by Bowman, Dave
He hoped he could make it. He had to get his daughter somewhere safe.
The small city they lived in was quiet. And it had been quiet for the past three days. Except when they heard screams or gunfire, or glass being shattered.
Or the explosion, of course.
Brody could still remember the sound. That bone-breaking, teeth-rattling sound that came right after the blinding flash.
Today, there were a few people out on the street. Several people were riding bikes like they were. And many people were walking. Some stood on their porches and watched them ride past.
Brody knew he and his daughter were vulnerable. They carried bags full of supplies, and it seemed like everyone was stealing what they could.
But still, it felt good to get out of the house. It felt good to do something. Brody knew that if he didn't get Katie to his parents' house right away, it might be too late.
And besides, it wasn't safe back at their own house. It was just a matter of time until someone broke in to take whatever they wanted. Some of the neighbors' houses had already been broken into.
The first night, Brody lay awake in bed, listening to the sound of windows being smashed, followed by gunshots. He had hardly slept at all the past three nights. He had spent the hours of darkness awake, listening for any sound of intruders.
It was last night that he had decided to take Katie to her grandparents' house.
Brody was getting weaker and weaker. It had become clear that he wasn't going to get better. The vomiting was getting worse, and he could barely even keep fluids down. He feared that if they waited, he wouldn't be able to make the trip. It was now or never.
Of course, Katie hadn't wanted to go. She understood that the country was under attack. She had heard the explosion just as Brody had, after all. But the teenager seemed to be in denial about the rest of it. She kept saying that the cars and electronics would start working again soon.
But most of all, she was in denial about her own father's sickness.
Frustrated with how slowly Brody was pedaling, Katie pushed her bike ahead. Her mountain bike flew down the street.
“Come on, Katie,” Brody croaked breathlessly. “Stay back here with me. I mean it.”
Katie ignored him and pedaled furiously up the next hill. She sailed over the crest, and disappeared out of view as she coasted down the other side.
Brody's leg muscles were burning. This hill was too much for him in his weakened state. He slid off the bicycle seat and began to walk. He pushed the bike uphill by the handlebars.
At the top of the hill, he saw Katie at the bottom. His daughter had stopped and was looking up at Brody impatiently. Brody mounted his bicycle again, pushed off the ground weakly, and coasted downhill.
Katie groaned. “Forget about this taking all day. It's gonna take us a week to get there!”
Brody looked at her. “I need you to stay closer to me. It's dangerous out here.”
“Okay, okay,” Katie huffed.
The two of them continued down the road, passing a young couple walking on the sidewalk. The man and woman were loaded down with big bags. As Brody rode past, he noticed the woman was carrying a tiny baby.
Brody was glad that Katie was older now. He didn't know what he would do if Katie were that young.
Brody loved his daughter dearly, but she was a handful. Raising her mostly on his own had been so difficult. Katie's mother – Brody's wife – had died when Katie was six years old. Those early years had been constant work. Brody had relied on the help of his parents, but they were working too, back then. There was only so much they could do.
But as hard as raising a child alone had been, it was nothing compared to what Brody knew he had to do now.
They rode past a guy breaking into a Mustang parked on the road. He looked up and scowled at them as they rode past. Even though most of the cars no longer ran, people still tried to steal them.
They were finally leaving the city. The houses became more and more sparse, and they saw fewer and fewer people on the road. The thirty miles to his parents' house would mostly be through the woods.
Brody didn't know what to expect. There would be fewer people out there. That meant fewer people who might attack them, but also fewer people who might help them in an emergency.
But the first mile was uneventful. It felt nice to breathe the clean air scented of pine trees. His body still ached, but he felt his shoulders loosen their knots just a little.
They stopped to drink some water from their packs and have a snack of raisins and cheese. Then they pushed off once again. Though there were no cars on the road, they stuck to the shoulder, both for safety and to enjoy the cool shade provided by the pines.
Brody let his mind wander as he rode. It wasn't long before he began to replay the events of Wednesday. The events of that horrible day that had changed their lives forever.
It had all started around 4:00 p.m. Brody had been at work. He was a manager at a child protective services agency, and he had been lost in a spreadsheet. The lights in the windowless office had gone out. And when he realized that all the lights in the building were out, the cell phones didn't work, and none of their cars would start, he panicked.
Was Katie safe?
He left the office and made his way back home on foot. He had never been super fit – he didn't have time to work out regularly. But he could cover the two miles to his home quickly. He was worried about Katie. He didn't know what was going on, and he wanted to make sure she was okay.
He found Katie at home. She had been dropped off by the bus an hour earlier. The lights had gone out while she was at home.
Besides being upset about the lack of access to her phone and the internet, Katie was fine. Brody could rest easy. Or relatively easy, at least. He had no idea what was going on, but he had a very bad feeling about it.
But it wasn't long before a new worry entered his mind: Kevin. There was no one to check on him.
