The Bunker Diary Read Online Free PDF

up it was dead, useless, no blood.
Lost it from the knee down. Anyway, Windsor just sits on the street all day holding out
his hand. He doesn’t say anything, no cardboard sign, nothing. Just sits there
showing off his stump and holding out his hand, hoping for sympathy cash. But he never
gets much because he looks so mean and ugly, and he’s
always
off his
head. Staring eyes, blank face, zombified. He might as well have DRUG ADDICT tattooed on
his forehead. Someone gave him a sandwich once. A sniffy old lady in a beige raincoat. I
was busking nearby and I saw her lean down and place a pre-packed sandwich in his hand.
She told him to lay off the drugs and get some food inside him. Windsor stared at the
sandwich like it was a dog turd. Then, as the old lady walked off, he looked up and
chucked it at the back of her head.
    Later.
    Things have changed. They changed at noon.
Jenny was in the kitchen eating a bowl of cornflakes, and I was sitting at the table
staring at the grille on the ceiling, trying to work out how to kill the cameras without
getting a face full of poison. Everything was quiet. Everything was normal. Everything
was routine. There’s always a routine, wherever you are. You soon get used to it.
Lights on at eight, lift down at nine. Lift up again at nine in the evening, lights off
at twelve. Long hours of doing nothing. Waiting, thinking, sitting around, lying down,
standing up, walking in circles. I don’t like it, but I’m getting used to
it, and once you’re used to something it never feels quite so bad.
    So there I was, sitting at the table,
staring at the ceiling, deep in thought, thinking of plots and plans, hats, masks,
shields,covers, when all at once the lift door closed –
tkk-kshhh-mmm
 – and the lift whirred into action.
    Nnnnnnnn
 …
    I looked at the clock.
    Twelve o’clock?
    The lift doesn’t go up at twelve
o’clock.
    Not routine.
    Not good.
    Jenny came out of the kitchen wiping milk
from her chin. ‘What’s that noise?’
    ‘The lift.’
    She glanced instinctively at the clock.
‘What’s happening?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    I got up from the table, went over to the
lift door, and listened. The humming had stopped. The lift had reached the top.
    I turned to Jenny. ‘Get back in the
kitchen.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Just do it, please.’
    ‘Why? What’s
happening?’
    ‘I don’t know. Please, just get
back in the kitchen.’
    From above I heard the sound of the lift
starting up again –
g-dung, g-dunk
,
clunk
,
click
,
nnnnnnnnn …
    Jenny’s eyes grew frightened.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her.
‘It’s probably nothing. Just wait in the kitchen while I see what’s
happening. Shut the door, OK? I’ll call you out in a minute.’
    She hesitated, staring at the lift door.
    ‘Go on,’ I said.
    She backed into the kitchen and shut the
door. I turned to face the lift. It whirred down and
g-dunk
ed to a halt. My
heartwas beating hard now and my hands were sweating. I wiped them on
my shirt and took a deep breath. The lift door opened –
mmm-kshhh-tkk …
    There were two people inside. A woman in the
wheelchair and a man slumped on the floor with his feet bound and his hands tied behind
his back. The woman was unconscious. She’d been drugged, just like me and Jenny. I
could smell the stuff on her breath – bitter, sweet, horrible. Her make-up was all
smudged and a dribble of sick had dried on her mouth. The man was awake, but he
didn’t look too good. His mouth was tied with a bloodstained gag, his nose was
bleeding, and his left eye was swollen shut. The right eye stared furiously at me.
    ‘
Unh!
’ he muttered
through the gag. ‘
Furngehissoh!
Nunhh!
’
    I was pretty shocked, but nowhere near as
stunned as I’d been when Jenny arrived. I’m not sure why. They were adults,
I suppose. It’s different with adults, isn’t it? When you see an adult in
trouble you still feel bad, but not half as bad as when you see a child in trouble.
It’s the helplessness, I