Nuclear Winter Armageddon

by Bobby Akart

  Before he left, Peter took the time to bury the dead man. There was a mound of topsoil behind the mechanic’s shed. The man’s grave was shallow, but he was covered with both a tarp and the topsoil. Peter located a small cart trail sign and used it as a grave marker. He found a can of white spray paint to cover over the green and gold stenciling.

  Lastly, using a black Sharpie he found in the shed, he simply wrote R.I.P. It was the least he could do for yet another victim of the nuclear war. Little did he know, it would not be the last one he’d come upon that day.

  Peter locked the clubhouse as he left and started his day as an experienced long-distance cyclist. By his calculations, he’d traveled sixty miles that first day. If he didn’t pick up the pace, it would take him three weeks to get to Driftwood Key. After the muscle soreness wore off, he did just that.

  He rode steadily through small unincorporated communities like Locust Grove, Mine Run, and Belmont. It was a mostly pleasant ride through the vast farmland of Central Virginia. He rarely encountered a stalled vehicle, and it was only occasionally that he noticed people on horseback riding across their farms.

  The number of living refugees walking along the road were few. The number of dead who’d been rolled onto the gravel shoulder or into a nearby ditch were far greater. Their lifeless eyes stared toward the sky. Their mouths were agape, as if their last breath had been a plea for mercy.

  As for the living, they were close to joining the dead. Their eyes were sullen, filled with sadness and despair. Their faces were gaunt, and their bodies had withered to the bone from lack of nutrition.

  Peter fought the sense of decency within him to stop. Everything he’d been taught growing up and learned as a young man compelled him to do something. But he couldn’t. There were too many in need for one man on a bicycle. He barely had enough supplies for himself to make it a few days. Soon, he’d have to forage again.

  Plus, there was the inherent danger of being ambushed. This happened to him after he’d been riding for several hours that morning. He’d studied the map of Eastern Virginia as he rode, to confirm his anticipated route. As he made several turns on one county road to another, he realized Lake Anna was coming up ahead of him.

  Peter knew nothing about traversing a dystopian landscape other than what he’d watched on The Walking Dead or imagined on his own when he was a teen. One of the things that concerned him the most was crossing a bridge, especially if it was over water. This had always been the case for Peter, as he routinely drove up and down U.S. 1 in the Florida Keys. The Seven Mile Bridge, not far from Driftwood Key, was an example he often gave when expressing his safety concerns.

  Bridges leave no place to bail out to, he’d explained. If you suddenly approach an accident on most roads, you could drive off into a ditch and run into the woods or a field to avoid trouble. What do you do on a bridge? Jump in the water fifty or sixty feet to your possible death?

  All of these things were going through his head as he rode up to the Belmont Road bridge over Lake Anna. There were several men walking south toward the other side on the two-lane county road. As was typical for back roads, there was no shoulder, and the concrete barriers seemed to squeeze any traffic toward the middle.

  The wind was blowing that morning from the north, causing temperatures to drop lower than the day before. The men were hunched over with camouflage hunting jackets wrapped around them. From that distance, Peter couldn’t make out any weapons, but as a precaution, he retrieved his pistol and gripped it with his right hand as he approached them.

  Peter hoped the windy conditions would mask the near-quiet sound of his pedaling. His bike made very little noise as it rolled along the concrete pavement. Unlike many bicycles that produced a slight clicking sound when the rider coasted, this Schwinn model did not.

  As he got closer, he saw that one of the men was carrying a rifle in his right hand. Then suddenly one of the men turned toward Peter just as he approached the trio. He, too, had a rifle and was beginning to raise it in Peter’s direction.

  Peter drew faster. “Don’t move! I mean it! Do not raise that rifle!”

  His demands caused the other men to turn. One of the men raised his rifle toward Peter anyway. He had no choice.

  As he continued to speed up on them, Peter opened fire. His first shot struck the man who threatened him directly in the chest. The second missed badly. However, the man spun like a top and fell to the pavement in a heap.

