Black Rain

by William R Hunt

  What have we got ourselves into? Kay thought.

  “So you live here?” Nigel asked with a hint of incredulity as they followed the mechanic.

  “All my life,” Al answered. “Well, ever since I inherited the shop. It was Daddy’s business first. When his hands got too weak to do the work, he started handling the customers while I fixed the vehicles. Made quite a team for a while.”

  “What happened to him?” Nigel asked.

  Al twisted, not quite turning far enough to look Nigel in the eye. “Lift gave out while he was looking under a car. Crushed him flat. Always told him he should have left the monkey work to me.”

  Al righted a fallen sign, revealing a door Kay had not noticed before. Kay imagined how the rest of this might play out: Al would invite them into his little home, show them his little collections, continually remind them why it was too dangerous to go back outside. She would wait until the ash had stopped falling, but what would Al say if she tried to leave then? Would he warn her of the danger? Would he try to stop her? She guessed Al was in his fifties, about two decades older than she and Nigel were, but he was stocky and had the advantage of knowing their surroundings. What if he had a gun, or a knife? What if he was only being friendly because they were following his lead? What might he do if they argued with him?

  Al slipped off his poncho and carefully set it aside. He turned the door knob and pushed, but the door resisted. “Ah, that’s right,” he muttered. He knocked on the door. “Can someone move the towels? I’ve got guests here who need to be washed.”

  “Washed?” Nigel repeated, glancing at Kay in bewilderment.

  Kay heard a rustle as the towels were pulled from beneath the door. Then the door swung inward, revealing a small living space: a sitting room with a couch and a few chairs, a small kitchen beyond, an office and a bathroom on the right.

  “Come on in,” Al said as he shuffled to the couch, where he dropped into the cushions and started taking the hat, safety glasses, and rag off his face. He then used the rag to wipe sweat off his forehead.

  There were two other people in the room: a heavyset man in a baggy t-shirt, who was currently hunting through the cabinets in the kitchen, and a tall woman with blonde bangs who was standing just inside the doorway. The woman was wearing a summer blouse over a gray pencil skirt.

  The woman gave them a weary smile. “My name’s Susanna Hartman. I’m a doctor. I understand you were exposed to the radiation?”

  “Just for a short time,” Kay answered quickly.

  “Not long at all,” Nigel added.

  Susanna nodded. “That’s good. We’ll have to get you washed up, anyway, just to make sure you aren’t carrying any contaminants.” She moved aside so they could enter, then closed the door behind them.

  “Congratulations, by the way,” she added as she stuffed the towels back beneath the door.

  “Congratulations?” Nigel asked.

  “On surviving. If you made it this far, there’s a good chance you’ll get through this thing alive.”

  _____

  The shower was a concrete stall with a dirty bottle of men’s shampoo and a yellowing bar of soap. Kay stared at it, trying not to show her disgust.

  “I know,” Susanna said, “but it’s what we have. You could be covered in radiation particles, so we need to get you clean as soon as possible. You can throw your clothes in that bag there.” She pointed to a black trash bag in the corner.

  “My clothes?” Kay repeated, unable to think clearly. Everything was moving so fast. She shouldn’t even be down here. Her daughter was still out there, alone, probably scared. She should be searching for Luna, not worrying about herself.

  “I’ll bring you something to change into,” Susanna answered. She took a deep breath and pressed her lips into a sympathetic smile. “I know this is difficult. Nobody is ever really prepared for something like this happening.”

  “My daughter’s at school. Johnson Elementary.”

  Susanna nodded. “After a few days, the worst of the radiation should be past. That’s when it will be time to start looking for your daughter.”

  Kay could not imagine sitting in this basement for a few days with a group of strangers, subsisting on the desperate hope that someone else was looking after her daughter. Nonetheless, if she really was carrying contaminants around on her clothing, she ought to get clean as quickly as possible.

  Susanna retreated to the doorway. “I’ll leave you to it. If you need anything, if you start feeling anything...unusual, just call me.”

  Kay nodded and watched Susanna leave. Once she was gone, Kay crossed the room and locked the door. It was too easy to imagine Al stumbling in, pretending he didn’t know Kay was already in there.

  Kay undressed and slid her clothes into the trash bag as Susanna had instructed. She turned on the shower faucet, letting the water drag against her fingers as she waited for it to warm up. A few days, she thought, wondering what was going on across the rest of town, and how many people had been exposed to the falling ash. She thought of the argument last night that had terminated in her husband slamming the front door and driving off. In the rush of driving across town to get to Luna, she had not thought to try calling him again. She picked her phone up off the edge of the sink and unlocked it.

  Still no service.

  If he was in the mountains, the elevation might protect him from the radiation. As soon as he learned what had happened, though, she knew he would come back for her and Luna. It was one thing to argue with someone you love, something else entirely to leave that person for dead. The only problem was, he would have no idea where to find her.

