The Nuclear Catastrophe (a fiction novel of survival)

by Billig, Barbara C. Griffin

  As a militia, the members had been taught to think in terms of wartime experiences. But for many, this was their first real military effort. Consequently, as instructions were relayed and segments of the troop procession would peel away from the security of the long procession, lonely anxieties invaded the troopers. This wasn’t an action of war. There were no alien men bombarding them with missiles from behind thick embankments. Each man carried a weapon and his job had been clearly spelled out. Working in a buddy system of twos, they were to locate and report on persons within each area via their field phones. Communication relays would instantly steer victims to medical units scattered nearby. In the event victims were incapable of reaching medical facilities, or facilities were too far removed, then the guardsmen would assume the task of requesting mobile units to pick up the disabled.

  The operation required door-to-door searching. Any looting or assault would immediately result in the military apprehension of the violator. For this, guns had been issued. Therefore, a policing of the area became a prime objective in conjunction with assisting the victims.

  If, during a lifetime, a person has perceived a city as a place with buildings and people, traffic and window shoppers, and then sees only the inanimate, he is taken aback. The scene doesn’t fall into the realm of experience. Judgment will not allow the folly of believing that nothing is wrong, for here is a whole city, and nothing is as it should be. Fear begins seeping into the consciousness, and rapidly and successfully convinces the viewer that whatever had put an entire city to sleep in the middle of a sunny day must be ghastly indeed. Thus, with this growing awareness, it was with much trepidation that rescue of Los Angeles and its satellites was begun.

  “Wouldn’t you have thought that they’d be so anxious to see us that they’d be standing in the streets?” asked one of the troopers of his buddy as he scanned the neighborhood.

  “I doubt that they even know we’re here. We didn’t exactly herald our arrival, you know,” answered his comrade.

  “Hmmm, it would have been a good idea if we had been announced—with some bull horns, some loud-speakers—then they’d come out,” answered the young man, looking around uneasily.

  “Yeah. Say, what if some old codger gets scared at us knocking on his door and takes a pot-shot at us?”

  They were young and inexperienced at dealing with the conflicts that had begun to form in their minds. “And wouldn’t we look like two big dummies squatting on the front porch as he blasted away with buckshot?” asked the other.

  The two broke into nervous snickers as they idled in the street.

  “What’s funny, fellows?”

  The voice startled them. Then they recognized the chemist.

  “Aw nothing. We were trying to decide why there’s nobody around. The place seems dead.”

  “Have you seen that guy, Carter—the one who didn’t get lined up with a buddy?” Cecil asked.

  “I don’t think I know him. What’s he look like?”

  “Tall, very thin, with beady eyes.” Cecil surprised himself. He had given a description of small beady eyes, a description that conformed to his opinion of all people who couldn’t be trusted. In fact, he didn’t remember Carter’s eyes at all.

  “Is he in the guard, or a civilian?”

  “He’s a civilian,” Cecil replied.

  “Then he wouldn’t have a weapon so he’d have to be paired with someone in the guard.”

  “No, he was an extra. There was no buddy for him.” Cecil distinctly recalled that during pairing at the armory, Carter had arranged to be an extra.

  “Well, we haven’t seen anything of anybody like that.”

  Cecil started to walk off when one of the youths yelled to him. “Hey, how many people do you reckon there are around here?”

  “Who were left here during the disaster?” asked the chemist.

  “Yeah. The ones we’re supposed to be helping.”

  “Oh, a couple million, counting the outlying areas.”

  “A couple....you’re joking! Why man, there’s no way the government could put enough troops in here to reach that many,” said one of the youths.

  Cecil paused to reply. “I thought it was an immense, impossible undertaking, too.”

  The street was empty in both directions. Cecil was disappointed. It was not until he was in the helicopter, viewing the devastation from close range, that he had realized he wanted to stay near the evil-intentioned Carter. Arnie had set him down at the exact spot to meet with his group. Unfortunately, he had arrived too late to catch them as they piled out of the truck. Now, the best he could do would be to begin his own search for the man. Aware that Carter would have hurried away from the others, and would likely remain alone unless he had picked up a partner, Cecil randomly selected a direction and started out.

