Evergreen (Book 5): The Nuclear Frontier

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Not sure I’m ready for kids yet.”

  “Yeah, same. We’re both a little young.” He slid over to sit behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle. “I meant as a species, we’re still here despite advanced medicine only being around not all that long in terms of history. Living like this might actually be a hidden blessing. You know, going all natural and stuff. No crazy stress from traffic, having to get a job, worrying about being laid off, losing your house… all that crap.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like Maddie.”

  “Huh?”

  Harper leaned back against his chest. “Oh, she decided not to be depressed about living in the 1800s anymore.”

  “Glad to hear she’s dealing.”

  “Yeah. I think she’s going to be okay. At least, as okay as anyone can be now.” She exhaled. “We should probably get dressed and head back before Cliff sends a search party after us.”

  He kissed her shoulder at the base of her neck.

  A shudder ran down to her toes. “Dear Logan, are you trying to get us both in trouble? Do that again and we’re going to be out here for another hour.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re asking me to do it again or sincerely asking me not to.”

  “What do you think?”

  Smiling like a sly fox, he leaned in and kissed her on the same spot.

  9

  A Place of Safety

  A few days later, the screams of multiple children came from the backyard.

  Harper, barely two paragraphs into chapter 22 of The Secret Garden, put the book down and ran outside to find the usual crew: Madison, Jonathan, Lorelei, Becca, Eva, Mila, and Christopher standing there flailing at themselves in their underpants—except for Lorelei who’d gone full wood nymph. The little one mostly stooped over, raking her hands at her long blonde hair as if trying to clear it of leaf bits after jumping into a huge pile. The kids freaked out as if they’d been tear-gassed, flailing at the air, scratching themselves, shaking their hair around.

  Mila, the most composed of the lot, walked over and informed her they’d discovered an abandoned house at the far end of Buchanan Drive full of bugs. The kids hadn’t realized the extent of the flea infestation until everyone started itching. In an attempt to avoid bringing the fleas home with them, they’d abandoned their bug-riddled clothing on the front lawn and run back.

  After telling the kids to stay there and not go inside the house, Harper ran a few backyards over to grab a small plastic kiddie pool to serve as an emergency de-bugging bath outside. After careful cleaning, it appeared only Jonathan, Christopher, and Mila had brought fleas back with them in their hair. All the kids had multiple bites, mostly on their arms and legs. Despite finding no signs of fleas in Madison’s hair, she washed herself three times. Harper appreciated her sister’s extreme caution since they shared a bed. Once satisfied the kids had become flee-free, Harper sent them inside the house to wait, then took the long walk to collect the discarded clothes in a plastic trash bag.

  Merely thinking about fleas made her itch the entire way there.

  Since the kids had only been in the place for about twenty minutes, she didn’t think the fleas would have had time to lay eggs in any of the clothing, but she didn’t want to take chances. If garments weren’t a rare and precious commodity, she’d have burned the lot. Instead, she bagged it all bringing everything back home to boil in a giant soup pot on the cinder block grill, hoping the heat would kill any fleas or eggs in the fabric. The kids—except for the three who lived there—spent the day at the house wrapped in blankets or bed sheets until their clothes dried enough to put back on.

  Bugmageddon had two major effects. It not only severely diminished the kids’ interest in exploring abandoned houses, it served as an unpleasant and itchy reminder of civilization’s demise—or at least ill health. Fleas and other pests existed in the 1800s. Any building left abandoned for over a year would probably have issues. The kids often found raccoons, possum, or other small animals inside houses where people hadn’t been in a long time.

  Harper brought the issue up to Walter the following day, which resulted in Anne-Marie recruiting a small group of volunteers whose job became tending to unoccupied houses in hopes of saving them from turning uninhabitable… and taking note of any houses with problems like a massive flea population.

