by Kyla Stone
With a start, he wondered if she was still alive. Probably not.
She’d been a crack addict from his youngest memories, emaciated, shaky, with those hollow, desperate eyes—unable to keep a job, an apartment, or her own kid.
He’d left home at sixteen and never looked back. If that made him an asshole, then so be it.
He’d done worse things to survive. Much worse.
He slipped the flask back in his pocket. “You gonna stay here for a whole week?”
“I can’t wait that long. The majority of the fallout will be gone after forty-eight hours.”
“But not all of it.”
“I’m still going,” she said flatly. Her tone left no room for discussion.
“To each his own.” What did he care what a stranger chose to do with her life? If she wanted to sacrifice it trying to find one person in the midst of a ruined, burning city, that was on her.
If this sister of hers was anywhere near the blast, she was probably already dead.
But he didn’t need to tell her that. She already knew. He could see it in the way she clenched the bottle of water in both hands, her knuckles white.
A sudden noise drew their attention.
The doors to the auditorium—blocked from their view by the side wall along the stairs leading down to the main level—burst open with a loud, strident clang.
25
Logan
Logan was on his feet in an instant, instinctively feeling for the pistol at his back. He didn’t want to draw if he didn’t have to, but he was ready.
Dakota pushed past him and bounded down the stairs, her dark auburn hair streaming behind her.
Flashlight bobbing wildly, he leaped down the stairs after her. Most of the others were still sleeping, but a few raised their heads groggily, looking around for the source of the noise.
He and Dakota rounded the half-wall between the seats and the hallway leading to the double exit doors.
Red-headed Travis stood in the shadows. His freckles stood out on his pale skin like drops of blood. “I was using the restroom,” he stammered. “I heard a noise in the foyer. This guy was stumbling around out there…”
Logan and Dakota focused their flashlights behind Travis. A man had entered through the double doors.
He staggered down the narrow hallway toward the main auditorium. He was nothing more than a lumbering shadow—thick and hunch-shouldered.
“Stay right there!” Logan shouted. “No closer.”
The man sagged against the wall, his breathing labored and ragged.
Logan sucked in his own breath.
The man looked like something out of a horror movie. He was possibly Caucasian. It was impossible to tell even though he was nearly naked, only a few shreds of charred clothing hanging off him in tatters.
He was a mass of scorched flesh. The skin of his back and legs was burnt and blackened, the plaid pattern of the shirt he’d been wearing seared into the flabby folds of his chest and stomach.
Vomit stained the corners of his mouth. His face was misshapen. A nasty gash carved down the right side of his face, and red, weeping sores oozed on his forehead, cheeks, and chin.
The hair on the right side of his skull had burned completely off; on the left side, a raw, bare scalp shone through a few wispy clumps of brown hair.
He stank of urine and feces. A fetid, poisonous odor oozed from his every pore.
His blood-shot eyes gazed up at them with animal desperation. “H-help me.”
Several others crowded into the hall space between the doors and the auditorium, though they remained a safe distance away.
Rasha covered her mouth and nose with her hands, eyes wide with horror. “What happened to him?”
“The bomb happened to him,” Dakota said. She didn’t back away or cover her face, but her voice trembled. “The radiation.”
“The poor man.” Shay stood beside Rasha and offered her arm for support. “I’ve seen black-and-white pictures in textbooks, but nothing like this…”
Miles’ sunburned face blanched. His gaze flicked from the burned man to Dakota. “It—it really was a nuke.”
Dakota said nothing. Neither did Logan.
There was nothing to say.
For a terrible moment, everyone simply stared at the man in appalled disbelief.
This would’ve happened to them if they hadn’t found shelter. That’s what they were all thinking, the horror of the bomb finally sinking in, finally taking hold.
The horror still happening out there to thousands of people, to people they knew, to friends and family members, to daughters and sons and girlfriends and husbands and parents.
Logan had seen his share of horror.
But this was something else. This was heinous, an unspeakable tragedy on a catastrophic scale.
Rasha whimpered. Shay pressed her fist to her mouth. Isabel collapsed against her grandmother, who wrapped her thin, veiny arms around the girl and wept silently.
“It’s real,” Miles muttered to himself. “It’s really real.”
“We have to help him,” Julio said.
“Is he…contagious?” Rasha asked.
“No,” Shay said shakily. “Radiation poisoning isn’t contagious, but his clothes and skin are likely covered in radioactive particles. Don’t touch him.”
“We need to keep him here in the hallway,” Dakota said grimly, “so he doesn’t contaminate the auditorium.”
“Water…” the man groaned.
Dakota gestured to Travis, who still stood frozen, his hands hanging limp at his sides, his pale face slack with shock. “You heard him. Bring him some water.”
Travis moved to obey, but Schmidt seized his arm. He glared at Dakota as if she alone had brought this calamity upon him. “That man is dying, isn’t he?”
Shay answered, “This is—he’s suffering from acute radiation syndrome.”
“Look at him!” Schmidt spoke like the man couldn’t hear them. “He’s knocking at death’s door. It’s a miracle he stayed on his feet long enough to make it here.”
