Radioactive and The Decay Dystopian Super Boxset- A Dirty Bomb and Nuclear Blast Prepper Tale of Survival

by James Hunt

  “Hey, get back here!” Paul shouted.

  He sprinted after her with his head throbbing all along the way. Melvin gently rested the Sheriff back on the ground and turned around to where Paul had been. He looked up and saw Sister Bonnie fleeing and Paul chasing her.

  “Don’t let her get away!” Melvin shouted.

  He looked back to the Sheriff, lifted his hat from the pavement and placed it over the Sheriff’s face.

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn it all to hell.”

  Melvin got up and followed Paul. Sister Bonnie had made it to the ashes of New Haven’s walls while Paul lagged behind. He ran with a limp, but didn’t plan on letting her get away. She looked back with worry, hoping that Paul was no longer behind. He was right upon her. Paul cried out and leaped, tackling her to the ground. They rolled onto the jagged ground of burnt wood and gravel. Sister Bonnie screamed as the heat from the wood ember singed her skin after burning through her dress.

  “Get off of me, you freak!” she shouted.

  Paul clutched onto her back, not giving in. He had never tackled a woman before, and Sister Bonnie had put up one hell of a fight. She nearly threw Paul off her before Melvin ran up with his gun drawn in the air.

  “Get off her, Paul,” he said.

  Paul looked up confused, but complied and rolled off her. Sister Bonnie lifted herself off the ground and rapidly hit the ash off her dress.

  “No one touches me, understand? This creep goon of yours has crossed the line,” she said.

  “Shut up,” Melvin said. “I’m taking you in.”

  Sister Bonnie looked around. “In?” she asked. “In where? Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m making a citizen’s arrest. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done here today. All the lives lost, for what? For nothing,” Melvin said.

  Sister Bonnie laughed. “We’re not going to stop until the town is ours.”

  “Look around you, lady,” Melvin said, circling around her. “There’s no victory here. The town isn’t any more yours than it was before you came here. All you’ve managed to do was create death and destruction.”

  Sister Bonnie wasn’t fazed.

  “You’re wasting your breath,” Paul said to Melvin. “She got exactly what she wanted. Let’s just hand her over to the Sheriff.”

  Melvin gripped his rifle and caressed the trigger. His aim was centered on Sister Bonnie.

  “You have no authority to do anything with me,” she said. “I have children to attend to now if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Take one step and I’ll shoot,” Melvin said.

  “Enough of this,” Paul said. “Don’t do it, Melvin. Don’t let her become a martyr. We’re not like them. The Sheriff would say the same thing.”

  “The Sheriff’s dead, Paul,” Melvin cried. “He’s dead and she shot him.”

  Paul froze and stared at Melvin. “Are you sure? When did this happen?”

  “When you hit the ground and knocked yourself out, she took one of the Sheriff’s pistols and shot him in the head. Stone cold.”

  “Where is he?” Paul asked in disbelief.

  Melvin signaled behind them. “His body is right over there. See for yourself.”

  Paul ran off leaving Melvin with Sister Bonnie. She looked back at him with utter defiance. “If you shoot me, those children will have no one to guide them.”

  “The same children you used as human shields? The same ones who lost their parents today because of you?”

  Sister Bonnie stormed off as Melvin spoke.

  “Get back here!” he shouted as he fired his gun.

  The bullet hit within inches of her feet. She froze instantly.

