Nine Minutes

by Jacqueline Druga

  TWENTY-SIX – CREASE OF LIGHT

  “Bingo,” Mark said.

  It was like a black hole, something out of a horror flick. I never knew anywhere could be so dark. We were swimming in a void, guided only by the flashlights. I had nothing to hold on to, no wall. It was weird how vulnerable I felt.

  I kept commenting that I felt like I was in some sort of horror film, more so, zombie movie, where something was going to come out of the darkness and get us.

  I stayed close to Mark, hating how scared I was.

  Then the beam of his flashlight caught it. It reflected off the plastic wrapping. Another twenty feet we would have hit a wall … of supplies.

  The plastic wrap covered the pallets of water, four of them from what I could count. There were other pallets as well, it would take getting close to read what they were. But the clear water bottles absorbed our lights.

  I smiled. “I can’t believe this. How did you know?”

  “Just from being a cop,” he replied. “I did emergency response and was on duty for a lot of hurricanes. Give me tomorrow, I may get the generators up and running.”

  “That would be great.”

  “Now ... let’s see what we all have.” Mark started examining. “Looks like four pallets of water. There's seventeen hundred bottles per pallet.”

  “We need math whiz Joan.”

  “Yeah, we do.” He moved down the line. “Meals Ready to eat. Oh, yeah, blue mats.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He showed me. Through the plastic it was hard to see exactly what it was. All I saw was a spot of blue.

  He explained they were emergency foam mattresses covered in a blue vinyl material. An easier replacement for the cot system.

  They were stacked on a pallet as well.

  “Henny, there’s enough here that we can sort through this over the next couple days, figure out what we need. We can’t stay in this area.”

  “I know.”

  “I think what Ted said. Head toward Burrell, or north. Farther away from the city.”

  “Won’t everyone that survived be doing that?” I asked.

  “Leaving the area? I don’t know. People are creatures of habit. Look at Hiroshima. They all stayed in the city.”

  “Because they didn’t know better.”

  “True.” Mark let out a breath. “Okay, so … what do we need?”

  “Nothing right now. Wait until light. Even though it won’t get any better down here with daylight. We can at least bring the rolling bins.”

  “What about we take some of these blue mattresses? It'd be nice to sleep on something.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “Here, hold this.” Mark handed me his light and crouched down. “Just aim it down here for me. I don’t want to remove the entire …”

  He stopped talking.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a light.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Coming from the ramp that goes below. I didn’t see it until I got down here. It’s not real bright.”

  I crouched down as well and peeked. It was faint and across the garage, a slight glow emanated from the level below. I stood. “Do you think there are people?”

  “Has to be. Come on. Stay close.”

  Was there really any other choice? The line of pallets had blocked us from seeing that light, but once we made it around, it was hard to miss, and it was a guide for us to follow.

  Halfway across the garage, there were empty pallets and plastic wrap. But there were no sounds. Surely if there were people, we’d hear something.

  Maybe it was just one person or two.

  We made it across the garage and as soon as we turned the bend to the ramp, it was brighter. The flashlights weren’t even needed.

  Quietly and slowly, we started our descent, but we only needed to make it midway. Once at that point we learned it wasn’t just one or two people, it was an entire group.

  Rather it looked more like a survivor camp.

  Those blue mattresses were placed neatly on the floor with emergency lights set up sporadically.

  The cots were filled, people lay on them. Some were sitting. There wasn’t that sound of groaning and moaning of people suffering.

  And there wasn’t any smell.

  From what I could see the level was clean and neat. Someone had organized the survivors.

  Mark looked at me. “Let’s go down there.”

  I nodded and took a step.

  “Stop,” the firm male voice said. It came from behind us. “Don’t move.”

  I slowly looked over my shoulder to see a man holding a rifle on us.

  “Don’t take another step. Do it and I promise you,” he said. “I will shoot.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN – ROLE REVERSAL

  It was a different type of fear, staring at the military looking rifle. Although I didn’t know much about weapons, it certainly looked like one someone from the military would carry. But the man holding it didn’t look military at all. He wasn’t in any uniform nor looked to be in very good shape, and he looked to be about fifty.

  Despite the fact that we were in the midst of post nuclear annihilation and it was dark, he looked impeccably clean.

  Even though he looked like a somewhat good guy, I was still scared. There I was, surviving a blast only to die after being shot.

  “We aren’t here for trouble,” Mark said.

  “Set down your flashlights slowly,” the man instructed. “Then raise your hands.”

  I did as instructed, keeping my eyes on him. “We aren’t armed,” I said.

  “Yes, you are,” Rifle man replied.

  “No, we’re not,” I insisted.

  “Yeah,” Mark said, “Yeah, we are.”

  “We are?”

  “I am,” Mark said, “I have my pistol,”

  “Why would you bring a gun to look for supplies?”

  “I don’t know, Henny, maybe in case there is trouble.”

  “Oh, now there’s trouble because it looks like I lied to the …”

  “Hey,” Rifle man snapped. “Enough. I know you aren’t here for trouble, I heard your conversation.” He lowered his weapon, then shouldered it.

