The Fallout

by Knox, J. C.

  Looking around Sarah realises that her throat is sore, she’s certain the radiation is still here, the trees are a reddish-brown colour, everything has a strange feeling about it.

  ‘Do you have a Geiger-meter?’ Sarah asks as they step into the outer bunker door.

  ‘Seamus, took the last one when he left.’

  ‘Seamus left you all high and dry when he left.’

  ‘Yes, he’s a selfish prick, he tried to turn everyone against me before he left, he told them not to trust me, because I am English, he made them believe that I would betray them all. But it was me who contacted the Island, I was the one sitting out there sending SOS signals day and night looking for any kind of response. I was trying to get us some help; we were dying none of us knew about radiation,’ Keith said, his face full of pent up anger.

  It’s cool in the tunnel, but Sarah is concerned that Keith doesn’t lock or even close the outer door, and she can hear the child talking from deep within.

  ‘Why don’t you shut the door?’

  ‘No point, we’ve all been exposed, and the daylight does us good, we each try to get out at least once a day for a short while.’

  Stepping into the inner door that is open Sarah can see the bunker is much smaller than the one on Blackcliff Island. A skinny pale woman with thin straggly black hair walks towards them.

  ‘Hi, I’m Siobhan and this is Sean,’ she said, holding a hand out.

  Sarah shakes her hand and waves at the child,

  ‘Hi, I’m Sarah, I’m trying to get back to my husband across the water.’

  Looking the woman up and down Sarah is shocked to see that she is pregnant,

  ‘When are you due?’ Sarah asks.

  ‘I’m six months, but no one has gone to term, since the explosion not even the animals,’ she said, rubbing the small bump.

  ‘I went to term, but my baby died shortly after birth,’ Sarah said, knowing the pregnancy is probably keeping the woman safe against the radiation that’s permeating the air even down here in the bunker.

  Sarah knows that she can’t stay here much longer, she’s put herself in way too much danger already, she needs to get away and get to Blackcliff Island.

  ‘How many of you are left here?’ she asks, wondering whether to bring them with her.

  They will die but at least she can help reduce their exposure.

  ‘Three adults, me, Siobhan, Finn and one child Sean,’ Keith tells her.

  ‘Where is Finn?’ Sarah asks, looking around for the only person she hasn’t met yet.

  ‘Finn doesn’t come out he stays locked up at the back of the bunker,’ Siobhan said, indicating a door behind her. ‘I’ll get him, he can come out for five minutes,’ she said, leaving them to get Finn.

  A few moments pass before the sound of a heavy door opening and closing reverberates throughout the bunker. Sarah follows the noise and spots Siobhan and an emaciated looking bald man, who looks about ninety years old walking towards them.

  ‘Finn, this is Sarah, she’s on her way to Blackcliff Island,’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Sarah said, holding a hand out.

  Finn ignores it and asks,

  ‘Is that fucker Seamus over there with you?’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, he is, I’ve been in Iceland I’m heading to the island now.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Finn said, before turning to his wife,

  ‘Pack our stuff, we’re going,’

  ‘Okay, Keith you should come as well, there will be enough room in the bunker, it’s bigger than this one,’ Sarah said, not caring what George and the others think about her bringing people.

  Sarah helps the group gather their belongings and walks them down to the lifeboat still on the beach. Everyone places their belongings into the lifeboat and Siobhan and Sean get in while Sarah, Keith and Finn push the boat out into the sea as far as they can before climbing in.

  ‘Before we arrive at the island, we need to get out and get into the water to wash any radiation of ourselves,’ Sarah tells the group as the two men row.

  ‘Will it do any good?’ Finn asks

  ‘Yes, the water will wash the radiation of our skin and clothing.’

  Sarah, Finn and Keith take it in turns rowing the boat and when they are about half a mile out, they all take turns to jump into the sea.

  ‘This is the best I’ve felt in forever,’ Finn said, climbing back into the boat, water dripping from his angular face.

