by Tim Washburn
The large room is portioned into cubicles and the two women fall in at the end of the line as they and their coworkers exit into the hall. The corridor is streaming with people, but, like always, no one is in a hurry. Darya elbows Alexandra in the ribs, nodding toward a tall, attractive man joining the mass of people at the top of the stairs. “If you’re not going to bed Evgeni, I will,” Darya whispers to her friend. Short and somewhat chubby, Darya is not particularly picky when it comes to hooking up with coworkers, both male and female. Experimentation, she calls it.
“Hands off. We have another date scheduled for this weekend,” Alexandra whispers back. Twenty-four, she ended a four-year relationship several months ago and has been slow to rejoin the dating scene. Tall and slim with a mane of dark hair, she and Evgeni have been out several times, but haven’t yet been intimate. Alexandra hopes that changes this weekend.
Alexandra and Darya follow the crowd down the stairs to the first level. That’s when Alexandra notices an immediate difference from all the previous drills. Heavily armed guards are manning the doors while other soldiers are directing people to the stairs to the lower levels. “What do you think’s going on?” Alexandra whispers to Darya.
Darya shrugs. “Who knows? But I really need a cigarette.”
Alexandra scowls. “Think there’s been some type of terrorist attack?”
Darya shrugs again. “They’re not going to tell us anything. They never do.”
They follow the procession down the stairs to the basement. The odor of stewing cabbage drifts from the cafeteria down the hall as another group of soldiers directs them to another set of stairs.
“Shit,” Darya says, “They’re putting us in the bunker. I’ve got to have a cigarette before we go in.”
“You can’t smoke in the building,” Alexandra says.
“Watch me.” Darya digs through her purse, pulls out a cigarette, and lights up. She gets in one puff before a soldier approaches, pulls the cigarette from her mouth, and grinds it out beneath her boot. Darya glares at the soldier, who smiles and pivots away, on to her next task.
“I told you,” Alexandra says. The line to the stairs grinds to a halt and Alexandra and Darya are left standing in a wide corridor that runs the length of the building. Both jump when a loud crash reverberates through the structure. A millisecond later, there’s another jarring crash and then another. Alexandra’s first thought is it’s an earthquake as the hallway fills with dust and debris. People begin screaming and running in every direction as Alexandra grabs Darya and pulls her under a doorframe to an office—Earthquake 101 for a girl who grew up in a seismically active area. Alexandra leans out, peering through the haze to see if a section of the upper floors have collapsed. But what she sees instead is an oblong object piercing the ceiling in an area two floors below the president’s office. There is no lettering on the device, but she can see a portion of a flag painted on the surface. One she knows well from working on projects regarding the United States. It’s the last thing Alexandra sees before the weapon detonates.
CHAPTER 21
Manhattan
Sean Smith glances at his watch and winces. The damn trains are running late again. Riding the number 2 train from his apartment near Columbia University, Smith’s still three stops away from his destination in the Financial District. And he has only fifteen minutes to make a meeting he’s worked six months to get. A meeting that could be life-changing for him and his fiancée. The man he’s meeting, a venture capitalist, has a mild interest in a start-up Smith founded two years ago. After months of pestering, the man relented and agreed to a face-to-face to allow Smith an opportunity to lay out his grand plan. That plan is on the laptop in his bag—a nicely designed PowerPoint presentation that’s concise and thoroughly researched. Smith glances at his watch again and stands, moving closer to the door for a rapid escape.
After two stops, the subway finally pulls into the Wall Street station. Smith taps his foot, waiting for the doors to open as people pile up around him. Beyond the glass, another mass of humanity is waiting to board. The doors part and Smith steps out, shouldering his way through the crowd. If he can reach the surface quickly, the man’s office is only a block away. He hurries to the escalator and edges past the standers, lunging up the steps. Glancing up, his heart stutters when he sees a clearly panicked crowd surging inside. His first thought is it’s another terrorist attack and here he is only blocks away from where the original twin towers stood. He’s still too far away to see outside so maybe there’s hope it’s only a random shooter and the cops will quickly eliminate the threat. But then his mind stops and backs up. Are we so used to these random shootings that they’re now mundane? He quickly builds a mental wall. Now is not the time to debate that point.
