Nate shook Carl’s hand. “Look after them for me, will you?”
Carl nodded. “Sure thing.” He held on for an extra second. “See you in Rockford.”
One by one, Nate watched them board the first bus as others nearby continued to argue the policy on bag limits. The group sat toward the rear, close to the emergency exit. That was the smart play. If anything should go wrong, they could be the first ones out.
“Keep arguing all you want,” the man shouted back. “We leave in thirty minutes with or without you.”
Even though it wasn’t directed at him, the warning got him moving nonetheless. He blew his wife a kiss and hurried back to the Dodge, distinctly aware that in more ways than one, time was quickly running out.
Chapter 20
Nate pressed his foot down on the accelerator, eager to close the two-mile distance between the middle school and the Byron nuclear plant as quickly as possible. The journey to retrieve his brother, however, was going far slower than he had hoped. Turned out he hadn’t been the only one who thought cutting into oncoming traffic to beat the gridlock was a good, if not great, idea. Those with pickup trucks and SUVs had soon been followed by a whole range of vehicles ill-equipped for driving in such extreme conditions, among them sedans and sports cars. With the snow piling ever higher, his own truck was struggling to claw its way along. There was no wonder the roads were quickly becoming improvised junkyards.
Eventually, Nate reached the Rock River bridge, crossing over it and onto the narrow country road that led to the plant. He hadn’t gotten more than fifty yards before he noticed conditions here were different than they were in town. For one, there were few, if any, vehicles. And the one or two he had seen were heading in the opposite direction. Which made sense, for only a fool would be venturing this way, toward the very danger which had caused people to flee town in the first place.
Here’s looking at you, Nate.
His side of the road had been stamped with wheeled tracks from large vehicles. He remembered Evan explaining how the plant had been limping from one diesel delivery to the next, all in a futile attempt to keep the generators going. Could that account for the lack of snow on a country road?
The question was still front and center on Nate’s mind when he glanced up over the tree line. There he spotted the same black cloud in the distance, looking like a giant bulbous demon standing out against the cold, grey sky. The fire at the plant was still burning. As he drew closer, he saw a handful of fire engines sitting idle, the firefighters themselves nowhere to be seen. Unlike firetrucks, engines carried within them seven hundred and fifty gallons of water. It appeared they had run dry without having much effect.
Gripping the wheel with one hand, Nate reached into his pocket and plucked out the Geiger counter. He spun the knob and listened as it crackled wildly to life. Every tiny sound felt like an irradiated dagger, piercing his flesh.
As the Dodge rolled toward the gate, two figures in orange radiation suits appeared and raised their weapons. Surely, Joe and Sam would recognize his truck. That was all Nate had time to think before the guards opened fire. Their rounds riddled his pickup, thudding into the engine block and tearing through the windshield. He slammed the brakes and flung himself over the center console, doing what he could to shield himself from the incoming fire. His truck drifted into a snowbank on the side of the road. Still hunched, Nate reached a hand over and gave the horn three long honks. The guards stopped shooting and began yelling for him to back up. Whoever these guys were, they weren’t interested in chatting. So he threw the truck in reverse and hit the accelerator. The Dodge didn’t respond, other than to begin spewing black smoke from beneath the hood. Soon it was filling the cab. He kicked open the driver’s side door and came out with his hands raised. The two figures wearing inflatable suits approached. Behind them were two MRAP military vehicles.
This isn’t Joe or Sam.
“Sir, this area is strictly off limits,” the first one shouted, his voice distorted by the suit’s built-in communication system. It felt like something out of a sci-fi movie.
“I’m looking for my brother,” Nate began to explain. “Evan Bauer, is he here?”
“Sir, you can’t be here.”
“My brother,” Nate shouted back. “I need to know where he is.”
The two guards glanced at one another and lowered their weapons. The second man brought a handheld radio up to his face mask. He turned to Nate. “Evan Bauer, you said?”
Nate nodded, lowering his hands. He then fished the hat out of his pocket and pulled it down over his head to block out the cold wind biting at his cheeks. With the smoke from the engine thinning out, he popped the hood and waved the remaining black cloud away as he did his best to appraise the damage. It appeared the soldiers’ bullets had shattered the radiator and water hose, among other things. His heart sank with the knowledge that they had effectively killed his only way home. Nate was stranded in the shadow of a nuclear plant in full meltdown.
Seconds later, one of the soldiers returned with some news. “A man named Evan Bauer was taken away by ambulance earlier this morning, but we have no further information.”
Ambulance? The word struck him with the crushing force of a falling tree.
“What hospital?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the first. “We don’t have that information.”
The second raised a hand. “For your own protection, I’m going to ask you to leave the area immediately.”
“Really? In what?” Nate replied angrily, pointing at the Dodge, riddled with bullet holes. “You killed my truck and nearly me along with it.”
“You didn’t stop when we told you to.”
