“No!” I yell, into the dark, the dehydration and hunger making my head swirl with the bad news. “No, we just survived a giant bear thing – no way you’re going to die now!”
Sledge smirks, and I feel like hitting him for being so nonchalant, but he reaches into his bag slung around his shoulder, bringing out a glowing syringe marked with masking tape and sharpie marker scrawled in chicken scratch.
G-Med.
“How did you-“ Brig starts to say, reaching out for the hefty needle. “G-Med is so rare! How do you have that?”
“From the Semper tribe,” Sledge states matter-of-factly, sitting down in the dirt by us. “They’re training me to be a medic – hence the reason I was alone with the two soldiers you so intimately got to know earlier, Quinn.”
He again smirks toward me, and his ease about the dead worries me – how have people become so cold?
Sledge continues, bringing the glowing syringe up to his face. “Just consider it a down payment for future lifesaving from both of you – with interest I might add. It won’t officially save you, but it’ll give you a second chance so you don’t die tonight. We’ll have to head to the tribe’s med bay to officially cure you – I estimate you probably have about five to seven days maybe at best before you’ll go into full exposure.”
“Deal,” Brig says, desperation and emotion finally showing on her military-hardened face. “For a fellow Semper, I’ll take it – I’ll save your life again before this whole journey is over you know.”
Brig rolls down her sleeve, showing on her arm a blackened tattoo, scarred and broken, but discernible nonetheless. It’s a bald eagle, standing on top of the world with its talons gripping the earth like its roosting on it.
“I count on it,” Sledge replied stabbing the G-Med hard into Brig’s leg – a little more forceful than probably needed. Brig stiffens, and letting out a few curses, smiles with beads of sweat on her head as a flowing green glow moves up her leg, leaving a white patch of skin where moments ago it had been bright red like a firetruck.
“The pain is gone,” she says, and it just confirms how hardcore this chick is – dealing with an intense pain like your skin is on fire while fighting a bear. She rips off a piece of her tank top and wraps it around the wound, which just oozes a little blood now.
A growl sounds out in the air, only this time it’s my stomach. “Hey you two,” I say, grabbing their outstretched hands. “Don’t want to break up this moment we’re all having, but I haven’t eaten or drunk anything for about five years, and I am going to literally go full cannibal on one of you if we don’t.”
They laugh, not worried at all about keeping the volume down.
Brig stands to full height now, the pain fully relieved and points at me. “Quinn, go find us some wood – we’re gonna make us some grub.”
Hoisting myself up with the rock, I reply resolutely, “That’s cool, but three things real quick. One, I have a piece of metal stuck in my leg, not to downplay your near-death bear mauling. Two, I’m not eating that glowing bear meat that smells like a dump, and three, I better not get attacked while I’m collecting wood or I’m haunting both of you when I’m dead.”
They laugh again, clearly not concerned about my possibility of dying.
Brig looks over at Sledge, and waving her hand casually in the air, says, “Look kid, One – The metal thing is easy to fix – it’s gonna hurt like the dickens, and I might enjoy that a minute, but we’ll get you all patched up. Two, we’re not eating that bear meat tonight because I still don’t want to die, and three – that awful scent from the bear will keep everything that could kill you at least three miles away. So be a big boy, and tell that bear thanks for its dumpy smell, and go grab us some wood while we prep your gourmet MRE cuisine.”
With some color showing across my dimples, I snort like a horse and reply, “Okay, okay, that all sounds fantastic, but what’s this MRE thing you’re talking about? Is that like a brand of hot pocket or something?”
Brig rolls her giant, animal-like black eyes, and replies. “Just go get the wood, La La.”
┈┈┈┈┈․° ☣ °․┈┈┈┈┈
Between the floating embers of a rolling fire and the caressing tendrils of a mountain breeze, the night air was absolutely sublime. Chirping crickets combined with the rustling of wind between the quaking aspens nearby to form a symphonic harmony so stunning that even Mozart himself would be an understudy to its composition.
