“Each of them was the same. Each of them read within a tenth of a point or hundredth of a point of each other. And it was low, it was like incredibly, almost nil low.”
“How is that possible?”
“You know how they give you a lead blanket when they take an X-ray?”
Joan nodded.
“There’s lead in the walls. There’s lead in the walls to protect radiation from seeping out in case of an accident. It works both ways.”
“Oh my God,” Joan said with a little shock. “And you want to go into one of those rooms.”
“With my daughter, yes. It can’t be too much longer until it drops to the level Adina said.”
“She said a safe number is two roto something an hour.”
“Which we don’t know when that will be until we do the math.”
“Nine more days,” Joan said. “I did the math already. I’d give it a full two weeks.”
“Then that’s how long we’ll wait it out there.”
“Won’t it be safe here?” Joan asked. “I am not discouraging you. But I would think being underground It’d be safer here.”
“I did tell Mark, that I would see how much radiation we’re getting down here.”
“So, you found those meters?” Joan asked.
“We did.”
“You know they only measure what you’re absorbing not what’s in the air. The number will never decrease.”
“Yep. I know.” I nodded and lifted the dosimeter. “That’s why I …” I paused when I saw the display.
“What? What is it?”
“How many of those radiation things can we absorb until we start to get sick?”
“Adina said a hundred or a thousand of the other measurements.” She pointed to the dosimeter. “What’s it say?”
“We’ve been back here what? Five minutes? It’s almost one now.” I showed her. “We can absorb a thousand of these? How long until we get there.”
It was a rhetorical question, I wasn’t expecting her to answer. But Joan was the math person and after a beat she spewed out. “That’s twelve an hour, nearly three hundred a day.”
“Assuming that it didn’t drop from yesterday, which we know it did, I’d say we already hit that number. It’s only a matter of time before we’re …”
Tim groaned loudly in the distance.
“Hopefully never that bad,” I finished. “I don’t want to chance it.”
All I wanted to do was get dressed, get my supplies and get my daughter out.
The numbers said it all.
TWENTY-FOUR – VENTURE
There was no more debate in my mind what I was going to do. I grabbed another catering bin, one that hadn’t been outside, and started filling it.
Water, food, tablecloths, some lanterns. In fact, I knew it was going to be heavy so I took the bin upstairs carrying items up the steps to fill it.
My initial plan was to put Macy in one of the bins and cover her with a lead blanket. That way she would be as protected as I could get her.
I realized it wasn’t going to work. We needed supplies and I was only one person.
We needed food and water, which would be what I had to carry in the bin.
It was only a couple blocks.
I was a woman on a mission, carefully calculating what I would take. I didn’t have a plan beyond that stay at the hospital, I’d work on it.
Ted sat in the cooler, a tablecloth around his shoulders covering him. He looked somewhat better. Adina was giving him a lot of attention.
“Do you realize what you’re doing?” Mark asked.
“I do,” I replied. “I showed you the dosimeter. Another day down here, I won’t be able to stop my daughter from getting ill. Why are you taking this so personally?”
“Because you put me in a hell of a predicament.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I came into this basement with you. I got on that bus … with you. Whether you like it or not, we are a team and you’re leaving. Yet, I feel responsible for the people down here.”
“I can’t help you with that.”
“You brought them here. You argued for them,” he said.
“I did what I could. Now I have to worry about my daughter.”
“What about your safety? I’m not talking radiation. I’m talking people,” Mark said. “There is safety in numbers. You go alone and you are taking a risk.”
“She’s not alone.” Kevin stood up. “I’ll go with her. I owe her my life. If she hadn’t let me out of that police car, I’d be dead. Can I go with you?” he asked.
“Yes, absolutely,” I replied. “Anyone can go with us.”
“So, we’re just going to abandon these people,” Mark said.
“I’m not abandoning anyone, I’m worrying about my daughter and getting her to a safer spot,” I argued. “All these people can come. I don’t care.”
“They can’t,” Adina said. “Three are too ill. However, Ted needs things we can only get at the hospital.”
“What if we get the things?” Kevin asked. “And I bring them back.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Ted refuted.
“No, you aren’t,” Adina said. “Your fingertips tell me you need to be on oxygen. You need another inhaler. Because of your asthma your immune system is compromised.”
“If it’s compromised,” I said. “Wouldn’t he be more susceptible to radiation?”
Adina nodded.
“So why doesn’t he come to the hospital with us,” I suggested. “You tell us what we need to do for him, and we will.”
“How are you going to get him there?” Mark asked. “You saw how much trouble we had with him on the bin.”
“I’ll walk,” Ted said.
I looked at him. “You’re not walking. What about … what about a dolly? Strap him to a dolly.” I spun to Kevin. “Do you think you can push him the three blocks?”
“Sure.”
“No!” Ted snapped. “He’ll drop me.”
“Dude, I won’t drop you,” Kevin assured him.
“What do you think?” I asked Adina.
