25 Bombs Fell: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Series, 25BF Season 1

by A. K. Meek

  Could they fathom anything in the world above?

  Two hours later, and Juan had finished helping with the gear and now faced his mother.

  She spoke more with her hands than she did with her mouth, and her mouth moved at a frantic pace. Nate didn’t know Spanish, but he didn’t need to. She spoke to Juan in a universal language: Mother language. No one had spoken that way to Nate since he was ten; that was when his mother passed.

  “Listen, Juan,” Nate whispered to him as his mother caught her breath, “if you can’t come that’s okay.”

  “No, I want to.” He turned back to his mother and spoke in tones as excited as hers, but in a broken Spanish, with every few words in English.

  His part…duty…commitment…

  Juan was laying it on thick.

  Finally, Melanie put up her hand, the conversation obviously over. She stormed away, shaking her head, muttering to herself.

  “Everything okay?” Nate said.

  “Yeah, I’m ready, let’s go,” Juan said, his head down. He looked embarrassed to have his mother chide him in a roomful of people.

  Will had decided for all those tagged as able to fire to receive weapon training in his office. He thought some of the twenty-five might still be put off by the rifles. Arguments had already started about whether they should even arm themselves.

  Brandon and Tala, a sporty college freshman, two of the last soldiers-in-training, already sat in Will’s office. Colton leaned against a wall, a 9mm strapped to his leg, an uncomfortable look on his face. He squirmed in place.

  Of everyone in the shelter, Colton had the most experience with shooting. In his interview he stated that he had handled rifles from an early age. A typical rural, southern childhood. He figured that even without the aid of the M-16 training manuals in the armory, Colton could have figured out how to field strip the rifle to each individual component.

  But the class bored Nate. After sitting through the two-hour training, he still couldn’t appreciate the rifle without firing it. Even so, Nate had little interest in firing the gun.

  Juan sat next to the other two trainees in the office, then Nate left. Colton followed him out. “Hold on guys, I gotta make a pit stop.” He rushed toward the bathroom, one of the most popular places in the shelter.

  MREs were devastating to the colon.

  Charles stood outside the office door chewing on a hard biscuit. He nodded toward the office. “Another M-16 class?”

  Nate glanced back, following Charles’ stare. “The last one, thankfully. I wasn’t sure if Juan was gonna make it. His mom wanted to kill him.”

  “I can imagine,” Charles said. “The possibility of shooting someone. It’s not something a parent wants for their child.”

  Nate nodded. He didn’t want that for himself, for anyone. “Colton had a good idea. I have to use the bathroom,” he said.

  Charles smiled and finished swallowing his biscuit.

  He didn’t know the ratio of toilets to expected occupancy, but Nate believed the engineers who designed Fallout Shelter 1710 were off. Way off. Nineteen males, including himself, needed to have more than five stalls and eight urinals. In the short time they had been trapped underground, four toilets had already clogged to overflowing and three urinals no longer flushed.

  His head throbbed with disapproval as he reached the limit of holding his breath while in the bathroom.

  Maybe no one else considered what would happen when the final toilet stopped working. He thought of the horror stories of the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina.

  Luckily the six females in the shelter were forgiving of the male appropriation of bathrooms.

  Nate finished and went back toward the office, passing Colton, who had decided to stop for a quick snack.

  He reached the partially open office door and paused when he heard Charles’ excited voice coming from inside. He peeked around the corner so he could hear above the clamor of the rest of the Ark.

  Juan leaned on the office table, elbows planted on top, an M-16 in firing position. He faced the rough outline that Colton had drawn on paper and hung on the wall, a makeshift target. Charles stood next to him, grasping the barrel. The other two trainees watched the exchange with a curious intensity.

  “No, slide your head forward on the stock.” Charles pushed Juan’s head along the stock. “There. Press your cheek into it. Line up the sights. Don’t stop breathing. Control it but don’t stop.”

  “But Martin said to hold my breath before squeezing the trigger.” Juan lifted his head but Charles pushed it back down.