We were sitting together around the fire, talking like old friends that hadn’t just survived dying together hours earlier. As I sat eating my “gourmet” MRE with something that resembled fettucine, I couldn’t help staring at the whites of Brig’s and Sledge’s eyes.
“Kid, you got something to say?” Brig finally blurts out after I had been turning my head sideways to study her face.
I clear my throat, and nervously kicking my feet against the dirt, reply, “Um, well it’s just both of you have eyes – well, they kind of glow with the fire, and I’m just wondering is that something I should know about? Like do you have super powers or are you gonna turn into werewolves and eat me later tonight?
“Ha!” Brig calls out, startling me. “You’re unbelievable La La. Funny thing about being exposed to radiation long term – it has its side effects.” She takes an uninhibited bite of her Salisbury steak, and with a mouthful of food replies, “Take me for example – I received this nice little burn across my face, and believe it or not, started to grow another toe at some point.” She takes another bite. “Cut if off myself of course and it never grew back!”
I choke on a noodle that gets caught in my throat, picturing Brig with her bowie knife.
Sledge then chimes in, while Brig finishes her last bite. “All of us poor fools that have been around since the beginning - since N-Day - have a nice little sheen in the whites of our eyes. Fun party trick at first, but now pretty much everybody has it. I guess since you came along – now you’re the cool one with no radioactive glow.”
I laugh at the absurdity. Between being mauled by a bear from my nightmares, nearly dying at the hands of Russian killers - then shooting one and stabbing another with a scalpel - and now seeing these hardened survivors, I think I’ve finally come to accept that yes, I’m no longer in 2022 anymore.
It sucks. But here we are. It sucks for everyone I’m guessing.
But even in the worst moments, you get gifts like tonight, where the world slows down for just a minute, long enough to let you have a break, let you have a warm meal, a warm bed, or even a laugh with newfound friends.
“So,” I start, fiddling around with a noodle in my tray, “What happened? How in the world did we all get so messed up?”
Brig looks up from the fire, her dark eyes reflecting flames. “Hate to break it to you, kid, but the world was a huge mess even before N-Day, before 5-12. But that day, someone – still not sure who – someone decided to send off a nuke into Russia. That was the beginning of a full-on nuclear world war, and the beginning of the longest five years you’ve ever been through – that is, unless you’re sleeping through it I guess.”
She winks at me, and I can’t help feeling she’s jealous.
Running his hands pensively through his shaggy, dirty blond hair, Sledge continues. “I remember it like it was yesterday you know. Nine years old, playing video games, when everyone’s phones started buzzing like crazy. A national warning to take cover, to seek shelter – only there wasn’t anywhere to go if you were on the East or West coast, or even in the middle of the country. All the countries went completely mental, dropping nukes on each other until they ran out of them. I still don’t know if it was better to die that day…or deal with the fallout…I’m the only idiot who survived in my family.”
Trailing off, Sledge just stares into the slowing flames licking up the last pieces of wood.
“But where was the government? Why didn’t they call in the army or whatever they do?”
A sardonic laugh from Brig broke the s
ilence that followed my question.
“You don’t get it, do you Quinn?” replied Brig. “There was, and there still is no government. Everything went up in smoke that day – most of congress was in session, the president and vice president didn’t make it out. Sure they tried, and I was in the National Guard then, but we just couldn’t save everyone. People starved or got sick, and those who survived the initial nukes had to deal with all the radiation blanketing the sky. About half the world’s population died from all the blasts, and another half of us who survived probably died the first two or three years after.”
“Wow,” I muttered, no longer wanting to eat. With blurry eyes, I stared down at the fire with Sledge, and after catching up a minute I said, “So where we heading then? Since I got you into the jaws of a radioactive bear, what are we going to do?”
Brig looked deep into my own eyes, her long gazelle face set tight. “Well, if you two are in for the long haul, we head to where the Sempers have set up their base. I’m sure Sledge here is supposed to report back anyway – It’s about a five day walk if we push it hard and don’t get too sidetracked along the way. Place called Vantage over where Washington used to be.”