As he gets closer to the exit, he sees a good number of people weeping, some kneeling in prayer. Okay, so maybe not a random shooter, he thinks. Then his mind drifts to the images of a truck plowing through people at a parade. Not likely, he reasons, on the jam-packed streets of New York. But something definitely has these people spooked. Smith finally reaches solid ground and hurries toward the exit, plowing through the onrush of people like a salmon swimming upstream. There’s a sound of shattering glass and the crowd in front of him balloons as people push their way inside through the demolished doors. Smith works his way toward the outer edges of the swelling mass, circling back to the exit.
Dripping sweat, his perfectly pressed suit in ruins, Smith bulls his way outside and stands to catch his breath in the center of the street. He looks up, and all thoughts of his meeting, his start-up, and his future evaporate. His mind turns instead to his fiancée as he watches a mushroom cloud expand over the city. Pulling out his iPhone, he unlocks the screen and pulls up a picture of the woman he’ll never marry. He’s staring at her image when a nuclear warhead detonates in the skies above Wall Street.
AFTER
CHAPTER 22
Weatherford
Other than a few quick trips back to the house for food or quick jaunts outside to heed the call of nature, Gage and Holly have been holed up in the tornado shelter behind the house for the past week. With Holly in her eighth month of pregnancy, Gage makes all the trips to the house, trying to limit Holly’s radiation exposure. The power to the house went out just before Armageddon arrived, and they’ve heard no news and have no idea how widespread the devastation is. For days on end, the skyline to the east has glowed red—a result of the pounding Tinker Air Force Base took. Gage counted at least eight earth-shaking explosions the day it all started.
With a persistent southerly breeze, the wildfires pushed to the north along with most of the radiation. Still, they aren’t in the clear. Not by a long shot. Those same breezes are pushing a toxic mix of smoke and ash up out of Texas and, with no tools to measure radiation, Gage can only assume the heavily clouded skies are laced with death.
On the first day, after Gage raced home from working on the wind turbine, he quickly went to work. The sight of missiles streaking through the sky forced him to work at a frenetic pace. Using four of the replacement AC filters for the house, Gage cobbled together a primitive filtration device, which he attached to the air intake vent in the cellar. After that, he scoured the barn for any items they might need, hitting the jackpot when he uncovered a pair of chemical masks that he’d used last spring while spraying for weeds. Next, he attached a garden hose to the little pump in the shallow well out by the vegetable garden and ran it over close to the shelter. Powered by a small windmill, the well is now their primary source for drinking water.
Although flush with a source of fresh water, food is becoming a major concern. Every year, Gage’s mother plants an enormous vegetable garden. By season’s end, she’s canned dozens of jars of various fruits and vegetables, which she distributes out to the extended family. Gage and Holly are down to two jars of canned tomatoes and one jar of plum jelly. A short trip outside to hunt small game is one option, but it’s not without risks. Along with Gage’s
risk of exposure, there’s concern the meat might now be tainted.
“Maybe I could run over to Mom and Dad’s to see if they have some extra food,” Gage says. The hiss of the old kerosene lantern Gage discovered in the barn fills the silence. With five gallons of kerosene in reserve, they try to run the lantern as much as possible to ward off the darkness.
Holly tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear. Although underground, the cellar feels like a hot box, a combination of the August heat, along with the superheated air blowing north from the distant wildfires. “They’re all the way on the other side of town. How you going to get there?”
“I bet the old hay truck still runs.”
