Nine Minutes

by Jacqueline Druga

  “Just a little,” Joan said. “I’ll be back.”

  As Joan stood, Ezzie rolled the baby into her chest.

  “Sometimes,” Joan whispered to me. “You have to be direct.”

  It wasn’t that easy. It couldn’t be.

  We left the main portion of the basement, returning to the cooler.

  It was pretty early in the morning, at least I guessed it to be, and everyone was sleeping. Except Mark, he was hopped up on his caffeine.

  I was glad to be back in the cooler. It was crowded and warm, but it didn’t have a death trap feeling that the main portion of the basement had. Every time I stepped in there, I felt as if I were playing Russian roulette with germs.

  I pushed the door to the cooler closed, not all the way, but enough to block everything out.

  “How did it go?” Mark asked.

  “I’m giving her an hour,” Joan said. “Then we’ll deal with it again. Sometimes it has to be baby steps.”

  Baby steps.

  Did she just use that wording?

  I felt so bad for Ezzie. A young mother not only consumed with grief, but her soul had to be swallowed by guilt.

  We had been in the cooler maybe fifteen minutes, I had settled with Macy, finishing my cold coffee when Mark declared that he had forgotten.

  “The lettuce bin, oh wow,” he said almost randomly, then he pulled out the large bin, and lifted the lid. “Our phones.”

  The caffeine sent him into some sort of fast and furious mode. I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about until he reached in the bin and pulled out a phone.

  The phones.

  We all placed our electronics into his homemade, rushed faraday box.

  There was a sense of excitement quickly followed by a sense of disappointment because I knew, even if the phone powered up, who were we going to call. Would there even be a signal?

  He passed out the phones to those who dropped them in the bin.

  Admittedly, even I was excited to see my phone after two days. To power it up, but halfway through the cycle, Adina came into the cooler, putting a pause on our enthusiasm.

  She leaned against the cooler door frame, like it was her crutch. It was mainly open and I wished she would have left it like that.

  A wave of smell carried in, but just as it did, I caught the scent of a new smell.

  “Boris is dead,” she announced.

  There wasn’t really any reaction to that. It wasn’t a news flash, and we had all expected it. Me, I was stuck on the smell. It was a sulfur smell, not as rank as the others, it seemed to blanket the odors some.

  “I am going to need help moving him out of the main portion of the basement, into the back room. I can’t do it alone.”

  “I’ll help,” Kevin said.

  “Thank you, and there is one other thing,” her eyes shifted about. “I’m sick and I’m only gonna get worse. Everyone out there was exposed more than all of you. That’s not to say you won’t get sick. It won’t be as bad. Remember I said there is a treatment. Before we end up with nine dead bodies, we need to try to help everyone.”

  “What are you saying?” Ted asked.

  “Someone, more than one person, has to leave and get that help,” she said.

  Ted asked. “Like look for transportation or a medical camp?”

  Adina shook her head. “Everything we need is two blocks away at the hospital.”

  “Is the hospital still standing?” I asked.

  “I saw it. Yes, if not, Children’s is.”

  “Wait. Wait.” Mark waved his hands about. “Those people are sick with radiation sickness. There’s’ radiation out there.”

  “Boris, Jeff, Tim and his son …” Adina said “Were exposed to fall out. Me and Beth, Ezzie, we left our shelter in the crucial hours where radiation was the highest. Radiation has a half life. If he waits until tomorrow and we go fast, it’s low enough that risk is minimal. I can give a science lesson if …”

  “Hey where are you going?” Beth’s voice carried to us from outside the cooler.

  It was evident, Adina was going to ignore her and keep talking, until the others were shouting.

  “What are you doing?” Tim asked.

  “You need to stop,” said Jeff.

  Adina spun and hurried from the cooler.

  I followed along with Joan and Mark.

  As soon as I stepped into the basement, I smelled the sulfur and rotten egg smell. It burned my nostrils.

