I Loved The Ending

The Prompt

Write a crime fiction story.

I Loved The Ending

That's the thing about being a billionaire, you can buy anything you want, especially people.

He ran out of things to spend his money on, yachts, mansions, hookers, politicians, banks, newspapers, media companies, towering hotels, fairground trips to space, and the place where he was sat now alone.

He employed thousands but paid them a pittance, virtual slaves. Many couldn't afford to rent a home (he had raised his rents so high that people were forced onto the street), and he also got the politicians to raise interest rates which meant people and businesses could not afford the mortgages and loans and he foreclosed and bought up what they left for a song.

It was all about swelling his bank accounts, that was all that mattered.

He had been Time's "Man Of The Year" just because he had a lot of money.

Even those who had lost their homes and businesses saw him as aspirational, someone who had worked hard to get where he was. They had been fed the lie by his media and politicians and swallowed it whole.

They blamed their ills and failures on the poor, the sick, immigrants and asylum seekers, in fact, anyone with a different coloured skin.

The ones with the torches and pitchforks never came for him.

As society deteriorated there were lootings, riots and lynchings, and that sold papers and advertising on the news channels.

But he still wanted more and saw that weapons were an incredibly lucrative market and financed research into smart bombs that could be carried in a briefcase but destroy cities. There was a huge market for these and his fortune swelled.

If they were ever used his construction companies would be given contracts to redevelop, so it was an absolute win/win for him.

Things were looking good for him until the bombs started going off taking out major cities all over the world. He assumed maybe two or three would be hit, but the whole world was being hit. London, Paris, New York, Munich the popular pop mantra was now the start of a list of nuclear destruction. Added to that were Johannesburg, Moscow, Helsinki, Tehran, Jerusalem, Athens, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and Beijing.

The fallout from these blackened the skies and the nuclear winter covered the earth. There were some survivors but they were ravaged with radiation.

And no he was alone in his luxury bunker, one of the frivolities that he had spent some of his fortune on.

He had food and water and would probably be safe for the rest of his life, but he would never leave this place. This was going to be his tomb, but he his greed and spite and been the cause of the world's destruction.

He didn't care about what he had caused until he started hearing banging on the bunker door.

No one could get in, it was designed to be secure, by the best construction companies and architects that money could buy, although he now knew that his money was burning with what he had done to the world.

There were external security cameras, but one by one they were incapacitated until only one was left. And on that one, they placed a notice for him:

"WE ARE COMING FOR YOU, YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE"

When he saw who it was, there were two whom he recognised, they had been involved in the creation of the bunker.

The banging continued.

He was scared.

He didn't see himself as a criminal, just a successful businessman whose actions had precipitated the end of the world.

The door finally cracked and opened.

Justice walked in ...........