  His choice carried him onto a narrow thoroughfare consisting of modest, old bungalow homes. This region had seen more prosperous days, but the miniscule lawns bore out evidence that the owners were proud people. Hedges had been carefully trimmed, but were wilted now. The grass had browned, flowers were dead. But the litter that normally was liberally strewn about more seedy sections of the city was nowhere to be seen.

  Far ahead, in the glare of the pre-noon sun, a lanky figure darted across the pavement and toward one of the residences. Carter? And if so, which house was he headed for? Cecil quickened his pace and closed the distance between where he had stood and where he thought the man to have been.

  If Carter’s objective wasn’t any particular house, the long, covered form lying near the hedge of this little bungalow would certainly have attracted his attention. Cecil, short on breath from the exertion of running, walked over to the bundle. From its length and thickness, he did not have to peek inside to know what it contained. This was the vicinity where he thought he had seen Carter. Yet, nothing moved. There was no sign of him now. Cecil considered what the scarecrow had told him. In light of that, vacant houses would offer the greatest prospects for looting. But Cecil doubted that Carter genuinely wished to find all the houses vacant.

  Any effort on her part would be fruitless now, thought Althea. She had maintained a close vigil over her mother during the endless night. Once the elderly woman drifted into unconsciousness, forcing liquid down her throat had become an impossibility. Near dawn, her vital signs had further weakened, leaving the daughter no choice but to stay helplessly by as her mother gradually entered a comatose state. With no means for administering intravenous fluids, and no insulin, death was inevitable.

  Her breathing, the greedy gasping of air, was less labored, less pronounced, as the pulse rate grew increasingly weaker. To an uncritical observer, the symptoms might have appeared as a remission, but Althea recognized the changes as a sign that her mother was slipping into a slow, if painless, death. It was now painless, because the body is uniquely endowed with the ability to enter into a state of profound insensibility when confronted with extreme and extensive suffering.

  The sound of the kitchen door being softly shut did not go unnoticed by Althea. She had been unaware of the stationing of a rescue unit, as near as three-and-a-half blocks from her home over an hour ago. Therefore, any intruder entering uninvited surely would have sinister motives.

  She felt shivers of fright course through her body at the unexpected sound. Speedily, she crossed the floor, reached the door of the bedroom and was shoving it closed when an explosive force smashed into the door, shoving her back against the wall.

  Stepping into the room was a misshapen, disfigured gargoyle of a man. Greasy black hair fell into his face, partially hiding the gash of a mouth and its jagged, yellow teeth. His torso was little more than a skeleton covered with grayish white skin, and submerged beneath loose fitting, dirty clothes. “Ah ha, what have we here?” he cackled. “A poor lady in distress.”

  He moved closer to Althea, beckoning to her with long dirty fingers.

  She stepped backward, her hand wildly searching for an object, something to hold. �
��Stay away from me!” she threatened.

  He advanced toward her, his face split by a leering grin. “Now missy, don’t you go getting upset. Carter doesn’t like his women to get loud.” His grotesque smiled broadened.

  “Stay where you are!” she shouted as she moved away from him. “You stay away from me!” She saw him as he lowered himself into a partial crouch. There was nothing to use as a weapon, yet she knew that he would hurtle himself toward her, and she prepared herself for it.

  As she had anticipated, his skinny body shot out at her. But as he lunged, she hastily stepped aside, and eluded him. “Get out of here! You have no business in my house!” she yelled.

  He straightened himself. “Heh, heh, heh. You don’t really want me to leave, missy. Oh no, you’ll like me.”

  She managed to get the boudoir chair between them, but this put her with her back to the corner, completely at his mercy.

  Grinning fiendishly, he grabbed the chair and sent it into her, pinning her in place. “Aha! Now I’ve got you!”