  “You’re not getting off that easy,” he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Aftermath

  Rob, Carlie, Jordan, and a few other New Haven residents rounded up five men from the Seventh Order. The men surrendered without resistance and were quickly subdued. There were too many bodies lying around to make a full estimate of the loss. The fire had spread to the entire front half of New Haven’s walls, until the residents eventually contained it and put it out. Paul ran up to the first barrier and noticed a man dead on the ground with a hole in his head. It was one of Sister Bonnie’s men, Terry. Five feet away, Paul recognized Harold’s corpse as steam rose from the crater in his chest. Everything started to come back to Paul. He had shot Harold, sending him backwards into the air. Then he remembered throwing himself to the ground to avoid getting shot himself. A vibrant flash came and everything went black. Then he woke. Two legs covered in blue jeans, wearing boots lay before him. He scanned upward and saw a sheriff badge pinned to the man’s shirt. The man’s face was also covered by a hat. If it wasn’t the Sheriff, it was an uncanny resemblance. Paul knelt down and slowly lifted the hat off the man’s head. He was met by the empty stare of the Sheriff’s lifeless eyes. Blood had run out of his nose and down his face. He had a small hole in the middle of his forehead. Paul placed the hat back over the Sheriff’s face and stood up upon hearing commotion near the New Haven Park.

  With their weapons in hand, Rob and Carlie circled their captives, taunting them.

  ”Looks like you’re the only ones left. That’s too bad,” Rob said.

  The five middle-aged men were meek and unresponsive. Jordan stood to the side, not sure what to do. He looked out into the darkness, trying to find Paul.

  “Hey, I’m going to check on everyone else,” Jordan said to Rob.

  Rob nodded and turned back to the men.

  “So… you call yourself the Seventh Order. I assume you’re probably waiting for that big spaceship in the sky to take you to heaven. Well, we’ll do you one better.”

  Rob signaled to Carlie. She nodded back.

  “We’ll send you there now,” Rob continued.

  Rob and Carlie took a step back and unloaded their weapons into the men, mowing them down like leaves in the wind. The unexpected gunfire caused Jordan to jump. It scared the hell out of him. He turned around just in time to see Carlie fire her last shot into the already riddled bodies of the Seventh Order survivors. The other New Haven residents stood by not saying a word.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Jordan asked.

  Rob and Carlie smiled at each other then turned to Jordan. “We’re doing what needs to be done. We’re not letting a single one of them leave. If you find anymore, you better let us know.”

  “It’s not right,” Jordan said. “We’re not executioners, and those men had surrendered.” Jordan looked around for someone to join his outrage. “Doesn’t anyone agree with me?”

  “Maybe you need to get back out there on the road with your friend, Paul. Both of you have to be the most ungrateful pair I think I’ve ever met,” Rob said. He then looked at the New Haven men and women standing around them. “Let’s get all the Seventh Order bodies in one big pile here and burn them.”

  “What the hell is going on here?” Paul said, walking out of the darkness.

  “Speak of the devil,” Rob said.

  “They gunned down a group of unarmed Seventh Order members,” Jordan said.

  Paul narrowed his eyes toward Rob. “Are you kidding me? Those men did not deserve that.”

  “Paul, I’ll tell you the same thing I told your friend here. You can take it or leave it. If our ways are a little too harsh for you, maybe you two need to hit the road.”

  Jordan stepped in and pointed his finger at Rob and Carlie. “I don’t want to see either of you shoot another unarmed person again.”

  “Or what?” Rob asked.

  “Just don’t do it,” Jordan said.

  “Maybe he’s right. Maybe we just need to go,” Paul said.

  “No one is going anywhere,” Melvin said, approaching them with Sister Bonnie in tow with her hands tied behind her back with a small piece of rope.

  “Holy shit,” Rob said as his eyes lit up. “We got her. We actually got her.”

  Sister Bonnie looked at the mutilated bodi
es of the men Rob and Carlie had just shot.

  “So who’s in the mood for a public execution?” Rob asked with a laugh.

  The surviving members of New Haven all gathered in the town park to observe what was going on. Their numbers totaled around twenty. No one had a clear idea yet of who had lived or survived. Melvin held Sister Bonnie at gunpoint in front of the crowd as Rob led the charge to have her executed, though Melvin hadn’t made up his mind yet. Paul and Jordan stood to the side hoping they could influence the people otherwise. Maybe they hadn’t spent enough time with the townspeople to feel the real devastation of loss. They had fought alongside them to protect the town, which, they felt, entitled them to voice their opinion.