  “He doesn’t know. Don’t listen to that. Steady breaths and watch your barrel tip, your forward sight. Feel the rifle movement.” Charles stepped back from the boy clutching the rifle. “See how it forms a figure 8 as you breathe? Let the barrel move with each breath. Don’t fight it. When your sight falls onto your target, pause your breath and pull the trigger. Don’t squeeze, pull.”

  The empty rifle clicked as Juan pulled the trigger. Nate opened the door fully, causing Charles to jump.

  “Wow, Charles. How do you know this? I thought you didn’t know anything about rifles.”

  “What’re you doing? Spying on me?” Charles’ black face flushed red.

  “But—”

  “Get out of my way. I don’t answer to you.” Charles pushed Nate out of the way and stormed from the office.

  The three teenagers in the room looked at each other, then at Nate.

  “He wanted to give me tips,” Juan said, shrugging. “He said I wouldn’t hit anything with the way I held the rifle.”

  Nate stared out the door. Charles went to the bathroom and disappeared from sight. “It’s not you, I did it. He’s mad at me, for some reason.”

  Two days after the generator flew apart, the twenty-five were ready to leave. Colton and Juan had volunteered to check the surrounding area before the rest would leave the shelter. A crow and a dove sent from the Ark looking for dry land.

  Nate shifted the oversized Kevlar helmet on his head as he struggled, dragging a duffel bag full of gas masks from the supply room close to the shelter entrance where the two were checking over their rifles. “Hold on, guys. You forgot these. We don’t know if we were chemically attacked.”

  Colton grabbed one of the canvas bags and pulled the plastic-strap mask and metal canister out. “I’m not the smartest one here, but I’m not sure this is going to work.”

  Nate gave a quick glance from the corner of his eye to Charles, who seemed to know a little about everything, including weapons, but he had turned away, acting like he was inspecting a wall.

  “What do you mean?” Juan said, holding the mask he had picked up away from his body. Will grabbed one also and inspected it.

  “I think I know what you mean,” Will said, rubbing his beard. “For these to work, they need to form a seal on your face. I remember my father talking about some of the chemical scares in the war. Our beards. This won’t work.”

  “But what do we do?” a lady in the forming crowd, Meredith, from the sound of her voice, said. “Can we wear them, just not the men?”

  Nate picked up one of the masks and tried to fit it over his face, but wasn’t sure how to wear it correctly.

  Colton threw the mask back onto the pile of others. “Gas mask or no gas mask, there’s no turning back now.” He grabbed the handle to the door that had kept the twenty-five safe inside Fallout Shelter 1710, and released the locking mechanism that had kept the unsafe world out.

  “If we’re gonna do this, then let’s rock and roll.”

  02.01

  GOODBYE BLUE SKY

  “Colton’s right,” Will said, scanning the frightened, tired twenty-four that had been waiting for weeks to see what had happened to the world outside. “If one of us is going to do this, then we’re all doing it. We’re all in this together.” He tightened the chin strap on his helmet and checked the belt holster that held a 9mm. “Prepare to leave.”

  Colton grabbed hold of the
shelter door’s locking mechanism and fought with it for a minute, until it slid and disengaged with a rough click. Soldiers, those that Nate had identified as able to carry a rifle, stood at the ready with their M-16s trained at the exit door, waiting to shoot whatever came through, if anything at all. He spun the steel wheel and pushed to open the door, but it didn’t budge. He squared his shoulder against it, straining until he gave a loud grunt, but it held. Seeing Colton’s futile struggle, Will moved to the steps and braced himself, and then pushed. After a minute’s more grunting and swearing, the two stopped.

  “Something’s blocking it,” Colton said between heavy breaths, wiping his forehead.

  “So much for our grand exit.” A man in the waiting crowd chuckled at Odd-Eyed Enoch’s observation. The old man focused on the negative in situations, even more than Nate.

