by Wil Mara
A clap of thunder exploded with such force that all three of them—Marla, Corwin, and the receptionist—jumped. Lightning stuttered all around, one jagged line mutedly visible through the downpour.
“Ms. Hollis, you shouldn’t go out there until the storm subsides,” Corwin said.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied, a touch of fear in her voice. She felt for the digital recorder, which was still in her pocket, and deftly transferred it to her bag by trapping it in the palm of her hand.
“At least let me get you a bigger umbrella. I have one in my office. I’ll walk you to your car.”
“I’m fine.”
Corwin’s head drooped, like a robot whose battery just died.
Marla fired her parting shot. “I’m convinced that you and your father are both rabidly profit-driven without the slightest concern for the danger to the wider community. Do you think I’m unaware that both you and he live more than twenty miles from this facility? Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe that’s not by design? I can’t help but wonder what your attitude toward this plant would be if you lived just over the rise out there.” She pulled the hood of her jacket violently over her head and knotted the drawstring tight below her chin. “But I’m going to stop you. By God, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to—”
Another bolt of lightning struck, this time so close that it caused the ground to shake.
“My God,” Corwin gasped. The receptionist, steadying herself on the desk, turned pale.
The sound of the blast faded, and for a moment all was quiet. Then a fresh rumble came to life, faint at first but rising rapidly. The floor began trembling again.
Corwin looked over his shoulder toward the heart of the plant, his eyes bulging.
“Oh, no…” he said unsteadily. “NO…!”
9
Leaning forward at her desk, Sarah was trying desperately to fend off the monster headache that was beginning to form. Her thumbs were planted under her cheekbones, the rest of the fingers massaging her forehead in little circles. On the blotter in front of her stood the cordless phone, with its speaker on.
“It’s totally impassable?” she asked.
“Yes, completely blocked.” The voice belonged to Clara Minton, an old friend of Sarah’s father, who sounded like she’d spent too much time with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. “No one’s gettin’ through here unless they’re drivin’ a tank or something.”
“Damn … Sunliner Drive never floods.”
“I know.”
Sarah took a deep breath and released it, her cheeks puffing out.
“It’s the sewers,” Minton went on. “They just can’t handle this volume.”
“All right, how about Pembroke Boulevard? That one’s way up there.”
“Yeah, that’ll stay dry. But it’ll add an extra mile to the trip in and out of town, and in this weather that could mean another ten minutes for the response vehicles.”
“If you know of a better route, I’m listening.”
Minton groaned. “No, nothing’s coming to mind. Of course, at my age.…”
“Fullerton’s shorter but dips through the lowlands,” Sarah said, “so that should flood soon.”
“Yep.”
“The same with Beaumont. Jordan’s Crossing is probably already underwater.”
“It is.”
“What about Preston Street? Doesn’t it—”
The first explosion was so startling that her body jerked violently and she knocked her coffee over, spilling it everywhere.
“Did you hear something?” Minton asked almost casually. “It sounded like a—”
The second blast was exponentially louder and more powerful than the first, and the whole room began shaking. Sarah grabbed the desk and held tight while framed photos and certificates fell from the walls, books spilled out of their shelves, cabinets and drawers slid open.… It lasted no more than five seconds but felt eternal.
“My God,” Sarah said, gasping. “What just happened? That wasn’t an actual earthquake, was it?”
“I think there’s been—” Minton began. Then the line went dead, launching Sarah’s already-blossoming panic into the stratosphere. Moving quickly, she went to the window and raised the blind but could see nothing through the heavy rain but the courtyard and the adjacent facade of southern Main Street.
“Uh … what was that?” someone asked. Sarah turned and found Barbara Magnus in her doorway. Gone was the snaggle-toothed Cerberus who protected the office of the mayor. The person who stood there now was, judging by her expression, little more than a frightened child.
Sarah turned and headed in her direction, and Magnus stepped aside.
“I’m not sure,” Sarah said, leaving her office. “I can’t see anything from here.”
In the secretarial antechamber, Lorraine Harris was getting out of her chair with the aid of her cane.
“Sarah, what on earth was that?” Harris asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t know.… It came from the west, but I can’t see anything from here. I’m going to try one of the windows upstairs. Call Don”—Harrington, Silver Lake’s Chief of Police—“and see if he knows anything.”
“I’m on it.”
The town’s offices had a broad marble staircase that zigzagged up two more floors. The corridor on the fifth was cool and dark, the only illumination a diffused glow from the semicircular windows at either end.
As she reached the top step, she froze. Oh, no … the WEST, she thought, and broke into a run.
Just as she reached the last office on the western side of the building—and the only one without a nameplate—she slid on the polished floor and went down. Her kneecap took most of the impact, the pain blooming in all directions, but she ignored it and scrambled to her feet.
The office beyond the door had plain white walls and gray Berber carpeting. The only furnishings were a desk and a filing cabinet, both cheapos from Staples.
Limping quickly past the desk, Sarah went to the window but couldn’t see through the rain spatter.
