Fallout

by Wil Mara

  Several puddles had accumulated on the floor between the boilers and the work area, little plashets of radioactive miasma waiting to ensnare a victim. When Emilio looked up, he saw that there were eight windows open out of twenty-four. Not surprisingly, they were the eight closest to the boilers. It occurred to him that they had probably always been open—browsing through the mental images of his childhood, he consistently saw the school with those windows sticking up like a bank of solar panels. During his visits, he remembered, breezes and other distant sounds from outside were a normal part of the tableau. You just don’t notice after a while, he thought. Like the scratch on your refrigerator or the chip in the brickwork on your front steps—these things stand out to people visiting for the first time, but your own eyes slide right over them.

  Rain blew into the room in spasmodic sprays, as if being blown out of someone’s mouth while they were having a coughing fit. Emilio didn’t know if the amount of radioactive material in the room was enough to affect the people who had taken refuge in the gymnasium, but he wasn’t going to take a chance. After he closed the windows, he’d call Sarah and let her know. Maybe it’ll make a difference in the evac plan. Maybe they’ll come here first.

  He dragged the ladder directly beneath the windows and unfolded it into a giant capital A. He positioned it so that it was braced against the middle boiler for extra support, then gave it a little shake to see if it was secure. Emilio had never cared much for heights, but this fear was something he disliked about himself, so anytime he had to scale a ladder he took a deep breath, summoned his courage, and dealt with it.

  The dizziness he’d felt when setting out from the hospital returned when he was halfway up, but he discounted it as mild vertigo. He was rationalizing a parade of other symptoms, too: the headache was simple hunger, the low fever was a by-product of being inside the plastic suit for so long, and the extreme fatigue merely meant he needed to rest—which he would, the moment he was done here, as he’d promised his boss. Perhaps somewhere in the back of his brain, where his years of training and experience were stored, his symptoms were being recognized as the standard early signs of exposure to ionizing radiation. But he was too focused on the task at hand to acknowledge any of that.

  He managed to close three of the eight windows before the dizziness climaxed in a swirl of disorientation that made him feel like he was tumbling through space. As the mushy gray of unconsciousness consumed him, the ladder teetered left and then right before finally tipping away from the boiler. Emilio’s limp form slammed to the floor with a grotesque thud. As he was already unconscious, he was unaware that the fall cost him three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, and a hairline fracture at the point of greatest impact—the left side of his skull. The angle at which he landed also forced the mask of his breathing apparatus well away from his nose and mouth.

  Rain continued to fall through the still-open windows, and soon Emilio’s motionless figure was as soaked as the filthy concrete around him.

  21

  “So far, so good,” Pete said into the headset as he drove down Breckenridge Boulevard. Breckenridge, no longer than a football field, was a decorative crossbar between two of the town’s main arteries, with its picturesque lanes separated by a nicely manicured divider and faux-antique street lamps.

  “How does it look out there?” Kate asked, disapproval plain in her voice. The subtext clearly was, Look, in fact, at how bad it is out there. Come to your senses and turn around.

  “It looks like your standard thunderstorm,” he replied. “Overcast, wind blowing everything around like crazy, rain so hard you can barely see in front of you. Nothing out of the ordinary if you didn’t know better.”

  “Yeah.…” Kate said. Pete was astonished she didn’t add, “but you do know better.” That was a bad sign. If Kate held her tongue—especially in a situation where her sentiments were so obvious—it meant she was truly frightened.

  He was scared, too, but unwilling to admit it to his wife. Knowing how frightened he was might send her over the edge; he wanted her to believe he still had his wits about him. In truth, he was playing host to a twisting, multilayered terror like none he’d ever known. He’d driven through hundreds of storms, since he hated letting the weather interfere with his plans.

  That already set him apart from most of the residents of Silver Lake. When the weather turned bad, they scurried into their homes and stayed there. It wasn’t unusual for Pete to see only a handful of other cars on the road when it was raining or snowing.

  Today was very different. There were no other vehicles at all; no one walking in the rain, nothing moving that wasn’t being nudged along by the wind. Trees were waving and bowing to each other, street signs were shimmying back and forth. Just one big dead zone. It looks like the perspective from one of those static cameras that news divisions set up during a hurricane, so viewers can watch the storm from the comfort of their homes.

  As the rain hammered down on the little Prius every bit as forcefully as the jets up at Scott’s Auto Spa, Pete considered the harrowing fact that relatively thin sheets of metal and glass were all that separated him from a guaranteed case of radiation sickness. The radioactive concentration is of such a magnitude now, Sarah Redmond had said during a phone-in interview he’d heard on the radio, that “even brief exposure to the storm will result in illness.”

  Is this the stupidest thing I’ve ever done?

  “… are you now?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, where are you now?”

  “Almost there.” He turned right on Humboldt Avenue, then made the second left, onto Mission Street.

  At the far end stood a narrow, two-story home, tan with black shutters, that looked as idyllic as something out of a Normal Rockwell painting, complete with covered porch, spindled railings, and a lovers’ swing. Even through the rain, Pete could see that there were lights on on the upper floor.

