Fear Factors

by Peter Sacco

  His father stared at him then took a deep breath. “I only did what any father would have done for his son.”

  Before Dave could ask another question, his father embraced him. “And it will always be our own little secret.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Tormented

  I cannot believe it – the end has come! It really did come upon us like the proverbial thief in the night. The screaming voices. The gnashing of teeth – Fear! And in the end they were all gone…all of them! All but one. I remain, the lone human being on the face of this earth which we all once called home. I am!

  I once heard that no man is an island. Really? Then what the hell would you call me…a survivor? Perhaps I am the only man who will ever attain “island” status. Ironically, I will never have the opportunity to share this dubious experience with another living soul, at least on earth. If there is any consolation, then it is in the fact that I still have me. Wow! Not really much worth writing home about. And speaking of homes, there are none! With that said, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nathan Greene and let me share my story with you, that is in the perverse chance that someone out there actually reads this. Correction! Make that, in the chance that someone out there besides me actually survived!

  I am a forty-three years old self-made billionaire. Actually before all hell broke loose, I was listed as one of the top ten richest men in the world. No one really knows for sure who really or ever is the richest, as guys like myself like to under-report things, you know for income tax purposes. They always said there are two definite things in this world: death and taxes. I was always concerned more with taxes to be honest. I hated the government. At the end of the day, taxes have now gone the way of the dodo bird and…humans. The only thing that is final and true is death, well at least I think.

  Getting back to me, I was always very healthy and considered handsome with striking features. Many of those distinguishing features have become even more distinguished, that is in a destructive way. The once thick mop of jet-black that lived on the top of my scalp has fallen out like leaves being assaulted by brisk autumn winds. The once great civilization of pearly whites which nestled in my gums has fallen out in numbers, or the remaining teeth loosely sway in their sockets like hinges on a door. And my skin...well, let’s just refer to is as tapioca. The blisters are too many to count. As a matter of fact, the blisters outnumber the clear masses of healthy skin. The blisters have blisters! In this year of 2012, technology never was clever enough to develop a 1 million SPF sunscreen. And something tells me that would have only been effective for say...five minutes?

  My bones are past the point of aching. I can feel them crackling underneath my skin. Sudden movements produce, snap, crackle and pop! Oh, the sound makes me long for a bowl of rice puffs. My vertebrae sound like tumbling domino chips each time I stand. The lower part of my back requires extreme caution when I arise. Some days I worry that my spine is going to split in two.

  My vision is a thing of the past. Everything is so blurry with each passing day as my eyes grow weary. I don’t know if it is my eyesight diminishing or the fallout that has made everything appear so colorless and grey. There is no doubt that the specks that continually irritate my vision are not dust, rather the rapid formation of cataracts. I can feel my vision continue to falter with the cessation of each day, not that I can really tell when days begin and end. Twenty four hours no longer measures a day. There is no such thing as a day. The landscape and skies have blended together to form a charcoal gray canvas. The once colorful mosaic God created for humans to enjoy has turned drab. Is there such a thing as the color drab? There is a certain madness inside me which matches this color. Since that fateful day the madness inside me continues to fester like a violent infection. This is not to say a madness inside me didn’t already exist before that day. Even so, here I am now, alone and drowning in madness.

  It was exactly 10:24 a.m. when the first warheads struck Asia and the Middle East. As for who the culprit(s) were who launched the first strike it was unknown. It was a moot point as the world would disappear in a matter of hours. One of the last statements issued while electronic communication still existed was that by 11:12 a.m. the USA had already been struck with 12 warheads from hell. The momentary light show was a magnificent spectacle but very hard on the eyes. Almost as fast as the bright lights illuminated the skies, the after-effects of the smoke clouds soon billowed upward gradually suffocating the sun’s light.

  I live in Michigan, not too far from the Canadian border. Parts of New York State and Michigan had been hit with such forces that pieces of their land masses were blown across the Canadian border. The USA literally became a jig saw puzzle – less than the sum of its parts which comprised a once great nation. It wasn’t just the USA. It was the entire world – Mother Earth! Cataclysmic would be the word a Webster’s Dictionary would use to define the event. The question though, was there even a dictionary in existence anymore? I know that I did possess one book which remained intact – the Bible. I had stored it in the chestnut stained oak cabinet next to the pantry in my bomb shelter. If and when any event of this magnitude should ever occur, I wanted to be prepared, the Bible and a few bottles of the finest Scotch.

  A Flashback: Pre-Apocalypse

  Three years ago I began work on the most extensively sound underground habitat. My colleagues and friends affectionately referred to me as a modern day Noah – I built my ark below the ground. I was accused of being paranoid as well as deathly afraid of war. That was the truth! I feared a nuclear holocaust would occur in my generation. Signs around the planet were matching up with the multitude of warnings discussed in the Bible. For the last five years, Revelations was unfolding before our very eyes like watching a 3-D movie. Everything that was written off as fable, myth and speculation at best in the Big Book all came to fruition!

