It was kind of cool, but also kind of eerie.

~

The overhead lights crackled and suddenly illuminated.

“Let there be light!” Evelyn jumped on a couch in the huge lounge area they had discovered using their phones’ flashlights.

“This places is IG gold, hey Adam?” Alissa leaned into Adam.

Adam was constantly teased about being Instagram Famous. He’d been posting pics and videos online since he was 13 and a few had went viral. People would stop him in malls and in restaurants and ask to have their picture taken. His friends didn’t mind but they did enjoy making him feel uncomfortable about it with some jokes. Being tall, nice, good looking and pretty good at school meant they had to find SOMETHING to make fun of. It was their duty as his friends to mock him any way they could.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Adam replied as he popped open the camera on his phone and looked around for good lighting.

“I brought a bluetooth speaker. Who’s got a decent playlist?” Jessica held the speaker in the air and looked at the others.

Bobby pulled out his phone, “I just made one for tonight.”

“NO”, Evelyn shot back and stood up from the couch.

“No, what?”

“I’m not listening to a playlist you made, Geekboy!”

“Fine. Play what you want.”

“I will. I’ll make a fire playlist right now”

Evelyn pulled out her phone, tapped the screen and looked at it confused, “Spotify isn’t loading on my stupid phone.”

“Yeah, I don’t have any service at all in here,” added Adam.

“OH MY GOD, ADAM! Will you actually NOT post a pic today??” Alissa teased.

“Shut up, A,” Adam smiled back.

“It’s probably because we’re in, you know… a bomb-shelter?” said Bobby.

“Thanks, genius,” Scott mocked him.

“Buuuuut… I already downloaded my playlist, so…” Bobby waved his phone in the air.

“Urgh! Fine. It better not suck”

Bobby walked over to the bluetooth speaker and connected his phone. Soon the room filled with music.

~

With no windows it was hard to tell what time it was. Empty beer cans and an almost empty bottle of vodka sat on the table. Alissa was curled up with Adam on one of the chairs. Scott and Jessica pretended to talk to each other on some old telephones on a nearby desk. Safana lay asleep on another couch using her hoodie as a blanket. Bobby flipped through the songs on his playlist.

“Holy crap, Bobby… pick a song!” Evelyn yelled from the middle of the room where she had been dancing alone.

“You know what? This night has turned out better than I thought it would,” Bobby confessed without looking away from his phone.

“Ha! I told you, Bobby! Tonight is going down in histo…”

Suddenly the room shook. The bottle of vodka fell over and drained onto the carpet. The lights swayed and flickered.

Then everything went silent.

“What the hell was that?” Jessica spoked with a shaky voice.

Scott, pushed himself up and away from where he was slumped against the wall.

“I have no id…” Scott tried to reply but was cut off by a high-pitched whine.

Then came the boom.

The room was suddenly lit again.

It had been pitch black for only moments but it felt like an eternity. They could hear the generators strain to start again and then purr back into action. Apart from the gentle sway of some lights and the spilled vodka bottle, everything looked exactly as it did before the boom.

“What just happened… does anyone else hear that ringing?” Jessica’s face looked pale.

“I think it’s just your ears… but I can’t…,” Scott wiped his brow and then cupped his hands over his ears.

“No, it’s a phone. I can hear it. It’s coming from down the hall,” Safana interjected and started walking towards the sound.

The rest of the group followed her hesitantly. The ringing seemed to be coming from a large meeting room. They flicked the light switch and saw a single red phone at the head of the table. It was ringing with an old fashioned style bell ring.

Safana picked it up and the phone stopped.

“Hello?”

The line was crackly. A woman spoke.

“All defences have been breached. You are now the final guard for our nation. Supplies and rations in Bunker 59A will provide up to 6 months survival for the assigned essential staff. You are reminded to remain in Bunker 59A for 72 hours to allow for fallout to cease… Repeat.”

Safana looked confused.

“Who is it?” Alissa asked.

“It’s…,” Safana seemed lost for words.