  “How much trouble can there be?” I asked. “I mean, really, down here.”

  “You’d be surprised what people can do when they’re desperate. How long do you think it’ll be before looters come out?”

  “After three days?” I asked in disbelief.

  “After three hours,” he said.

  “People panicked and were desperate before,” Mark said. “You remember the last few minutes, right?”

  I nodded then looked to Rifle Man. “If you know we aren’t here for trouble why are you threatening to shoot us?” I asked.

  “Because I can’t have you go down there,” he replied. “None of those people have been topside since the bombs. None of them have seen more than an inkling of radiation. Look at you.” He shined his light on us. “Both of you are covered with dirt and I gather ash. At least you have your shoes covered. And your hand.” He moved the light to my left hand. “You better decontaminate now or you’re gonna be one sore puppy in a few hours.”

  I glanced down to my hand, my fingers were covered with some gray substance. I rolled my fingers together feeling the course ash. I couldn’t figure out how it got there, and then I remembered, the wall. I held on to it, feeling it as we walked in the dark.

  “Jesus, Henny,” Mark lifted my hand.

  “I didn’t think.” I shook my head.

  “You obviously have a place where you’re hunkering,” Rifle Man said. “You said you don’t really need supplies.”

  “Not now,” Mark said. “Maybe for when we leave.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked.

  Mark shook his head.

  “Do you have a radio?” he questioned.

  “No,” Mark answered.

  “So, you have no idea where to go, no radio to
find a place, nor do you even know how you’re getting there?”

  “That …” Mark lifted his finger. “I have given thought to. What about you?”

  “We have a plan,” Rifle man answered. “I’m taking it there’s a lot more of us than you. How many in your group?”

  “Upstairs right now,” Mark replied. “Five. But there’s nine of us altogether. The other four are at our previous basement shelter.”

  Rifle man nodded.

  At first, I couldn’t figure out where he was getting nine from. Adina, Van and Joan only made eight. Then I remembered Beth wasn’t as exposed. Even though Duncan’s father and window man were close to passing, she wasn’t.

  I asked, “How did you manage to be down here?”

  “Well, supplies were dropped off just in case this had to be an emergency shelter. When we realized the buses weren’t coming, or even if they did, we’d not get out with the traffic, we started setting it up.”

  “Upstairs no one is sick,” I said. “In fact, I have my daughter up there. She’s nine. The only exposure she had was when we came here and I covered her with a lead blanket. We won’t bother you, if you can just let us have some of those blue mattresses, I’d be grateful, we’ve been sleeping on the hard floor.”

  “You have a kid up there?”

  “Yes, yes, we do, and like I said, no one is sick.”

  “The sick thing is not true,” Mark corrected. “Ted and his asthma.”

  My eyes widened. “I’m not lying to you on purpose, sir.”

  “Sir.” He scoffed a laugh and shook his head. “Call me Devon. And ... I can’t make any promises, let me go talk to my people down there. See if we can make room for you. Especially with a kid. Maybe if we get you decontaminated. We have a good clean set up.”

  “We'd appreciate it,” Mark said.

  He gave a nod, turned and went down the ramp.

  After a pause, I looked at Mark. “Do we need to go down there?”

  Mark shrugged. “Can’t hurt. We’ve been in so much filth and stench, that might not be a bad idea to go somewhere healthy for the remainder of our wait. Or your wait. I promised to go check on Adina and the others.”

  “I know you did.” I let out a heavy breath.

  “Kinda ironic, don’t you think?”

  “What is?” I asked,

  “A few days ago, we were safe below deciding the fate of those above us. Now we’re the ones whose fate is being decided.”

  “Is our fate really being decided?”

  “Every better place is a better chance for survival.”

  That made some sense to me. I thought I had found a safe place for Macy. Maybe below where there they were set up like a camp, would be even better for her.

  I vowed to protect and keep her safe.

  We waited for what seemed like an hour, but it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been.

  I imagined them weighing the decision. Suddenly, we were the ones that were radiated, we were the ones that would bring filth, sickness and smells into their tidy area.

  Devon returned, and I knew by the look on his face what the answer would be.

  “They would rather you not,” Devon told us. “They just don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Understandable,” Mark replied.

  “I argued that we could use the help with keeping watch. It’s not all that bad though. Here’s what we came up with. These supplies are public. They don’t just belong to us and there are plenty of supplies. Our suggestion is; leave your contaminated stuff up wherever you have it and move your group to this level. It’s still safe, we’ll get you some decontamination stuff, a radio, too. We’ll help as long as you help us in keeping a watch on this place. You can make a nice area on this level.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “And … another thing. They’ll allow the little girl down below. Her and you,” He looked at me. “That’s it.”

  “Well,” Mark said. “There you go, Henny. You want to keep your daughter safe. Here’s your chance. We’ll get Macy and bring her down.”

  Something inside of me sparked an immediate response of, ‘no’, I gave a polite smile to Devon. Not that I didn’t want to keep my daughter safe and protect her, but at what cost? Leaving those who stood by us since the beginning.