“Screw it,” she said and reached for the window latch. At first it wouldn’t budge, so she put both hands to it, cursing like a millworker, and it gradually gave way. The minute she opened the window, the sound of the rainfall escalated and the dampness rushed in. Riding along the latter was the acrid scent of spent electrical charges and a putrid, earthy odor. Sarah kept shoving the window frame until it was nearly all the way up.
Her new, higher vantage point afforded a much-improved view of the community. Rooftops of all shapes and sizes held firm between the wind-driven trees. Phone poles stood unevenly here and there, and the cellphone tower that Verizon had erected four years earlier blinked serenely up top. Surprisingly few residents had protested its construction, which not only improved reception in the area but also resulted in a handsome payout from the mammoth company as well as decent tax breaks, both state and federal.
At first she saw nothing unusual. Then another blast echoed in the distance, and when she looked in the direction of the sound she saw a growing plume of smoke accented by repeated flashes of pinkish light. Several smaller explosions followed like a fireworks show, only there was nothing even remotely festive about it.
For a time Sarah could only stare while her mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing and, even more onerous, what was really happening.
It can’t be. Not here … not here. This last thought became a chant in the back of her mind—not here … not here.… This wasn’t television, it wasn’t CNN, and it wasn’t some place on the other side of the world. This was tiny Silver Lake, Pennsylvania, a town of about one square mile and just over ten thousand people, where kids still played in the streets and very few people locked their doors at night. Things like this don’t happen in places like this.
But try as she might to deny it, she knew what she was seeing was absolutely real. In the back of her mind, she had always feared this possibility. Regardless of how muc
h reassurance she had been given, by many people on many fronts, she’d always thought this might happen someday.
“Oh, shit,” she said, between clenched teeth. She shut the window again, then turned and ran from the room.
Halfway down the staircase, the sounds from the office began drifting up to her. There were phones ringing and cabinets being opened and keyboards chattering.
And there was someone screaming.
* * *
As Corwin burst through the east door of the control building, and into the open compound, Marla stayed hot on his heels. Then they both came to a halt, paralyzed by the unfolding spectacle.
A chain-link fence a dozen or so yards in front of them separated the control center from a collection of reinforced concrete structures of varying shapes and sizes. The most prominent were the hyperboloid cooling tower to the south, and the dome-topped containment building, which looked like a shorter, fatter version of the bullet-shaped grain silos common to farms the world over. Under normal circumstances, a thick white plume would be billowing sluggishly out of the tower, while nothing came from the containment building. Now it was the other way around.
Workers were running every which way, some in white lab coats and yellow hard hats. There was yelling and screaming, and Marla spotted a smallish Latina woman who was sobbing while one of her colleagues nudged her to keep moving. Emergency lights swirled and alerts blared from an eight-horned siren.
Chaos, Marla thought as her heart boomed. Pure pandemonium. She’d stopped under the door’s awning and was therefore out of the downpour, while Corwin had taken another step or two. He seemed unaware that he was getting soaked. He stood, staring at the destruction like an astonished little boy, eyes wide and mouth agape. Fresh metal shavings, was Marla’s next observation, that’s what it smells like. And the laser-y odor of copying machines. Just like inside—only much stronger.
“Mr. Corwin!” a tall, broad-shouldered man called as he came rushing over. Corwin had introduced him to Marla during the tour—Gary Mason, plant manager. Mason wore a lab coat and hard hat, and a ridiculously boxy pair of safety goggles were draped around his neck. When he drew near, Marla saw that he was holding an iPad protectively under the coat. Marla had tried tossing a few questions his way when they first met, but Corwin had steered the conversation elsewhere.
“Mr. Corwin,” Mason said again. “You and Ms. Hollis should get inside right now!”
“What happened?” Corwin yelled back, rain pouring down his face.
“I don’t know all the details yet!” Mason pointed to the headset tucked in his ear. “I’m waiting for a report any minute! In the meantime, I’ve implemented the Stage-Two Evac Plan. All nonessentials.”
Corwin pointed to the containment building, where smoke was rising heavily from the side they couldn’t see.
“What about that?”
Mason’s eyes flicked briefly to Marla, who spotted the loosely held fear that had taken up residence there.
“There’s been some damage to the core in Reactor Two,” he said.
“From the explosion? The big one?” Corwin asked.
“Yes, but we have another unit continuing to produce electricity for the customers. Unless the NRC tells me to shut it down, I’m going to keep it going.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mason said.
“Are any fission products escaping?”
“I … I just don’t know at this time.”
Corwin paused, then asked, “How did it happen?”
Mason shook his head and gave an almost imperceptible shrug.
“Sir, it’s only been about ten—”
“Mr. Mason,” Marla said, “what happened?”
Mason looked at Corwin, who had turned his attention back to the containment area and gave no reply.
Then, addressing Marla directly, Mason said, “Most likely, one of the gates that opens to permit cooling water into the reactor became fused shut, causing the reactor to overheat and the internal pressure to build beyond safe limits. The resulting explosion appears to have ruptured both the inner and outer structures.”