  Rifles were lowered and the crowd that had waited to exit dispersed in the shelter, finding a cool patch of wall to lean against or sitting at the picnic tables. Nate elected to sit against the wall and the cold cinder blocks. After the generator blew, the shelter felt like it got hotter with each passing hour.

  Others stood around and muttered about the door, about Colton, and about Will. Nate had also wanted to complain, but for now he would settle for cooling off.

  Several men went back to the door and started wedging metal bars and poles between the door and its frame. The flak jacket that Nate had put on an hour ago already weighed heavily on his thin, neglected body and dug into his equally thin neck every chance it got. He figured he wouldn’t be much help with opening the door, so he just sat and watched them struggle.

  The olive drab chemical overpants, the chempants, that he wore sagged on his hips, a little lower with each movement. They were the closest to his size that didn’t have any holes. They were also more durable than the dress slacks that he wore underneath, but just barely. But now he wished he was wearing a pair of shorts. Watching them work on the door made him feel like he was working alongside them. Plus, the flak jacket blocked most of the cold from the wall, but he didn’t want the hassle of taking it off.

  Everyone else was dressed similarly to him. Mismatched clothing of olive drab military surplus and button-up shirts, frilly blouses, and baggy camouflage pants; a real rag-tag bunch of survivalists. Backpacks had been crammed with food and canteens. Those were for the designated mules to carry. He had designated himself as one, although now he wished he would’ve come up with some other position, something less strenuous, just for himself.

  Soldiers stood silent around the shelter door, staring upward with their rifles gripped tightly, fear clearly on their faces. Always the fear. Every time he had looked in the mirror he saw it, the same look he saw on the rest. They were all scared, not knowing what had happened above, but curious just the same. Now that they were on the edge of finding out, the terror that was always present, in every thought, behind every forced laugh, was as real as the heavy backpack that pulled on his shoulders.

  Finally, forty-five long minutes later, the shelter door protested with creaks and groans as Will, Martin, Bruce, and Ed pushed it partly open. Dust and chunks of brick poured through the opening, raining down onto the men. And through the dust, light flooded the stairs, but not bright sunlight. Still, Nate squinted at the intensity.

  A breeze rushed through the opening, as if the tomb of sweat and fear that they had lived in for the past weeks had been cracked, allowing the outer world to overtake the prison. The smell reminded Nate of a forest fire.

  The glimpse of outside stirred the group so that they came running to the shelter door, gathering around to see. One of the soldiers, Tala, the only female that showed an interest—and a knack—for shooting, positioned herself between the group and the stairs, using her M-16 as a barrier to block the rest. “Move back, we don’t know what’s out there.”

  Nate almost laughed as he watched the college girl, a preppy college girl that had been crying just a day ago for her mom and dad, suddenly attempt to take charge. When he had interviewed her, she bit her nails and always appeared to be on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. At the time he had wondered if she could even shoot someone if it came down to life and death. Of course, he wondered the same about himself, but with her it was different, somehow. He wasn’t sure, but it just was.

  Juan, the young Hispanic that wanted so much to contribute, worked his way through the crowd so that he was next to Tala. He smiled at her, like making some show of solidarity, and then mimicked her, slightly raising his rifle and putting himself between the group and the outside.

  The door had been forced open enough for Will to crane his head through. He turned left and right as he searched the immediate area, his 9mm in one hand.

  “Move, let me up there,” Colton said, reinvigorated after drinking two canteens of water and using the bathroom.

  Will seemed to ignore him and started to wedge his body further through the narrow opening. “We need to force this, there’s some debris on top.” He disappeared as he finally wiggled himself to the outside.

  The other men that had fought to open the door braced themselves in a concerted effort, holding it open long enough for Will to wedge a length of shattered timber in the gap, to keep it from closing, holding the door in place. He disappeared from sight, and scraping noises indicated that he was moving rubble from on top.

  They all waited. For a brief moment, Nate imagined Will’s not coming back. He shook his head to dispel the grim thought.

  Another minute and the sound of banging and more metal scraping came from above. The shelter door opened wider, enough so that people could leave if they hunched over. Soldiers standing nearby exited quickly, each through the opening, each armed.

