Most of the rest of the people were doing the same thing. A few looked befuddled, but the shelter Captain’s assistants went around and got everyone down on the floor. There was quiet conversation for the most part as people waited for something to happen.
It was some time before anything did. Several people had taken trips to the bathroom facilities and returned. But then everyone felt the minor tremor through the linoleum covered concrete floor.
The designated maintenance people were the only ones close enough to the air vents to hear the blast valves on them click closed just afterwards. They reported it to the EOC.
“We’ve just experienced a blast wave,” Harvey was saying. “That indicates a device has gone off relatively close by.” Again he was interrupted by someone, but he was back on the intercom almost immediately, his voice subtlety different when he announced, “We lost some of our outside cameras to EMP, but one of the ones working is showing a mushroom cloud to our northeast.”
There were immediate cries and more tears. Most of those in the shelter were from St. Louis. Jenny hugged her children to her and said a silent good-bye to her old life.
CHAPTER TWO
Jenny was glad that the founders of the MAG knew as much as they did. She wasn’t sure how she would have handled the problems that came up during the shelter stay. There were myriads of situations, including three people that wanted to leave the shelter immediately. They were allowed to go, with what they’d brought with them, and instructions not to come back.
Others had a hard time mentally dealing with the fact that the world was now a different place. Fortunately there were several health care workers in residence that were able to isolate them and treat them, without the unreasonable fears affecting anyone else.
Five people died during the shelter stay. Two from heart attacks and three from illnesses that could no longer be treated when their rare medications ran out. One person was in custody in the shelter’s small brig. She was the girlfriend of one of the members, and a drug addict. She’d tried to get into the medical section and steal narcotics.
Two babies were born, with no problems.
Eleven MAG members showed up the day after the shelter was locked down. All were allowed in after decontamination. All had severe radiation poisoning. Only one of them survived, and it took months before she could do anything but go to and from the bathroom.
Either through chance or by having followed the MAG members that came too late, several armed people tried to get into the shelter, but armed teams drove them off, going out one of the escape tunnels to go around and attack them from the rear.
Some damage was done to the community building, but the people had been more intent in getting into the shelter than doing damage. Either that or the security teams worked fast enough to prevent them from having time to do anything.
The group spent Thanksgiving buttoned up in the shelter. The oldest, physically fit people took turns suiting up and checking out things outside the shelter when the radiation level dropped below 0.5 R/h. The oldest had the least chance to live to an age where the higher doses of radiation they received would be a factor in getting cancer.
The MAG celebrated Christmas outside the shelter, mostly in the community building, but everyone was continuing to sleep in the shelter. People took the opportunity to check on their personal belongings. Some of the few tents were showing some damage from the weather. Two motor homes had been vandalized, apparently by people trying to steal them, doing the damage when they wouldn’t start.
Several of the homes on site had similar vandalism, but only one had actually been broken into and anything taken. Unlike those that had tried to enter the shelter, the others had been more careful not to announce their presence. Several paid the ultimate price for their actions, as the initial inspection teams found several dead bodies in the main compound. Some had been shot by others on the lookout for loot, and some had died from radiation poisoning.
Everything was cleaned up and decontaminated before the children were let outside, much to their disgust. And even then, they were required to stay in the area right around the community building, unless they lived in one of the dome homes.
Jenny got permission to check her Subaru and camp not long after people were able to spend a couple of hours outside. The tent was a bit the worse for wear, from the weather, and the wind had knocked over the privacy shelter for the chemical toilet, but everything was still there. Angela helped her decontaminate everything in the camp, and then dismantle it and put the things in the Subaru for future use. They were going to need to use the community facilities for some time to come.
The Subaru wasn’t going anywhere. The electronics had been fried by EMP and Jenny had never been able to afford a second set to keep in a faraday cage. Jenny decided better to use it as temporary storage than take up any more room in the community storage area. It was towed to the parking lot that had been set aside for vehicles that wouldn’t run after a disaster. There were far more vehicles in it than in the lot for those still running.
Jenny had started school classes while everyone was still in the shelter fulltime. The MAG had purchased a comprehensive set of home-schooling materials and Jenny was one of half a dozen men and women with the skills to use them to their utmost effectiveness.
But she also took her rotations of security duty, and volunteered for kitchen duty and for greenhouse duty. She had the kitchen duties down pat, but she was more in training than anything else in the greenhouse. Jenny wanted to learn how to garden.
Though there would be a huge community garden, MAG members were expected to contribute as much fresh food as they could for themselves, with a portion going to the MAG. Hopefully she would have learned enough to plant a garden for her family and herself by the time spring came around. She had plenty of open-pollinated seeds in storage.