That was a lie, but Nate wasn’t in a position to debate the issue, not when his body was absorbing dangerous amounts of radiation. “Can you at least give me a lift back into town?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Much like the billowing black cloud overhead, Nate felt a deep sense of despair settle over him. Not only because of his current situation—he knew now he had no hope in hell of reaching the convoy before it left—but also for the supplies in the truck bed he would be forced to leave behind. Packed there were containers with food and water they would likely need in the coming days and weeks, not to mention his weapons. And now most of that was gone on account of two guys with itchy trigger fingers.
Just then a glimmer of hope appeared when Nate spotted a firefighter, also in a radiation suit, wrestle his bulky frame behind the wheel of a fire engine. Maybe he could hitch a ride after all. Nate scrambled to grab vital items from the truck bed. He would have to leave most of the food and water behind. But not either of his pistols, nor the twelve-gauge and certainly not the ammunition that went with them. A shotgun without shells made a lousy club.
The fire engine approached the gate and stopped.
“I’ll see if you can hitch a ride,” the second guard said, approaching the driver. After a brief exchange, he turned and said, “He’s heading back toward Byron. Says you can tag along. If I were you, I’d take the ride.”
Stay and die of radiation poisoning or head back into town. It was hardly much of a choice. Nate climbed into the passenger side, depositing his go-bag, shotgun and an extra pack with food and water on the raised seats behind them. Nate barely had time to close the door before the fire engine tore off.
They were not on the road more than a minute before Nate said, “The military told me some of the plant workers were taken to the hospital.”
The firefighter didn’t bother to turn, since the bulky suit would have impeded his vision anyway. “Name’s Denton,” he said in a deep voice only slightly muffled by the suit. “Leon Denton, and I ain’t never been so happy to leave a place in my entire life.”
Leon was African-American with pronounced cheekbones and light brown skin. A guy like Leon would stick out in a place like Byron, simply because most folks there were white, but Nate didn’t remember ever seeing him aroun
d.
“What station you with?”
“Stillman Valley,” Leon told him.
It was an even smaller town maybe a mile southeast of Byron, which explained why Nate didn’t recognize him. “The guard said you were going to Byron.”
“No, sir, I’m heading back to Stillman, I’m afraid.”
“But Stillman’s within the exclusion zone,” Nate said, confused.
Leon nodded, his whole suit rolling with him. “That’s why I’m dropping this here engine back where it belongs and then hightailing it to Chicago. Got family there and I’m sure they need some help getting on.”
“You sure that’s such a good idea, Leon?” Nate said, genuinely worried for the guy. “I mean, Chicago isn’t exactly the safest place on the best of days.”
Leon laughed. “Maybe for you, it’s not.”
Nate grinned and let it go. If this guy was determined to stick his head into a lion’s mouth, who was Nate to try to stop him? Besides, saving family members had been a big part of the reason he was in this mess to begin with.
The truck bounced around as they plowed through snow drifts collecting on the road. “You mentioned before you’d never been so happy to leave a place. My younger brother was an engineer there. Evan Bauer. Do you remember anyone by that name?”
Leon squinted one eye for a moment. “Can’t say I do.” He grew silent after that. “Look, man, I don’t want to worry you any more than you already are. I get you drove out in all this craziness looking for a loved one. But there’s something you should know, something you ain’t gonna hear on the news even after the power comes back on. Only three people were taken out by ambulance. Twenty more were evacuated. Another thirty won’t be found until spring when the snow melts. Wasn’t no morgue we could take them to. We were stacking bodies up outside two and three deep. I can’t say which group your brother was a part of. I only hope, for both your sakes, he was among the first two.”
Nate listened with growing dread. The guards had told him his brother had been put on an ambulance. But soon after, they’d told him the fire engine was heading back to Byron. They had also claimed to have ordered him to stop before they fired. As hopeful as Nate was, the soldiers’ track record for accuracy and truthfulness was not encouraging.
“I don’t mean to worry you,” Leon said, realizing he might have gone too far. “But I believe it’s important to speak the truth. If you don’t manage to find your brother at any of the local hospitals, you’ll know where he is, back at the plant. In which case, it might also be said he was one of the lucky ones. To get out early, before the world goes and tears itself apart. Know what I mean?” He paused. “You a religious man, Mr. Nate?”
“Sure,” Nate replied, without hesitation. “Are you?”
Leon nodded. “When all this started happening, I must admit, I couldn’t help wondering whether humanity had been judged.”
“Judged?”
Leon gripped the large steering wheel as they blasted through a fresh snow drift, jostling them in their seats. “That’s right. Judged for our wicked ways by the Almighty and found seriously wanting. Hard not to see the Lord’s hand in all this.”
Nate wasn’t sure if it was the Lord’s hand at work he saw or someone else’s.
Up ahead was a split in the road. To the north was the bridge over the Rock River and Byron. To the east was the town of Stillman Valley.
“I’m gonna get out by the bridge,” he told Leon. “I wanted to thank you for the ride. Not sure what I would have done.”
Leon turned and flashed a toothy grin. “You woulda walked and probably not made it very far. I’m glad I could help, but I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more about your brother.” He pulled the truck to a stop and Nate gathered his things. “Good luck finding him. And God bless.”
