by Harley Tate
He refused to think about Leah as anything other than alive. She had to be out there, somewhere, trying to get home. She hadn’t died at the hospital. She didn’t succumb to radiation sickness a day after the blast.
She was out there, and he needed to find her. No more preparations. No more trying to build a community here.
Grant needed his wife and he couldn’t think about anything else until he found her.
He passed through Debbie’s kitchen and froze. A set of keys with a Triumph keychain hung from a peg on the wall. Stan’s vintage motorcycle.
It wasn’t a Cutlass with spoke wheels, but it would navigate through stalled cars and angry mobs a heck of a lot better. Grant lifted the keys off the peg and sent up a silent prayer for Stan and his wife. He hustled to the garage and opened the door. Sure enough, Stan’s motorcycle sat undisturbed, ready and waiting.
Grant hustled to the garage door and pulled it open before wheeling the motorcycle out. The dog trotted up to meet him.
“Looks like I’m taking my next trip alone.”
She ducked her head.
“Sorry, girl.”
Together they walked the motorcycle back to Grant’s house and into the garage. He didn’t think anyone spotted him.
10:00 a.m.
Grant hoisted himself over the seat of the motorcycle and started it up. After a sputter, it eased into a purr. He tightened the daypack on his back and pushed his sunglasses tighter against his eyes. He could do with a helmet, but the thought of wearing Stan’s didn’t sit right with him.
First opportunity, he would find one and claim it as his own.
He glanced back at the makeshift seat he’d fashioned out of a milk crate and bungee cords. The little dog blinked her blue eyes and almost smiled. As long as he didn’t wreck or take a corner too fast, she’d be all right. She’d probably prefer a car, but a jump seat on the back of the bike would have to do.
No matter the danger, he couldn’t leave her behind. The possibility of him not coming back or getting trapped somewhere haunted him, but so did the thought of leaving her alone with the back door open. Anyone could come in. She could leave.
If he couldn’t find his wife, Grant couldn’t bear the thought of losing the dog, too.
One of these days, he’d give her a name. Just not yet.
Grant turned his attention to the journey ahead. A week since the bomb detonated in downtown and most radiation would be minimal. It would take two weeks for it to fade completely, but Grant couldn’t wait any longer. Every day that passed without his wife his nerves frayed a little bit more.
Soon he wouldn’t be hesitating before firing a shot. Soon he’d become a man he didn’t even recognize.
His reloaded 9mm sat in its holster and the extra magazine lurked in his pack. Sixteen rounds of defense and a bike for maneuverability. It was the best he could do.
He revved the motorcycle’s engine once and eased off the driveway. He hadn’t ridden a bike since marrying Leah. She hated the risk. One driver who didn’t look, and Grant could be a smear on the asphalt. But Leah would understand now.
If it meant he found her, he’d ride a death trap all the way to Hell.
Grant eased out of the subdivision and slowed. With a bike he could risk the highway. Even with crashes and stalled cars, he could use the shoulder. Turning toward it, he passed a solitary man ambling down the sidewalk toward the gas station.
The man stuck out his thumb, but Grant drove on. No time to help anyone today.
He gassed the bike up the on-ramp and eased through a line of empty cars. No one was waiting to smother him today. He thought about Darlene at the rental car facility and how they’d barely made it back off the highway before stranded motorists overwhelmed them.
Had she survived the blast? Was she hunkering down with her son in her basement now that the world had changed forever?
The highway stretched for miles before him and Grant took his time, angling around cars and buses and tractor-trailers that had stopped simultaneously in the middle of rush hour. He wondered where all the owners were now. How many were dead? How many would die in the upcoming weeks?
He worked his way through the curving connector easing into midtown. The smell of faded smoke and burnt asphalt wrinkled his nose. Even this far away, high-rises suffered from the force of the blast. Windows on the south side of every building were blown to bits.
Grant slowed as the road buckled and cracked. He couldn’t go any farther on the highway. He exited and worked through clogged city streets, past shattered clumps of marble from edifices high above, and the contents of offices now exposed to wind and rain.
A woman slumped over on a bus bench, head in her hands. Grant slowed, seeking confirmation. She lifted her head. Not Leah.
Grant drove on.
He passed burned buildings that still smoldered. Cars flipped over on their sides, windows obliterated. Trees uprooted from the ground and tossed against high-rises like confetti. The closer he edged to downtown, the worse the destruction.
Did anyone survive here?
Grant peered into condo buildings that used to stand tall, gleaming with floor-to-ceiling windows. No windows remained. The buildings that weren’t smoldering in broken, teetering heaps stood barren like a greedy giant swept his hand through the floors and stole everything in sight.
The dog whined behind him and Grant put a hand back to comfort her.
The damage became incomprehensible. Grant likened it to a tsunami, earthquake, and volcano happening all at once. Rubble for buildings. Ash instead of parks. A car stuck three floors up in a building that used to house more law firms than could fit on the sign.
No sign of life.
No trace of Leah.
Grant knew going farther only put him at risk. He knew driving on to the heart of the blast would only confirm what he already knew. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t turn around until he stared at the crater and the horror of reality slapped him in the face.