Her children seemed to have adjusted to the situation with few, if any, problems. Julie was a bit more clingy than usual, but that soon faded. Jenny constantly sent silent thanks to whoever had decided to have specific personnel to help with the children, and provide for the means to keep the children not only safe, but happy, and out of the way of the daily duties every adult and older teens had nearly every day after they were able to stay out of the shelter for eight hours or more.
Harvey kept everyone informed of what was happening, out in the rest of the world. It was mostly bad news, and much of it came from a network of amateur radio operators with a similar mind set as those in the MAG. Many of them were in MAG’s of their own.
Apparently no area on earth had escaped what turned into a full blown, world-wide, nuclear holocaust. No one seemed to have the complete answer of who fired at whom, but it was obvious that everyone with a nuke fired it at somebody.
Someone on Harvey’s EOC team was keeping a tally of sorts, based on confirmed targets. The loss of life was staggering and going up quickly as the winter wore on. More of the weapons had worked than some experts thought would prior to the war. And they were more accurate. Precise targets were hit, but that included population centers. Something else the experts had been wrong about. Many had said that neither the Russian’s nor the Chinese would hit population centers. They both did. And all their targets hadn’t been in the US, it seemed.
But enough were used to reduce the population by an estimated eighty percent, including those that died of radiation poisoning after the attack, and including those that died of dehydration or starvation in the months following the attack. No small number of deaths were from armed conflicts between survivors competing for the resources left by the dead.
The death rate would be much higher than the birthrate for years. The population was likely to continue to decline for a long time.
“Jenny,” Harvey said, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Jenny nodded. “I think I should participate just like the others that need additional equipment and supplies. I’ve got a limited amount of trade goods and I want to get as
much salvage as I can. Plus if there is a problem with it in the future, we’ll all be in it together, not just a few that did it for everyone else.”
“Okay,” Harvey said, finally relenting and giving Jenny permission to join one of the salvage teams just about to head out.
Team members got a small equivalent share of what they found, while looking for things for the MAG, since there was much work, and no little danger in doing so. They were also allowed a certain amount of time to salvage things directly for themselves.
Jenny carried one of the PPK .380’s in her ankle holster, but drew an M1 Carbine, a Glock 21SF, ammunition for both, and a vest style LBE harness to carry the ammunition, pistol, and accoutrements.
The MAG preferred that everyone have their own weapons, but did have loaners for those that didn’t and needed to use one from time to time. The group had decided on Auto Ordnance .30 M1 Carbines for those that needed something but couldn’t handle stronger recoil and for the short range role.
One small lot of M1 Garands one of the members of the MAG had stumbled onto at an estate auction were available for the long range needs.
A large lot of used Remington 870 pump guns set up as riot guns obtained from a dealer that had taken them in on trade from a police department.
The handgun choices were a small selection of Glock 21SF’s in .45ACP one of the members that was a gun dealer had contributed as part of his buy-in, Glock 17’s in 9mm, again a group of police turn in’s, and Ruger SP101 5-shot .357 magnum revolvers.
There weren’t many of the loaners, except for the M1 carbines and 870 pumps.
The LBE vests, harnesses, pouches, and handgun holsters were mostly FMCO brand equipment that the MAG had made a group purchase from, for individuals and for group use needs.
It was the only place they’d found pouches specifically made to carry 7.62mm x 39mm 10-round SKS stripper clips (12 clips), Garand .30-’06 8-round en-bloc clips (6 clips), M-14 5-round stripper clips (12 clips), and .30-’06 Springfield/7.62x54R 5-round stripper clips (12 clips). They also provided vests and pouches for the more common magazine rifles.
The MOLLE pistol belt part of the harnesses came from Tactical Assault Gear. The other web gear came from a variety of sources.
Jenny was equipped with one of the M1 Carbine vests, carrying 12 30-round M1 magazines plus the 15-rounder in the weapon and two 15-rounders in a butt stock pouch. There were two double pouches for the 13-round magazines for the Glock 21SF. Jenny had two canteen pouches with canteens and a cup; and two utility pouches, one for a personal first-aid kit, and the second for miscellaneous items.
Very glad she had taken all the totes from the house when she came, instead of just a token amount as if it was a drill, since one of them contained winter clothing for her and the children, Jenny was comfortable in the cold weather that still persisted well into spring. Perhaps there was such a thing as Nuclear Winter, after all. For whatever the cause, natural or human-made, it was snowing that April when the salvage team left, adding to the three inches of snow still on the ground.
Jenny shifted the canteen a bit, so she could sit more comfortably in the rear seat of one of the MAG’s diesel powered Suburban’s. The compound had four of them and four similar crew cab pickup trucks. All were old models that the mechanics in the MAG had restored and modified for use after a nuclear attack. Each was well equipped.