My mind races for an instance. Thinking about Celeste, and somehow finding her, make sure she’s still –
I can’t bring myself to finish the thought. There’s only one direction to go now.
“Okay, okay,” I reply. “You say where it used to be?”
“Yeah, well, after N-day, and the government collapse, we all had to survive by breaking up into tribes. That means state boundaries don’t really matter much these days – just marks on a map really.”
“Whoa,” I reply. “Heavy.” Realization is starting to claw its way through my brain like its own demon bear. “And these, Sempers, they’ll help you with your leg problem so you don’t die a horrible death? I don’t think I can handle that level of guilt Brig!”
She chuckles dryly, crossing her arms in front of her and leaning back. “I know they can help, but whether of not they will is another question. I didn’t exactly have an honorable discharge from them. Plus they’ll be suspicious of you, since you’re such a virgin!”
“Hey!” I yell out into the dark, making Sledge jump. “I resent that!”
Shaking her head while snorting, Brig says, “I mean you don’t have a tribe. You’re a nomad, and anyone who is in a tribe is instantly suspicious of that. So we’ll have to work on that before we get there. Roughen you up and put some scars on you before we’re done.”
I pull up my pant leg, where they removed the wire earlier and now a bloody bandage took its place. “I’d say you’re off to a great start here peeps. Just don’t mess up this pretty face please.” I show my dimples with the best, puppy dog eyes I can muster. “It’s all I got with the ladies!”
Now Sledge, who has been sitting silent, glances over to me and spits out his water, laughing. “You’re unreal man,” he replies between coughs.
Brig looks again into my gray eyes with her jet-black ones. Pursing her lips for a second, she hesitates then asks a question.
I can feel the gravity of what she’s asking and I just listen quietly.
“We need to decide carefully how we get to Vantage. We can shave a day off maybe if we go straight through the lake. I’ll find a ship or boat we can take and make it happen – that part I’m not worried about. I’m just not sure what we’ll find in the lake. But we do save a day. It’s either that, or we go through Coeur d’Alene itself, which as you may or may not know Quinn, is full of fun creatures we call skulks – the humans that had the real bad effects of radiation poisoning, real bad zombie movie stuff - so we have to be very covert passing through and not draw any attention.”
Brig speaks, “My vote personally is to take a chance and go with the lake. Call it selfish, but we may need that extra day. I think we’ll be overrun going through the city.”
Sledge then places his vote. “I’d say we head through the city – I can deal with a few skulks, what I can’t deal with is the unknown.”
Both of them glance at me, sitting placidly on the large boulder while I digest the literal and figurative bomb dropping that just happened.
They wait for my vote.
CHAPTER 6
Careful Where You Step
The sun was rising on my first new day and I hadn’t seen anything quite like it.
It was as if Van Gogh himself had taken his palette, painted thick brush strokes of red, yellow, and purple across the empty blue canvas of sky, and made a masterpiece of it. Swirls intertwined where gusts of air dragged particles full of rich pigments - which probably weren’t safe to breathe - as the sun’s rays cast a warm glow across the cool morning air. Nearby, in a patch of trees across the way, I could hear the morning call of robins chit-chattering with each other over a wormy breakfast.
It only lasts about ten minutes, but as the sun comes over the horizon, I can’t seem to forget the image burned in my mind. Probably because it’s the first bit of beauty I’ve seen in a world that seems pretty devoid of it – in a world that seems intent on killing all of us.
“Let’s go, kid,” Brig says, nudging where I sit on my sleeping bag – her eyes incredibly dark and dangerous looking this morning. She was obviously irritated from what I had decided the night before.
Going against her advice, I recommended we head through the city. It seemed like Sledge wasn’t too worried about the Skulks as they called them, and call it selfish, but I secretly still hoped I could find something that would charge my phone and let me call Celeste.