  It cost me 13 million dollars to build my habitat. It was built one hundred feet below ground one hundred yards from the shoreline of Lake Erie. Needing access to water and having 300 acres of land made this hybrid bunker possible.

  An encased steel stairwell was built starting just below my wine cellar leading to a landing pad which had a second hatch, sealed tightly enough to keep out harmful chemicals, nuclear follow-out and...people looking to scrounge.

  The overall size of the shelter was 900 square feet. I had a traditional power supply running into the shelter as well as 50 back-up generators which were estimated to possess at least six to seven months of power. Of course I made sure the place was loaded to the max! Furniture, pool table, large screen TV etc were just some of the perks I provided for myself along with a rather large stainless steel kitchen. For a bomb shelter, the place was more luxurious than most middle class homes.

  The only real set-back was the questionable oxygen supply. No one knew for sure how much pure and clean oxygen the generators would be capable of producing. Since the generators were largely contingent on the quality of the water in the lake, no one could predict what effects a nuclear attack would have on the water...and my oxygen. With that said, I would eventually have to venture upward to see what was...left! Radiation meters and temperature sensors would inform me when it was relatively safe to poke my head out like a ground hog checking for the first signs of spring.

  On that fateful day, I was in a telephone meeting when my line was cut into. It was Henry Tibbs, my personal advisor. Tibbs informed me that Washington had been trying to get a hold of me. The president of the USA had something earth-shattering to tell me! “Earth-shattering?” was my response. You bet your life and the lives of billions it was earth-shattering!

  The president and I went a long ways back. Both of us attended M.I.T. at the same time and struck up a close friendship. We dated many of the same women partied at the same frat houses. As a matter of fact, the woman he eventually married who would become the First Lady of the USA was the last woman I dated at M.I.T.


  After finishing M.I.T. I went on to start my own software company. Within five years, I was reeling in success I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. Five years after that I was a regular in Forbes magazine. The future President of the USA served as my CEO before chasing after his dreams of politics, first Governor of Michigan, then Senator and eventually Commander in Chief. I financed his entire campaign. It was the least I could do when he asked me to be his running mate for Vice President, but I turned him down. I thought he was kidding with me but was entirely serious. The best I could do for him was support him, mostly financially.

  Our friendship and my continued financial support allowed me a 24 hour private line to his office in Washington. Whenever I could escape my own business, which I was addicted to, you could find me frolicking on the White House property tossing a football around the President.

  As for myself, I never married. I did come close! I chose perennial bachelorhood following the fiasco that occurred with a lover I had many years ago. She was nothing more than a gold-digger who was doing every Tom, Dick and Harry whenever I was out of town on business. Even though she was residing in my estate, at the suggestion of my lawyer I had her sign papers prior to her official moving in. I did love the woman and did want to marry her, but something kept not feeling right. I guess instinct ruled the day and I wasn’t too surprised finding her in the sack with another gent after I hired a P.I. to follow her for a couple of months. Seems she was a busy girl – getting bust with a lot of men besides me. Needless to say, I never cried any bitter tears for her nor cared. Once she was packed up and outta my life, it felt so invigorating. There was only thing the dame was correct about. She often accused me of being in love with my company. I was. Losing my parents early in life and having no siblings, only an aunt who raised me, you love what you got. All I had was my business and myself. Since my aunt’s passing several years ago, I believed I would only be true and loyal to what I created in my own world. Being independent saved me a world of disappointed. Other than the President of the USA and a handful of close acquaintances, I trusted no one! I trusted what he was saying when the call came through.

  I knew he was not joking when he mentioned we were about to get hit with the warhead. He never joked about things like that. His voice was very grim and solemn. He told me to go to my cubby-hole as soon and possible. He would call me in the next two hours or less. He did call as promised. We spoke...the last promise he would keep and the last words he would utter. His own bunker was annihilated in mid-conversation. Wesley Henderson ceased to be the President of the USA. He was no longer my friend – he ceased existing!

  I would have taken my housekeeper with me but she was out getting groceries. I thought about her for a moment as I ran for my Bible. I didn’t plan on reading it, just holding it. It was the only thing I could think of holding, the word of God! I had always considered myself a believer, but more of an armchair believer. I never attended weekly services nor belonged to any formal religious organizations, but I did believe. As I could feel the earth quaking and erupting, everything shaking above me, oh I became a true practicing believer right then and there 100 feet below the ground. How loyal to my Creator was I? I heard screams and pounding above me as I descended the stairs. Once below the bunker I looked at the monitors at people trying to get inside and be saved. I could have opened the door and perhaps saved them. There were just too many of them. They could cost me my own life. I couldn’t risk radiation getting inside. They would have to find their own cover.