One of the pickups was in the lead, one at the tail of the convoy, with two Suburban’s behind the lead pickup, carrying the bulk of the salvage team. Between the Suburban’s and the trailing pickup were four semi tractor-trailer rigs. Two pulled two box trailers each, the third a pair of gooseneck open trailers, and the fourth had two full size fuel tank trailers. There was a tow behind diesel forklift being towed by the gooseneck rig.
After they left the compound, with Julie and Craig looking on and waving good-bye, under the watchful eyes of Angela, the lead pickup headed for the entrance to I-44. It had been decided to not salvage too close to the retreat. The decision was partly because there were other survivors in the area unable to range very far afield that would need the materials close at hand.
The MAG wanted good relations with the other locals, for obvious reasons. Another reason to range further afield was to limit the chances of someone following them back to the retreat. The two motorcyclists, both ex-military, that had left the day before to scout the route going, would follow them back, keeping an eye out for anyone following.
Like the pickups and Suburban’s the MAG had acquired, the four motorcycles, again, four near identical ones, were modified for use in the post nuclear world. The mechanics had taken four used Kawasaki KLR 650 dual purpose bikes and pulled the engines. They put in Hatz diesels so the bikes could use the same fuel as the other vehicles at the retreat. One of the modifications was extra quiet mufflers, to reduce the sound signature when they were in a position where strict sound discipline was in order.
Though the route had been checked by the bikers, everyone in the convoy kept a lookout for trouble. That evening, after the convoy had made camp, Jenny sharing a tent with the other female on the trip, they all waited for the radio report from the scouts. It was encoded, so as to not give away positions, but to also give a false impression of what was going on.
Everything was all right for the convoy to continue the next morning, with the only warning being that those in the convoy were going to have to do some maneuvering to get around blockages on the interstate.
“You heard him,” Glen Radcliffe, the leader of the mission, said. “Hit the hay. Going to be a tiresome day tomorrow.”
Jenny had been assigned as member of the first watch so she met up with the other person on watch and laid out their plans for their two hours. Nothing untoward happened on her watch and she eased into the tent as quietly as she could to avoid waking Cassie.
They were all up before daylight the next day, shaking the light dusting of snow off the tents before they were rolled up and stowed. After a hot breakfast, they set off again, after the scouts gave a coded signal that nothing had changed.
It took three days to reach the outer area of St. Louis they planned to work over. Despite St. Louis getting hit, most of the fallout that the area had received had come from Whiteman Air Force Base, Kansas City, and Jefferson City, Missouri. Glen kept a regular check on radiation levels, and each team member was wearing a dosimeter to keep track of long term exposure to radiation.
The team would not go into a ‘hot’ area, considering the risks far too high for the rewards. They met up with the scouts at the appointed place and time. The scouts had already picked up a couple of telephone yellow page books and marked a few places that should have things the group wanted. After a few minutes discussion, the scouts left, to take up positions of high cover, so the group could get started going through the Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club they were going to enter first.
“Cassie, Jenny,” Glen said, “Start patrolling. Anything at all, and I mean anything, sing out on the radio, take cover, and wait for back up before you try to deal with it. Do a routine check in every ten minutes.” Lowering his voice he was almost whispering when he added, “Code word is ‘Applejacks.’
Both women nodded, checked their weapons, consulted for a moment, and then went off in opposite directions.
Neither of the two stores had been looted. The attack had come too quick. It took most of the day to take what they wanted and load it into the trucks. Jenny and Cassie got their turns handling the goods as they rotated the work and security.
Each of the members took some of their personal time to pick up the items they wanted to keep for themselves. Jenny was careful with her time. She had several things in mind and didn’t want to waste the time for ‘nice-to-have’ things. She was looking for items to help her in the long run. Almost anyone could use the home-school materials to teach the children. Being a school teacher at the retreat wasn’t necessarily a highly secure job.
What she wanted were the things to al
low her to do something all year round, not necessarily the same thing. She had a list of items she wanted to find. She wanted the tools, equipment, and at least an initial amount of supplies to get started in a variety of trades.
The trades she was interested in doing included barbering, making charcoal, making soap, making paper, making candles, and sharpening knives and other edged tools. And lastly, after thinking about it for a long time and reading up on it in the MAG library, Jenny wanted to find the items required to produce black powder safely. Since she needed lead balls for the ball mill, she accumulated lead casting equipment to make the balls for the ball mill, plus a wide variety of other lead objects, primarily bullets and sinkers.
Of course she needed additional clothes for the children, since they were growing, and more work clothes for herself, as she would be doing physical work for the rest of her life. She was on the list of people that were going to stay on at the retreat, but didn’t have housing. A program of locating and placing suitable housing was one of the first salvage operations started. Since she had children, Jenny was one of the first to get one of the fifth-wheel travel trailers brought to the retreat and set up.
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