  “Kill her!” a man shouted from their circle.

  “Justice for New Haven!” a woman cheered.

  Rob looked to Melvin. “You know what to do, man. And if you don’t do it, I will.”

  Melvin held the barrel of his gun to the back of Sister Bonnie’s head. She closed her eyes as she felt its hot metal press against her skull. The cheers from the circle of residents grew louder. They salivated in anticipation. Melvin hesitated.

  “Do it,” Rob commanded.

  Melvin put his finger to the trigger.

  “What in the fuck are you waiting for? Shoot her.”

  A force within him drove Paul to intervene. He pushed past Jordan and the circle that had formed and walked up to Melvin.

  “Don’t do it, Melvin. I’m warning you.”

  Everyone went silent with bewilderment to Paul’s seemingly erratic behavior. Rob had heard enough. “You still here?” he asked. “I thought we told you to take a hike.”

  Paul ignored Rob and continued. “You shoot this woman, and there’s no going back from it. This is not the way things work. And I don’t care what else is going on in the world, this type of mob rule is never the answer.”

  Paul had Melvin’s attention. Others quieted and let Paul speak.

  “Now, Melvin, you’re a decent person. Rob, you are too. Hell, you saved my life. None of us are perfect people, and we can’t make a perfect society, but the Sheriff, he wouldn’t have condoned this. He would have used the law as a guide. And you can’t have law and order coexist with anarchy. You just can’t. I know that’s what he believed, and that’s what he would say now.”

  “Where is the Sheriff anyway?” Rob asked. “Why not hear it from the horse’s mouth?”

  Paul looked to Melvin. Melvin looked back at him. No one answered.

  “Well?” Rob asked, annoyed.

  “The Sheriff is gone. He died from a fatal gunshot wound,” Paul said.

  A hushed shock went over the group. Anger flushed across the faces of Rob and Carlie. Jordan stood with the rest of New Haven not believing his own ears.

  “There’s no fucking way,” Rob said to Paul. “You don’t just kill the Sheriff. That dude can survive anything.”

  “It’s true, Rob,” Melvin said. “His body is lying by the first barricade.”

  A tear streamed from Carlie’s eye. Rob scratched his head in confusion.

  “Not the Sheriff,” Carlie said.

  “If that’s the case, shoot her an extra time, right through her head,” Rob said.

  “The Sheriff would not have wanted this!” Paul shouted.

  “Ah, what the fuck do you know?” Rob replied.

  “Shoot her,” Carlie added.

  Calls for her death echoed throughout.

  “Do it for the Sheriff,” a man shouted.

  “Melvin, I have a bad feeling about this. This is not the answer,” Paul said.

  Melvin shook with emotion. Paul put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Just think about it,” Paul continued releasing his hand. Sister Bonnie’s eyes remained closed the entire time. Her lips moved inaudibly as she prayed. Melvin closed his eyes and removed his finger from the trigger. He lowered the gun to the ground. Sister Bonnie felt the release of the barrel against her head and opened her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Rob asked. “Why is she still standing?”

  Melvin turned his head to a visibly angered Rob.

  “Paul’s right. The Sheriff would not have wanted this. We have a community here. A civil community. We shoot this woman here, without any kind of due process, and we’ll lose that part of us forever. We need to get the rest of the council together and figure out what to do with Sister Bonnie. But we’re not going to decide that ourselves, like you two did with the others.”

  “The other council members are all dead,” Rob said.

  “Then we vote on new council members,” Melvin said.

  “This is fucked,” Rob yelled. “You talk about sticking to ideals when half of our town just got whipped out. We have nothing to be ashamed of by putting a bullet in her head.”

  “Just stop, Rob,” Melvin said.

  “Fuck you. Fuck all of you!” Rob shouted. He grabbed Carlie by the arm and they stormed off together.