  Peter kept pedaling, charging toward them as if he were on a horse. The second man hastily raised his rifle and began firing as he did. The AR-15 sent bullets skipping along the concrete just past Peter’s bicycle.

  Peter fired back three times. The first two missed, but the third struck the man in the right arm, causing him to lose his grip on the rifle. He screamed in pain as he dropped to his knees and used his left arm to halt the blood from gushing out of the brachial artery in his upper arm.

  The third man, an older teen, actually reached down to pick up the first man’s hunting rifle. Peter was on top of them at that point. He skidded to a stop and quickly dismounted from the bike. He walked toward the teen with the gun pointed at his head.

  “Don’t do it!” Peter growled.

  The boy’s eyes were wide with fear. He hesitated, and then he continued to reach for the rifle.

  “Don’t, dammit! I will kill you!” Peter’s voice was menacing and convincing. The teen raised his hands sheepishly and backed away from the dead man.

  Meanwhile, the wounded shooter reached toward his AR-15. This caught Peter off guard, and he spontaneously reacted by shooting the man in his left arm. The man rolled over and over away from Peter, writhing in pain and crying out, imploring Peter to stop.

  Peter swung around to determine if anyone else was coming toward him after the gunfire filled the otherwise quiet morning. There was no one, so he turned back toward the group. He waved his gun toward the young man, who’d apparently peed his pants. He was leaning against the guardrail, nervously looking back over his shoulder as if he was contemplating jumping.

  “Don’t jump, kid. I’m not gonna shoot you,” said Peter before explaining his intentions. “None of this would’ve happened if he hadn’t raised his gun toward me.” He nodded toward the dead man.

  “People on bikes shot his sister two days ago. She died last night.” The teenager began to cry.

  “I’m sorry about that. He shouldn’t have—”

  “Arrrggghhh! Help me!” The wounded man was bleeding profusely.

  Peter turned around to check his back and then looked forward down the road. There were a few small houses around, but there were no signs of movement despite the exchange of gunfire. He was about to order the teenager to help his friend when he heard a splash. Peter swung around, and the boy was gone. He’d jumped over the rail into the icy water of Lake Anna.

  “Shit!” he exclaimed. He set his jaw and shook his head in disbelief. He turned to the wounded man and shouted his questions. “Do you have any more weapons?”

  “No. No. He’s got a Glock in his coat pocket. I don’t have anything, I swear.”

  Peter moved slowly toward the dead man with a watchful eye and the barrel of his pistol on the wounded man. He felt around in the man’s coat pockets and retrieved the Glock nine-millimeter pistol together with a box of ammunition. He set them next to his bike, and then he turned his attention to the other weapons. He gathered up the two rifles and brought them back to his bicycle as well.

  “Do you have ammo?” he asked the bleeding man.

  His left arm was less wounded than his right. He winced as he patted the side of his jacket and began to pull the ammunition out.

  “Slowly!” shouted Peter. He carefully watched the man’s movements and was relieved as he pulled out two magazines filled with ammunition from his jacket. He slowly set them on the pavement next to his dead friend.

  Peter rushed forward and grabbed them. Then he knelt next to the man and talked in a low voice. “I’m
gonna give you some bandages, but you’re on your own. I’m not a doctor, and I’m not gonna let you or anyone else get the jump on me.”

  “You gotta help me,” he pleaded.

  “No, I don’t. You guys should have never raised your guns toward me.”

  Peter stood and marched back to the bicycle. His first aid supplies were in the lightweight backpack slung over his shoulders. He pulled out a small bottle of spring water, a roll of gauze, and a tube of Neosporin triple antibiotic ointment. The gunshot wound was far more serious than the lacerations Peter had experienced around Driftwood Key, but the principles of wound care were the same.

  “Flush the wound with this water. Pack the bullet holes with the gauze and apply the Neosporin. Then keep pressure on them until you can get some help.”

  “But—” The man began to beg for Peter’s help, but it wasn’t forthcoming.