  Watching him climb back into the boat Sarah wonders how he is alive, his almost translucent skin stretched thinly over his bones. As they near the island Sarah notices people on the beach, she can’t see who it is, but suspects that George will be one of them, she knows he would have stayed up all night waiting for her to arrive. Her heart races as they near the island and she can distinguish between the men on the beach. The closer they get; she can see that Seamus has a gun pointed at them and none of the other men are stopping him. When they are close enough Sarah jumps out and pulls the boat inland, Seamus hasn’t lowered his gun and she wishes that he would, although she notices that it’s aimed at Keith rather than the rest of them. George comes down and helps her pull the boat in.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks, his face giving nothing away.

  ‘Yes, but the people Seamus abandoned aren’t,’ she hisses, ‘Tell him to put the gun down.’

  ‘Seamus lower the gun; these people mean no harm,’ George calls.

  Seamus ignores him, continuing to point the gun at Keith,

  ‘Not a chance, that traitorous fucker’s up to no good,’ he yells, pointing at Keith who steps out of the boat and strides in the direction of Seamus.

  ‘ME, I’M A TRAITOROUS FUCKER, WHAT ABOUT YOU?’ he roars, diving into Seamus knocking him into the water as the gun fires into the air?

  Everyone watches as a fight breaks out, and punches are thrown, Keith lunges forward, grabbing Seamus, pushing him under the water, holding him there as Seamus’s legs and arms flail around, Niamh has arrived, screaming from behind them.

  ‘Keith STOP, Niamh’s here,’ Sarah hears Siobhan scream from the water.

  As if the spell he was under is suddenly broken Keith drops Seamus and wades to the sand. Sarah watches as he stands gasping for breath as Niamh dashes into the water followed by George to help Seamus, who’s not moving just lying face down in the water. George pulls him in and begins mouth to mouth and chest compressions. It doesn’t take long before Seamus begins coughing and spluttering. He sits up and grabs Niamh pulling her into a hug,

  ‘I thought I was a goner,’ he whispers.

  ‘Are you okay Seamus?’ George asks.

  ‘Yeah mate, no thanks to that English prick,’ he replies glaring at Keith.

  Gathering the group together, Sarah tells George what she was told across the water in Ireland and the state the group were living in.

  ‘Niamh can you go and get Connor and Oscar, tell them we have urgent business,’ George said.

  ‘Things are different here now Sarah and we will have to have a meeting about whether you and these people can stay, you should have contacted me before bringing them here, it was already agreed that you could stay.’

  ‘Are you serious, you leave me in Iceland to die and now you’re thinking about throwing me off my own island, remember George, I own this place as well. I have just as much rights as you to be here,’

  ‘I don’t care about that, this land belongs to me, Seamus, Connor and Oscar now and it will be up to us as a group whether you can stay.’

  Furious, Sarah marches away from George to the others, relaying what George has just told her.

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ Finn said. ‘I can’t go back, my life is going to be short, but I don’t want to go back, I want to die knowing my wife, child and unborn child will be okay,’ he continues.

  ‘Don’t worry, Finn I have a plan, in my bag I have a pistol and ammunition, if we have to fight, we will fight,’ Sarah said, handing Finn one of the pistol
s while pulling the other one out. ‘Keep that hidden until we know what they will say.’

  ‘No worries,’ he said, pushing the pistol into the back pocket of his loose soaking wet jeans.

  The group sit on the beach shivering waiting for George and the others to return. Fed up waiting, Sarah tells them, that she’s going to see what is going on,

  ‘If they’re going to let us stay willingly, they would be back by now, so be prepared to fight for your right to be here,’ she tells them, striding towards her old home.

  There is an argument going on mainly between Seamus and George, it would seem that everyone apart from Seamus has agreed they can stay. Walking up to the group, she calls to let them know she is coming, before pulling her hat from her head to show what the radiation has done to her.

  ‘You did this to me when you left me behind,’ she calls, watching as their shocked faces register her bald head.

  ‘Sarah, no one has a problem, with you staying, it’s Keith, Seamus said, he’s not to be trusted,’ Connor said.

