Jolt

by Roberta M. Roy

  “Oh, Lem.”

  He breathed audibly, slowly and deeply. “That’s why I decided not to give both weeks’ supply to you for use with your family alone. I had to think of all of us. Hopefully FEMA will get us all KI soon. Just to be sure they know about us, I’ve emailed them at their correspondence unit about our situation. I’ve tried phoning, but havn’t been able to get through yet.”

  May was calmer now and had stopped walking. When Lem had mentioned survival, May had recalled how long it took for him to become more or less the same old Lem he had been before he had seen action abroad. Abruptly her heart went out to him. Her new tears were for him. But these she shed quietly as she stretched her arms around his solid body and did her best to offer him a hug that comforted.

  He sighed and bent his head to lean it into her soft hair. “It’s the best I can do, May.” His voice faded. He spoke in a half voice, almost to himself. “It’s the best I can do.”

  “It’s the best anyone could do, Arthur. The best anyone could do.”

  They stood a while silently holding one another until again the tears in May’s eyes welled over. At first she cried silently and then with stifled sobs. Lem continued to hold her and she sobbed again into the front of his shirt and warm chest. “Oh, Arthur. Dear Arthur. But my babies!” Her crying turned into something of a muted wail. But she calmed herself more quickly this time and wiping her eyes with the handkerchief Lem had given her, she composed herself and pulled away. They started back up the hill.

  “How often should we take them?”

  “One a day until they are gone.” He reached into his back pocket and in the dim early morning light she could see he was handing her a folded white paper. Here, you can read this. I pulled it off the web.”

  Lem had put a lot into determining his plan of action. Even last night before the meeting, he had looked for FEMA, SEMA, NDMS, and Red Cross announcements online. From them he had learned that the National Disaster Medical System, the NDMS, had decided that KI should be distributed to all people within a two-hundred and fifty-mile radius of Ground Zero, Magdum Heights. They were to be taken by each person regardless of age or health status for a minimal period of two weeks or until the radioactivity levels were reported as acceptable for their area. Difficulties with adequate supply were being addressed by appeals to European countries who, unlike the USA, stockpiled KI for distribution to people in case of nuclear emergency.

  Lem did not share this information with May. Maybe later.

  Back in the cabin, the two found the house still quiet. May opened the paper Lem had given her. It was titled, “Terrorism Preparedness for Nuclear Fallout.” Just the name sent a chill down her spine. In it was a letter written by a woman whose brother, Michael, had been in Kiev when Chernobyl went down. She wrote from personal experience about what she had learned regarding the importance of KI in preventing cancer of the thyroid following exposure to radioactive fallout: Just hours after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, in the explosion radius most heavily affected by fallout, Russian authorities had distributed millions of doses of KI. But the distribution had not been universal and, as years passed, where people received the drug, the incidence of thyroid cancer did not increase. However, in areas where KI had not been made available, previously rare forms of juvenile thyroid cancer began appearing in epidemic proportions. By 1996 there were 1200 identified cases. Further, according to the author, the United States did not take that lesson seriously enough as while Europe stockpiled KI, the United States stocked it in only limited amounts. Therefore she recommended that all Americans purchase and keep their own two-week supply. She named a company called Anbex that sold what was called IOSAT online. It was located in Florida. May wondered if it was too late to order some now.

  According to the authoress, named only by what was now probably an outdated name-coded email address with the distribution date of 2001, except for that rare individual who had an allergy specific to iodine, everyone could take IOSAT (KI) without fear of side-effects. Among those listed as being persons who should take it were pregnant and nursing women and infants. She emphasized the importance of providing it to children and pregnant women as children and the unborn still in utero were extremely susceptible to poisoning by radioiodine. Even people taking other thyroid medicines were to be encouraged to take IOSAT following fallout exposure…or suspected exposure.