Marla’s earlier conversation with Corwin replayed in her head like a bad flashback.
“Christ … like Chernobyl?”
“Not exactly the same, no. But very similar—extreme heat and pressure.”
“How did the gate become fused?”
Mason looked at his employer for a lifeline again, but Corwin had begun moving away from them in a daze.
“Sir,” Mason said, “please don’t go over th—”
“Mr. Mason,” Marla said firmly, “how did the gate fuse shut?”
Fear and reluctance passed across Mason’s face. Marla said nothing but had no intention of letting him off the hook.
“It was struck by lightning,” he said finally.
Marla’s mouth fell open.
“Lightning? You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.”
“What about the lightning rods?”
Mason shook his head. “We don’t have them.”
“Excuse me?”
“There are no lightning rods in this facility.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“How many regulations does that violate?”
“None,” Mason said, turning away. Marla knew the body language well, familiar as she was with people who wanted to extract themselves from a conversation.
“None?” she asked.
“There are no laws or regulations requiring nuclear plants to have lightning rods,” Mason told her.
“Oh, please.”
“Look it up for yourself,” Mason said with complete conviction, and Marla had no doubt in that moment he was being truthful.
Corwin had wandered a good twenty yards away now, moving off through the pounding rain in what appeared to be an attempt to get a better view of the damage. The scene that was developing on the other side of the fence looked to Marla like a vision from hell. Flaming chunks of concrete were scattered around the pavement, and more flames were leaping from a gaping hole in the containment structure, just below the domed top. Twisted steel wormed and jutted from it in all directions. Three people in hazmat suits were working a fire hose in an altogether ineffectual attempt to quell the blaze. Two more lay facedown, spread-eagle among the rubble. Marla assumed they were dead, especially since one of the corpses was missing its right leg. Marla realized they had probably been inside the building at the time of the explosion, and the force blew their bodies out here. She saw Corwin turn away and cover his mouth with both hands.
“We need to know what’s coming out of the containment building immediately,” he said to Mason.
“I’ve been trying to determ—” Mason started. His Bluetooth flashed concurrently with the trill of a cellphone that was tucked somewhere under his lab coat. He put up a finger—Hang on a second—and pressed the headset’s answer button. His expression then modulated from lingering hope to dull, dawning horror. Marla noted the bob in his throat, and a frozen finger touched the pit of her stomach.
Behind him, a response team in hazmat suits appeared, moving toward the chaos. Mason finished his call and stood, still and silent.
“What is it, Gary?’ Corwin demanded. “Tell me.”
Mason cleared his throat. “It’s a full breach. The containment vessel is half gone.”
Corwin closed his eyes and let out a breath that seemed to deflate his whole body.
“Ken says the fissile material is pouring out in massive quantities,” Mason added.
“Jesus Christ,” Corwin said haggardly.
“Both of you need to get inside immediately. Go to the control room, you’ll be safe there for the time being.”
Corwin turned toward the door, but Marla didn’t budge. Her gaze was fixed on the cloud pouring from the rupture.
“Which way is the wind blowing?” she asked.
“To the east, it
appears,” Mason replied. “Why? Do you—oh, shit.… The town.”
Marla’s jaw tightened. “You have to alert the authorities right now. Local, state, federal … everybody.”
Corwin didn’t seem to hear. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket with fingers that were trembling badly, and rubbed it under his nose. Marla grabbed him by the crook of his elbow and shook him.
“Are you listening, dammit? You have to get the word out immediately!”
A man with a retro buzz cut stuck his head out the door as if on cue and said, “The mayor’s on the phone and wants to know what’s going on.”
Mason nodded. “I’ll be right there.” Then, back to the others, “Please, you must get to a safe place.”
Using his hands, he ushered them both inside. Then he ran off and disappeared. Marla took out her iPhone and began snapping pictures through the door’s window—first of the blossoming radioactive cloud, then everything else that seemed noteworthy.
When she turned to gauge Corwin’s reaction, she found him watching her with an expression as blank as a freshly washed chalkboard. A puddle was forming around his feet as water ran off his sodden clothing.
“I’m going to send these to my editor, with more to come. Care to try and stop me?”
There was no response at first. Then Corwin shook his head.
No.
10
“How bad is it?” she asked, tapping a pencil on the blotter to expel some of her jitters.
“It’s bad, Sarah,” Gary Mason said from the other end of the line. “It’s really bad.”
She pictured him in her mind, having been introduced to him during one of her official visits to the plant: big guy, huge hands, white lab coat, deep voice, a little intimidating. But everyone seemed comfortable around him and genuinely fond of him, and those feelings appeared to be reciprocated. A good boss, she had decided. Competent. Objective. Concerned.
“Bad as in Chernobyl? Fukushima? I don’t want to sound melodramatic this early, but I need some idea of what we’re dealing with.”
“Put simply, we’re dealing with a core meltdown. In layman’s terms, that means the core of the reactor, the compartment where the fission chain reaction occurs, has been damaged, and all that fissile material—i.e., radioactive material—is moving outside.”