  He told that to Kate, then added. “I’m guessing that means he’s there.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Kate said. “Please don’t lose your cool when you see him.”

  “I won’t,” he said, “I promise.”

  If you only knew how much I mean that, Katie, he thought. I’m never going to lose my cool with him again, ever. The stern-parent thing isn’t the way to go anymore. And do I really want to be that kind of a father? He wanted to say to his wife, Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll bring him back safe and sound. And then I’ll sit him down—no, I’ll wait until it happens naturally—and I’ll tell him how sorry I am for all those times I blew up at him, and that it’s not going to happen again.…

  “Bring Sharon along, too,” Kate said.

  “You betcha.”

  “Okay, good.”

  A little smile grew upon his lips. Since they’d first met in that restaurant along the Jersey Shore more than twenty-five years ago, he’d loved being the hero in her eyes. It was a high like no other.

  Pulling into the empty driveway, he considered the distance between the car and the porch. His original plan to jump out and run suddenly seemed foolhardy, so he groped around on the floor in the back, hoping to find one of the compact umbrellas Kate usually left in the car for emergencies.

  “Shoot,” he said bitterly as he turned around and gave the back a painstaking visual survey. Empty. There was probably one in the trunk, he thought, but standing out in the rain to retrieve it would take longer than running to the porch in the first place.

  “Screw it,” Pete said, and threw the car into reverse. He gave the steering wheel a spin and backed into the first half of a K-turn. Moving forward again, he rolled off the macadam and onto the lawn, stopping when the car was parallel with the front steps.

  “Okay, I’m right by the porch. Here goes.…”

  He put on the paint mask, pulled up the slicker’s hood, and took one last deep breath. When he opened the driver’s side door, the sound of the rain increased violently.

  He made it to the porch in one bro
ad stride, his hand already out to grab the doorknob.

  Locked.

  “Son of a bastard.”

  He banged on the door with his fist, then rang the bell about a dozen times at machine-gun speed.

  “Mark! Come on! Open up, it’s me!”

  He banged again as the wind continued blowing its poisonous payload against him.

  “Mark!”

  More fist-banging produced no results, so he turned sideways and rammed his body into the door. When that also didn’t work, he took a short step back and, cursing a blue streak, gave a flat-footed kick just above the knob. The scratch plate as well as the molding in which it was embedded tore free and dropped to the foyer floor with a noisy clatter as the door swung open.

  “Pete? What was th—”

  “I had to break the door down.”

  Kate sputtered in his ear as he stepped into the building and shut the door. It blew open again almost instantly. Closing it a second time and bracing it with his back, he searched for a more permanent solution. There was a small area rug on the hardwood flooring, which struck him as being perfect as an impromptu wedge. Sure enough, the door held tight.

  After removing the paint mask and rain slicker, Pete started up the stairs.

  “Pete?” Kate asked.

  “I’m inside, going up to the apartment.”

  “What if you contaminate the place?”

  “I took off the mask and the raincoat and left them downstairs. It should be all right. But please have the shower ready for us when we get back. Remember what Sarah said about washing off.”

  It had been a bulleted item in the email; “If you do become exposed to the storm, you should put all your contaminated clothes into a bag and seal it tight, then take a shower and wash yourself gently but thoroughly with soap.” The “gently” part was so you didn’t risk breaking your skin, which could allow contaminants to enter your bloodstream.

  “I’ll put some towels and robes in the garage. You can strip down in there,” Kate said.

  “Thanks, Katie,” Pete replied. “I’ll leave the car outside the garage, so we don’t carry in any additional contamination.”

  At the top of the stairs, he was relieved to find the apartment door unlocked. The place was dead quiet. There was a light on in the kitchen to the left, and a floor lamp burning in the living room, where Pete stood.

  “Mark?” he called out. He noticed a narrow hallway to the right and assumed it led to a bathroom and at least one bedroom.

  “Is he there?” Kate asked.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  He went down the hallway with all senses on high alert. A small bathroom stood to the right, its door wide-open. At the end of the corridor was another door, this one closed and likely leading to a bedroom.

  He knocked.

  “Mark? Sharon? Um … are you guys in there?”

  Nothing.

  “Mark?”

  Silence. Pete gently turned the knob and pushed the door aside.

  The little room held a neatly made queen bed that was too large for the space, a matching dresser, and a wooden chair badly in need of refinishing. A pair of closed sliding doors signaled the location of a closet.

  Where the hell are they?! he yelled in his mind as he turned and hustled out.

  “They’re not here, Kate,” he said hoarsely, checking out the kitchen and the pantry as rapidly as possible.

  “What?” Rising panic colored his wife’s voice. “That’s it, I’m calling Sarah.”

  Pete felt as though the floor was tilting back and forth beneath his feet.

  What the heck?

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” he replied. “I guess there’s nothing else to—”

  He was cut off by a thick, single-note beep of obnoxious timbre, and it took a moment for his dazed mind to associate it as the incoming-call signal.