“I think those who are healthy enough to go, should go,” she answered. “Get to a safer, cleaner environment. I’ll give you all the instructions you need. When we are well enough, we’ll join you.”
I looked at Adina, it was clear she was ill. Sores had formed around her mouth, and her skin look spotted.
I knew those of us who sought refuge in that cooler and weren’t exposed when levels were high, looked healthy. It needed to stay that way.
It was settled for the others.
Joan decided to stay back and help Adina. I understood why because Adina wasn’t well enough herself to handle how bad it was going to get.
There was a short debate between her and Mark on which one of them would stay back. For our safety, Joan suggested he come with us.
Kevin said he could keep us safe. I found it kind of insulting that they thought I was incapable of protecting my daughter and myself.
It came down to Mark compromising and saying he would go to the hospital but would check on those in the basement.
Since there were more of us going, that meant more supplies, and admittedly, having Mark help with that was a blessing.
It would require a couple of trips, which he would do, while I got things situated there.
The first of which would be to help us get our stuff there, then return to the basement with a wheelchair for Ted, because he just couldn’t see us rolling him across the debris in a dolly.
It was time to leave.
We began to pack what we needed and had decided to take.
The place that was our original sanctuary was fast becoming our death trap, and it was definitely time to go.
TWENTY-FIVE – SAFER HAVEN
Macy’s face said it all. Her expression encompassed what we all were feeling, it summed it up perfectly. When she emerged into the world above from the basement, when her eyes had ad
justed and she could finally see, her little eyes widened and then glossed over as her brow furrowed and her lips pouted in a fight not to frown.
It was Kevin’s first emergence as well.
His youth was never so evident as it was when he saw the destruction.
I wonder if we held the same look when we saw what happened to our city. Staring at the desolation that represented what we felt.
Mark was ahead of us, trying to get to the hospital first to get a wheelchair and return for Ted. He moved faster than Macy could move with the lead blanket. I wanted to put her in one of the bins, but we had too many supplies to bring.
I held her hand as I tugged one of the bins. Kevin beside us and Joan behind us. She decided to help us carry things before she returned to the basement.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, for what you’re seeing.” I told her. “If you want to close your eyes you can. Just hold tight to my hand.”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “It’s okay. It’s not that bad,” her voice trailed off. “It’s not that bad.” She looked left to right then back up to me. “It could be worse, Mommy.”
For a split second, I couldn’t imagine how it could be worse. Then I saw the bodies again on the ground, mixed in with the debris.
That could have been us.
When we finally arrived at the hospital, Mark was making his way out with a wheelchair. Not that he was impatient, he just wanted to get back and get Ted.
“Can you see if you can find oxygen?” he asked me. “I’m sure somewhere there’s a cylinder.”
“I’ll look,” I replied and nodded.
He said he’d be back shortly, and I expected that to be true.
I figured I would get Macy in one of the imaging rooms, put our supplies in the diagnostic room.
Before we went into the dark rooms, I looked at my dosimeter. It read one hundred and one. I had absorbed in that short span, ten percent of the ‘sick’ number, and that was only since having the meter. I didn’t want to think about how much radiation I had taken in before it.
I placed Macy in the one room, checked the reading on the wall unit, it hadn’t moved or changed since I had left.
After putting a personal dosimeter on Macy’s shirt, I set her up with a couple little lanterns and went to help Joan with supplies before searching out the oxygen.
“You know I heard on the news,” Joan said. “While they were giving instructions, that if you didn’t have a basement to find a windowless area, or center of the house. Like a hall. I guess harder for the radiation to reach you. Makes sense in here.” She looked around. “No windows, these rooms are interior rooms, for lack of a better word.”
Kevin’s voice entered the room. “That makes sense. You know in the 1950s all schools had to be designed with a windowless core. A center that was stable. For tornados and bombs.”
“How did you know that?” I asked.
“I wanted to be an architect,” he replied.
“You were in college?” I asked.
Kevin nodded. “Does that surprise you? I told you that when we first met.”
“I’m sorry that time was foggy. I didn’t remember. You don’t seem like the college type. More musician or artist.” I said.
“Architecture is art. Not to say I got very far. I was only first year. And ... if you guys are okay, there’s something I need to check.” He pointed back.
I barely got an ‘okay’ out and he was gone. I wondered what he had to do. Maybe he was taking it upon himself to look for oxygen. I didn’t know exactly what he was up to, but a few minutes later, Kevin shined.
Literally.
It was only about four inches by four, but the little LED light was the brightest we had seen in a dark room since the bombs fell. The yellow tint of the flashlight and lanterns was replaced by an almost clinical looking light.
“I found three. I already gave one to Macy,” Kevin said. “You should have seen the smile on her face.”
“Kevin, where did you find them?” I asked.
“I know for a fact the code says the emergency lights have to be operational for ninety minutes, well, it’s a hospital. They have a backup plan to a backup,” Kevin said. “I got these from the receptionist in the lobby and one from the check-in here in radiology. There are more. Probably two or three at each nurses’ station, not to mention the OR.”