  “Good luck,” Peter responded in a cold, callous way. The good-hearted member of the Albright family was becoming desensitized to gun battles and killing.

  And this was just the beginning.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Wednesday, October 30

  Interstate 70 near the Utah-Colorado State Line

  Just like any road trip, eventually the travelers run out of things to talk about. Especially when the road they’re taking provides nothing of interest except endless rocky surroundings and the occasional stalled car. By the time Owen pulled onto Interstate 70 and crossed over into Colorado, the weather had cleared somewhat although the wind continued to gust, forcing the top-heavy Bronco into an occasional unintentional swerve.

  For the first part of the day, the McDowells talked about how gracious the bishop and his wife had been. They’d allowed the trio to eat the remaining stew Anna had made in the Crock-Pot using the church’s solar panels for energy.

  Bishop Gates had explained the difficulty he’d had keeping the solar batteries at full charge. He’d had the presence of mind to purchase backup solar charge controllers when he installed his array. Along with other electronics he used frequently, Bishop Gates stored extra parts in galvanized trash cans to protect them from solar flares or nuclear-generated EMPs. For a brief time, his array had been disabled until he’d swapped out the damaged parts.

  A problem he hadn’t anticipated was the haze resulting from nuclear winter that had covered North America. It prevented the sun from doing its job. They’d learned to be more judicious with their energy usage by cooking a little at a time throughout the day to allow the batteries the opportunity to recharge.

  Owen’s concerns about traveling on the interstate were valid, but the two hundred miles through the mostly uninhabited stretch of mountains toward Grand Junction produced nothing in the way of human encounters. Live ones, anyway.

  There were several decomposing bodies seen off the side of the road. The wind had pushed away the previous day’s snow accumulation, exposing the corpses. At first, the family was sickened by the bodies. Then they began to accept what had happened as part of the world they were in. If anything, seeing the dead strengthened their resolve to survive by whatever means necessary.

  Suddenly, the rocky, gray earth that had been the norm in Utah gave way to a variety of shrubs and brush. A sign on the side of the road made of stone pillars and carved wood read Welcome to Colorful Colorado. It marked the state line between Utah and Colorado and was intended to point out how the barren surroundings began to show signs of life with plant material.

  Tucker, however, pointed out the obvious contradiction between the sign’s intended meaning and reality. “Everything is dying.”

  The sagebrush, juniper, and kinnikinnick that were native to the Colorado mountains were drooping and turning brown. There was sufficient snow on the ground to provide the plants moisture. The problem was the lack of sunlight. Even the prairie grasses were laid over on their sides, dying from their inability to trap light energy as part of the photosynthesis process.

  “This is what Peter warned me about on the phone that day,” began Lacey. “Dad told me the same thing. I guess he befriended a woman who was the secretary of agriculture.”

  “Wait. When did that happen?” asked Owen.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention her to you. It was when the whole false-alarm thing happened. Anyway, the fires creating all of this soot are going to kill plants and crops soon.”

  “It’s already happening,” pointed out Tucker.

  Owen turned on the windshield wipers as the snow began to fall again. The small flakes didn’t warrant the wipers, but the ashy substance mixed in immediately smeared the windshield with black streaks.

  They were approaching Grand Junction, and Lacey once again focused on her map duties while the guys got out and filled the Bronco’s gas tank. With this fill-up, they’d be down to three of the six-gallon gas cans, enough to take them another four hundred miles.

  “I found us a way around Grand Junction. We’ve had pretty good luck so far, but this is the biggest city we’ve come to. You know what they say, luck always seems to run out for the guy who depends on it.”

  “How far out of the way does the other route take us?” asked Owen as he settled into his seat and buckled the seatbelt around his waist. Tucker finished securing the empty fuel cans and settled into the back seat.

  Lacey laughed. “On paper, it should be a shortcut. But the road obviously winds its way along the top of a ridge. There’ll be plenty of bends in the road, but it’s probably deserted.”