Holly pokes on her protruding womb. “Fine. But, I’m going with.” Holly has the pale complexion of redheads the world over, with a splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks. At five-six, she had a curvaceous body with full hips and ample breasts. But that was eight months ago. Today, her ankles and feet are swollen and her once-svelte waistline has swelled to the size of a ripe watermelon.
“Too risky, babe.”
“Gage, I’m absolutely miserable. The heat, the pressure on my bladder, the kicking of my ribs . . . I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” She gently pushes on her belly, trying to get the baby to change positions. At the last ultrasound they relented and both agreed to find out the sex of the baby—a girl. “How long do we have to stay down here? Forever?”
“I think at least until the baby comes.”
Holly groans. “I’ll wear the mask.”
“You can also absorb radiation through the skin, Holly. Be best to wait.”
“Pull the truck up next to the cellar and I’ll climb in.”
Gage ponders her request for a few moments. “I just don’t know.”
“Please,” Holly pleads. “I’d like to check on my parents while we’re out.”
“We’d be risking even more exposure. The truck will help a little, but most of the floorboards are rusted out.”
“I’ll wear a poncho and wrap up in damp blankets. Think that’ll help?”
“I don’t know. Hell, what I know about radiation wouldn’t fill a thimble.” Gage rakes his hands through his dark hair. “It might work. Maybe for a short period of time.”
“Please, Gage? I’m going stir crazy down here.”
Gage sighs. “Okay, I’ll run to the house and get some ponchos and blankets, then head for the barn to get the truck. Do not open the door until I get back.”
Holly gives him a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
Gage slips on one of the respirators, pushes up out of the door, and runs toward the house. Once inside, he heads for the hall closet and grabs the rain ponchos and an armful of blankets. He glances out the window at the barn a hundred yards behind the house and slips on one of the ponchos and drapes a blanket over his shoulders. He sucks in a lungful of air, opens the door, and races toward the barn.
Before the event began in earnest, Gage had herded the cattle up closer to the barn to provide some protection. As he draws closer to the barn, a stench invades the respirator mask. Being winded and gasping for air only adds to his growing nausea, and the stench grows stronger the closer he gets to the barn. The odor is familiar to those growing up on a farm who have dealt with the loss of livestock—the odor of death. When he’s close enough to see the corral he finds the source. All of the cattle are dead and the carcasses are buzzing with flies. A bolt of fear nearly seizes his heart. The cattle appear to have been dead for several days, indicating the radiation exposure was more severe than Gage had originally thought.
CHAPTER 23
West Virginia
When NSA personnel were ordered to evacuate to the bunker beneath the building, Alyx Reed and Zane Miller, having insider knowledge of the scope of the attack, made a break for it. They piled into Zane’s ’67 Chevrolet Camaro and headed west. With the world exploding behind them, they made it as far as Morgantown, West Virginia, before the old car succumbed to Zane’s frantic driving. With the sky growing darker by the minute, they sought shelter in one of the campus buildings at West Virginia University. And they weren’t the only ones. The main building’s basement was crowded with college students and university employees. A raiding party was sent to the cafeteria and the food court and they returned with armloads of canned goods. The first day or two, Zane and Alyx said as little as possible and tried to blend in. But as time wore on and the food dwindled, resentment began to build. Alyx and Zane were singled out as interlopers and, fearing for their lives, slipped away before daybreak.
Before slinking away from campus, Alyx and Zane made two critical stops. At the ransacked hospital they scored big with two lead-lined smocks from the radiology department. And in the emergency room, they loaded up on surgical masks and gloves. In the doctors’ lounge they hit pay dirt again when they found two full boxes of protein bars in one of the doctor’s lockers. From there they backtracked across campus and entered the looted bookstore, where they stocked up on rain gear, stadium blankets, flashlights, and backpacks to carry it all in. Weary about pressing their luck, they lingered a few moments longer to gather all of the bottled water they could find.
But, that was nearly a week ago.
