How to Survive a Nuclear War

by Miles Baldwin

  I watched it burn for a minute, then I approached. Funny, I didn’t feel bad about it. I didn’t feel anything. I began to wonder about myself. I wondered if I only felt remorse for my actions when there was someone there to witness them. I had felt terrible about killing the boy’s father. But had I really? Or had I seen it through Emma’s eyes and felt bad only because I knew how she felt? What had I become? Was I a psychopath? Was I unable to feel empathy for my fellow man?

  I have no control over my feelings. I was glad the cop was dead, as well as the four men. How’s that for a feeling? Glad. As far as I was concerned, they were enemy combatants and they had to be dealt with. It was them or me. I decided right then and there that if anybody else got in my way, they would be similarly dispatched. I was pissed off – pissed off at this fucking little town that had treated me so shabbily. Or was that it? Maybe I was really pissed at Emma and Barry. Maybe I was taking it out on this town. Either way, I was determined to spend the night in a bed, in a house, with a full stomach. And I was willing to slaughter as many people as it took to make that happen. At this point I felt like if I didn’t have a decent meal and a good night’s sleep I was going to lose my mind if I hadn’t already.

  I could smell the fuel burning and could feel the heat. I walked right past the carbeque without even stopping. Rest in peace Mr. policeman, rest in peace.

  In a town this size, there was precious little real estate between the city limits and the town square. I knew I didn’t want to risk walking through town so I headed into the first neighborhood I came to. Older homes, probably twenty to thirty years, with low-pitched roofs and dated architecture. Every house had a two-car garage and most of the driveways were empty. I wondered about the cars that remained. Would any of them start? The police cars obviously worked. But what difference would it make? If I found a car that started I could only drive it until it ran out of gas. Along the way I would draw a lot of unwanted attention.

  Not knowing anything about the condition of the country was frustrating. What was the government doing? It had been weeks now and I had yet to see a single military or government vehicle. Where was the National Guard? What about Homeland Security? Last I’d heard, Homeland Security was busy stockpiling weapons and ammunition. For what? To use against American citizens? Shouldn’t they be more concerned about foreign enemies? Look what just happened. What the hell was I paying my taxes for?

  There was no one outside as I walked past the first several houses. It was almost dark and even in this town people knew better than to be outside after dark. After putting some distance between myself and the subdivision entrance, I crossed through someone’s yard. My boots kicked up a swarm of insects in the tall wet grass. I went around behind the house and looked through the window. Nothing moving inside that I could see. I tried to open the window but it was locked. Same for the sliding glass door. I knocked on the door. No answer. I didn’t really want to break in, there were neighbors fifty feet on either side. Seeing no other option, I used the end of my crowbar and broke the glass. I opened the window and climbed into a small, dark bedroom.

  No sooner had my feet hit the floor, I heard a scream. A woman dressed in a nightgown stood in the doorway. I ran straight at her and tackled her. We landed on the floor and I clamped my hand over her mouth. “Just calm down, lady,” I panted. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  Her eyes were wide with fear. She moaned beneath my hand. She was about forty, black hair mixed with a little gray. She was a bit on the plump side, kind of dumpy-looking with a body that said she’d never seen the inside of a gym. After a moment she calmed down enough to stop moaning.

  I whispered, “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. You promise not to scream? You promise?”

  Still wide-eyed, she nodded.

  I took my hand from her mouth and allowed her to sit up.

  Frantically the woman said, “What are you doing here?”

  “Look,” I said in a calm voice. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just need a place to stay the night.”

  “You can’t stay here! Now get out or I will—” She began to cry.

  I waited.

  She sobbed for a minute, then tried to pull herself together. She threw her hands up and said, “Oh, what’s the use?” She got off the floor and went into the other room. I followed.

  The house opened up into a large family room furnished with a pair of matching couches, a large flatscreen TV, and wood and glass tables. The woman sat on the couch and cried.

  I sat on the opposite couch and waited. I never knew what to do when women cried. Finally I asked, “Are you alright?”

  “No,” she sniffed. “No, I’m not alright. I was going to say I’ll call the police. But I can’t.” Another sniff. “They’re— He’s—”

  I waited.

  Eventually she managed to say, “He’s dead. My husband is dead. He was the Chief of Police, and now he’s dead.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Chief of Police…here?”

  She nodded, cried some more.

  “Did this happen recently? Since the bomb?”

  She nodded again as she kept crying. “Yesterday. They found him outside of town. Somebody shot him in the head.” She began to wail.

  What were the odds?

  When she’d finally calmed down a bit, I said, “I’m so sorry to hear that.” I rubbed my face. I felt lower than worm spit.

  She cried, nodded, shook her head, then buried her face in her hands.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m, uh— I’m just gonna go.” I stood, rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment, then turned and walked out the door.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind me. Words could not express how bad I felt. I had caused her pain. I had taken her husband from her. It’s one thing to kill a man, it’s another to have to deal with his grieving widow.

  I walked past several houses then decided to try my hand on the other side of the street. It was almost dark now, so I didn’t bother to go around back. I picked a house that showed no signs of life and knocked on the front door. After I got no answer I pulled out the crowbar and went to work. I pried the door open and stepped inside.