  May read on. She learned that the active ingredient in IOSAT was 130 mg of potassium iodide (KI) and that it remained usable indefinitely as long as it was stored in a dry, room-temperature environment, its blister packages unopened. Then when public health authorities directed its use in a radiation emergency, it was to be taken, one tablet a day for up to fourteen days…May could not help but ask herself, What public authorities? But she read on. If that regimen were followed, the authoress claimed that it would give essentially complete protection from any release of radioactive iodine into the environment due to a meltdown. May supposed this also would apply to radioactive iodine released from Dirty Bombs, but just to be safe, she asked Lem, who at this time was fiddling with his short-wave. Lifting one headphone, he confirmed that it might work for both but he wasn’t sure.

  The way potassium iodide worked was to saturate the thyroid with stable iodine. In this way, by filling the thyroid gland to capacity, it blocked it from any further absorption of radioactive iodine. Given the completeness of this filling of the gland with the non-harmful KI, the thyroid blocking would be so sufficient as to protect a person from any fallout effects from radioactive iodine…even after the worst nuclear accident…resulting in the avoidance of up to ninety-nine percent of all radiation-induced thyroid damage.

  As KI had no known side-effects and was really more a dietary supplement than a medication, it could be bought without a prescription. In addition to insufficient stock-piling, what concerned the authoress in particular was that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission showed surprisingly little concern about the potential impact of radioactive iodine on the millions of people located more than a few miles from reactors. These were people for whom evacuation would not be feasible but who would be in the path of nuclear fallout brought by the prevailing winds, and in particular, any early plume.

  There was no mention of Dirty Bombs. But then that letter had been distributed almost twenty years ago.

  May spoke to Arthur, who was washing his coffee cup. “We need more, Arthur. Why can’t we order it?”

  “I know. Right after breakfast tomorrow I am going to overnight an order with a postal money order in it for enough to cover all of us. I’ll buy it in bulk. Hopefully the government has not already snatched them all up for distribution. Too bad I didn’t foresee the need for them a long time ago as they keep practically forever.”

  “If they do still have them, how soon do you think they might arrive?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll mail it out as soon as the post office is open. I also am going to try again to use my credit card and order it online. They’re cheap and that way at worst we’ll have two orders arriving on the same day. We can just keep taking them past the two weeks then. What do you think? I couldn’t get through on the phone last night.”

  “It makes me feel better about it.”

  “May, I didn’t get much sleep last night. I think I’ll just take a quick cat nap.”

  Arthur lay down on the couch and turned his back to her, pulling the waiting blanket up over his head. He felt her cover his feet. And the last thing he remembered was the sound of her voice arriving to his ear muffled by the thickness of the blanket. “I love ya, Arthur,” she said.

  Her only reply was a gentle snore.

  Lem woke later that morning at about nine o’clock. May was pulling breakfast together and Natalie’s sister padded around in an oversized man’s shirt and flipflops. The KI packages lay on the table. They had been broken into five lengths of three tablets and three lengths of four tablets. Natalie’s sister eyed them and nodded her head to indic
ate their placement. “What are they?”

  Lem told her they were potassium iodide. Rather simply and straightforwardly he then explained about the KI distribution plan. May handed Natalie’s sister the KI letter to read and Lem rose and returned from the table with seven pills for Natalie’s sister. She had talked with Natalie about KI in the car on the way up. Natalie told her how she had tried to get some but couldn’t find any to buy.

  On receiving her and her daughter’s supply of KI, Natalie’s sister’s mental reaction was immediate. A week’s supply for me and my daughter. Not even a full week for one of us. And children are so much more vulnerable.

  For Natalie’s sister there was no decision to make. She would give each of the seven pills to her daughter. With luck maybe in a week more would arrive. She flashed Lem a smile, picked up the pills, rose and gave him a hug. “Gosh, Lem. Anymore like you at home? You’re a sweetheart.” She slipped the pills into the pocket of the shirt she wore.

  No sense in involving them in my decisions. She patted her pocket to confirm they were there and sat to drink her coffee. “Natalie and I were talking about KI on the way up in the car. I guess Thaw sent her looking for some, but the drugstores in Bain don’t carry it.”