  Owen turned over the motor of the ’67 Bronco and smiled as it fired up. He’d never intended it to be used on long road trips, and he was thrilled with its reliability. When they’d purchased it, Hayward to Lake Tahoe would’ve been the extent of Black & Blue’s travels, and they’d never actually done that, opting instead for the far more comfortable and modern Expedition. It was the same modern truck that was now a ruined hunk of scrap metal and worthless parts back in California.

  By the time they took the curvaceous county road around Grand Junction, they’d emerged on the other side, and U.S. 50 was no longer joined at the hip with the interstate. They were on the final stretch of mountainous highway and looked forward with anticipation to more hospitable weather.

  The winds had picked up once again, and the skies were filled with the sooty snow. By the time they reached Gunnison, the gateway to the ski resort area at Crested Butte, the highway had iced over in spots, and driving had become more treacherous than what they’d experienced thus far.

  They all agreed, however, to soldier through the adverse conditions. The remote area of Colorado offered them nothing in terms of places to sleep or find gasoline to refill their spent containers. With an exchange of fist bumps, the family made a pact to cross the Continental Divide so that they’d be downhill to Florida, as Tucker put it.

  They wound their way up the mountains toward massive Mount Aetna, the nearly fourteen-thousand-foot peak just west of the Divide. They reached a trailhead and found a place to pull over next to the sign marking the geological boundary separating the Western U.S. from the East. Tucker filled the gas tank again while Lacey retrieved the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on homemade bread provided by Anna. Thanks to the bishop and his wife, they had food to last several days in addition to their own packaged meals.

  The group was in high spirits near the high point of the Rockies. It was too soon in their journey to calculate miles and days until they arrived in the Florida Keys, where the group was sure sunshine and warm temperatures were still the norm. They would be content with the flatlands of the prairie for starters.

  Chapter Forty

  Wednesday, October 30

  U.S. Route 50

  East of Pueblo, Colorado

  “Wow! Wide-open spaces, right?” said Tucker jubilantly as the highway emerged from the never-ending mountains and canyons they’d been driving through since they left Utah. They’d easily managed to drive through the small towns of Cañon City and Penrose without incident. It was in Penr
ose that they observed an operating vehicle for the first time. It was an old International Harvester tractor.

  They were now facing a drive through the sizable city of Pueblo, Colorado. As they approached, one glance to their left distracted them from the trip across the outskirts of town. It was a massive blaze that could be seen to their north.

  The mountains to the west of Colorado Springs were engulfed with flames. Black and gray smoke mixed with fire shot upward for as far they could see toward Denver. The air in the valley became so dense with smoke that it permeated the inside of the Bronco through the air intakes that drew heat from the engine block.

  “Cover your faces, everyone,” ordered Owen as he pulled his sweatshirt over his nose and mouth.

  “It’s causing my eyes to water,” said Lacey.

  “Mine too,” added Owen. “I’ll pick up speed and try to drive out of this. It doesn’t look as dark up ahead.” He gestured through the windshield with both of his index fingers.

  “What if I turn off the heater, and we stuff something in these vents?” asked Lacey.

  “Can’t hurt,” responded Owen. “From the looks of that fire, it should be a lot warmer outside.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Tucker. “Those flames seem like they’re reaching a mile into the sky.”

  While Lacey worked diligently to close off any air vents, Owen gripped the wheel and sped up, dodging disabled vehicles on the highway. As expected, there were more obstacles in the larger town but still very few signs of people. They might have caught a break in that regard, but the focus drawn by the stalled cars was a distraction for Owen, who’d been diligent about monitoring the older truck’s instrument panel.

  They weren’t due to refuel for another hundred miles, and his speed was dictated by the number of cars blocking the road. As they all focused their efforts on avoiding breathing the contaminated air, he didn’t notice the temperature gauge that was part of the round speedometer located at the center of the dash. It was steadily rising as the smoke from the wildfires began to clog the truck engine’s air filters with contaminants. In essence, the Bronco couldn’t breathe, and it was beginning to overheat.