  Three days after the kids ended up covered in fleas, Harper took them to the pool after they finished working on the farm. It remained warm enough for it in late August, though she didn’t expect they’d have many more opportunities to really enjoy the water before it became too cold outside for swimming. The somewhat embarrassingly skimpy bathing suit she’d gotten from the quartermaster months ago still fit, so she spent a little time in the water as well, amused at the idea someone thought a bikini a worthwhile scavenge. Then again, it hadn’t taken up much room in the truck.

  Being in a pool didn’t have the same appeal it once did. Only a few years ago, she could’ve spent hours playing in the water and still be disappointed when she had to go home. Whether or not her change in enthusiasm came from simply growing up or as a result of the world falling apart, she couldn’t tell. After little more than an hour, she climbed out of the pool and headed over to one of the lounge chairs, selecting one with an umbrella so she didn’t turn into a lobster. As far as the sun went, her body had two color settings: white as chalk and bright red. From there, she could relax and keep an eye on the kids who would likely stay in the pool until she used a net pole to catch them.

  Other than most people wearing normal shorts instead of bathing suits, the scene appeared fairly ordinary for a massive public pool. Adults tended to float and cool off. Kids swatted a volleyball around, tossed a Frisbee, or tried to see who could make the biggest cannonball splash.

  Wonder if the water’s going to be usable next summer. She glanced to the left at the big garage. Yeah, most likely. They’ve got a ton of chemicals left and it’s not exactly like hundreds of people are using the pool every day. I doubt it saw much use before… probably just a bunch of old rich people who played golf and brought their grandkids.

  She daydreamed about Logan, alternatively looking forward to and being terrified of going all the way. Considering how much they’d already done, it didn’t feel like a big leap forward for one part of his body that hadn’t touched one part of her body before to do so. She didn’t trust any of her former boyfriends enough to go past kissing them. Surely, if she’d tried to have the same sort of ‘almost but not quite having sex’ arrangement with them, they would have lost control in the moment and taken more than she’d been prepared to give. Logan could easily have done so multiple times in the heat of the moment, but he hadn’t.

  At no point in her life before had she so completely trusted a boy. She’d allowed herself to become vulnerable in front of him, and he never once took advantage of her. Even if nuclear war hadn’t happened, she’d probably never be able to find a boy like that again. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, even if it might only be five, ten, or twenty years. The area around her old home in Lakewood hadn’t been too smashed, and her family made it to the basement before anything exploded nearby. Still, she couldn’t put aside the nagging worry radiation exposure, however mild it had been, might shorten her life. Cliff reassured her that many survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it into their seventies and eighties. But irrational fears didn’t listen to rational facts.

  Watching the kids play in the pool sent her off down a depressing line of thought. With the exception of a handful of babies, everyone presently in Evergreen had most likely been vaccinated in the usual manner by modern society as far as she knew—barring morons who fell for anti-science internet conspiracy theories. Any children from here forward wouldn’t have the luxury of modern preventative medicine. She, her friends, Madison, Lorelei, Jonathan… and so on had a decent chance of living to old age, notwithstanding violence or something like cancer. How many generations would it take for hum
anity to slide backward to the way things used to be, when reaching fifty was considered old age?

  She couldn’t remember history class enough to figure out if the average age of death moved forward due to advances in medicine or if it happened far longer ago due to people learning that taking baths and washing their hands fought disease.

  Renee, in a pink half-tee and cargo shorts, jogged over. Her light-brown hair just about touched her shoulders. She slipped her shorts off to reveal bathing suit bottoms, then sat in the lounge chair beside Harper. “Hey.”

  “Still can’t get used to seeing your hair so short,” said Harper.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t chopped at least half of that bright red mane off.” Renee crossed her eyes. “So much work. No, wait. I’m not surprised. I still remember that time you shrieked at your Mom for suggesting you cut it short.”

  Harper looked down. If it would bring her parents back, she’d give up her precious long hair. “Yeah… such a stupid thing to fixate on. Weird I never obsessed about styling it much, just having it long.”

  “Can’t do a thing with mine. So thin and straight.” Renee rolled her eyes.

  “Pretty sure no one is going to care anymore if we run around like twelve-year-olds who don’t realize hair styling products exist.”