  He’ll go to the school for Luna, she thought, because he knows that’s where I would go. And when he gets there, I need to be there waiting for him.

  Unless she was able to find service for her phone, meeting at the school might be the only way to get her family back together. She took a deep breath, feeling for the first time since the explosion that she and her family would get through this, and stepped into the stream of water.

  4

  Kay cracked open the door and snagged the shopping bag. She closed the door again and examined the clothes: tank top, running pants, ankle socks, sneakers. Was she supposed to be going to the gym?

  “Look at you,” Nigel said as she left the bathroom. He studied her with a wry smile. “I didn’t know it was casual Friday.”

  Kay grunted, not really in the mood for jokes. “There should be some hot water left.”

  Nigel nodded and tried to move past her. She grabbed his arm. He glanced down, frowned, and said, “The radiation, Kay.”

  She immediately let go. “Listen, Nigel, I think we need to make a plan about getting to the school.” She glanced to the side to see if anyone was paying attention. Al and Susanna were at the sink, filling old soda bottles and milk jugs with water, while the third stranger - the one whom Kay had not yet met - sat on the couch, savoring the last few potato chips from a bag.

  “Of course,” Nigel answered. “Just let me shower and we’ll discuss it with the others.” He pulled away before she could reply. She considered going after him, perhaps reminding him that they didn’t need anyone’s permission to leave, but she was afraid the others would overhear. She didn’t want to give them any reason to distrust her.

  “You get caught outside?” the man on the couch asked.

  Kay watched Nigel shut the bathroom door. She turned around and faced the man. “No, I was at work.”

  “You should have stayed there. Bad idea to move so soon after the blast.” He jabbed a thumb at the ceiling. “Al was working on my motorcycle, frayed clutch cable. That’s how I got here. Same with Doc—she was just picking up her car, looked ready for a big getaway.”

  It took Kay a moment to realize he was referring to Susanna.

  The man finished the bag of chips and wiped his hand on the front of his shirt. “Name’s Pete.” He extended his hand, the fingers gleaming with grease. He stared expressionle
ssly into her face: no smile, no hint of friendliness, just another warm body.

  “Kay,” she answered, touching the hand quickly before withdrawing.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “How does a guy like me survive? You’re actually pretty lucky to have me here.” He sniffed and leaned back into the couch, pleased to have an audience. “I never really played sports, wasn’t much good in school, not much of a people person. I wasn’t much use in the old world, but now everything’s different.”

  Kay glanced at Susanna and Al, realized there was no help coming from that quarter, and decided the safest thing was to let Pete go on thinking they were friends. “How so?” she asked.

  “Everything was so phony before,” he answered. “It was all about saying the right thing, looking the right way, but now it’s back to the basics, cave man stuff: hunting, fishing, shelter, fire.” He began to pick at a small scab on his arm. “Like I said, I’m not very athletic but I know all kinds of crazy stuff. Know why I came down here so quickly?”

  Kay glanced at the chair beside her. She decided to remain standing.

  “First,” he went on, “I knew this sort of thing was going to happen. The world’s been stockpiling nuclear weapons since the forties, so it was just a matter of time before someone started throwing them around.”

  “Who?” Kay asked, finally interested in something he had said.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Who knows? North Korea, Iran, some group of radicals. Could’ve even been the Russians or the Chinese, but I wouldn’t bet on it. They’re not that crazy.”

  “Did you see the explosion yourself?”

  He nodded. “Sure did. Just a minute or two after impact. Probably an ICBM—intercontinental ballistic missile. You fire one of those puppies from a silo anywhere in the world, send it into space, then watch it drop out of the sky on your designated target. Boom. And I’m not talking about Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The bombs they make these days are hundreds of times more powerful than those little firecrackers. Unless the missile gets intercepted when it comes back into the atmosphere - and that’s always a risky proposition - there’s nothing to do but sit back with your popcorn and enjoy the show.” He finally ripped the scab free from his arm and wiped the trail of blood with his fingers.

  “Sounds...terrible,” Kay said. Pete just looked at her. Kay realized she had better use her opportunity wisely before he got himself going again. “So how long do we—”

  “But you want to know the really scary part?” he interrupted. “Everybody fixates on the explosion, the initial blast. But that’s nothing. Sure it levels the area, and the heat blast is enough to melt your face off, not to mention you might already be blind if you watched the detonation. The real kicker, though, is the fallout.”

  “Radiation, you mean?”

  He nodded again. “That’s right. It’s not usually in the air too long - a few days, maybe - but when it falls as ash or rain, it stays there for years. Think about Chernobyl. They’re still dealing with it over there. You should see the mutations: deer with extra legs, babies with messed up faces, all kinds of stuff.”

  He’s getting off on this, Kay thought. He’s probably been waiting all his life for something like this to happen, and now that it has, he’s like a kid in a toy store with his dad’s credit card.