  I was immediately blinded by an intense light. Instinctively I dove headlong to the floor. Shotgun blast. I saw the fireball from across the room. I jumped to my feet and ran head first. The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor face to face atop a very large man. I pried the shotgun out of his hands and tossed it. I fought to pin his arms down. The man bucked me off and scrambled for the shotgun. He grunted and pointed it at me. I dove for cover in the hallway just as the gun exploded again. Scrambling to my feet, I opened a door and threw myself inside. It was a small bedroom with a bed against one wall. I leapt on the bed and came face to face with a little girl. She screamed.

  I spun her around, clamped my hand over her mouth, and pulled the 9mm. When her dad entered the room, he was greeted by the sight of me holding a gun to his little girl’s head.

  Panting and desperate, I shouted, “Drop the gun or I’ll blow her fucking brains out!”

  Chapter 33

  The girl wiggled free of my hand and screamed, “Daddy!”

  She was a feisty little thing, probably about eight or nine. I grabbed her around her waist and growled, “Stop it! Stop it!”

  The big man panted heavily.

  “Do what I say!” I shouted. “Drop it!” I pulled the hammer back on the pistol.

  The girl never stopped screaming.

  “Alright, alright!” the man said. He set the shotgun on the floor and raised his hands.

  “Daddy! Help!” the girl screamed.

  “Shut up!” I hissed.

  The father said, “Don’t hurt her. Just put the gun down.”

  I said, “Tell her to settle down.”

  “It’s going to be alright, princess. Just calm down, everything’s going to be alright.”

  She stopped scr
eaming but continued to squirm.

  I said, “Go in the kitchen and bring me four bottled waters.”

  He gaped. “What—?”

  “Do it.”

  He vanished, returned with the bottled water.

  I said, “Put them on the bed.”

  He did as I asked. Incredulous, he said, “You threatened to kill my little girl for four bottled waters?”

  I didn’t respond. We glared at each other. The girl whimpered.

  “On the floor,” I demanded. “Face down, hands behind your back.”

  The big man got down on his knees, then laid on the floor.

  I got off the bed and tied his hands with a zip-tie.

  The girl was clearly traumatized. “Daddy?”

  He said, “It’s okay, honey. Just relax. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I took the water and his gun and ran out the door. I headed back up the street and tossed the gun three houses up. I didn’t stop running until I reached the neighborhood entrance.

  What the hell had I just done? Maybe I had lost my mind just as predicted. It was totally dark by now and I couldn’t see a thing. I came to another neighborhood, walked all the way to the end and spent the night sleeping on a dirt road.

  ***

  The next morning I awoke covered in bug bites. Breakfast was a lousy peanut-butter sandwich on soggy stale bread. I thought about everything that had gone down the night before. I shook my head. As I got to my feet, I decided it was time for a change. I couldn’t go on like this. I wasn’t going to put a gun to another little girl’s head.

  I was on a utility road in the back of a subdivision. I walked further down the dirt road until I found a spot marked by an electrical transformer that I thought I could find again. I took off my body armor, the backpack and guns and stashed everything behind the transformer. I kept only a pocket knife, a bottled water, a pen and a pad of paper. Then I headed back into the neighborhood.

  I stopped at the first house I came to and knocked on the door. After trying again I gave up and went to the house next door. After knocking three times a man finally opened the door.

  “What do you want?” he asked in an annoyed tone. He was a rotund man, with an extraordinary amount of body hair. He had a headful of curly black hair, a bushy beard, and his arms and shoulders were covered with hair. He wore a tank top that looked slept in and a pair of navy board shorts.

  I smiled. “Good morning, sir. I’m Richard Garrigose with the Times. We’re doing a story on how people are surviving after the attack. Can you spare a few moments of your time?”

  “Spare a few—? What?” He scratched his head. “I don’t know…”

  “Please? It will only take a few minutes.”

  He sighed and let me in.

  We sat in the living room. Most of the blinds were pulled shut and it was dark inside. The man gave me his name, that of his wife and two sons. I took notes as he described how they were surviving on the food in the pantry and eating everything in sight. “We’re almost out,” he said.

  A woman appeared. She asked, “Larry, what’s going on?”

  “This guy— What did you say your name was again?”

  “Richard Garrigose.”

  “Right. He’s with the paper and he’s doing a story about how people are surviving.”

  “Oh.” She extended a hand and introduced herself. “I’m Jean.”

  I listened to their story and took copious notes.

  “You know…” Jean said. “If you really want a story, you need to talk to the Sturgills up the street. They are really into that survival stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Larry said. “I always thought they were a couple of kooks. You know the type: tree-hugging hippies, green this, sustainable that. Anyways, I guess now they must be feeling pretty good about themselves.”

  I got directions to the Sturgills, thanked them and was on my way.

  One street up I found a house matching the description they’d given me. A brick ranch on a corner lot with two large palms in the front yard. A white Toyota Prius sat in the driveway. The backyard was shrouded by a tall wooden fence.