  Melvin was left to make a decision all his own. Paul looked at Melvin with concern.

  “What do you want us to do?” Paul asked.

  Sister Bonnie held her head down to avoid the angered glares of the townspeople. Melvin cleared his throat and began.

  “First, we need to find out who’s alive and who’s dead. We need to locate our injured. We need to collect the bodies of all of those lost and bury them accordingly. We have people in the bunkers, and we have to clean this up before the children see anything. Tonight is going to be a late night, but we must rebuild. After the worst is over, then the town will vote on its new council members and we will try to get back to where we were before all of this happened. I’m not suggesting that it’s going to be easy, or that we’ll ever go back to normal. But we have to do this.”

  The townspeople remained silent but seemed to agree. Paul and Jordan looked at each other, breathing sighs of relief. No one spoke out against Melvin, and there was a general mood of cooperation in the air.

  “What about her?” a man from the circle asked.

  “We’re going to lock her up, and when the new council is elected, we’ll have a trial. That is our way now. Not the other way. We have a lot of work to do, so let’s get moving,” Melvin said.

  The people dispersed and, though exhausted, got to the task at hand. Paul approached Melvin with a smile.

  “That was a little inspiring there. You’re a good man,” he said.

  “No,” Melvin said. “I’m just a man trying to be good.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Day After

  The thick layer of dark clouds that normally coated the sky had thinned a little, allowing sunlight to peer through. The townspeople had been hard at work, gathering the deceased and injured, and making the minimal repairs necessary to the large amount of destruction that had befallen their town the previous night. Rob and Carlie eventually came back, and lent a hand, though unwilling to talk to Paul or Jordan. Melvin had Sister Bonnie secured in a room in his own house, though he left her location undisclosed. He had put one of the women in charge of guarding her. Her name was Sally, and Melvin trusted her more than anyone to listen to him. They worked as fast as they could to remove the carnage before the children awoke from the bunkers. That was their goal, as far as Melvin was concerned. He wanted no horrific account left behind for the children to see, though many of them had lost their parents in the battle of New Haven.

  Margie had stayed awake the entire night. She peeked out of the bunker after four hours of waiting and noticed scattered movement throughout the town. It was early morning, and she could see a little better than when they had originally gone inside. She saw what looked like bodies piled in the park nearly out of range. She closed the door immediately, hoping that the sight wasn’t what she thought it was. She held her kerosene lantern up and looked to the slumbering children before her, all lying in sleeping bags on the ground. Margie wasn’t going to wake them until they were ready.

  Paul and Jordan stumbled into
the townhouse exhausted.

  “I don’t know about you, but I say it’s time to hit the road,” Jordan said.

  Paul was so shaken from the night’s events that he knew sleep was not going to come easy, no matter how exhausted he felt.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again,” he told Jordan.

  They walked down the hallway as Paul suddenly remembered David and Julie. Paul stopped Jordan.

  “Hold on,” he said slowly pushing their bedroom door open. There, in Jordan’s bed rested Julie. David was still in Paul’s bed, sleeping soundly.

  “What’s he doing in here?” Jordan asked.

  “I brought him here after he fell from a ladder and went unconscious.”

  Jordan leaned against the hallway wall and looked as if he just stumbled upon a revelation.

  “Holy shit. So you saved his life. Damn, Paul, you’re on a roll tonight,” he said.

  Paul smiled and waved Jordan off. “Hardly. I just carried him here, plain and simple.”

  Jordan nodded in agreement as they both looked to Julie. “So should we wake her?” he asked.

  “Now’s as good a time as any,” Paul replied.

  “You think they’re going to be okay?” Jordan asked.

  “I mean, I need to at least see Margie before we go.”

  “I hope they make it. I really do. There’s a lot of good people here. I won’t forget them.”

  Paul walked over to Julie, as Jordan examined David.

  “He’s still breathing,” Jordan said. “Maybe he’ll wake up soon.”