  Renee laughed. “Tell that to Becca. She’s more obsessed with her hair than Mandy Greer, and she’s not even twelve yet.”

  “Oh, gawd.” Harper laughed at the memory of their high school’s former head cheerleader-slash-popular girl. “Hey, question. Serious talk.”

  “Hmm?” Renee raised one eyebrow.

  Harper leaned close, lowering her voice. “I think the next time Logan and I are alone for some, uhh, fun times… I’m going to go all the way.”

  “Cool,” said Renee.

  “That’s it?” Harper blinked. “Just ‘cool’? No squeal, gasp, expression of shock? Not even a laugh of disbelief or some mild teasing?”

  “Nope.” Renee held up a bottle of sunblock, squinting at it. “Does this stuff go bad?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “And yeah, just ‘cool.’ We’re adults now. If you wanna do it, do it. People aren’t going to talk about you like they used to whisper about Darci. It’s awesome you’re in love with him enough to do it. I’d probably wait a bit.”

  Harper fidgeted. Their entire high school somehow knew the day after Darci first had sex. Boys, as well as girls, tried to slut-shame her but she threw it in their faces, loudly admitting it and calling them cowards or ‘little kids’ for not having done it yet. She nearly got suspended for ‘disruptive behavior’, but students stopped making fun of her, at least where anyone could hear them. Back then, Harper had been afraid of social shame, but she also never had a boyfriend she trusted. Besides, her parents would have completely freaked out if she’d done anything like that before eighteen… probably twenty-one.

  “I’m not worried at all about what people will say. Hell, Darci’s sleeping with Lucas and no one cares.”

  Renee squirmed. “That’s a little… I dunno. Weird.”

  “This woman where Mom used to work had a husband twenty years older than her.” Harper chuckled. “I remember going to the office on take your kid to work day, saw the dude’s picture on her desk and said something like ‘oh, your dad looks like a cool guy.”

  Renee gasped. “You didn’t…”

  “Not on purpose. I had no idea who the dude was. He looked like her father. So, yeah, Rita—I think that was her name—snaps at me ‘that’s my husband.’ And she’s all pissy with me and Mom the rest of the day.”

  “I remember. What were you like ten?”

  “Nine.”

  They looked at each other and laughed.

  Harper examined her fingernails. “Mom said she ‘slipped’ at the Christmas party four months later when she met him, asking if he was Rita’s father.”

  “No…” Renee covered her mouth.

  “Yeah. Totally not an accident. Mom’s little revenge for Rita being so nasty to me making an innocent mistake.”

  “Epic,” whispered Renee.

  Harper laced her hands behind her head, gazing up at the giant green umbrella. “Why do you think I should wait?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said you’d wait a bit.”

  “No, I meant me. I’m going to wait. Still a bit freaked out at the whole ‘about to be forcibly married’ thing.” Renee fought with the bottle of sunblock, which made farting sounds whenever she squeezed it. “Drat. Think I’m out.”

  Harper glanced over at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, all the gang really did was lock me in a room and say mean stuff… make me carry a gun around and believe they’d shoot me in the head at any second, then tell me I was going to be some cretin’s wife as soon as I got old enough to have sex with.”

  “Lower than roaches.” Harper scowled. Still can’t believe they fell for her claiming to be fourteen.

  “Not really. Roaches you’d save and carry outside.”

  “Hah. I’m not quite that bad.” Harper laughed. “Serious pests like roaches or bedbugs, I’d smash. My insect charity only applies to bugs who aren’t a threat. Soon as something attacks me or carries disease, all bets are off.”

  “Oh.”

  Harper twirled a hand around in the air. “Never saw any kill on sight bugs back in Lakewood. My parents kept a clean house. First world problems.”

  Renee sighed. “Is it true some guy in the south part of Evergreen killed himself over Starbucks?”

  “Umm.” Harper cringed. “Not exactly. He didn’t get upset at there no longer being Starbucks, more the total lack of coffee.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. Dude had to have some other problems though. I love coffee more than most people, and Cliff adores it more than me. Neither one of us would end it all over not having java anymore.”