  A few more tense minutes and then Juan’s dirty face appeared at the opening and he stretched out his arm. “Come on, guys, time to go.”

  The rest of the soldiers went first so they could finish securing the area. Nate wanted to run from the tomb, but had to wait his turn. Will had been reluctant to give him a rifle, and Nate seemed ever more reluctant to ask. The reluctance was obviously apparent to others. Bruce had said he didn’t want Nate carrying a weapon because he would accidentally shoot him in the back, a victim of friendly fire. At the time, Nate thought if he did shoot Bruce in the back, it wouldn’t be an accident.

  But he had stashed a bayonet knife from the supply room in his chempants cargo pocket, just in case. Now whether he would use it against someone remained a mystery.

  The door had been cleared of more debris and opened wider, and with that, the group that had escaped the end of the world in Fallout Shelter 1710 flooded through the exit.

  After ten minutes, one of the last, Nate walked the stairs back to the earth, six weeks after going underground.

  If clouds could’ve caught fire and burned, leaving ashen husks behind, they would’ve looked like what they did that day over Haven, Georgia. Gray, dirty clouds had replaced the sun, and the sun had hidden itself.

  The blue sky had gone away, perhaps forever.

  Dust, fire, and other unpleasant things that shouldn’t have been there filled the air. It weighed heavy with the acrid smell of char and collapse.

  Most of the courthouse lay in ruin; cinder blocks and splintered wood were piled in heaps of rubble and dust. Mangled and twisted support beams indicated where the building once stood. A small section, inner bathrooms from the look of it, did remain standing, though, but the second floor had collapsed onto the top.

  The twenty-five surveyed the damage, kicking loose items: piles of paper, a box, rubble. Nate bent down and picked up a binder of papers, a catalog of deeds and titles. He dropped it to the ground and it kicked up a puff of ash. No one spoke. No one knew what to say.

  Surrounding buildings in downtown Haven had crumbled and burned. Several craters in the streets and the courthouse lawn showed where bombs had exploded. One large crater bubbled with water, half full.

  “A water line,” Will said. “It must’v
e hit a water line.” He finished peering into the hole, then walked to a minivan that lay on its side in the middle of a row of bushes and inspected the items that had spilled out.

  Across the street, a white convertible stuck out from under a pile of brick. Nate slowly walked to it, remembering when he first drove it off the dealership lot six short months ago. He had saved up for over a year so that he could slap forty thousand dollars on the salesman’s desk. He had smiled and confidently told the man to not say a word and to take it or leave it. He had taken it.

  But now it was all ash.

  A storefront had fallen forward, crushing his convertible, revealing a strip mall boutique, all of its contents burned or ravaged.

  An arm, a woman’s arm, maybe, stuck out from under a pile of brick and concrete next to his car. The arm had swollen and the skin had turned blackish. The fringes of a burgundy sleeve poked out from under the brick. Suddenly he remembered the woman that he had run into in the courthouse, the one wild with fear, looking for her husband.

  Nate’s heart skipped and he quickly turned, not lingering on the image, to focus back on his convertible. He brushed dust and brick aside, searching for anything of his he might have forgotten. Tucked between the driver’s seat and console was a half-empty pack of gum. He put it in his pocket.

  Swinging his backpack around, he pulled out his company laptop. By now the battery had died and it was nothing more than a paperweight. For a reason he didn’t quite get, he felt better leaving it in his car that tossing it away on the ground.

  He hefted the backpack onto his shoulders and moved to the rest that had gathered near the shelter entrance.

  “Where’s everyone?” Bruce said, inspecting a partially crushed pack of cigarettes.

  “I don’t know,” Will said. His hand rested on his pistol. “Did everyone make it to safety? I expected more. More bodies, something.” He moved to a compact car that had been abandoned in the middle of the street, the driver door left open. Will sat inside and, finding the keys still in the ignition, attempted to start the car. There was no sound of a dying battery, not even a click. Nothing.