  Trapped in the corner, her mother on the bed a few feet away, Althea watched his drooling mouth as he leaned toward her. His tiny eyes were bright with a feverish excitement as he jettisoned long bony hands forward, and knotted his fingers in her clothing. Then he kicked the chair aside, and pulled her to him, hideously laughing all the while.

  She lashed at him with all her strength, leaving four trails of raw flesh imprinted on his face.

  His laughter continued as his fist bit into her cheek, spinning her head sideways.

  Five days of grief, pain, and a lack of nourishment had left her physically debilitated, but it hadn’t damaged her determination. She twisted free and launched her razor sharp fingernails straight at the orbit of his eye. A warm clear fluid flooded over her fingertips, and his laughter changed to screams of pain.

  The darkness that fell over the collapsed eyeball added intense anger to his pain. Lashing out as the humor flooded down his cheek, his blow caught her again on the side of the head, and this one staggered her, leaving her brain a maze of flashing lights. Her legs buckled. Her body crumpled, and she felt the floor under her and above, the squirming bony creature shoving her farther down. Unable to escape, she felt the blows raining on her body, pummeling it into submission. Her strength to resist left her as the blows repeatedly slammed into her head and chest. She felt consciousness begin to slip away.

  Then his weight was abruptly gone. Standing over the intruder was a stocky, squarely built man whose foot was directly between the other’s shoulder blades, and his hands in the black oily hair. Pressing the foot in, he simultaneously yanked the head back. A dull, but distinct, snap was heard emanating from the vertebrae of the intruder’s neck.

  It was quiet in the bedroom. The assault, the din, had ended.

  Althea’s attacker was on his side, completely motionless, but mumbling incoherencies. His salivating lips were all that moved.

  Cecil stared at his handiwork, then at Althea’s—at the eyeball. The woman, still slightly stunned, began getting upright. He reached for her and gently helped her into a sitting position. “Are you all right?” inquired Cecil.

  “Yes. I...I, guess,” she answered uncertainly.

  She avoided looking at the vacant, deflated eyeball in the body, but gaped at the strange position of her attacker’s head. “He...His head is strange.”

  Cecil stared down at Carter. “Yes.”

  She looked up at the man who had rescued her. “Is his neck broken?”

  “Uh huh. I believe so,” he replied without interest.

  She scrutinized the big man. “Are....are you with a rescue unit?” she asked, hoping desperately he was.

  “Yes,” he answered quietly. “Troops are coming in all over the city.” Cecil’s palms were sticky with grease from Carter’s hair, a repulsive feeling that he eliminated by wiping against his trousers. “I’ll get this guy out of here for you.”

  “It wouldn’t be wise to move him, if his neck is broken, would it?” said Althea, trying to be lucid.

  “No, ma’am. It wouldn’t,” he answered, still looking at Carter. Althea winced as she pulled her feet under her. Cecil helped, but it was an effort for her to get up. Her left foot looked particularly repugnant. In the scuffle the outer side had ruptured from the small toe back to the heel and was now a yawning wound that released a mixture of yellow and red fluids on the carpet. The foot was worsening, but for the moment, there was a more important matter. Hobbling, she went over to her mother’s bed and felt the limp wrist. “My mother is dead,” she finally said. “She has been in a coma and she died while....” Her voice gave way to soft sobbing.

  Cecil looked at the gray hair and the worn wrinkled features of the elderly woman. “She’s at peace,” he said softly. Aware of the sobs, he dragged the chair over and waited until the daughter collapsed into it.

  Unintelligible mutterings still came from the man on the floor. Returning to Carter, Cecil took an ankle in each hand and began pulling toward the open door. His tug at the ankles pulled the body straight, and a short gasp left the man—the very last sound that Carter made.

  Althea had covered her mother with the sheet and was waiting when the chemist returned. Her tears had not quite dried, but her composure was regained. “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I removed him to the yard.” Suddenly he seemed uncomfortable in the small bedroom. “Are you ready to leave?” he asked, avoiding her eyes.

  She hesitated. “I don’t want to leave my parents here. My father is dead, too; he’s in the garden. What can I do for them?” asked the woman with concern.