  ‘Why because he happened to get stuck in your village after the explosion, I’m sure he would have preferred to go home, to make sure his family were safe. From what I heard, it’s Seamus we can’t trust, the people wanted to go to Iceland, but he wouldn’t let them, isn’t that right Connor?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what happened, only that one minute the whole village was going and the next minute, it was just us,’ Connor said, looking at Seamus to elaborate.

  ‘They were all contaminated, no one would listen to me and stay indoors, they wouldn’t stop drinking the water from the river. Honestly, I didn’t expect them to live for so long, I didn’t see the point in bringing dead weight with us,’ Seamus said.

  ‘Okay, but they are here now, Finn doesn’t have long to live, and have you seen their son Sean, he’s got two heads, only one of the heads can speak but it’s unreal, Siobhan is pregnant, that’s probably what’s keeping her alive the only one who doesn’t look like he will die soon is Keith, what is your problem with him,’ Sarah asks, directing the question to Seamus.

  ‘I don’t know, he is a stranger, he arrived in our village shortly before the explosion, but he was always cagy about why he left England,’ Seamus said.

  ‘Well I don’t think that’s a reason not to let him on the Island, do the rest of you?’ Sarah said, looking at each person.

  ‘No, Seamus it’s not, can everyone raise their hand if they agree the group can stay?’ George asks.

  Sarah watches as all hands are raised apart from Seamus.

  ‘Well that’s agreed the majority have voted and the group can stay, Sarah you need to take everyone, yourself included to the shower rooms and Finn needs to go to the medical room straight away after okay?’

  ‘No worries, I’ll go and tell them.’

  Chapter 24

  Ten Years After the Initial Blast - 26th April 1996.

  Shortly after the survivors arrived from across the water in Ireland, Siobhan gave birth to a severely premature and badly deformed baby, no one could tell if it was a girl or a boy. The baby had been protecting Siobhan by absorbing all the radiation, but after the birth the baby was highly radioactive and needed to be quarantined immediately. But Siobhan wouldn’t let it go, she clung to it for hours sobbing and subsequently became exposed to radiation and died a short while later from acute radiation sickness, a few hours before her husband Finn passed away. Finn was dying from before he landed on the Island, George suspected he was riddled with cancer. It was torturous watching him fighting to stay alive. It was as if Finn was melting from the inside out; he was bleeding from every orifice, his death excruciatingly slow and painful, but he refused to give up, fighting to the very end convinced he could protect his family. Their son Sean died 2 years and ten months after his parents when he became contaminated, the source of contamination was unknown, but when Seamus’s youngest daughter, Saoirse who was good friends with Sean became unwell and died a short while later followed by Oscars two girls Olivia and Alice. All the deaths have been horrific, worse than George could ever have imagined, he suffers with nightmares reliving the deaths over and over, but he was particularly affected when his good friend Connor became extremely unwell shortly after the others, suffering a slow painful death from radiation sickness after becoming contaminated from Toby, it was Toby that alerted the group there was an issue. Despite George and the others regularly testing the air, water and food, the contamination was missed. But before he died Conner told George about a small stream inland that Toby played in on their walks. After Connor passed away and Toby was put down, George tested the stream, horrified when he found dangerously high levels of radioactivity. It was at that point the remaining members of the group, George, Sarah, Seamus, Niamh, Oscar and Lilly had to move permanently back into the bunker.

  After living in the bunker for a further two years, the lack of basic essentials was a constant worry, supplies of almost everything ran that low, the group feared that they were all going to die. After a full blown argument over rice, or the lack of it, it was settled that the group should leave the bunker and Blackcliff Island for good.

  George, Seamus and Oscar spent a couple of weeks speaking to government officials across the globe, gaging the situation. Africa was the only place they felt could offer a proper chance at a normal life. Asia and Europe had been completely destroyed and will be a no-go zone for the next 10,000 years or so, possibly longer. In North America only government officials have survived, and they were still living underground; the only communication was via radios inside the bunker. In South America it was the same as the north everyone was living underground. There were some small communities living relatively normal lives in Alaska, but George felt the journey to get there would be too dangerous, so it was decided that after three years of living and rebuilding a community on Blackcliff Island, the group would travel to Africa.