  Pete lifted a soda off the carpet and raised it to his mouth, keeping his eyes on Kay as he tipped his head back. Kay was creeped out by the blank stare, the attitude of familiarity. It was as if Pete thought they were good friends just because she had listened to his ramblings.

  She heard the water cut out in the bathroom and glanced at the door, willing Nigel to hurry up.

  “Do you know where we can get any guns?” Pete asked.

  “Guns?”

  “I have a twelve-gauge back home, but obviously that won’t help us here. The looting will really get going soon if it hasn’t already, so as soon as the ash stops falling, we should probably head up top and grab what we can.” He squinted, working something out in his head. “We could probably stay down here at least a year, if we’re smart about it. Of course, when winter rolls around—”

  “I said I’m fine!” Al snapped, twisting away from Susanna and leaning against the counter beside the sink. He was coughing now, a dry, husky sound that reminded Kay of a chest cold. Susanna turned the faucet off and screwed the cap on the last container of water. There were almost a dozen containers standing in and around the sink, though Kay did not yet understand the need to stock up on water when the tap was still working fine.

  “You’re shaking, Al,” Susanna said. “Maybe you should lie down.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll just—” He started to turn, releasing the counter. His legs buckled and he folded to the ground. Kay rushed into the kitchen. By the time she reached Al, he was coughing into a puddle of his own vomit, his limbs shaking violently.

  “What’s happening to him?” she asked in alarm.

  Susanna was pale, her eyes darting back and forth. “Radiation sickness. I had hoped he wouldn’t start showing symptoms so soon. Here, help me roll him on his side.”

  “Oh, man,” Pete said, watching over the back of the couch as they rolled Al. “He doesn’t look good.” The tone of his voice suggested he could have been watching a TV show.

  Now on his side, Al coughed a few times and curled in on himself, pulling his limbs into a fetal position. He pinched his eyes tight, a horrible grimace on his face.

  “What now?” Kay asked Susanna, expecting a plan, a sharp series of instructions that would show she had been in this kind of situation many times before. For a moment, however, Susanna only stared at Al, her emerald earrings swinging and catching the light. They match her eyes, Kay thought, noticing for the first time how striking this woman was.

  “Wait here,” Susanna said. She rushed into the office and returned with a brown leather bag. She set the bag on the floor, unclasped it, and began rummaging inside. “He needs potassium iodide to counteract the radiation, but I don’t have any. You have to understand, this isn’t a hospital. I wasn’t prepared for this.”

  Kay thought, She’s really concerned about her reputation, about how professional she looks? Then it occurred to her that Susanna was scared. Why shouldn’t she be? She might be a doctor, but there was a world of difference between role-playing crisis situations and living through them. Everyone was looking to her for guidance, for hope, blindly trusting that she would know what to do when the truth was Susanna was as scared and confused as anyone else.

  Kay reached across Al and placed her hand on Susanna’s arm. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this.”

  Susanna met her eyes, steadied herself, and nodded. “We need to get him to the bed.”

  5

  The bed was in the office. After cleaning Al up and tucking him beneath a blanket, Susanna gave him a few painkillers and they watched him drift off to sleep.

  “I’ll stay with him for a while, see how he does,” Susanna whispered to Kay and Nigel, who stood in the doorway. Nigel was wearing clothes taken from Al’s dresser, a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt several sizes too wide - and too short - for him.

  Kay nodded, realizing this was something Susanna had to do. “You did good,” she said, immediately feeling awkward for praising someone she hardly knew.

  Susanna pressed her lips together in an appreciative smile. “I guess I’m just a bit...overwhelmed. Think of all the people out there right now, thousands with radiation sickness, burns, mechanical injuries from the blast. Who will help them all?”

  “One person at a time,” Kay answered. “That’s all anyone can do.”

  “Thanks, Kay,” Susanna said. “Maybe it’s selfish - I know your daughter’s out there - but I’m glad you’re here.”

  Kay smiled, imagining how Susanna must have felt down here with only Al and Pete for company. She was beginning to think she had misjudged Al—after all, he had risked his life to save them. Pete, however, was somethin
g else. Kay could not picture him risking radiation exposure to help strangers.

  Kay and Nigel left the office and closed the door behind them. Pete was on the couch, tinkering with the radio Al had brought down. As he turned the dial, there was a sudden blare of static.

  “Think you could turn that down?” Nigel said with characteristic politeness. “Al is trying to rest.”

  “Won’t do him much good,” Pete answered, shrugging one shoulder.

  Nigel folded his arms. “And why not?”

  “Look how quickly the symptoms came on. Means he got a heavy dose of radiation, and there’s no coming back from that—certainly not with what we have here.”

  Nigel glanced at Kay. “So if I was feeling a little...unsettled…”

  “Normal,” Pete answered. “I’m betting we all had some exposure to the particles, so don’t sweat it if you get an upset stomach. But if you start sounding like that guy?” He shook his head.