The two men shook hands.
“Likewise to you, especially on your journey to the big city.”
With that Nate exited the engine and began heading for the bridge into town. By now, his chances of reaching the convoy were zero. In all likelihood, it was on the highway, spiriting his family, and many other families, out of the immediate danger zone. Which only served to drive home the severity of his current predicament. He was outside in the numbing cold, without any proper food or shelter. Before him lay a journey—very possibly a journey on foot—to reach his family in Rockford. Add in the snow and the threat of radiation, peeling off layers of your life minute by minute, and what had seemed difficult before suddenly felt downright cataclysmic, maybe even impossible.
With the few possessions he owned slung over his shoulders, Nate tucked his head into the blowing snow and worked one foot in front of the other, all the while wondering if Leon had been right.
Chapter 21
The light was already beginning to fade by the time Nate reached a gas station on Blackhawk Drive. In spite of being in pretty good shape, his progress had still been rather pitiful. The snow was just too deep to maintain any kind of reasonable rhythm. Most Americans living above the fortieth parallel knew something about how harsh winters could be. But even they took for granted the thankless army of folks who often worked through the night to clear our streets and sidewalks after a big storm. Those brave or stupid enough to drive into this mess—a group he counted himself a part of—had by brute force removed some of the snow. Although in reality, it had been less snow removal and more snow displacement.
Already wiped from wrestling the sidewalk, his left knee throbbing something awful, Nate had quickly learned to stick to the road. The traffic he had passed earlier on his way to the middle school was now gone. In its place was the occasional car off on the side of the road, half buried and disappearing more and more with every passing minute. The vast majority weren’t wrecks. They hadn’t crashed. Their wheels simply had not been able to gain enough traction to move forward. In the pre-lights out world, driving a car in winter was perfectly all right. Throw the proper tires on and you could manage just fine. However, the rules were different now. The harsh conditions favored larger vehicles with four-wheel drive, though even that was no guarantee of success.
Slowly, deliberately, Nate weaved his way past one abandoned car after another. In spite of the cold, he could feel the sweat running down his back. His body had been running on adrenaline these last few hours. And as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was starting to come to terms with the fact that at some point he would need to stop and rest. Otherwise, he risked falling face first into the nearest snowbank and dying of hypothermia.
Eventually, he came to a Toyota Corolla, its rear lights glowing dimly beneath a layer of freshly laid snow. A thin trail of exhaust issued from the tailpipe for a moment before cutting off, along with the lights. Someone was still inside the car. Nate went to the driver’s side window and cleared away the caked-on icy film gathering there. A woman’s face stared back at him. She looked terrified, less by her situation and more by his sudden appearance.
“I won’t hurt you,” he assured her. “But you’ve got to leave town.”
She shook her head, the ends of her blonde hair waving beneath her beanie. She looked somewhere in her late thirties with fairly pleasant features only slightly weathered by time and the normal ravages of life. “My boyfriend is coming to get me,” she told him, her voice sounding muffled from behind her car window. “He’s got a big ol’ truck and will pull me out.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
“Uh, a couple hours maybe. Piece of junk won’t budge. I’ve been spinning the tires every few minutes but I ain’t going nowhere.”
Nate contemplated moving on, but how could he? Besides, the light was fading fast. “You spoke to him then?”
The woman shook her head. “Not exactly. I sent him a text.” Her window was fogging up and she used her gloved hand to wipe a frisbee-sized hole.
Her answer filled Nate with a sinking feeling. “Your boyfriend might be looking for you, but I can almost guarantee he never got your text.”<
br />
Her eyes narrowed, as though she suspected Nate was trying to pull a fast one. “Really? How can you be so sure?”
Nate’s legs were cramping up from standing still. “You mind if I grab a seat for a minute? Rest up before I carry on?”
Her gaze shifted to the passenger seat next to her and then back to Nate. “I’m not sure. I don’t know you.”
“I’ve lived in Byron for near on fifteen years,” he said, hoping that might change her mind.
The woman shook her head. “Sorry.”
“All right,” Nate said. “If he doesn’t come soon, I suggest you get to Rockford any way you can. This whole town is being irradiated.” And with that he turned back to the road. He hadn’t made it more than a half-dozen paces before she honked her horn.
When he turned back, her door was open and she was half out of the car.
“Okay, just for a minute, but don’t try anything stupid. I have a gun.”
“Good,” Nate said out loud. Then to himself:
With everything that’s happened, you’re gonna need one.
•••
Nate settled his things in the narrow confines of the Corolla, removed his right glove and introduced himself.
“Jessie,” she said, returning the gesture. “I’m not saying you’re a psycho or anything, but you just can’t be too careful. Know what I mean?”
Nate nodded, empty bottles clanking at his feet. “I can’t blame you. Anyone with a depraved mind will see the lights go out and think he’s in Disneyland.”
“I noticed a micro-shift in your face when I introduced myself,” she said. “Do we know each other?”
America Offline (Book 1): America Offline [Zero Day] Page 9