  I knocked on the door but got no answer. After knocking again, I called, “Mr. and Mrs. Sturgill? Hello?” I knocked again, louder.

  Finally a man opened the door. “Yes?” He was tall and thin, about thirty years old with thinning blonde hair and a clean-shaven face. He wore a white cotton short sleeved shirt, a pair of olive drab khakis and black sandals.

  “Mr. Sturgill!” I said enthusiastically as I thrust out my hand. “Richard Garrigose!”

  We shook hands. Mr. Sturgill looked puzzled. I placed a hand on my hip. I adopted a lilting, sing-songy voice and said, “I’m with Survival Mode, perhaps you’ve heard of us?”

  No sign of recognition on his face.

  I waved a hand. “We’re new. Anywho, it’s a reality show about survivalists, and as you can imagine we’re just going crazy with everything that’s happening right now. So many stories!” A hand flip. “So little time!”

  Mr. Sturgill brightened. “Yeah?”

  “I’m a producer with the show and we’ve heard so much about you. We’d like to feature you and your wife on an upcoming episode.”

  “Really?” Back over his shoulder: “Honey?”

  “Oh!” I said with a flourish. “It’s just going to be fantastic! May I come in?”

  “Sure, sure, come on in.”

  The house smelled of fish and dirt. A woman dressed in a nightgown started out the bedroom, thought better of it. “Oh,” she said as she put a hand over her breasts. “I didn’t know we had company.” She disappeared back into the bedroom.

  I said, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch your first name.”

  “Ryan.”

  “Ryan, yes of course, Ryan.”

  Ryan gestured to the couch. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Oh how nice!” I exclaimed as I ran my hand over the off-white upholstery. I settled in on the sofa and Ryan sat in a nearby chair.

  Mrs. Sturgill reappeared wearing a white tank top and a pair of blue shorts. “Ryan, who is our guest?”

  “He’s with a reality TV show about preppers.”

  I stood and extended a hand. “Richard Garrigose, with Survival Mode.” I cocked my hip to one side and she gave me a look.

  “Kate.” She had a pretty face and small breasts. Thin, just like her husband, with pale skin, shoulder-length straight blonde hair and blue eyes.

  I smiled and said, “I love what you’ve done with the place! And I’m just delighted to meet you. Now please, tell me all about yourselves!”

  Chapter 34

  Interrupting each other from time to time to finish each other’s sentences, Ryan and Kate shared with me the story of how they met shortly after college at a Sierra Club convention. They travelled the world together in support of various causes until they decided to settle down and buy a house. Kate penned two blogs, one about environmentalism and the other about women’s issues. Ryan was writing a book on climate change. As I looked around the house I wondered how they made ends meet. That little mystery was solved when Kate let it slip her parents helped them out financially. “You know,” Kate said, “just a little here and there.”

  “Oh, I think that’s marvelous,” I said. “So nice to have parents who love us for who we are.”

  Kate laughed, “I know, right?”

  I said, “Now, I want to see your prepping setup.”

  Ryan led me outside to a large enclosed pool. He explained how they had converted the swimming pool into a self-sustaining microenvironment. It was teeming with fish.

  “They’re Tilapia,” Ryan said.

  Kate put on a sad face. “I make Ryan clean them, I can’t bear to harm another living thing. They’re spiritual, you know? Every living being has a spirit.”

  I put a hand to my cheek. “The poor little dears.”

  Kate laughed. “You are so
sweet.”

  Ryan said, “It’s the only meat we eat. We don’t believe in killing, we’re pacifists. We don’t hunt or own any guns and we don’t believe in violence. The world has too much violence in it already.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” I said as I touched his arm. “If only more people were like you.” I smiled.

  We stepped outside the pool enclosure and Kate showed me her organic garden. She proudly displayed the peas, squash, tomatoes, zucchini, and various other vegetables she grew. “It’s all natural,” said Kate. “We don’t use any pesticides or chemical fertilizers.”

  I said, “I’m impressed. This is quite an operation you have here.”

  “We’re very proud of it,” Ryan said.

  We went back inside. On our way to the family room, Kate showed me one of the bedrooms they’d converted to storage. The walls were lined with cans of food and bottled water.

  We sat in the family room and talked while I took notes. I asked, “What about security?”

  Kate and Ryan looked at each other. Kate said, “Well, there’s the police.”

  Ryan added, “The town has set up guard posts at the city limits.”

  I said, “Oh, yes! Yes, of course. I believe I met them on my way in.”

  Kate said, “Where are my manners? Would you like something to eat? Do you like beets?”

  I pressed both hands to my cheeks and exclaimed in vibrating falsetto, “Love them!”

  She laughed, then disappeared into the kitchen.

  Totally disarmed by my nancy boy routine, Ryan and Kate pretty much gave me the run of the place. I rose to my feet and began ambling around. “Yes, this is quite a place you have here,” I repeated. I ended up behind Ryan.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Those were his last words.

  I pulled the knife and clamped my hand over his mouth. I stabbed him hard in the neck, then cut his throat from ear to ear. The little knife struggled sawing through his windpipe and vocal cords. A muffled cry escaped from his lips. Blood squirted everywhere.