Kevin was a neglected seven-year-old that Brody knew. His agency had been working with the child's family at first. Kevin's dad was in and out of jail, and his mother was an addict. Kevin had almost been put in foster care. But at the last moment, his mom had pulled some strings. It seemed she was the second cousin of the judge overseeing the case. The case had been dropped, and Kevin had to stay with his family.
Brody had managed to get Kevin signed up for the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. As Brody's “little brother,” Kevin got to have some much-needed care from a stable adult. Brody made sure the boy was fed enough and had clothes and shoes for school. He was about the only person looking out for the child.
In fact, that afternoon was their scheduled time to spend together.
Brody imagined Kevin alone and afraid at home. The school bus would have already dropped him off at home before the power outage. What if his mother didn't get home for hours that day – if at all? He would be terrified and confused with the power out.
Brody decided to ride his bike to the child's apartment building, just to check on him and make sure he was safe and had something to eat.
He explained to Katie where he was going. He made his daughter promise to stay home with all the doors and windows locked.
Kevin's house was several miles away, right near downtown. There was panic everywhere on the streets, with people arguing over their cars that wouldn't start and the wrecks they had had with each other. There was even some looting that had started.
It was a good thing he was going to check on Kevin. And maybe Brody would bring Kevin to stay with him and Katie for the evening. This was a dangerous part of town, and the child needed to be somewhere safe while the city was devolving into chaos.
Brody continued on. He was less than a mile away from Kevin's building when it happened.
The bomb went off.
It was the most terrifying moment of Brody's life.
First, there was the deafening noise. Then the ground shook. Then, new noises. The sound of glass shattering
, buildings collapsing in the distance, and objects sent flying.
In the middle of the confusion, Brody was thrown off his bike. Luckily, he rolled with the fall and didn't hurt himself badly. He crawled to the doorway of a concrete building, shielding his head and eyes while the ground shook.
The flash of light was blinding. Even with his eyes closed and his face buried in his arms, the light was completely overwhelming.
He felt sure he was going to die. He braced himself, expecting to be crushed by the building he was huddled against.
But it never fell. The explosion had stopped, and he was still alive. Slowly, he took his hands away from his eyes and patted himself for a moment, just to make sure he was in one piece. Nothing made sense. He had to assure himself that his body was still there and not bleeding.
All at once, he became aware of panicked, screaming voices. Down the street, an office building had collapsed. The sound of agonized cries echoed through the space.
Katie. He had to get home to Katie.
Miraculously, his bike had not been damaged. With shaking hands, he pushed himself to his feet. As he climbed onto his bicycle again, he saw a huge fireball rising in the sky with a halo cloud circling it. The ball of churning flames rose higher, and a stem appeared beneath it.
It was the unmistakable, horrific sight of a mushroom cloud. It had been a nuclear bomb, he realized with a chill.
And Kevin's apartment building was between Brody and that cloud. Just glancing in that direction, Brody could see that the buildings in the area had been destroyed. Flattened. Any hope that Kevin had survived was gone.
Brody had to get home to his daughter.
But the ride back home took much longer than the ride toward downtown. This time, he had to navigate around debris and rubble. He had to steer out of the grasp of desperate, injured people begging him for help. It pained him to do so, but he could only think of his daughter.
He should have never left her alone. He chided himself for being so foolish. He had only wanted to help a child without anyone to look after him, but he ended up not being there for his own daughter. He cringed as he came upon another obstacle in the road, another delay that would keep him on the streets when Katie needed him.
Once he got closer to his own neighborhood, he was relieved to see the area had escaped most of the extreme damage of downtown. A lot of the car windows had busted out, but at least most of the buildings were still standing. There were fewer injured.
Unfortunately, however, a new worry began to take shape. Wasn't there the risk of radioactive fallout after a nuclear bomb? And he had been riding around for a good forty-five minutes since the explosion. If the mushroom cloud had sent irradiated material into the sky, maybe it was falling down to earth. Maybe it was raining down on him at that moment.
Soon, he began to feel a burning sensation on his skin.
You're being ridiculous, he told himself. It's just your mind playing tricks on you.
He rolled the bicycle into the garage, breathing a sigh of relief to see that his own home looked fine, at least from the outside. He ran into the house, his heart pounding.
“Katie!”
Katie appeared instantly, her face soaked with fear. She stared at her father with a terrified look in her eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded her head. “Are you okay, Dad?”
“I'm fine,” he said, holding his palm out to stop her as she took a step toward him. “I don't want you to get too near. I'm fine, but I may have gotten . . . a little exposure.”
Katie frowned. “Exposure? What do you mean?”
Brody shook his head. “No time to explain right now. I'm going to go shower now. But you stay in the living room and don't go outside. No matter what. And stay away from the windows. Okay?”
Katie nodded her head silently and watched as her father took a wide path around her to his bedroom.
Brody shut his bedroom door behind him. He undressed, double-bagged his clothes, and took a shower, scrubbing his skin with a brush.
Just a precautionary measure. This is probably overkill. But better safe than sorry.