  Lem smiled and helped himself to some more eggs. “Tell me about it.”

  Thaw and Natalie each got their three pills when they arrived at Lem’s to car pool on their way into town later that morning. They were both very grateful. Thaw took his immediately, but Natalie held hers in her palm as she speculated on the possibility that taking her share suggested something inherently selfish. Then she remembered her old motto: “If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else either.” And so, despite knowing that in this instance enhancing one’s own chances might mean reducing the chances of those around her, she knew she would take it anyway…for herself…for Thaw…for Mom and Dad. She accepted the water passed back to her from Thaw. Over the lips and down the hatch. She prayed more would arrive by Friday…from somewhere.

  Come Friday, as if by magic, Lem’s first order of KI arrived at the post office. Incredibly that meant that none of his and Thaw’s crew would miss a pill…but of course he couldn’t know about Natalie’s sister’s effort to provide a longer supply for her daughter by saving her own for use by her daughter. Then, almost incredibly, in the second week following the disaster, a supply of pills for the area shipped out by SEMA arrived by airplane to the Bixby Airport and were brought by puddle-jumper to Hartsville. Marked fire department cars picked them up there for a distribution that was coordinated from the church and the elementary school in Lochlee and Ellensville respectively. As no one could tell who had or had not been reached by any radioactive fallout, nor whether or not the winds would suddenly shift and bring a significant amount of it, the pills were made available to both Townees and Newcomers on a first-come-first-serve basis.

  The lines for KI pickup were at least a mile long. As they waited, Lem, Natalie, Natalie’s sister and daughter, and Thaw swapped stories with those waiting with them. At best, the picture the careworn-but-generally-patient mix of Newcomers and Townees provided was grim. Most of the Newcomers in the line had lost someone. Either they knew they had or they thought they had.

  From what Lem and Thaw’s crew could gather, the closer a person lived to Magdum Heights, the more likely they were to have lost one or more than one family member or friend. They also talked of others among them whose loved-ones had suffered burns and were sick. These so affected were generally not in the line, having given personal representatives some form of identification that they could be used to collect the KI on their behalf. A number talked of friends and family who were unable to fight off infections and illness due to the reduction in white blood cells that had resulted from radiation exposure. Also, for those caught in the actual fires set by one arsonist or another, given the difficulty of maintaining a sterile environment, often the burns became infected despite healthy immune systems. But radiation sickness had by now taken its toll among the most severely affected so that for many the question was now of where and how to bury their loved ones.

  Among the downstate Newcomer survivors waiting in line, many evidenced nausea and diarrhea. Even at this early date some showed blisters and sores in and around their mouths, suggesting that they had at least medium doses of radiation.

  Just remaining in the line with so many obviously affected people proved painful. You could usually tell them by their appearances as they often appeared to be more stragglers than well-cared for citizens. Their dress was makeshift, their faces colorless and drawn with worry and fatigue. A smell of vomit permeated the air. A man ahead of them by ten people or so fainted and was left where he fell by the nearby adults who were reluctant to risk losing their place in line. The man’s daughter, who looked to be about nine years old, and his son, who may have been seven or eight, pulled the man’s lifeless body into the shade of a tree. Their mother directed the process from where she stood maintaining her place in line.

  Eventually Thaw and Natalie each received their fourteen day supply of KI. They had brought a thermos with them and each took one immediately. They knew fourteen days might not be enough as it needed to be continued until any risk of serious exposure to radioactive iodine no longer existed. Given the distance between them and Magdum Heights they hoped that because of it, the risk was and would remain low

  Side by side for the trip home, they rode in silence.

  That night Thaw woke to find Natalie softly sobbing. Wordlessly he drew her close to comfort her. But this only seemed to make things worse as her sobbing did not abate, becoming at first even louder. Eventually she calmed and through her tears, which Thaw attempted to wipe away with a corner of the sheet, Natalie expressed herself in fits and starts, her sobbing interrupting her between utterances and sometimes even mid-phrase.