“He needs immediate medical attention,” Shay stammered, glancing at the injured man. She was trying to be compassionate, but they all saw it. Schmidt was right. It was a miracle the guy was even breathing.
“Which he’s not gonna get,” Schmidt scoffed. “We can’t afford to waste anything. We need to save that water for the living.”
“Give him the water,” Dakota repeated.
“I thought we had to ration and conserve everything to survive. Isn’t that what she insisted?” He jabbed a finger at Dakota.
Logan watched the drama unfold impassively. He was a little surprised at her. She’d seemed so tough and logical, but this was a merciful choice, not a rational one.
It seemed simple enough—what was one water bottle, after all?
But what about when the man lasted for hours or days, and one bottle turned into ten or twenty or more?
In a situation like this, survival had to win every time.
“Take one from my share,” Julio said quietly.
“No,” Schmidt insisted. “I’m in charge of the supplies. I decide who gets what. We all feel sorry for him, but it’s useless to waste—”
“Hot,” the man moaned. “So hot…water, please…”
Dakota’s mouth tightened. She whirled on Schmidt with a baleful glare. “If you don’t give this man water right now, so help me, but I’ll make you regret it.”
Schmidt gave a smug sneer. He balled his hands into fat, fleshy fists. “Just who do you think you are? What makes you think you get to make decisions for the whole group? You’re just a stupid girl who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”
Dakota stalked up to him, indignant.
For a second, Logan thought she was going to deck the idiot like he deserved.
Instead, she strode past him along the right side of the hallway, aiming for the bottled waters stacked against the far wall of the auditorium.
&nb
sp; Schmidt seized her arm. “What did I just tell you—”
But he never finished his sentence.
Dakota dropped her flashlight. In one fluid movement, she grabbed the man’s shoulders and jerked him toward her while simultaneously thrusting her leg up, kneeing him in the groin so hard he collapsed to the carpet.
Schmidt let out a sharp, agonized Ugh. He curled into a ball, groaning and clutching his crotch. “You little—!”
“You’re welcome.” Dakota stepped over him, retrieved her flashlight, and grabbed a water from the stack.
As she walked back to the wounded man, her eyes met Logan’s, her gaze fierce, daring him to object.
He nodded at her in acknowledgment, impressed yet again. She was tougher than she looked.
Schmidt wheezed out a nasty insult.
“Not cool, man,” Julio said. “There’s no reason to be like that.”
“This is my theater!” Schmidt cried, furious tears leaking down his heavy cheeks. “You have no right! Get out! You freeloading troublemakers better leave, right now—”
“We aren’t going anywhere.” Logan squatted down next to Schmidt and cracked his knuckles. He didn’t need to threaten. His presence was enough.
Logan was an easygoing guy. The less he cared about anything, the better off he was. But a pissant attacking women, verbal or otherwise, was just one of those things. The fat, squirming fool deserved whatever he got.
“Here’s what you’re gonna do for the next week,” he said. “You’re going to sit here and shut up. You’re not gonna bother with anybody here. Not her, not Julio, and certainly not me. Tell me we understand each other.”
The guy only moaned.
Logan smiled. “Close enough.”
Dakota handed the water to Shay, who knelt in front of the burned man and offered him a drink, careful not to touch him.
He slurped it down greedily, desperately, water dribbling over his blistered lips.
“Th-thank you,” the man rasped.
“I’m sorry we don’t have more medical supplies,” Shay said, her voice cracking with unshed tears. “We ran out. You need sterile dressings, intravenous antibiotics, a morphine drip…”
“My head,” the man said, “feels like it’s splitting open.”
“I have Tylenol in my purse,” Zamira offered. She disentangled herself from Isabel and Piper, who were both clutching at her, and handed Shay a small bottle of pills.
She gave the man half a dozen pills, hesitated, then offered him several more. “I hope this helps a little.”
“What’s it like out there?” Julio asked.
The man swallowed the last of the pills. He touched the mottled, burned side of his face with trembling fingers. “Hell.”
26
Logan
Logan forced himself not to look away in revulsion. The man looked like hell itself.
“Do you—do you know who did this?” Rasha asked tremulously. “Have you heard any news?”
The man shook his head, his eyes half-closed. He groaned from the pain. Sweat beaded his mottled forehead. “Damn Muslims. Never should’ve let them sand maggots into our country.”
Rasha stiffened.
Logan went tense. “Have you heard anything on the emergency broadcasts? Something concrete with actual evidence?”
“Don’t need to be told—what’s plain to see,” the man forced out. “We already know—who did this.”
“You think it was ISIS?” Schmidt asked.
“No—” The man turned his head and vomited. Bloody spittle dribbled from his swollen lips. “All of ‘em.”
“That’s not true,” Shay said.
Logan said, “We don’t know anything.”
“There are bad apples in every group of human beings on the planet,” Dakota said through gritted teeth. “Yeah, ISIS and all the radicals like them are evil as hell, but it doesn’t make all Muslims bad.”
He lifted one burned arm with great effort, wincing from the pain, and pointed at Rasha. “You—you did this to us!”
Rasha flinched.
