Escape the Fall (Nuclear Survival: Southern Grit Book 2)

by Harley Tate

  “And if you’re not exposed to so much?”

  “Then it kills you more slowly.”

  Debbie snorted back a wave of snot and tears and reached for her husband. This time he didn’t even twitch. “Like Stan?”

  “Yes, or even more drawn out. It could take weeks or months. But if you’re exposed to a sufficient dose of radiation, it will kill you.”

  Her nostrils flared as she inhaled. “Am I going to get sick?”

  “Were you outside?”

  “No. But I hugged my husband when he came home. The second he walked in the door, I ran to him, clutching him tight.” Her head jerked up and she stared with terrified eyes into Grant’s own. “All the radiation on his clothes and skin. It must have gotten on me, too.”

  Grant forced his voice to stay even. He didn’t know how his wife did this day after day. Caring for the sick and dying was one thing; dealing with their terrified relatives was another. He shook his head. “I don’t know how long it lasts. But if you start to get any symptoms, then you’ll know what it is.”

  “Is there a cure?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Debbie stroked her husband’s back. “This is it, isn’t it? This is the end?”

  “For Stan?”

  Debbie nodded, but didn’t look up.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Her shoulders shook in a silent sob and she reached forward, draping her body over her husband’s.

  Grant turned away. He wished more than anything that Stan had stayed inside and gave Debbie a private moment to say goodbye. But maybe this was the best way. Now she knew the truth about his illness and her future.

  If he hadn’t been lucky enough to find the truck stop, Grant could be suffering the same fate. He could already be dead or in the throes of a sickness just like Stan. Was his wife suffering? Did she make it out of the blast’s radius and find somewhere safe to hide?

  He had to have faith that she did. He had to believe she would be coming home as soon as she was able. If he lost faith, what did he have to live for?

  A wail rose up from beside him and Grant turned around in time to see Debbie clutching at her husband’s face. His head hung limp and lifeless and his body sagged all the way to the ground. Stan was gone.

  Debbie shook him, fingers digging into his stained shirt. “No! You can’t leave me like this! You can’t!”

  Grant reached out and stopped her frantic arms. “He’s gone, Debbie.”

  She blinked back another wave of tears. “He can’t leave me here all alone. What am I going to do?”

  Grant waited until she looked up. “You’re going to keep living one day at a time. That’s all anyone can do now.” He eased closer to Stan and wedged his arm under the man’s chest. “I’ll carry him home.”

  Debbie nodded and stood up, waiting in the street like a beggar woman while Grant hoisted her dead husband into his arms.

  Stan weighed almost as much as Grant and he staggered before gaining his balance. They would need to bury him wherever Debbie saw fit, but for now, Grant just wanted the spectacle to end.

  Neighbors from every nearby house lined the street. Women with hands covering their mouths, men looking away every time Grant made eye contact.

  He adjusted Stan’s lifeless body and followed Debbie to her front door. She let him inside and ushered him to the stairs.

  “Can you put him on our bed? I can clean him easier up there.”

  Grant nodded and followed Debbie up the stairs. He laid Stan down on a bed with room for two and stood back. “I’m sorry, Debbie.”

  She pinned him with a fierce stare. “Thank you, Grant. For everything.”

  He nodded and stepped out of the room. As he descended the stairs, he couldn’t help but see all the photos. Debbie and Stan on a cruise ship. The pair of them on the summit of some mountain halfway around the world. Their wedding photo.

  On and on the photos went, showcasing their lives as an inseparable pair. What would Debbie do without him?

  Grant stepped outside and shut the front door behind him. Everyone still stood where he left them, heads bent together in hushed conversation. A shout rang out from across the street. “What do you know?”

  Pairs of terrified eyes peered at him from the faces of people he said hello to every day. People he called his friends. How many of them knew about the nuclear bombs? How many of them knew they were a country on the brink of either destruction or war?