  “What’s going on?” Adina asked.

  I didn’t need to hear the answer, I saw the empty space where Ezzie had been seated.

  “She’s leaving,” Beth replied. “She’s leaving.”

  Adina ran to the steps with me and Joan right on her heels.

  “Ezzie stop,” Adina called to her.

  “Come back here, please,” Joan pleaded.

  Ezzie stopped and looked back at us. “I’m leaving. I’m not staying.”

  “Ezzie,” Joan said. “I know this is hard for you. I know. Let us help you, please.”

  Ezzie shook her head. “If you want to help me, let me go. Just let me die. Let me die with my son. Please.”

  Joan and Adina pleaded. I didn’t pay attention to who said what. I took a step forward, thinking maybe as a mother myself, I could help convince her not to leave, that was when my foot hit something. I felt it against the tip of my shoe and heard the soft thud and the sound of whatever it was sliding some on the concrete.

  “Ezzie, please, don’t do this.”

  “You need to come back …”

  It was dark, but I searched it out. What did I kick? When my hand touched it, I smelled the sulfur and I lifted it.

  Drain cleaner. The bottle still had some in it, but it was no longer full.

  “Don’t go out there, Ezzie. Juist come back down.”

  “You’re sick, we can help.”

  “Stop,” I said softly. “Let her go.”

  Both Adina and Joan looked at me as if I were nuts.

  I looked up the stairs. “Go on, Ezzie. Go on. Be at peace.”

  Ezzie gave a single nod, cradled the baby, took a few steps up, opened the door and left.

  The door closed.

  “Are you nuts?” Adina snapped at me. “You just encouraged her to go. She’ll die out there!”

  I held up the drain cleaner bottle. “She’s already dead.”

  I turned from the stairs. Ezzie must have heard me and Mark talking, she sought out that drain cleaner. When she told Joan the baby would leave, she wasn’t lying.

  It was her way out. I didn’t blame her. Not one bit. I wouldn’t want to live either if something happened to Macy.

  A part of me envied her.

  It was over for Ezzie. The rest of us still had a long way to go. Sadly, at the rate we were going and what we faced, all roads led to the same place … death.

  Ezzie was just getting there before the rest of us.

  NINETEEN – BASIC MATH

  “When?” I asked.

  We had gone silent after Ezzie’s departure, no one really wanted to talk or play with the recently remembered phones.

  It wasn’t what I signed up for.

  Granted, no one signed up for an all out nuclear strike, but in my mind, my daughter’s survival was forefront and all I cared about and wanted to care about. Now I was faced with emotions I didn’t need or want.

  Had I not let them into the basement, I wouldn’t know Ezzie. I wouldn’t know the tragedy of how she dropped her baby. I wouldn’t know what fear smelled like and panic, or what radiation sickness looked like.

  I probably eventually would.

  If it was just me and Macy, it would be different.

  Or just those of us who ran for the restaurant.

  We brought the reality downstairs with us, I was the one who suggested it, championed for it, and now as we lived in it, those strangers became our problem as well.

  “When?” Adina repeated my question. “As soon as we can. It’s been two
days. The longer we wait the safer it is up there, but the longer we wait the harder it will be to turn back some of the effects.”

  “There are other threats,” Ted said, then paused to cough as if he choked on his words. “Up top. I mean.”

  “If people are up there,” Adina said. “They are no threat.”

  “How do you know?” Ted asked.

  “Because radiation kills. Up there they are fully exposed. You can get a lethal dose quickly, or slowly over time. The medication we need will stop our bodies from absorbing the radiation. One of them helps us eliminate it,” Adina explained. “Our bodies can repair radiation damage, but not as fast as our bodies get damaged. Look at it like a slow running faucet going into a sink with a sluggish drain. Sure, some of the water goes down, but the sink will overflow eventually. The same applies for radiation.”

  “So, this medicine.” Mark said. “Is like the drain cleaner.”