Bobby grabbed the phone from her hand and spoke loudly, “Hello? Hello? We’re in the bombshelter!

We’re…”

He was interrupted as the woman’s voice started again, “All defences have been breached…”

He listened to the woman and then passed the phone to Scott.

“It’s a recording,” said Bobby as he slumped into a nearby chair.

“What did it say?” Jessica asked with fear in her voice.

“Uh… something about us being the final guards… and we have to stay in here for 72 hours because of fallout”

The recording kept playing on a loop as the other stepped in to listen.

“What’s fall out?” Adam asked the others.

The rest of the group shrugged except for Evelyn and Bobby.

“It’s… radioactive dust that falls from the sky after a, umm…,” Evelyn’s voice started to shake.

“A nuclear bomb,” Bobby finished for her as he stared blankly at the floor.

“Stop kidding around, Bobby,” Scott tried to sound brave.

“I’m… I’m not.”

They looked at each other in silence as Jessica put the phone down.

“It’s gotta be mistake… or, or a joke!” Scott laughed and then bolted down the hall toward the entrance they had came in earlier that day.

“Scott! No!”

2. RINGING

The rest of the group arrived as Scott pushed open the huge door. When the opening was wide enough for him to look outside, he stumbled backwards and fell to the floor. In the distance, where the city once was, seemed to be just hills. Just hills of twisted metal and smoke.

“Oh my god… oh my god,” Scott’s voice was barely audible over the sound of wind from outside.

Bobby ran past him and pulled the door shut tightly, “You’re going to get us killed.”

3. DAWN

It had been a cold, sleepless night. They sat on the floor and on the counter in a large cafeteria style kitchen.

“I just want to go home,” Alissa said quietly to no one in particular.

“There is no home anymore,” Bobby replied.

“Shut up, Bobby,” Adam snapped back.

“It’s true,” began Evelyn, “Everything’s gone… everybody’s gone.”

“That can’t be true,” spoke Scott as he stifled tears.

“It is true. You saw it. We all saw it. The city is gone,” Bobby tried to sound matter-of-fact.

“That can’t be true. There’s got to be somebody,” Scott offered with hope.

Jessica was sitting slouched on the floor against some cupboard doors. She stared blankly into the distance, “My mom and I were arguing. I said she was being a bi…”

Jessica’s word fell apart into sobs, “She’s gone.”

Each of them thought of how they had spent their final moments with their families and friends.

Stupid, inconsequential moments. Fights. Jokes. Or worst… ignoring them. Last moments wasted.

Safana wiped a tear from her face, cleared her throat and spoke, “What do we do now?”

“We… try to live and we hope that someone else out there is still alive,” Bobby replied.

Evelyn hopped off of the counter and did her best to sound positive, “Bobby’s right. We have food, water and supplies here. We need to take care of ourselves.”

4. CHANGE

They had been living in the shelter for over a week now. Three days after the Boom they had went out to investigate the damage and found nothing and no one. Just trees pulled out at the roots and bare of leaves along with trails of smoke in the distance over what was left of the city.

They had driven Jessica’s mom’s SUV to get to the bomb-shelter on the first night. They returned to where they had parked the car but it was nowhere to be seen. However other pieces of cars seemed to be strewn throughout the field. Like they’d drifted in on some invisible tide.

What was most unsettling is that there were no signs of life.

No people. No animals. Dead or alive. Just nothing.

~

“Who has my charger?”

Adam was moving cushions and other items as he looked.

“Here. I borrowed it,” Safana handed it over to him.

“What’s the point? There’s no signal and no wifi,” Alissa asked.

Scott walked into the room dressed in a white short-sleeve shirt with an undershirt underneath and a pair of dark grey trousers that looked kind of like suit pants except slimmer.

“It’s good to keep our phones charged,” he offered. “There could be someone else out there still.”

The others stopped what they were doing and stared at Scott. His dark skin seemed even darker against the crisp white of his shirt.

“What… are you wearing?”