He dressed in clean clothes and hurried back to the living room. Katie looked up from her seat on the couch. She leapt up and ran into his arms, hugging him.
Brody was a little surprised by her show of affection.
She must have been really scared.
“Are you sure you're okay?” he asked as he held her.
“Yeah,” she said. “I just didn't know what that noise was. It was so loud. And I didn't know where you were.”
Katie drew back and returned to the couch. Even the rare embrace from his daughter didn't last long.
Brody took a seat in the armchair next to her. “I'm sorry I wasn't here when it happened.”
“What was that, Dad?”
Brody took a deep breath. Then he explained everything to his daughter. He explained about the bomb, how the country was under attack, and that there was a small risk he had been exposed to radiation as he rode his bicycle after the explosion.
Katie was predictably frightened about the nuclear attack, and she was sad to hear about downtown being destroyed – and about Kevin. But she was immediately skeptical about the risk of radiation poisoning and fallout. She dismissed what he said about it completely.
“You're just being paranoid, Dad. You weren't even outside that long after the bomb hit. And you were far enough away to not be hit by it, so I doubt it would hurt you,” she said confidently.
“I hope you're right,” Brody said. “I don't want to scare you, but I just wanted you to be aware of the risk.”
Katie scrunched up her nose as she surveyed her father's face. “And anyway, you look perfectly normal now.”
Brody smiled.
She's probably right, of course.
But he still got up to close all the heavy curtains in the room. Just to be sure. Then he moved on to the rest of the windows in the house, making sure they were locked shut, and closed the curtains. He threw the clothes he had worn on the bike ride into a trash can in the garage. He didn't want any radioactive particles contaminating the house.
Once that was done, he decided to move the bookshelf in front of the big window in the living room.
Katie watched him work. “Now you're moving furniture? May I ask why?”
Brody finished pushing the heavy oak bookcase to its new spot, then turned to face her. He shrugged. “Just playing it safe. To prevent any fallout from getting in here.”
Katie rolled her eyes, which Brody chose to ignore. He rechecked all the doors that opened outside, and blocked off any cracks with towels. In the dining room, he turned the large dining room table upright, and used it to block off the window in that room, as well.
Once he had finished the job of sealing off the house as best he could, he took a seat in the living room again. Katie, frustrated by her dead phone, had begrudgingly picked up a book.
Brody felt satisfied with the safety of the sealed-off house, and he figured they would ride out the storm there. They had enough food and drinks to last a while. He wouldn't go outside again until he thought the risk had passed, and he certainly wasn't going to let Katie leave, either.
The worry and grief over the destroyed world outside weighed heavy on his mind. His thoughts went constantly to his parents, sisters, and friends.
What if this had happened in other parts of the country? His parents lived in the country, which he felt was probably safer than the city. But Heather lived in a small city in Virginia, and Annie in a large city in Texas. What if it had been worse there?
Despite her usual efforts to appear cool and detached, his daughter was worried, too. She looked up from her book and let him know as much, in her questions about her grandparents, aunts, friends and teachers. Did he think they had been hurt, she asked with frightened, innocent eyes.
He tried to comfort her, tried to tell her that they were most likely all safe, but t
he truth was that he didn't know. She returned to her book. He didn't know if it was just teenage aloofness or a coping strategy to evade worrying thoughts. Katie pretended to be unconcerned. But Brody knew she was affected by the tragedy.
Despite all the worries, Brody was at least thankful that his daughter was unharmed. And he knew that his concerns over the fallout exposure would probably turn out to be unfounded.
But the next day, he woke, stumbled groggily to the bathroom mirror, and jumped when he saw himself. His face had taken on a subtle gray cast. The whites of his eyes were a little darker. His heart pounded as he studied his reflection. Was this from the fallout?
He shook his head. No, it couldn't be. It was just stress. He was getting worked up over nothing.
You're beginning to sound like a hypochondriac, he told himself.
When Katie didn't seem to notice any changes in his appearance that morning, Brody all but forgot about it. But that evening, an intense headache began. It wasn't like him to get headaches, but again, he could just chalk it up to stress.
But the second day, it was harder to ignore the changes. He felt like he had the flu. His muscles were achy, and he felt nauseous. Plus, the headache had never gone away.
Katie told him it looked like he had a cold. She walked to the pantry, withdrew a can of chicken soup, and plunked it down on the table.
“Here, eat this,” she said. “This is what you always make me eat when I'm sick, right?”
Brody smiled and nodded. He didn't tell his daughter that he had no appetite at all.
That afternoon, he looked in the mirror and could hardly recognize himself. His skin was taking on a definite shade of gray. His pupils were dilated, and his eyes just looked plain strange. The weakness in his body was becoming worse. Then the vomiting began.
That night, he decided he had to get Katie to his parents' house. He knew he was probably being ridiculous, but he didn't want to take any chances. If it turned out it was just the flu, then no harm done.
And if it wasn't the flu, she needed to be with someone to take care of her.
But how long to wait before it was safe to go outside? He would have to look that up.