Here and there, fires still smoldered. Grant eased around a massive pile of rubble and caught sight of an arm sticking out of the debris. He drove on.
Soon nothing recognizable remained. As midtown gave way to downtown, Atlanta turned into a war zone. No building still stood, no car sat idle. The streets were clogged with chunks of brick and stone and ash.
The road had burnt and reformed, creating rivulets of tar and paint. At the next block, debris forced him to turn the corner, blocking the entire road. He navigated in fits and starts, peeking down alleyways and backing up down dead-ends.
At last, a road opened up before him and Grant plowed ahead. When he couldn’t go any farther, he parked beside a hunk of what could have been a marble statue a week ago.
Up ahead, a gaping maw beckoned.
Chapter Twenty
GRANT
Downtown
Atlanta, Georgia
Saturday, 11:00 a.m.
The crater carved out of asphalt and dirt and thousands of lives descended at least fifty feet beneath the level of the street. Grant crouched at the melted and reformed edge, staring into the void. He estimated the blast vaporized half a square mile, maybe more.
The gold dome of the capitol, obliterated. The white marble walls of courthouses and city jail, vanished. Georgia Memorial where his wife worked forty hours a week, vaporized into thin air.
He sucked in a tortured breath. Staring into the void sucked the air out of Grant’s lungs. A week ago, this had been the heart of downtown, filled with people from all walks of life just trying to get by.
Tears came hot and fast, but he willed them back. His sinuses throbbed with the effort. It was one thing to stare out his bedroom window at the now ruined Atlanta skyline and wonder. Even then he’d held out hope, thinking, maybe Georgia Memorial was spared.
But, no.
On some level, Grant had known it was hopeless to pretend. But he’d pushed the grim reality aside and focused on his wife and her tenacity. Despite everything
, he’d believed she survived.
He reached out and ran his fingers through the broken asphalt. Was it foolish to hold onto hope?
Did Leah make it out of the hospital? Was his wife out there, somewhere, still breathing? Or were her remains as invisible as the fading radiation all around him?
According to the truckers he met the night of the attack, radiation could linger up to two weeks. Crouching on the edge of the blast site a week later was a risk. Low levels of radiation still plagued the area. But Grant had to see it for himself. No more holding out false hope. No more wondering. Georgia Memorial was gone.
Now he could no longer deny the obvious: Leah died if she ignored his warnings and stayed at work.
Oh, God. Grant clenched his fists and closed his eyes. He’d give anything just to know. Did she die in the blast or make it out? Was she out there somewhere, waiting for him to save her? He didn’t know how long he could go on stuck in limbo.
What if I never find her?
A soft scrap of fur rubbed across his fingers and Grant opened his eyes. The dog. She’d hopped out of the crate and picked her way through the debris to stand by his side.
Grant snuffed back snot and tears and premature grief. “She’s not dead. I refuse to believe it.” He ran his hand through the dog’s fur and smiled through the pain when she didn’t back away.
“We’ll be okay, you and me.” He scratched under her chin. “We’ll be okay.”
The more he said it, the more he believed it. If he repeated it enough, it might come true. He had to have faith.
At last, Grant stood. He turned to face the crumbling remains of downtown.
Leah could be out there, hurt, but alive. Suffering. He glanced down at the dog. “You all right with staying out for a while?”
The dog looked up at him with that same patient stare that said, I’m with you.
Grant nodded. “Then let’s look for her.”
After returning to the motorcycle, Grant swung his leg over and the dog hopped back up into the crate. He started the engine and turned the bike around. Parsing downtown into sectors in his mind, he worked out his own personal search grid. Building by building, block by block, he would look for his wife.
He’d either find her or exhaust himself trying.
Grant eased down the first street, dodging debris and buckled roadway, searching for any sign of life. It was painstaking work. Traveling at speeds barely fast enough to keep the bike upright, he worked his way first east then south, turning at each passable block in a grid around the crater.
An hour into his search, something in the corner of his vision stirred. It could have been a dog or a cat or a rat rummaging through a pile of discarded rags, but Grant couldn’t leave without checking it out.
He parked the bike and the dog hopped out. She sniffed the air in front of her and growled, short and low. The bundle of rags shifted against the broken concrete.
Grant glanced down at the dog. She’d reacted the same way to Stan stumbling in the street. She didn’t like dying humans. “You can wait here, if you want.”
The dog looked up at him, but didn’t sit. As Grant took another step, so did she. He appreciated the company.
As he advanced, the smell of burnt flesh reached his nose. With his stomach roiling, Grant brought his arm up to block the noxious odor. He called out from five feet away. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
The dirty heap moaned.
Grant stepped closer.
The dog whined.
“It’s okay, girl. Don’t worry.” Grant reached down and picked up a section of exposed rebar laying on the ground. Mangled at one end, it had come from one of the buildings nearby, ripped straight out of the concrete by the force of the blast.
Grant stuck the rounded end out in front of him. “Hello? Do you need some help?” He nudged the top layer of fabric away with the edge of the rod.