  Grant swallowed. One man thirty feet away could barely stand, he swayed on his feet, gripping the arm of his wife to stand upright. He was probably poisoned as well. How many others were just like him? How many weren’t ever coming home?

  “You said you know what’s going on! Tell us.”

  “I heard it’s a terrorist attack.”

  “I heard we’ve been invaded.”

  “Someone said we’re all going to die. That there’s some virus out there!”

  Grant wasn’t an emotional man. He’d managed to hold back the tears when his mom died from cancer when he was only eighteen and when his father passed of a heart attack years later. He didn’t fall apart when Leah agreed to marry him or when he saw her that first time in her wedding dress.

  But looking out at so many confused and scared faces, the gravity of it all hit him like a thunderbolt. These people didn’t know what to do and they were looking to him for answers. For a solution.

  He hesitated. Should I stay or should I go?

  Chapter Five

  LEAH

  Crabtree Parkway

  North of Atlanta, Georgia

  Thursday, early evening

  Leah swallowed down a thick glob of spit and snot clinging to the back of her throat. The man standing in front of her grinned like a farmer eyeing a prize tomato, red and ripe on the vine. Perfect for picking.

  Her heart hammered in her chest and the higher her pulse, the worse the throbbing in her head wound. Panic would only complicate her injuries. I have to stay calm. I have to keep a clear head. Leah thought of herself as a patient in the ER and forced her breathing to stay even.

  The man nodded at her head. “Pretty nasty gash you got there.”

  Leah didn’t know what to do. If she nodded and joined in the conversation, would he take it was a sign of weakness or just general politeness? She opted to stay on the ground and not say a word.

  He frowned. “Not much of a talker, are ya? We can fix that. How ’bout ya come on out so I can get a look at ya.”

  Leah pressed her lips together. Paul and the other men at the Walmart had terrified her until she realized they were only there to protect the place. What if this man were the same? She could be turning down an offer to help or offending someone for no good reason. But the more he leered at her, the more the hair on the back of Leah’s neck stood on end.

  Stubble coated his jaw in a scrappy, hit-or-miss beard, and the smell coming off his breath mixed liquor and coffee in a noxious combination that spoke of late nights and later mornings. From the wrinkled T-shirt and the stained jeans, Leah guessed the man hadn’t gone to work or taken a shower for days. Maybe even since the power went out.

  Did he know about the nuclear bomb? Was he already hungry and desperate? If Leah asked him some questions, he might be able to tell her what life had been like the last six days that she’d been apart from society. From the nonstop action of the hospital to the days trapped in the bookstore, she didn’t know what was happening out in the rest of the world.

  He rubbed his chin and tucked his brow. “You gonna come out or what?”

  Leah pulled the air rifle tighter to her chest and slid back further across the grass.

  The man chuckled and shook his head. “I ain’t seen one a those since I was a kid. Whatcha gonna do? Shoot my eye out?”

  “I don’t want to.” Leah’s voice came out scratchy and raw from lack of use. “I just want to be left alone.”

  He snorted. “That ain’t much fun at all. ’Sides, ya look like ya need some
help.”

  “I can manage.”

  “Howie, ya out there? What the hell’s takin’ so long? You get lost lookin’ for that cat?”

  “Can it, Rhonda! I’m busy!” Howie turned back to Leah with disgust curling his lip. “That old lady a mine can’t never leave it alone. Always Howie this, and Howie that. A man can’t get no peace round here.”

  He took a step forward and lowered into a crouch so his eyes met Leah’s on the level. “I’m only gonna ask one more time. Come on out here onto the sidewalk. I won’t hurt ya.”

  Leah risked a quick glance behind her. Either the people living in the house whose lawn she crouched on weren’t home, or they weren’t coming to her aid. If she shouted, Leah doubted anyone would care; they’d been listening to Howie and the Rhonda woman go at it for goodness knows how long.

  Running would get her nowhere fast. She didn’t know the area and if she veered off course, how would she ever find the hospital? Leah gripped the rifle tight and came to a decision. She would play along. For now.