  The journey south down the Atlantic Ocean was treacherous, at times George didn’t think they would all make it, but it’s been 3 years since the group turned up in Djibo, Burkina Faso, West Africa. George had hoped to travel further inland, but everyone, himself included were sick of never having anywhere to call home. Djibo consisted of a small community including many survivors from around the globe that had already established in the small village. For the first time since they left Blackcliff Island, the group was welcomed without question. The elders of the village agreed that they would help each family build small wooden and mud houses for their stay. Burkina Faso is mostly desert, and it has been difficult to grow crops, but the group are well adapted to growing in poor conditions and it wasn’t long before they were producing enough crops to do the whole village. Everyone was given jobs to pay their own way, Seamus and Niamh began helping on the farms, tending to the animals and the crops for food. George and Oscar were given jobs of helping with the construction of new buildings, including a new school for the children and when they were done, they began constructing a large wind turbine so all the villagers can have electricity. Sarah has been running the medical center and teaching the locals basic medicine and nursing skills. Lilly, along with some occasional help from Niamh, teaches the local children to read and write. No one gets paid for their services, but offers goods in return for someone else’s services, it works well and overall the move to Africa has been good for the group who are finally leading normal lives. Everyone except for George, George hates his life in Burkina Faso; he loathes the heat and doesn’t feel accepted or that he has a purpose here. He’s been biding his time for the day that he can go home, but as the years have gone by and he listens to the daily reports from around the globe, it depresses him that it’s not going to happen, he’s never going home to Blackcliff Island. He yearns for the noise from the powerful waves crashing against the cliffs, for the salty smell and taste of the sea, Burkina Faso is landlocked, and its landscape consists of savanna grasses, with desert and small bushes. In the dry season, it’s a dry, barren, unforgi
ving land, that only the toughest can survive and when the wet season comes, it rains for weeks on end and there’s nothing anyone can do but wait it out. The months after the rainy season are the best, and the land fills with grasses but this bounty filled landscape also brings with it, dangers in the animals that follow the water. At times, George doesn’t know what will be outside his door, he’s found everything from elephants to lions. George hates how lonely he is in Burkina Faso and feels valueless, at the Island he was a leader with a purpose; Here he is nobody, everybody else has a purpose, but he is aimless. George likes his life to have a routine, but here in the village, he never knows what the day is going to bring, he could be learning new skills as a builder, or tending to animals with Seamus on the farm but this doesn’t do his mental health any good. The more time he spends in the village the darker his mood becomes, there’s a heaviness that envelops him as soon as he wakes and the only thing that seems to help is alcohol, whiskey is his drink of choice, but he will take whatever is on offer. Alcohol helps him forget how miserable his life is; it momentarily stops him yearning for all he can no longer have. Looking out the mud house window, George can see the house where Sarah lives with Seamus and Niamh. His heart aches when he thinks of Sarah and what he has done to her. He was devastated when she couldn’t bring herself to trust him again after she returned to Blackcliff Island, he tried for a year, but she just couldn’t forgive him and after a bitter row they agreed to end their marriage by verbal agreement. George had hoped that over time he could regain her trust, that they could work things out, but it was too late, too much water had passed under the bridge, he had to accept that he had failed her and let her go. It was torture, a year after their marriage ended, Sarah started seeing Seamus, George gave them his blessing it was the least he could do. Like almost all the stories from Blackcliff Island it was heartbreak that drove Sarah and Seamus together; it happened, after Saoirse, Seamus’s youngest daughter died. George felt powerless to stop them getting together; how could he stop his wife comforting his friend after his child had died? Saoirse’s death was the beginning of the end to their time on Blackcliff Island, everyone has suffered from their radiation exposure and they have all been affected differently, George has had problems for the past number of years with tumours on his throat, he travels for three days to Dori where there is a hospital and he gets the tumours removed knowing that they will continue to return until they are too large to remove. Everyone from Blackcliff Island has similar problems as well, if it’s not tumours growing in the throat, it’s the thyroid or the lungs, the tumours are just part of surviving a nuclear disaster. They were never going to get off scot free.