Even though I had resigned myself to life as I knew it, I wouldn’t give up on her.
We spent the morning prepping for our journey through Coeur d'Alene downtown. Brig gave me a small bag full of rifle ammo, a couple hand grenades, which she expressly told me to not play with, and a number of random goods, like more rations and a flashlight. My back strained against the newfound weight in my backpack.
She clicked a metal device with a faint blue glow shaped like an “X” on her pack. “What’s that?” I asked, wondering. She replied matter-of-factly, “This is our plan B, kid.”
The only laugh she gave me all morning was when I asked for toilet paper.
So now we stood, three bad-ass looking survivors, with bandaged wounds and big guns, staring at what used to be the eclectic downtown of Coeur d’Alene.
There were cars of all types strung along highway 90, twelve-wheeled semitrucks down to smart cars, all with varying degrees of rust, parts missing, and windows broken in. Just parked and left, because they no longer mattered. Even the high-end Lamborghini we passed was no better than a miniature Matchbox car.
It would be another hour until we actually made it to the point where Brig said we might run into some Skulks, so for now our nerves were pretty chill.
Turning back to glance at Sledge, with my curiosity brewing, I ask, “So tell me, Sledge – if that is even your real name, Sledge – what’s your story man?”
Wrinkling his lips and eyes alike as he comes up to my side, he replies, mumbling at first, “Um, you want the long or short version?”
“Let’s go short, for the sake of you know, us potentially killing things, and me with the attention span of a-“ I stop, then continue after a few seconds, “What were we talking about now?”
He punches my arm in reply, and I’m sure he’s really hoping I’m not serious.
Sledge kicks at something in the dirt, and only seconds later do I realize it’s a human skull – My first instinct is to freak out and call the police, but this morning, I’m willing to let it slide.
He replies while scratching his shaggy, blondish hair. I can spot some tattoos sitting underneath his gray sleeve where leather armor rests on his forearm. “Yeah well, I guess my life as I know it started really when I was nine. Before the bombs dropped, I was living in what used to be Montana. Real crap hole of a place, and I won’t bore you about how I grew up with an abusive stepdad in a
stereotypical trailer park, blah blah blah. Major trash heap – you get it.”
I try to picture my life before, and for a minute I feel like there’s something there, but before I can grab onto it, the memory disappears again.
“So, trailer park trash, sad life, etc. What’s your real story though?”
Sledge smirks and looking over at with squinted eyes, replies, “You ever heard of Twitch?”
“Like the video game thing?” I ask, having never played much of anything besides women. “Something where nerds creep on half-dressed cosplay girls playing geeky video games in their parents’ basements, right?”
He snorts, accidently slipping out a laugh. “Sure, that, but Twitch was the thing when I was a kid – nerds became stars, rock stars with games. I was one of the best – played shooter games like crazy, almost ten hours every day streaming, and I had millions of fans. I made a crapload of money doing it too, about fifty grand a month.” Sledge pauses, reminiscing about his life before. “That’s how I became Sledge – Number one Twitch streamer in America, not some trailer park trash from nowhere in Montana. I kept the money without my mom or stepdad knowing just so I could buy a house of my own and get my mom away from that ass of a man. Used a fake identity, and wore a bunny mask as my signature, and it eased the pain when my stepdad would hit us.”
I look over at Sledge, who only glares at the ground. “Man, I’m sorry,” I hear myself saying. “All I know, my dad was a cheating slime ball, but never abusive. I can’t imagine –“
“Nah,” Sledge says, looking off into the distance. “You don’t have to feel sorry – got me ready for the future. After N-Day, my money didn’t matter – most of it was probably taken with the bank anyway – and I really should thank my stepdad, because the beatings I got from the Sempers included batons and tasers. Child’s play really. Made me grow up real fast.”
Sledge kicks another bone, maybe a leg bone from some animal, lying on the ground by some sharp pieces of metal we have to step over.
Nuclear Rising Page 4