Norman Winter lived a secluded Yorkshire life.
He liked it that way. In fact it was fair to say that he lived a life apart, wholly separate from other people.
You see Norman Winter feared one thing above all else.
Chaos.
The world was full of it and Yorkshire was no different.
It was everywhere and according to Norman it was getting worse, a great cacophony of anarchy rising to a fever pitch in God's Own County and just about everywhere on Earth.
He didn't want to have anything to do with it or with the people that created it. He didn't want to have anything to do with anyone at all.
So, he kept to himself always and organised his life so that it stayed that way.
He had plenty of money on his bank account. All his bills were paid electronically. His shopping was delivered to his house in darkness via an external dumbwaiter and he had reduced his mail to zero. Nothing else arrived except water in the taps and power in the cables. Occasionally a rat appeared in his cellar from the bunker next door.
All the usual things left in the sewage, including the rats, dead, of course.
The only real knowledge he had of society was his television and from what he saw society was falling apart. He would eat his tea and shout at the TV.
"You scumbags! Get a job! Earn some money!"
Footage of a listless youth drove him mad. He'd fought in a World War and his youth had been largely erased by the trommel of dictators. He hadn't had a choice but today's lager-guzzling good-for-nothings had.
They had a choice but chose to squander it in pointless violence, thuggery, murder and mayhem out in the streets of the city. Of every city. Carnage ruled with a big V sign at the old world.
Norman hated them all. Those young 'uns. Those workless wastrels. How dare they let their lives fizz away in Godless pursuits, when his entire generation had had to fight for years on end. Countless died and generations were maimed. And for what?
So these cretins could bully the pensioners and pummel the veterans wheeled along the rotten streets to the falling cenotaphs?
So these morons could slaughter their parents and hang the different from the bloody ladder-leans on the street lamps?
Where were they when the lights went out? Where were they when the skies were flecked with enemy planes, his brothers stopping them in their paths.
Where were they when the glorious ranks of beautiful boys were cut down like poppies. These villains wouldn't know a poppy if it was pinned to their lily livers!
Where were they when the bombs stopped time, a million souls were seared and the sands of the atolls fused like glass?
Oh the injustice, the cruelty, the teeming unavenged dead!
Norman threw his corned beef sandwich at the telly and screamed at the Six-O-Clock News, which was depicting ever-growing destruction in the cities.
Kicking over his Aspidistra table at the window he bellowed:
"You young wankers!"
"I'll show you!"
Norman Winter had had enough.
He went into the attic and slowly dragged out a thick heavy wooden trunk. He had been saving it as a keepsake for a Grandson that had never come.
Now was the time to use it as it had always meant to be.
"Yes, it's time to remind the world!" he muttered staring at the stamped lettering on the lid.
"D. Core II C/O N. Winter, Holgate, York, England"
Norman had sent it at the end of the War. A memento. An investment. A little payback for the years he'd spent testing. He'd felt spent too, so he sent it in the US Army Mail when no-one was looking during the tests.
He opened the lid and there it was, a pristine metal orb sat in a bed of lead. It was about the size of a fist and could have easily sat in the palm of his hand.
Lifting it up he gently gripped the sphere like a cricket ball and stared at its sheer perfection.
Except, though, it wasn't a cricket ball.
In front of the orb was a nameplate riveted to the metal lining. It read:
"Demon Core II, Manhattan Project, Fissile Hand Missile, Once Removed Detonation in Five Minutes"
"It was so damn secret, they never even knew it was missing!" Norman chuckled
"By the time they realised, I was long gone and my little nest-egg was wending its way to York!"
Norman howled with laughter, the bitter tears of old age turning into sobs as he remembered.
"I lost everything. All my friends gone. An entire generation wiped out."
"Now it's their turn, those idle bastards!"
It some way Norman had known this day might come. His children had produced no issue and as years turned to decades he saw them no more, his door locked tight against the growing bedlam outside. He had stumbled across the underground bunker one day stacking tins of beans on his cellar shelves. Pushing through an irregular air-vent he was able to stand up.
And there it was.
A nuclear bunker!
Of all the twists of fate. He had his own atomic shelter once again!
Having checked it's integrity Norman had concluded long ago that no-one else had access to it and that it was completely hidden from view on the surface, except for a small hatch that looked like a manhole cover. A ladder lead up to it and save for the vent in his cellar, it was the only way in or out and it was sealed from the inside.
For years Norman had been filling the shelter with tinned food and bottled water from his constant deliveries in case the worst ever happened and it was time.
And time it was.
In Norm's mind the clock was ticking already and the countdown had begun behind the vacant look in his eyes. Five minutes was all he needed!
Yes!
Something had snapped.
It was wood on his front door. Splintering wood.
"What the ....!"
He turned out all the lights and carefully peered from his upstairs window. To his horror he saw a flurry of small steel hatchets hitting his door from top to bottom.
The throwers were a rabble of feral youths hell-bent on wrecking Norm's entrance and getting in.
"Open up you old fucker! We know you've got tons of food and money in there!"
On the ground Norman's delivery man lay crumpled, an axe buried deep in his skull and Norman's groceries strewn across the dark street, mostly tins of beans and corned beef destined for his shelter.
"Open up all we'll smash the place to bits you miserly old twat!"
The door began to falter as more and more hatchets and knives thwacked into its failing grain.
Then the upstairs window was smashed by a flying brick, which was followed by a hail of fellow bricks from the street. One hit Norman squarely in the face and he winced in pain.
"We're gonna fuckin' kill ya you stingy cunt. That food and dosh is ours now!"
Norman staggered into the living room and saw the headline of the Ten-O-Clock News.
"There is chaos everywhere! Society is crumbling! Marauding Youths are rampaging! Stay in your homes and lock the doors! Law and order has broken down! There is no tomorroooooooow!" screamed the Newsreader as a machete cut his feed short. Wild boys and girls filled the news room and the camera was splattered with blood ending the News for good.
Norman heard the front door give way.
"Oh my ...." stuttered Norman, "I must get to the bunker!"
The old man moved faster than he had ever done in his life and galloping through the cellar he closed the steel vent tight shut behind him.
"Phew!" he said, "That was close!"
He was safe. He had enough food and water to last for years. The bunker would be his new home from home.
He smiled widely and help up a vigorous V sign at the ceiling.
"Fuck you you cretins!"
He stared at the clock. It said 22:04. It had taken Norman exactly four minutes to get into his shelter and shut the vent. He sat and waited for the blast outside.
It was only then that he realised that he held something in his hand.
He stared in utter terror and realised that he was still gripping the Demon Core grenade!
"Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
The clock struck five past and melted.
A shudder deep underground was felt by the rioting youths ransacking Norman's larders, but it only momentarily stopped them as they greedily opened tins of his corned beef and beans.
"I wonder where the old bastard went?" they mused!