  “You’re our first consideration,” said Cecil. “The government has established recuperation spas throughout the state. Everyone who is willing, will be sent to one. But before that, you ought to be examined by a doctor.”

  She was now a haggard, trembling, emaciated woman whose fine, dark features were accentuated by her gauntness. But despite her thinness and the pain, and fear that even yet showed in her eyes, the beauty of the woman was readily noticeable to Cecil.

  “No, I can’t abandon my mother and father. I couldn’t rest at all, not knowing what was being done for them,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of them for you,” he promised. “I’ll make certain that they’re decently buried and the sites marked. When you return, if you decide to, you’ll know exactly where to find them.”

  Althea searched his face. Then hesitantly she took a step. Moving on the spongy pustules encrusting her feet caused both limbs to become aching, throbbing clubs. She reached out to Cecil. He slid his arm around her waist, and suspended hers over his shoulder. In this manner, Althea was gently led to the encampment of the medical unit.

  Nearly sixty miles south of Log Angeles, in an unincorporated area, the Harrington home sat on a large plot of land, commanding a sweeping view of the ocean. It was a setting from which Ben and Sara had often drawn peace together.

  Sara admitted the men into the living room with just a hint of formality, stopping short of inviting them to be seated. Their rapid arrival had been unforeseen, and Sara was slightly discomfited by her unkempt appearance before them. Educated in Europe, and prepped for a life as a gracious lady, she had deeply rooted ideas as to how one coped with problems; appearances were important. A well bred, cultured person always presented a stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. And here, she had been momentarily caught off guard.

  One of the men, sensing her discomfiture, got right to the point. “Mrs. Harrington, since your husband was at the reactor when the accident occurred, I believe his, uh, his body would be of special interest. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve requested that the chief pathologist be here for Mr. Harrington’s removal.”

  Sara, though wondering about the significance of what he’d said, raised no objection. She sat down with the two men, sensing some semblance of order returning to her life; the nightmare was now drawing to a close. They talke
d, politely avoiding further mention of Ben’s body, as they awaited the arrival of the medical examiner.

  Admiration was plainly obvious in the men as they observed Sara’s controlled efforts after the long, arduous ordeal. She was dead tired, hungry, and thirsty. Small aches dully throbbed in her body. She was disheveled and grimy after the past four days. Her husband was dead in a room down the hall. Nevertheless, she calmly and with preciseness for detail, recounted the events of the accident, as described by Ben, and the horrors that followed. She talked without interruption for almost an hour.

  A whirring of blades informed them of the medical examiner’s arrival. Shortly, the chief pathologist stepped into the room, his hand extended. “Mrs. Harrington, I’m Dr. Elrod Seevers from the Surgeon General’s staff. I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.” He was a balding, short man, wearing black horn rimmed glasses. “Your husband was a supervisor at White Water, I’ve been told,” he said in his rapid-fire speech.

  Sara nodded in assent, wondering what action he planned.

  The pathologist aggressively pushed ahead with his idea. “While you may consider this an indelicate suggestion, it is my opinion that your husband’s remains would be invaluable to medical research, Mrs. Harrington.”

  She stared at him, as one might who viewed a poisonous snake from the other side of a glass partition. She hadn’t realized that such a request would be made of her. With a quick flash of anger, she said, “Dr. Seevers, your proposal is contemptible—an insult to Benjamin Harrington’s memory. The man gave his life for his work. It’s too much to expect that his body would be a contribution to science in addition.”

  Her unruffled composure belied her simmering interior and caught the pathologist unaware. He had anticipated her immediate compliance. “I apologize to you,” he said quickly. “However, there is great likelihood that the course of this nation’s future and its reliance on nuclear energy for peacetime uses may be decided from this recent catastrophe. Any information gleaned from this terrible tragedy must be weighed with regard to the best interests of the American people.” He spoke in haste, as though there were much to be done, and this was only one of many tasks facing him, that Ben’s was only one of many bodies to claim.