Shay reared back, gaping. “I’m sure you don’t mean that. You’re in incredible pain—”
“I mean…just what I said! We should’ve killed ‘em all in Iraq—”
“Enough!” Anger sparked through Logan. He restrained the sudden urge to slug the guy, dying or not. Or at least stick a roll of duct tape over his mouth.
He and Dakota exchanged a hard glance. The guy was suffering, about to die, but that didn’t excuse his racist bullshit.
As a Colombian, Logan had heard plenty of similar crap—noxious, hate-filled insults hurled at him because of his skin tone, his heritage.
He rubbed his scarred knuckles and took a step back, fighting back the anger.
That wasn’t who he was, not anymore.
“You should rest and save your energy,” Julio said diplomatically. “We’ll make you as comfortable as we can.”
“Now look what’s happened…” the guy continued as if he hadn’t heard Julio. He grimaced. Blood leaked down his neck in sickly red-brown rivulets. “Look what they’ve done to us…”
The man turned his head to the side and vomited violently. He retched, his eyes rolling wildly, his ravaged body convulsing. Eventually, he sank into unconsciousness.
Logan let out a relieved sigh. Not even racist asshats deserved a death like this, but Logan wasn’t going to shed any tears for him, either.
“This is my country, too,” Rasha said in a soft, strained voice. She touched her hijab self-consciously. “I love America and the freedom it stands for. No true, peace-loving Muslim would ever do such a thing or ever condone it.”
She blinked rapidly, looking rattled but trying to regain her composure. Miles, to his credit, stood beside her and rubbed her shoulders to reassure and comfort her.
“We know that,” Julio said kindly. “We understand that ISIS and their ilk are a corruption. They’re no more Muslim than the Ku Klux Klan are Christians.”
Rasha gave Julio a nod, the tension in her face easing slightly. Miles squeezed his wife’s shoulders.
“What about North Korea?” Walter growled. “Kim Jong-un is crazy enough to kill us all and destroy his own damn country just for spite.”
“Could be,” Dakota allowed, though a line appeared between her brows. “It’s possible. Could be a terrorist group we’ve never heard of. Maybe even domestic.”
“I bet it’s the Russians,” Walter said with a derisive sniff. “They’ve always hated America.”
“My dad says Putin wants to take over our country, just like the Nazis,” Travis said.
Logan scratched his chin. “Our military is prepared for that. And those governments know we’d strike back with enough fury to wipe them off the map.”
“Dakota’s hunch is the most likely, I think,” Logan said. “An IND fabricated by a terrorist group or a rogue nation.”
“How the hell could terrorists get a hold of nuclear material?” Miles shook his head in disbelief. “It’s gotta be a rogue state.”
“They could build one from the components of a stolen weapon,” Logan said, “or one they bought from black market arms dealers. Once they have the nuclear material—plutonium or highly enriched uranium—it’s not hard to make the bomb.”
“How can you be so sure it’s not Russia or China?” Travis asked.
“Russia, China, or another country could still be behind this,” Julio said. “They could’ve made it look like terrorists to avoid payback—mutually assured destruction.”
“It’s possible, but it doesn’t really make sense.” Logan pulled out his flask and shook it. Damn. Still empty.
“If a superpower is behind this,” he said, “their first priority would be to destroy their adversary’s ability to fight back. They’d target our inter-continental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarine bases, our airfields housing nuclear bombers. Cities will be last on the list—especially Miami.”
“If it is ISIS or so
me other terrorist group, what could they be targeting?” Shay asked.
Logan shoved the flask in his back pocket with a resigned sigh. “Anything. Could be military bases, oil refineries, large military industrial manufacturing facilities.
“Major ports or transportation hubs. Economic and industrial facilities, power generation. Or large cities, for maximum casualties, to inflict horrendous damage to morale.”
“I don’t understand.” Shay hugged herself, clearly rattled. “How could people hate us so much?”
Dakota gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “It doesn’t matter right now.”
Shay lifted her chin. “It matters to me.”
Dakota scowled. “Of course it does, in the long run. But now? Right now, we have to live. And if you want to live, you’ve got to focus on what you need to do right here, right now. Understand?”
“Dakota’s right,” Zamira said. “She is wise. As I always tell my grandchildren, worry only causes more wrinkles. It changes nothing.”
“It’s all just rumors until we get some actual concrete news,” Logan said.
“It’s a waste of energy,” Dakota said. “Energy we need to survive.”
Rasha wrung her hands. She glanced at the dying man and looked quickly away, aghast. “How does…how does the radiation do that to someone?”
“I remember some of this from my training.” Shay sucked in a deep, steadying breath. When she spoke, her voice was calm. “He was exposed to thermal energy from proximity to the blast—over fifty percent of his body has sustained third- and second-degree burns. His clothes were—they were burned right off him.
“As for the radiation…nuclear radiation ionizes atoms by knocking off their electrons. The ionizing radiation damages DNA molecules by breaking the bonds between atoms.
“If radiation changes DNA molecules enough, cells can't replicate and begin to die. Less severely damaged cells may survive and replicate, but the structural changes in their DNA disrupt normal cell processes—cells that can't control their division grow out of control and become cancerous.