Scott smoothed his shirt, “I found them in a storage room. There’s like a ton of clothes in there all wrapped in plastic.”

The group couldn’t stop staring at him. Holding his phone in his hand and dressed in these 1950’s clothes made him look like a time-traveller.

He finally spoke, “What? I got tired of wearing the same clothes for a week… Y’all should think about finding some new clothes as well. Everyone else in the world might be dead but I still have to smell you.”

Evelyn turned to Bobby, “You are a bit rank.”

Bobby looked at her, then stood up, “Fine. Let’s get some new clothes.”

5. DRIVE

The bomb-shelter was incredibly big. There were rooms and areas in the vast underground building they hadn’t even been in yet. Some were normal office size and others were the size of a Walmart. It was almost like they had taken a multi-story shopping mall and just put it underground. You could spend the day wandering tiny corridors that would lead to wide open hallways.

Even though there was no need to go outside, the building felt smaller and smaller to them everyday. They yearned to be back outside. Back to life before the Boom.

They had ventured out together to explore what or who was left but because they were so far into the countryside they’d always have to return before dark. It was nice to be in the open air, but each trip was seemingly useless.

~

Adam and Safana walked in to the main lounge where the others were reclining on the angular 1950’s couches and chairs.

With Adam in a black fitted suit and Safana in a plaid full skirt, they looked like they had stepped out of an old black and white movie.

Safana held up a key, “Who wants to go for a ride?”

~

The massive garage door creaked and groaned but eventually opened. Suddenly the room was filled with sunlight. The outline of other cars and trucks could be seen under drop-cloths.

The black and chrome of the car seemed almost otherworldly. Bobby ran his fingers over one of the back fins and read the words, “Sixty Special. Does it even run?”

Suddenly the engine sprang to life. Safana smiled from the driver’s seat, “Yep.”

They all looked at each other with excitement.

Adam spoke, “Two of us need to stay in the shelter, just like when we go walking.”

All eyes turned to Bobby and Evelyn.

“What??” Evelyn protested.

“Urgh… fine, but I’m going next time,” Bobby sighed.

The others piled into the car. Safana revved the engine, put the car in gear and the back tires squealed out of the garage into the sunshine.

Evelyn and Bobby looked at each other with disappointment.

Then they heard a man’s voice, “Hello?”

6. CLOSE

The car sailed along the empty highway.

With the windows down, they each took deep breaths. Trying to take in as much as they could.

Safana confidently held the wheel with Adam by her side in the front seat. Scott, Alissa and Jessica sat in the spacious backseat. Dressed in their newly found clothing, they looked like they’d driven straight from the 1950’s. The illusion was only broken when Adam would take a picture with his phone.

The drive had been uneventful. No other cars were on the highway, apart from some occasional twisted metal which looked like it might have been a car in its former life before the Boom.

The ruins of the city grew bigger ahead of them.

“We’ll go to Adam’s house first, then Alissa’s and so on, like we agreed,” Safana stated.

The thought of visiting his home, or what was left of it, made Adam slump down in the seat.

“What’s the point?” Adam said quietly.

“What?” Safana asked over the sound of the car and the wind.

“What’s the point? They’re all dead,” he spoke loudly.

The reality of Adam’s statement hit the others hard. They each secretly hoped that if they could just get back to the city there might be something left from their old lives.

Something or someone.

Safana cleared her throat, “You can’t think like that. Maybe someone’s…”

“Safana, look out!” Alissa screamed from the backseat.

Safana turned just in time to see the road block and the soldiers up ahead. She slammed on the brakes. Adam gripped the dash tightly. Scott, Alissa and Jessica slumped against the back of the front seat as the car spun.

~

Evelyn and Bobby were frozen in fear.

The voice repeated, “Hello?”

Bobby cleared his throat and tried not sound scared, “Who’s there?”

Backlit by the hallway, a man emerged. He was dressed in modern day combat gear.

“Oh my god… you’re alive!” the man quietly exclaimed.

Bobby and Evelyn were terrified. Evelyn spoke, “Who are you?”