  “Right.” Renee squeezed the bottle hard, making a wet, splattery fart noise. A few people close enough to hear it looked over, shocked. “Sunscreen!” She waved it at them.

  Harper cracked up.

  “Funny…” Renee shook her head and smeared the little bit of sunblock on her legs.

  “So, you’re waiting for marriage?”

  “Nah. I’m waiting until we know for a fact we’re not going to starve.”

  “Eek.” Harper shivered. “I don’t think that day will ever happen… unless the country isn’t as smashed as everyone thinks it is.”

  “Maybe it is?”

  “Doubtful. It’s going to be September in less than a week.” She looked down at herself, her mind filling with flashing memories of Dad dragging her out of bed at ten to six in the morning, the mad panicked scramble into the basement, then thunder… “September 7th, 2018 at 5:58 a.m., Lakewood, Colorado burned.”

  Renee kept quiet for a moment before whispering, “Why are you making me cry?”

  “Sorry. I meant it’s almost a year now. If the country wasn’t destroyed, we would’ve seen way more military people showing up with helicopters or supplies, letting us know the USA still exists. But there’s been nothing. Not even one guy in a Humvee handing out pamphlets.”

  “Dammit. You made me think about my parents.”

  “I think about mine all the time,” whispered Harper.

  Renee laugh-sobbed, then wiped her eyes. “Of course. I meant the day it happened just jumped into my head like it was a minute ago.”

  “Same. I’m never going to forget it.”

  “Yeah, I—”

  A loud boom went off in the distance to the south, along with a bright flash.

  Renee, and a handful of kids in the pool, screamed.

  Harper twitched.

  Everyone faced south, trying to see what exploded—except for Emmy. The recently turned nine-year-old froze in mid-stride, on her way to the diving board. She trembled, staring into space, grabbing her stomach in both hands.

  “Uh oh.” Harper swu
ng her legs off the lounge chair to stand.

  “What?” asked Renee.

  Emmy swooned to one side, falling to sit.

  “Be right back.” Harper ran over, crouching beside her. “Emmy? Are you okay?”

  The girl didn’t react, staring into space.

  “Em?” Harper rested a hand on the child’s shoulder.

  “Sky fire’s coming!” Emmy made a noise like she prepared to vomit, then went wild-eyed. “We’re gonna burn!” She started to bolt away—headed directly toward the pool.

  Harper grabbed her. This kid’s gonna drown. She’s not on Planet Earth right now. Struggling to contain and carry the flailing child, she stood, whispering, ‘you’re safe. The sky fire is gone,’ repeatedly. Roy Ellis, a former cop and current member of the militia, had been holding ‘training workshops’ every so often to pass on useful skills. She remembered him giving a talk about how to handle people having a panic or anxiety attack. He’d said something about getting the person to a place where they would feel safe. Emmy didn’t have a particular fear of people, but wide-open spaces, specifically under open sky, made her nervous. The child saw people incinerated by a nuclear flash. By sheer luck, she’d been behind a large building blocking her from it, but someone in the distance hadn’t been so lucky.

  Harper rushed for the storage building—the closest structure with a roof—and darted inside. Surrounded by pool cleaning equipment and boxes of supplies, she hunkered down, holding Emmy still.

  “Shh. We’re inside. The sky fire can’t get us in here.”

  Emmy continued screaming and flailing, trying to get away and run. After a few minutes, she gave up and hung limp in Harper’s arms, breathing rapidly. Harper held her close, continually telling her she was safe in here and no ‘sky fire’ would hurt her.

  Therese, the woman who’d taken the child in as a mother, ran in, skidding to a stop on her knees beside them. “What happened? Why is she in a panic?”

  It took Harper a few seconds to process the woman’s thick—possibly Nigerian—accent. “Something blew up. She thinks it’s another nuclear attack. Brought her in here to take cover. Having a roof over her makes her feel safe from the sky fire.”