  Everyone at that moment, whooped out ‘aw mans,’ and ‘come on.’

  Mark looked clueless, “What? What are you … oh, oh stop. That was not a dig on Ezzie, she …” he pointed at Adina. “Brought up the clogged drain.”

  Van waved out his hands. “In any event, you’re saying we need to go. Head to the hospital to get what we need for radiation sickness.”

  “Yes. But we need medication, we should get it. It’s dark and damp, all of us are sniffling and coughing.” Adina nodded. “The stuff for radiation is foremost. I’d say Children’s, but it’s too far and too big. You want to be out there for a minimal time. Radiation doses are measured by absorption per hour. Like I said before radiation has a half life. The more hours that pass the lower the radiation.”

  “So, like …” Van said. “In a few hours, it is lower by half?’

  “No,” Adina shook her head. “It’s tough to explain. It’s a math thing. The best example I was given was there was roughly one thousand roentgens of radiation per hour in Hiroshima. After seven hours, that number dropped to three hundred, after another seven it dropped to ninety.”

  Joan spoke up. “So, it drops seventy percent every seven hours.”

  Adina shrugged. “This is what I learned.”

  Van asked. “How much radiation contamination is deadly?”

  “It’s all deadly,” Adina replied.

  “Oh, balls, come on,” Van said. “You have to have an idea.”

  “They say the body can absorb up to one gray of radiation, or a hundred roentgens, before getting sick. Four or five grays are fatal. One or two roentgens per hour is safe for longer exposure.”

  “According to your percentages,” Joan said. “If that seventy percent holds true, and it was like a thousand of those radiation things per hour, right now we are about eight or nine of those measurements per hour. So, it would be safe for us not to get sick if we were out like two hours.”

  “Depends,” Adina answered. “We don’t know how much we have been absorbing down here. Less for Macy because she rarely leaves this cooler. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t need the medication. She does. The sooner we get it to her, the lower her risk of getting sick. We’ll know our levels down here if we get to the hospital, there are measurement tools.

  “So right now,” I said. “It’s not a matter of when we can go or even if. It’s who will go.”

  Adina nodded.

  Optimally, it would be two teams for faster results, especially with two different areas of the hospital to hit.

  Adina volunteered to go, but that wouldn’t be wise. She was already sick, and the only medical person we had.

  She said., “It’s a given Macy can’t go, and Kevin, you shouldn’t go either. You’re young. The younger you are the more your body absorbs, the older the more resistant.”

  “I’ll go,” Mark said. “I’m not quite old, but older than Kevin.”

  “Hell, if you need old,” Van said. “I’ll go.”

  “No,” Adina replied. “You know what’s up there. There’s a lot of debris. Could be a lot of climbing and you have to move fast.”

  “You saying I’m slow?” Van asked.

  “I ran to safety with you, remember.”

  Ted grunted. “What the hell. I’ll go. I know the area. Make us a list.”

  “Then that’s it,” Mark said. “The two of us.”

  “No, no,” Joan barked. “Don’t be ridiculous. You need more than just the two of you. The hospital may be a mess or even a waste and you may have to go to Children’s. The more eyes, the better and faster. I’ll go, too.”

  I really didn’t give it any thought or debate in my mind, I just blurted out, “I’ll go, too.”

  It wasn’t that I wanted to go up there and leave my daughter. I had to. If Adina said Macy needed that medication as a precaution so she didn’t get sick like Boris, then I was going to go. I vowed to keep my child safe, and the only way I would be a hundred percent sure we’d get that medication was if I went myself.

  TWENTY – WAITING THE NIGHT

  The biggest debate was a matter of when we would go. It was better for us if we waited, but worse for those who were already suffering.

  Collectively we decided to wait until morning, or at least what we thought was morning.

  As the day moved on and evening set in, I started to doubt that decision, even thinking we were selfish.