  “No, but thank you,” I told Devon. “We’ll stay on this level. That is generous of you. I want to stay with Mark and the others. We’ll do what we can to help you out as well.”

  “I get it. I do,” Devon said. “I’ll get started on getting you those supplies. We’re a radio call away. And I’m sure one of us will help if you need it.”

  He glanced at my hand, and I caught the worry and concern he projected. I got a feeling of dread, like he expected it to get bad, immediately that made me worry, though I said nothing, I just rolled my hand into a fist.

  “And the offer stays open for your daughter,” he said. “A lot of us were hospital workers that never made it on a transport. We have family …”

  Suddenly his voice faded in my head.

  My mind started spinning, a million thoughts pummeled me. I saw his lips move, but hadn’t a clue what he was saying.

  For some reason, my body moved passed Devon, and I rushed to the ramp.

  “Hey!” Devon yelled.

  “Don’t shoot me, I’m not getting near,” I replied as I hit the ramp. “I just need to get close enough to yell.”

  I made it a little further than halfway down the ramp when the camp came into my view. It truly was set up neatly. Long tables sectioned off different areas. There had to be at least fifty people.

  I felt my arm grabbed, then heard Mark’s voice. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I jolted my arm away and hollered out. My insides shook, it was crazy, but I had to try. “Is there a woman here who has a son named Kevin?” I paused. “Or do you know a woman who has a son named Kevin? She would be a nurse. He’s young. First year college. He’s a great kid. He is looking for his mom. She worked here. Anyone? Is there a woman here who has a son named Kevin?”

  There was ruffling of people moving around, staring at me. No one said anything.

  “It’s okay,” Mark laid his hand on my back. “You tried.”

  I nodded sadly and prepared to tell Devon I was sorry. In defeat, I peeped out one more, ‘Anyone’ before starting to turn and that was when I saw her.

  A woman stood up.

  “I do,” she said. “Please tell me this isn’t a trick.”

  I slowly shook my head, conveying that it wasn’t.

  TWENTY-EIGHT – NOT INFALLIBLE

  It didn’t matter to her that she risked contamination after being sheltered and safe.

  She was a mother who desperately wanted her child.

  I felt it, I saw it and I totally understood.

  I prayed we hadn’t misled her.

  “Where is he? Where’s my son?” She grabbed ahold of my arms. “Please tell me where he is. Is he alright? Is he hurt? Sick?”

  I wanted to give her all those answers, but I shut down, fear took over that it might be nothing but a coincidence.

  Despite the fact that she wanted to come with us back up to the hospital, Devon convinced Denise, or Nisie as he called her, to just hold tight.

  Stay put, help pull supplies and wait.

  They gave us two lights to make our journey much easier through the dark halls.

  On the way back to the radiology department, Mark and I discussed going and getting Joan and the others in the morning. Bring them back, give them a chance with a safe shelter, one that was clean with other medical professionals to help guide us in their care.

  That would be when daylight arrived.

  Until then, we had to get Macy, Ted and Kevin.

  I wanted to blast to Kevin that we found his mother, but I refrained, simply scared that if I was wrong, I would be breaking two hearts.

  Kevin was the biggest whiner of them all when we told them what we wanted to do.


  “What’s the difference? Down there below or up here surrounded with lead,” Kevin said. “And we just got Ted to stop coughing. If we move him, he’ll start coughing again. And Macy is sound asleep.”

  Mark winced a little listening to Kevin’s excuses, then he explained. “From what we saw it was supposed to be a shelter camp. There are supplies there. Clean supplies and a way for us to get the radiation particles off us.”

  “A lot of good that would do,” Kevin said. “We would have to put the same clothes back on.”

  “I think they have suits,” Mark said. “You’ll be able to get out of those blood stained and sour smelling clothes.”

  “I smell sour?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah, you do. It’s worth the walk down there. Trust me. We will be much better off physically waiting it out down there,” Mark told him.

  I kept quiet. Scared to death I'd slip and say something about Nisie.

  I just hurried them along. We left everything but the dosimeters behind. I was just glad we had all covered our shoes with the sani-booties. We needed our shoes.

  With just the dosimeters on our persons, sani booties on our feet, we made our way there.

  We didn’t tell them others were down there, nor did we tell them they didn’t want us with them on the lower level.

  In a sense, I was relieved.

  I remembered how I felt about Adina and the group when they joined us. Suddenly we were the cause for the smells, sickness and noise.

  Even if it were no fault of our own.

  Now here we were exposed, and even though we took those pills that block radiation absorption, we stood a chance of getting sick, while they on the third level were the healthy ones, looking at us the way I looked at Boris.

  “Is it going to be better, Mommy?” Macy asked me as we walked.

  “I think so, it’ll be brighter and cleaner. And since we have to stay below for at least another week and a half, it’s the best place to be,” I replied.

  “Like we said,” Mark added. “Plenty of good stuff, too.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Ted coughed after he spoke. “Getting those two lights, knowing about new clothes and decontamination, you guys must have really found a treasure.” He paused for a coughing fit. “You weren’t gone that long.”