  “Oh, Thaw. It’s so terrible. There are so many.” A sob wracked her body. “Did you see that little girl with all the blisters along her …ar-r-r-ms?” Natalie by this time was combining sobbing with a kind of wailing. “And that ma-a-a-an whose kids…had to pul-l-l-l him under away from the line. N-n-n-n no one to help them-m-m-m.”

  “Natalie, calm down. It’ll be better.”

  “It wooon’t be betterrrrr.”

  Thaw kissed her hair and hugged her to him. He stroked her back and wiped her eyes. He pressed her backward on the bed and stretched the length of his body over hers. He kissed her cheeks, and leaning on his elbows, tried to comfort her. Nothing seemed to help. Finally and abruptly, Natalie quieted. Thaw held her quietly and then rolled off her. “Let me get you some water, Nat. You need some water. And I’ll get some tissues.”

  “Thanks, Thaw.” She sobbed again but the tears had ceased. She just lay there in the dark looking at the endless black expanse above her.

  He heard a voice from above. “And Thaw, darling, would you bring me a warm wet face cloth when you come?”

  Anything, Natalie. Anything. Just don’t cry. Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry anymore.

  5. Operation Hookup

  Marlena was at the front window, wagging her tail and barking. Martha opened the door and Dody danced through. “Dang blast it, dog! Git! Git away!”

  “Good morning, Dody. Marlena! Off! Off!”

  “Enough to turn your stomach. Absolute mess! Whole camp looks like a rag yard. Clothes here. Clothes there. Some in large piles. Shirts hanging from trees. Wet socks plastered here and there. Dogs digging through them, taking one shoe here, another shoe there. And getting worse!”

  Martha had only two chests of drawers, one in each of the upstairs bedrooms, so Dody had stopped by to put up some shelves in the various rooms which had now become bedrooms. The plan was that there should be at least one for each of the new residents.

  “It’s very sad to look at it, isn’t it, Dody?”

  “Gotta do somethin’ about it! No question. Problem is everyone is so afraid of the stuff, no one wants to touch
it!”

  “I think the fire department was asked to do the cleanup as they know something about handling hazardous materials. Problem was that their spouses wouldn’t let them do it. Said it was the Newcomers’ problem and they should handle it.”

  Rozlyn, one of the Newcomers Martha had taken into her home, came padding through, barefoot and half asleep. “Good morning, Dody.”

  “What! You just fallin’ out?” He slapped an arm around her shoulders in a side hug. She looked up at him sleepily. “What’s with these young people, Martha? It’s near 10:30!” He gave Rozlyn another little squeeze and then pushed her off toward the kitchen.

  Rozlyn dropped her shoulders, rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, looked at Martha, and gave a kind of a moan. “Good morning, Martha.”

  “Good morning, Roz. There’s oatmeal in the pot on the stove. Still warm.” Then she addressed Dody. “We could bring it up at Council tonight.”

  “Think of it Martha. What’s worse? Walking into radioactive discarded clothing wherever you turn or picking it up once and putting it someplace where people won’t come in contact with it.”

  “Well, Dody, the thing is, no one knows how radioactive anything is so everything is treated as if it had killer power.”

  Dody was almost doing a dance, he was so upset. “Well, I’ve been thinking about it. I think we get a dump truck. Then we just kind of spread the risk around.”

  Now Martha was intrigued. “How you suggest we do that?”

  “We make some long poles with hooks on them. We get the people to take turns picking up the stuff. As much as possible the Newcomers need to handle the job. We get each one to pick up at least something and put it in the truck. They use the poles to do it. They drop it in the back of the dump truck, far from the driver. When enough has been piled, the driver dumps it somewhere we agree is far enough away from everyone. Then we switch drivers. Then we’d just have to secure the clothes all in one pile to keep them from blowing all over like they are now.”