  He removed the phone from its holster with the speed of a gunslinger and looked at the screen with the zealous anticipation of one waiting for the night’s lottery numbers to be announced.

  “My God, it’s Mark! He’s on the other line!”

  “Answer it! Answer it!”

  Pete switched the call.

  “Mark? Hello?”

  There was nothing.

  “MARK?”

  22

  General Conover in the flesh was fairly tall, his height accentuated by a frame so thin it appeared almost malnourished. His features were what Sarah thought of as severe, including razor-edged cheekbones; a well-defined mouth that seemed perpetually ready to spit out orders; and eyes that looked too large for his head. The latter held the deepest and most hypnotic shade of green she had ever encountered. When Conover removed his canvas field hat, Sarah saw that his hair was just as she imagined—bristly white and cut so short it looked like nothing more than a hazy shadow. His gaze was alert and bright with intelligence.

  Setting down the phone—she’d been getting an update from the Corwin plant—Sarah met that gaze without flinching, essentially ignoring the other three people in the room—the increasingly nervous Barbara Magnus and Lorraine Harris, and Conover’s aide, Captain Budrow, who was standing by the windows. The latter, whom Sarah estimated to be in his early thirties, had not spoken since he and his military colleagues had arrived. In fact, after taking up his current position, he had not so much as twitched a muscle while awaiting the general’s next command.

  Sarah felt a rush of emotion and forced it down; there was no time for feelings right now. This process had become considerably easier over the course of the day. Was it a sign that the first little pieces of her humanity were beginning to break away? Is that the price we pay for the privilege of leadership?

  No time to ruminate on it now, she told herself.

  “Corwin says they still don’t have it contained.”

  “Okay then,” Conover said, “we have to get this moving, now.”

  Sarah joined him at the large table that had been placed in the center of the room, which was covered by a street-by-street map of the town. Pencil lines had been drawn down various roadways—some were dark, some faint from being at least partially erased.

  They had spent—wasted, perhaps—almost a half hour arguing over some of the fine details. Conover clearly wasn’t used to being questioned and vigorously challenged by any position that opposed his own. At first, Sarah took this as further vindication of her initial impression that he was little more than a pompous pain in the ass, but as the conversation continued, she began to understand that he wanted to make absolutely certain whatever strategy he followed was the best.

  She had to admit he was brilliant, able to absorb and retain a constellation of details on the fly, which he could then pull together to form a cohesive, sensible plan. She found it easy to believe he had logged numerous successes during his career. With all that in mind, she now understood his habit of forcing others to qualify their positions differently—it was his way of quickly and efficiently sifting out critical details that he either hadn’t considered or, more likely, were previously unknown to him. While she wouldn’t call him truly flexible, she had discovered with relief that he was willing to change his mind when presented with solid facts.

  One of those facts was that the number of cases of radiation poisoning was up to 312. In spite of the steadfast effort to complete what Sarah now thought of as the Residential Roll Call, hundreds of people in the Silver Lake area were unaccounted for. How many bodies will be found in the next few days, or weeks, or even months? Exposure cases were being reported from surrounding districts as well. The farthest was twenty-eight miles east, in Chester County.

  That distance had sparked a media riot. Even the more respectable news agencies were pumping out unrestrained speculation as to how long it would be before citizens began dropping dead in Philadelphia, New York City, and even Washington, D.C. The Dow fell more than two thousand points and was expected to sink even further before trading wrapped up at four o’clock.

  Bush-lea
gue terrorist groups seeking their breakout moment began claiming responsibility through hastily constructed Web sites, random blog postings, and mass Tweets, insisting that the story about a lightning strike had been fabricated by the American government to cover up their triumph. As ludicrous as this notion was in light of the numerous photos of the strike site that Marla Hollis shared with the world, conspiracy theories were flying.

  “Are you ready to sign off?” Conover asked.

  Instead of answering directly, Sarah said, “I never asked, General—how long should the evacuation take?”

  “If everyone cooperates, just a few hours.”

  “That quickly? We have more than eleven thousand residents.”

  “Ma’am, the Japanese evacuated more than a hundred and thirty thousand from the Fukushima Daiichi area in one day.”

  “That’s incredible.”

  The general nodded. “We can handle your eleven thousand-plus with no problem—again, as long as everyone does as they’re told. The plan itself is relatively straightforward. The trucks and buses roll in and we go section by section, getting folks out.” Conover leaned in and indicated each sector by hovering his hand over it. “There will be soldiers on each vehicle to wipe people down immediately. Then they’ll be taken to the school for full decontamination.”

  They had decided to use a decommissioned high school in the neighboring town of Hawthorne for the decontamination process. Six years earlier, due to Hawthorne’s aging population and the decrease in teen residents, civic leaders decided to transfer the entire student body to Silver Lake. Fortunately, the building was still in good shape—there was running water and, thanks to a stockpile of generators the Guard had supplied, working electricity.

  “Each person will have to strip down,” the general continued, “submit to full cleansing, then dress in temporary attire we will provide.”