  I looked at the monitors and studied familiar faces I knew from restaurants, meetings and other organizations. Some I called friend. In this moment it was everyone for himself! I saw their faces on the screen...the kids. I wanted to do something but it might cost me! I couldn’t go back up there and save them. Perhaps they should go find cover...now! I couldn’t look at them any longer. It made me sad, it made me angry. It made me hate them for the feelings of hatred for myself that stirred inside me. I shut off the monitors. Out of site out of mind!

  The force of the continued impact was overwhelming. Nothing compared to it. I have been through California earthquakes and one massive one in Japan, but this intense bombardment of bombs dwarfed those quakes. My body shook as if I was in a blender being grated. I was thrown to different ends of the room several times. The TV I had on did its best to broadcast what was happening above between increasing static, momentary black screens and occasional white screens. Buildings and landmarks disappeared one by one like soap suds. The White House looked like cake mix squeezed out of a box. Washington was obliterated shortly thereafter. I witnessed cities in Canada and Europe burn like houses of cards. And there was Australia...perhaps it was the last satellite shot ever taken of earth, showing the slow descent of parts of the continent into the Pacific. It was all on fire. The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire! was all that played through my head shortly before striking my head against a table as I was thrown to one side of the room. The world and everything in it, above it and below it, at least less than 100 feet, was on fire. I would awake what was probably hours later to...nothingness!

  Day One: The Post Apocalypse

  What am I in this state of nothingness? How could I have let those people die? That was the first and only racing thought that festered in my mind. How could I have been so...cruel? The whole world had just been wiped out...the whole damn world was gone! All I could think about was the people I let die on the doorstep 100 feet above me. They were nothing more than ashes now blowing around with the rest of the fall out. What if I saved just one? I would have someone to talk to, to commensurate my guilt with. They knocked, but I did not answer. If I knock, will my God still answer for me? I created this place to survive. Yet at the same time I am a murderer! It haunts my deteriorating bones as a day doesn’t go by that their screams do not rattle my foundation or screech in my ears like sharp nails on a freshly cleaned chalkboard. The best part is, I couldn’t hear their screams yet they are too real!

  How long will this mental anguished feed on me? I don’t know what is worse, the black cloud that haunts my soul or the black clouds that curtain the once blue skies. Oh, how I long to see one lazy white cloud floating in the closest of heavens. Just one!

  Week Eight: Just A Peek

  The radiation detectors read that the radiation levels had lowered significantly. That was three days before they finally went out...for good. I needed to take a peek for myself. Finally, I got enough nerve to ascend the stairwell after opening the first hatch. Upon opening it, I could instantly feel the difference. The air was...dead! As I ascended the stairs, my breathing grew more difficult. Taking in fresh air was a major chore; first there was no fresh air and second, my lungs were already diminishing in their capacity to function.

  When I popped the top hatch open I saw what I expected to see, you know the stuff they used to show in this big time Hollywood post-apocalyptic movies. It was all angry, gray, thick ash that blanketed not only the landscape, but also the lake and the skies. I took in one breath, just one and that was more than enough to start the downward metamorphic spiral of my physical being. Not that it had already started to move there one hundred feet below the ground.

  With each passing day from that moment forward I could feel my physical body disintegrating. Even though the pain is immense, the psychological torment is one hundred times worse. I die a hundred deaths each day as a morbid tribute to the folks who died above my bunker. God! I wish I could take it all back – saving them that is!

  The gold chain around my neck feels like it weighs a ton. I want to take it off and relieve myself of its burden, but it is the only thing I feel that connects me to my Creator. Does God still love me after I let his people die? Feed my people...I hear that over and over in my head. For I am anything but a shepherd, rather a butcher who let the lambs wait in line just before their helpless slaughter. For the time being I will wear the chain. I need to feel grou
nded.

  Week Sixteen: A Longer Peek

  The torment of being alone below the ground is just too much. I am living in hell. When I go above I see another kind of hell. Hell is all around me.

  I decided to walk around my property today, trying to go to a place in my mind where there were once upon a time colors, other than gray and black. Knowing the actual time because of my watch, I can discern when it is truly evening versus ash-filled daylight. Mind you, the daylight tries its very best to creep through the atmosphere of ash layers which ascend to the heavens above.

  Walking around is difficult...very! It was a struggle making it up the stairwell. I lost one tooth on the way up and when I brushed my sweaty brow back with the palm of my hand, one of the larger clumps of hair I have lost rested in my hand like a bird’s nest.

  The atmosphere was deathly silent. No breeze, no sound. The sound of my own coughing startled me, while at the same time was reassuring to me of humanity – me the lone survivor.

  As I walked to where my office once was, I noticed a large object which appeared to still be intact. It looked like my desk. There was something resting atop it. Was I hallucinating? I rubbed my eyes and what little vision I had left became just a little more clear. Red, white and blue...the U.S. flag. The flag had survived the fire, but how? How was that possible? As I drew closer, the flag appeared to flap in the breeze. There was no mistaking the crisp sound of its fluttering. Impossible! How could that be when there was no wind, let alone a tiny breeze? It was then that I saw him...It!