Today, battered and bruised, they’re limping southeast along Highway 81, trying their best to stay out of sight. Ash rains down from the sky and distant fires dot the horizon. The lead-lined smocks are heavy and hot, and combined with the backpacks and suited up with surgical gloves and masks, it feels like they’re walking around in a steel mill in the middle of July. With no way to measure how much radiation is present, they are playing it safe. It’s been two days since they had anything to eat and both are beset with gnawing hunger pains. They are down to six protein bars, and both agreed to hold them in reserve for as long as possible. Until the last few days, they relied on the kindness of homeowners along the route for food and water. No longer. They’ve had shotguns and pistols pointed at them, and were even threatened by a knife-wielding woman dressed in a tattered housecoat.
Zane glances ahead and sees a group of people approaching and nudges Alyx off the road and into the trees. As the other group nears, they see it’s two adults, a man and a woman, and two young girls who are plodding along behind them, zombielike. The parents are humping backpacks and the two girls are struggling to keep up. Their faces are covered with a rash of blisters, and Alyx and Zane quietly argue about approaching. They decide no, and let the group pass.
“They’ll be dead within the week,” Zane whispers.
“Wonder where they’re from?”
“Does it matter?”
Alyx scowls, then whispers, “Yeah, it does. Might tell us what’s ahead.”
Zane pulls the mask down and wipes the sweat from his face. “The same thing that’s behind us.” Once the group is out of sight, they return to the road. “Tell me again, where we’re going?” Zane asks.
“Weatherford, Oklahoma. That’s where my parents and sister live. I’ve told you all of this before. I’m beginning to wonder if the radiation has infiltrated that thick skull of yours.”
“Not radiation. Exhaustion. Why don’t we find a place to hole up for a while?”
Spotting another group approaching, Alyx grabs Zane by the arm and pulls him off the road. With no weapons at hand, they’ve played the walk-and-avoid game along the entire route and today they’re approaching the outskirts of Bristol, Tennessee. “We can’t stay here. We’re outsiders.”
“Everybody’s an outsider,” Zane whispers.
“The people wandering the roads, yes. But I can guarantee you there are clans of families up in these mountains. They’d never let us in.”
As this group draws closer, Alyx and Zane hunker down a little lower. There are five people in this group—three middle-aged men toting shotguns and two young women, midtwenties, who look as if they’ve been rode hard and put away wet. The women’s wrists are bound and they’re being pulled along by ropes tied to th
eir necks.
“Should we try to help them?” Zane whispers.
“With what? Are we going to choke out three armed men with a pair of shoelaces?”
The group halts and the man leading the pack turns in their direction. Zane and Alyx freeze, both hesitant to take a breath. After several heart-pounding moments, the leader whistles and the group trudges onward. Once they’ve disappeared from sight, Zane and Alyx breathe. “We need to find a weapon,” Zane says. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”
“Well, when we get to a Dick’s Sporting Goods, you can buy yourself a gun.”
“Funny,” Zane says. “Seriously, we should start searching some of the abandoned homes we come across.”
Alyx steps out of the tree line and moves up to the road, Zane following behind. She waits for him to draw abreast. “I’m all for finding a weapon, but how are we going to determine if a home is abandoned?”
“I think we’ll know it when we see it.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, you’ll have plenty of time to find one. By my calculations, we have weeks to go before we reach our destination. And that’s if all goes well, which is highly unlikely.”
CHAPTER 24
Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport
For a week, the group from West Texas has been holed up at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul Airport. And they’re not the only ones. The place is jammed with stranded travelers and flight crews who consider themselves fortunate to have survived. Many other travelers weren’t so fortunate, with a dozen crash sites visible through the terminal’s windows. Lauren Thomas heard their survival had something to do with their flight path and a lot of luck, but she and Melissa Walker aren’t feeling especially lucky today. More than a thousand miles from home, they’re responsible for seventeen teenagers and no one knows if any of their parents are still alive.