“It’s okay. I’m from the government. I was sent to get you,” the man said calmly.

Something about the way the man spoke made Bobby uneasy. He shifted towards a nearby work bench.

The man was now standing before them.

Evelyn repeated, “Who ARE you?”

The man paused for a moment as his smile faded. His eyes became emotionless.

He spoke, “I told you. I was sent to get you.”

The man suddenly revealed a pistol and raised it towards Evelyn.

Evelyn watched his fingers tighten on the trigger when all of a sudden he fell to the ground motionless. The back of his head bloodied.

Bobby stood shaking. He dropped the tire iron from his hand.

“You okay?” he asked Evelyn.

Evelyn looked down at the man, started to cry and then hugged Bobby.

“Thank you”

Her tears made her hair stick to her face. Bobby gently brushed it away.

7. DECEIVE

The back of the car slammed into two of the soldiers.

Safana stepped on the gas and the others were thrown back into their seats. Another soldier rolled up and off the hood of the car.

“What the hell!” Adam exclaimed. The car sped down the highway back towards the bombshelter.

~

“He’s not dead,” Bobby was grabbing rope from the work bench.

Evelyn shoved the man over and he groaned. She kicked him in the ribs.

“Shut. Up” Evelyn whispered at the again unconscious man.

Bobby bound the man’s hands, while Evelyn tied his legs.

~

The huge garage door slammed shut and the sunlight disappeared.

The group, still shaken from their experience on the highway, slowly walked away from the car.

It made ticking noises as the engine cooled.

“What is going on?” Adam pushed his hair out of his face.

Alissa was a few steps ahead of them when she stopped suddenly, “Evelyn? Bobby? What the?”

“Who the hell is that?” Safana stammered.

The soldier lay on the floor. His feet and hands bound. His head covered in a canvas bag.

Bobby stood beside him with a glazed expression.

Evelyn held up a wallet.

“Jessica… is this your Dad?”

8. DAWN

“I thought it was just a joke…”

Jessica barely spoke the words through tears, “but then…”

Jessica sat at a table. Arms crossed in front of her. Evelyn stood across from her while Alissa and Adam looked on.

“But then what?” Evelyn spat back at Jessica.

“They wanted to start again,” Jessica was now whispering.

“What do you mean, start again? Start what?” Safana asked.

“I saw the letter. I couldn’t just let you die,” Jessica was now barely audible.

~

“In my top pocket. Quickly.”

Jessica’s Dad sat slumped against the wall. His hands tied behind his back and his feet still bound. He looked pale.

“Quickly, please,” he pushed the words out.

Scott and Safana looked at Bobby and nodded. Bobby moved hesitantly toward the man, reached into his top outside pocket and pulled out a pill.

“Unless you want me to die of a heart attack, I need you to give me that pill right… now,” Jessica’s Dad wheezed.

Bobby put the pill in his mouth. Jessica’s Dad bit down on the pill and smiled. Suddenly his eyes glazed over and foam poured out of his mouth.

~

Jessica wiped her eyes with a tissue, “They said they wanted to start again. To go back to before things went wrong, they said.”

“What do you mean, before things went wrong,” Adam demanded.

“I’m so sorry,” Jessica spoke quietly.

Safana looked shocked, “Are you saying they’re the ones who…”

Scott and Bobby walked in with a look of disbelief.

“Yeah. We didn’t get attacked by some other country…,” Scott interrupted, holding up a small booklet.

Printed on the front of the burgundy cover in cream text were the words, ‘OPERATION: NINETEEN FIFTY-NOW’.

Scott threw the book on the table, “This was in your Dad’s pocket.”

All of the friends gathered close and stood in silence as they read the rest of the cover.

‘We, the Brothers of Salvation, vow to cleanse and return our nation to a time when the master race was still pure.’

The group of teens stood in silence for a moment, trying to process everything.

Bobby looked around at his diverse group of friends standing in their found 1950’s clothes.

“They didn’t count on us, did they?”

###