A charred hunk of leg jerked back beneath the tatters.
Grant swallowed. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. He didn’t want to come any closer, but couldn’t leave without being sure. What if the quivering hunk of human in front of him was his wife?
He stepped closer and the stench turned from burnt skin to stale urine and misery. Grant stifled a gag. “Please, do you need help?”
As he stuck the rebar out again, the bundle shifted, exposing more than just a leg.
Grant recoiled.
Where a man’s face used to be, charred flesh and rot remained. One eyeball sat angry and exposed in an eye socket. The other was burned beyond recognition. A clump of black hair stuck up on the top of his scalp; all the rest was singed away.
A huge section of his cheek had died, leaving a hole straight through to his teeth. How the poor wretch was even alive, Grant had no idea. He stared at him, unsure what to do.
The man reached out a destroyed stump of a hand. His jaw worked back and forth, ripping his moldering cheek with every attempt at speech.
“What is it? What can I do?” Grant stepped closer.
The man’s one good eye stared at him, begging.
“I can’t understand you. Please.” Grant could barely stand to look at the man. Revulsion and pity warred inside him.
“K-k…” The injured man stuttered out a single letter, his one good eye darting back and forth as he struggled.
“What is it? Is that your name? Does it start with K?”
He held up his ruined arm. “K…ill.”
Grant nodded. “Yes. The bomb killed millions of people.”
The man pointed at his own face.
Grant’s brain refused to make the connection. He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
The dog whined.
“K-kill…” The wounded man slumped back against the broken wall and thumped his chest with his stump.
Grant’s eyes went wide. He can’t be asking that. Please tell me he’s not… Sticky spit clogged in the back of Grant’s throat, but he forced the question out. “Are you asking me… Are you asking me to kill you?”
The man gave one tortured nod.
God. Grant covered his mouth with his hand. It was one thing to fight in the heat of battle or to defend himself against a mob dead set on causing mayhem. But kill an innocent man?
Grant stared at the stranger’s ravaged face. He would die an agonizing death. Even if a hospital materialized out of vaporized dust a block away, it couldn’t save him. Not with death in his tissue and burns covering his body.
That the man still lived was some kind of sick miracle. Leah had talked about patients who gave up. Severely injured, they would want nothing more than to shed their mortal burdens and take their last breaths. She couldn’t do anything to ease their journey except provide a morphine drip and a comfortable bed.
Grant couldn’t even do that. He pulled his gun free and ensured he had a round in the chamber. With a deep breath, he looked the man in the eye. “Are you sure?”
The man nodded again before shuddering with a final breath. His eye closed and Grant steeled himself.
It wasn’t murder. He refused to see it as a crime. Even if it were, who would be there to prosecute? Only God himself. Grant wondered if he would approve.
He lifted the gun and took aim. One deep breath and a focused exhale. Grant pulled the trigger.
A single shot pierced the silence, echoing off the remains of civilization. The bullet pierced the man’s skull and he slumped over, blood smearing against the broken wall behind his head.
Grant lowered the gun and turned around. The dog sat a few paces behind, waiting.
He felt the need to explain. “I didn’t have a choice. I had to help him.”
She watched him with inscrutable blue eyes. Did she understand? Was she judging him?
I’m losing my mind. Grant ran a hand over his face and shoved the Shield back in its holster. “Come on. We have more searching to do.”
The dog hopped back up on the motorcycle and Grant cranked the engine.
&nb
sp; Saturday, 4:00 p.m.
A handful of hours later and Grant’s grip on reality hung in tatters. His eyes glassed over and he almost lost control when the motorcycle ran over a broken lump of the past.
So many dead and dying with nothing he could do. Working street by street in an ever-expanding grid, he’d managed to clear ten city blocks around the epicenter of the blast. No sign of Leah.
If she had been there when the bomb detonated, either she was crushed inside a collapsed building or already dead and never to be found. Grant glanced behind him. Even the dog had had enough.
On the fifth block, she stopped getting out of the crate, refusing to accompany him on his parade of horrors. On the eighth, she wouldn’t even look at him anymore.
Grant exhaled. It’s time to go home.
He took note of his location and turned the bike north. Tomorrow he would start where he left off. Navigating his way through downtown and into midtown, signs of life slowly emerged. A tree still standing. A living, breathing person leaning against a stalled car.
A sign for medical care.
Grant eased up on the gas. A handwritten banner made out of a sheet stretched across a courtyard to a set of low, white buildings.
First Aid Station
After pulling up to the gate, Grant stopped the bike. A handful of people in scrubs stood behind folding tables talking to ambulatory victims of the blast. A surge of hope shot through his veins. The chances of a random medical worker knowing his wife was slim, but if he didn’t check…
He rubbed the dog on the head and hustled up to the makeshift waiting room.
Chapter Twenty-One
LEAH
Highway 82
Hampton, Georgia
Saturday, 6:00 p.m.
Everything ached. Leah’s feet began to throb around mile fifteen, her back a mile after that. The head wound still oozed fluid. Every hour Leah stopped, she checked on it with her travel mirror from her work bag, and kept going.