  At last, she nodded. “Give me some room.”

  Howie stepped back with a flourish.

  Leah clambered to her feet. The duffel thumped against her back and sent waves of pain through her muscles. She would have to check for serious bruises, too.

  As Howie moved through the bushes, Leah followed until she stood on the sidewalk. The last few inches of sun warmed her face and she held up her free hand to shield her eyes from the light. “If you don’t mind, I need to go before it gets any darker.”

  “Where ya headed?” Howie stood on the sidewalk, shifting his weight back and forth.

  Leah couldn’t read his expression with the sun casting shadows across his skin. Was he nervous? Excited? Bored? She had no idea.

  “Grocery store.” Leah lied out of instinct. “Looking for some medicine to clean my cut.”

  “Ain’t gonna find one that’s open. Everything’s been shut down since the power went out.”

  “Can’t hurt to try.”

  Howie stepped forward and his nostrils flared. “Where you been, lady, under a rock? Ain’t nothin’ nowhere that’s gonna help you. It’s all closed up. Stores, gas stations, even the damn hospital’s dark.”

  Leah swallowed. “It is?”

  He scratched at his neck and glanced past Leah toward what must have been his house. “Tried to get my wife to go a few days ago. She ain’t been feelin’ right since that big light in the sky.”

  Leah covered her shock with a cough. Didn’t they know what happened? “What light?”

  “You know, that big flash that lasted forever. Gave me spots all across my eyes for days.”

  She played along. “I was stuck at work on a double shift. With no power, we had to do everything by hand.”

  He jabbed a fingernail in his mouth and chewed on it. “You really didn’t see it? Dave from down the way tried to tell me it was some sorta bomb, but he’s always been a nutter.”

  “Who the hell you talkin’ to out there?”

  Leah twisted in time to see a woman ease down a set of worn wood steps on a front porch three houses away. She stopped a few feet from Leah and palmed her hips. In the gloom, Leah could make out what looked like scabs on her arms. Burn marks? Radiation? Leah couldn’t be sure.

  “Get back inside, Rhonda. I’m busy.”

  “I can see that. Ain’t you gonna introduce me?”

  Howie frowned and pointed a finger at Leah. “Don’t know her name. Found her in the bushes tryin’ to hide.”

  “Whatcha hidin’ for?” Rhonda almost spit. “Ain’t like Howie’s gonna hurt ya. He couldn’t do nothin’ even if he tried.”

  “Aw, don’t go spoutin’ off now, woman. You know that ain’t true. Show her the lump I gave you for talkin’ back last week.”

  Rhonda crossed her arms. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  Howie caught Leah’s eye and pointed at his wife. “I can’t get no respect around here. Not even from my own wife. Can you believe that?”

  “Seems like she has a point.”

  Howie closed the distance between them. “What’d you say?”

  Leah stepped back and added her free hand to the rifle’s grip. “It seems to me you’re not very nice.”

  “Who are you to call my Howie not nice!” Rhonda stormed up from the other side and stopped close enough for Leah to get a look at her. Bloodshot eyes, broken capillaries on her nose and cheeks.

  “Have you been sick to your stomach? Throwing up?”

  Rhonda snorted. “What’s it to you?”

  “Were you outside when the bright light hit?”

  Rhonda glanced over Leah’s head to her husband in alarm. “What’s she talkin’ ’bout, Howie?”

  “Hell if I know. Whatever you’ve got to say, spit it out.”

  Leah’s gaze bounced between Howie on the one side of her and Rhonda on the other. She knew she should keep her mouth shut for her own safety, but if the woman was sick, Leah might be able to help. She could at least explain the signs of radiation sickness and how to alleviate the symptoms.

  She cleared her throat and forced a tight smile. “The light you saw the other day was from an explosion. A nuclear bomb.”

  Howie shook his head. “No freakin’ way. Here in the States? Not possible.”

  “It’s true. Bombs went off all over the country. As many as twenty-five. If your wife is throwing up and feeling dizzy and tired, it’s probably low-grade radiation sickness.”

