The Long Way Round by Peter Apps.
Category: Fiction
Paperback: 221 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1934187623
ISBN-13: 978-1934187623

"The explosion knocked Brian off his feet. Briefly, he feared that the bunker would come crashing down on top of him, but apart from a thick coating of cement powder and dust that had accumulated since it had been built, nearly seventy years ago during World War II, it suffered no real damage.

As his world settled down again, he opened his eyes and was relieved that his sight was slowly returning. Hopefully, the flash had done little lasting damage. His face stung from the heat generated by the blast, and he wondered how he would explain the redness around his eyes, which were subjected to exposure through the slit hole in the bunker.

Shaken, but with no obvious injuries, his mind switched back to his project. Struggling to his feet, he stumbled to the eye slit only to find that the clear plastic that now filled the slit had been burnt black.

The Geiger counter showed no signs of radiation, so he cautiously opened the door at the rear of the bunker. There was still no reading on the meter as he stepped outside. The world seemed reassuringly normal. He could even hear birdsong above the ringing in his ears while a cool breeze stroked his cheek.

He turned to look at his workshop. It had vanished. It had been built against the bunker so that the interior of the workshop could be observed through the observation slits, but all that was left now were charred pieces of wood scattered around and a column of smoke climbing high into the sky. As Brian moved closer to the point where his equipment had once been, the needle on his radiation meter moved, but there was still no real danger. Some molten beads of metal were definitely radioactive, but he would be able to hold them in his hand for at least ten minutes before they became any sort of health risk.

"Maybe I should stop that from happening again," he muttered to himself thoughtfully. "It could have been serious"."