“That’s really good thinking,” I told him.
“Something I remember my mom talking about, plus, I need one to search for her locker.”
“Is this where she worked?” Joan asked.
Kevin nodded. “Yeah.”
I stepped to him. “I know you want to find that locker. Can you wait another day or two? Just give the radiation a chance to drop. Adina said it effects the young easier than those older.”
“I get that,” he replied. “I do. But I can help here. I know where they keep things. Like the oxygen we need for Ted, and the inhalers. If I promise to hurry, can you let me do this? I need to do this. I have been in that basement doing nothing. I just want to contribute.”
Joan asked. “Will you be fast?”
“Very,” Kevin answered.
“Then Henny and I will sort through what we brought. You go.” Joan grabbed his hand. “Go find your mother’s locker and oxygen, then get right back.”
“Thank you.” Kevin backed up.
“And …” Joan stopped him. “If you find any more of those LED’s …”
“I’ll grab them, I promise.” Kevin hurriedly turn and raced through the door.
I looked at Joan. “I was going to guilt him into not going.”
“I know you were, but our mental state is as important as our physical one. He needs to find something of his mother’s.”
I suppose she was right. Kevin just seemed so young to me, and I worried about him. I checked on Macy once more, she seemed fine and content, then I returned to the diagnostic room with Joan and we sorted and separated the supplies we had brought, waiting on not only Kevin’s return, but Mark and Ted as well.
<><><><>
Kevin had returned with the oxygen and inhalers, long before Mark and Ted arrived. I found a blanket in the closet and made Ted a bed on the MRI table while Mark walked Joan back to the basement.
The tubing for the oxygen was sealed in a bag, and the inhaler was in a box. Ted was so grateful for that inhaler, and the oxygen seemed to be doing him some good. Adina had instructed to feed him a slow flow of oxygen until his fingertips no longer looked blue.
By the time we had things settled it was evening. And I appreciated those LED lights.
I made Macy a plate of peanut butter on crackers and sat with her cuddled in the corner of Image Room three until she started to doze off.
I switched from the harsh LED lighting to the softer table lanterns and only used the flashlight when I checked Macy’s dosimeter.
“You know,” Mark said. “Watching that dosimeter is like watching a pot of water. It’s not gonna change if you keep looking at it.”
“Good,” I told him. “I don’t want it to change. Mine has changed enough.”
“She’ll be fine.”
Finally, I looked up at him. He had a backpack on his shoulder and he stood nearer the door. “Why do you look like you’re going somewhere?” I asked.
“I am,”
“Back to the basement?”
“No. I … I had a thought. You know, this was a big evacuation point. People came here and waited for a ride. They had to have had a shelter plan.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, they had days warning on the bombs, right? They had to think, what if they didn’t move all the people out, what if people were left behind?”
“Do you think they set up a shelter?”
“That’s my train of thought. I think I’m going to take a look. If they made one, it’s somewhere here.”
“Center of the building.”
“Or lowest point,” Mark said.
Carefully, I moved Macy from my lap and stood.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked.
“I’m coming with you. At the very least, we can salvage things.”
Mark didn’t argue or tell me to stay back, he handed me a flashlight and said, “Let’s go.”
It was after we left the radiology department that I realized how dark it was. There was no longer any daylight, no matter how gloomy, coming through the busted windows. I used the wall as a guide, trailing my fingers against the surface.
Mark walked ahead of me.
At first, we walked in some sort of awkward silence. One I had to break.
“Hey,” I called to him. “I’m sorry.”
Mark stopped and turned around. “What for?”
“Me and you, we really got off on the wrong foot.”
“Well, considering our first encounter you ran into me, fell and blamed me, then the second time you slammed the door in my face.”
“Yeah.” I cringed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, really, it isn’t. That’s not who I am.”
“It isn’t?” Mark asked.
“Excuse me.”
“Not a dig, honestly, I’m not tossing a dig, but you are pretty closed off. You don’t really warm up to people.”
“I’ve warmed up to everyone through this.”
Mark just stared.
“Alright, not you. Let’s … let’s start over.” I extended my hand. “Henny. Nice to meet you.”
“Mark.” He shook my hand. “I think we met. Not sure. A little over a week ago. But you were kind of busy, so was I. In any event, nice to meet you, too.” He paused. “Feel better? Less guilty?”
“Not really.”
Mark chuckled.
“You seem like you know where you want to check,” I said.
“I do.” He lifted the flashlight to a sign that read, ‘parking garage’.
“You think that’s where they are?”
He nodded. “It has three sublevels. Yeah, I do.”
“What about the basement?”
“If they brought supplies in, they’d have to bring them where it is easiest to unload. The basement isn’t. If they brought in supplies.” He aimed the sign. “The parking garage is it.”
Nine Minutes Page 12