  “That’s crazy talk. Why should we listen to you? That gash on your head’s probably makin’ you hallucinate.”

  “No. It’s not.” Leah focused on Rhonda. The woman had fallen silent as soon as Leah began to explain. “Were you outside that day?”

  Rhonda nodded, her fingers, trailing over her lips. “I was at a friend’s house. We stood on the back porch and watched the whole thing.”

  “That don’t mean nothin’.”

  “It means she needs to rest and take care of herself and monitor her symptoms.” Leah focused on Rhonda. “If your hair starts falling out, or your skin thins and starts bleeding, you need to find a working hospital.”

  Howie exploded. “I told ya, the damn hospital’s shut down! My Rhonda’s not sick. She’s just fine.”

  “I’ve been throwin’ up for two days, Howie. I ain’t fine.”

  “She needs some medical care. If you show me to your house, I can clean myself up and check her out.”

  “You? Why should I trust someone covered in blood?”

  Leah straightened up. “I’m a nurse. I can help.”

  Howie’s eyes narrowed. “You ain’t helpin’ her. She’s not sick.”

  “She could die.”

  “Rhonda’s gonna be fine.”

  Leah opened her mouth to argue when Howie’s fist came out of nowhere. It slammed into the same cheek cut from the cat and Leah stumbled backward.

  “She’s gonna be fine!” Howie screamed again and charged.

  Chapter Six

  LEAH

  Crabtree Parkway

  North of Atlanta, Georgia

  Thursday, early evening

  Leah landed smack on her backside in the dirt between the bushes. The leaves whooshed back into place as if she’d fallen through to another dimension. Her ears rang from the blow to her head, compounding her concussion and scrambling her senses.

  She scuttled back on the grass, digging her heels into the ground as the bushes shook and parted with Howie’s rage. How did everything turn so wrong, so fast? One second, she offered to help his wife, and the next she was fleeing from a madman.

  Leah huffed out a rebuff. “Leave me alone!”

  “My wife isn’t sick! You’re gonna pay for what you said!”

  “I didn’t do anything to you!”

  “She’s not sick!” Howie lunged for Leah and she kicked out at him, missing his face by an inch.

  He swiped at her with an open palm and connected with her ankle. His fingers
wrapped around it and Leah swung the air rifle up toward his face.

  “Let me go!”

  Howie snarled and Leah did the only thing she could think of. She pulled the trigger. A pellet discharged from the gun and hit Howie square in the cheek. He howled and let go of her ankle, grabbing at his face as blood welled in the pocked wound.

  Leah scrambled to her feet. She pumped the gun once, but Howie reared up before she could pump again. He lunged for her, blood covering his hands and face, arms outstretched like a zombie in a horror film.

  Spinning around, the duffel bounced against Leah’s lower back as she took off through the side yard of the two nearest houses. Howie followed a few steps behind, cursing and spitting and shouting at her to stop.

  Leah didn’t know where she was or where she was going, only that she had to move. Gaining distance between her and the crazy man on her heels was the only option. She tried to pump the rifle again, but couldn’t gain leverage as she ran. It was as good as a cudgel, but nothing more.

  Curtains in a side window moved against the glass and Leah slowed, hoping someone would come for her. Howie shouted and the fabric fell back into place. No one would help her with that man chasing her down.

  The side yards opened to a quad of fenceless backyards with strips of grass and sunbaked concrete. Leah ran through them and onto the next street with Howie still behind her. Darting to her right, she sneaked between another set of houses and past short fences and a little yapping dog.

  Leah shouted into the air. “Help! Someone help me!”

  No doors opened. No windows rattled. No one was coming to her aid. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she risked a glance behind her. Howie was no more than twenty feet away, intent on chasing her down. How would she ever get away?

  With every pounding footfall, her tears loosened bits of dried blood and dirt from her lashes and it stung her eyes as she ran. Dizziness washed over Leah in waves and she stumbled as a curb rose up in front of her.