  I had to keep reminding myself, I was doing this for my daughter and aside from preventive medication my daughter needed, she needed me, as well. If I got sick or even too sick to do anything, what good would I be for her?

  Macy was my top priority.

  But Duncan, the little boy, pulled at my heart strings.

  Adina had said she didn’t think Duncan and his father, Tim would be far behind Boris, only because they were all exposed at the same time and made it to the restaurant together. Boris had suffered burns.

  Jeff wasn’t far behind them, and Beth, along with Adina trailed the field.

  Van had still not shown any symptoms, or at least hadn’t owned up to it.

  It had to be horrible to those knowing they were sick and watching the others, knowing that could be them.

  Of course, they were all exposed to various levels of radiation, so it was hard to say if Beth and Adina would even get as bad as Boris … or even Tim.

  Just before Boris passed away, he groaned in his sleep. Often times, crying out, ejecting to a sitting position, grabbing for things that weren’t there, scratching at his own skin, searching for his water, which was right there with in his reach. He suffered not only physically, but mentally.

  Tim began to do the same thing. He sat up several times looking for his keys, refusing to come back to any reality that he was in a dark basement.

  He argued and fought.

  Maybe that was for the best. Maybe he didn’t feel sick while being stuck in his own delusional world.

  Duncan however paid the price.

  He couldn’t see his father, having suffered from flash blindness, but he could hear his father’s anguish and Duncan cried.

  He cried so much.

  His father didn’t seem to notice.

  I felt helpless as to what to do. I listened as I held my own daughter. I fell asleep for a little bit and woke up to Duncan screaming horribly.

  Just as I started to go to him, I heard Joan’s voice.

  “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” Joan spoke soothingly,

  I lifted a little lantern to use as a light and made my way out of the cooler.

  Joan had taken the little boy into her lap, holding him tightly with a tablecloth wrapped around him.

  She looked up to me with such a lost and painful look in her eyes.

  “He says his mouth hurts really bad,” Joan said.

  I stepped forward and brought the lantern closer to him. I thought for sure I wouldn’t be able to see anything, but the open sores around his mouth were huge and glistening when the light hit him.

  “He won’t take any water,” Joan told me.

  I
immediately turned and walked over to where Adina usually sat by the freezer.

  At first, I didn’t see her, then I noticed she was laying on the floor on her side.

  I lowered down to the floor and gently touched her, whispering, “Adina.”

  Startled, she sat up. “What? What’s going on?”

  “Duncan is really in pain,” I said. “His mouth is really hurting him. Is there anything we can …” My final word ‘do’ didn’t come out of my mouth. Like with Duncan, the lantern, though dim, was bright to show me her eyes were glossy, and her face had developed a sore just left of her mouth.

  “Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” Adina said.

  “No, you know what? Lay back down,” I instructed. “I have an idea.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, lay down.”

  She didn’t say anything further, her head plopped back down. Sick or not, she had to be exhausted and it had to be catching up to her.

  I wasn’t lying to her, I did have an idea and the inspiration for it was literally right in front of me.

  The walk in freezer.

  Even though the power had been out for two and a half days, so much was still frozen. One of those things was the five gallons containers of chocolate ice cream.

  I knew not only would it be cold, it probably was still pretty solid. Especially that chocolate.

  I hated retrieving ice cream from those carboard cylinders. I hid the chocolate in the back and told customers we were out. The last time I tried to get ice cream from it, I got a blister.

  When I found it, it was still pretty thick, I grabbed the whole thing carrying it from the freezer with me.

  On the back shelf where the extra dishes and silverware were located there was a bin of those silver ice cream bowls, I grabbed one, a spoon and found serving utensils.

  I scooped up a big old heaping bowl and for the first time in as long as I could remember it wasn’t a tedious task.

  Duncan sat up, his tears stopped when he saw the ice cream.

  “This will cool your mouth,” I told him. “Do you want to try?”

  He nodded.