Nine Minutes

by Jacqueline Druga

  “The theory is,” Devon said. “Anything running when the bombs went off won’t run again due to the EMP. Cars not running when the bombs fell may. I have my car on the level above. The scouting party can take that.”

  “And the others?” Mark asked. “A bus won’t be easy to find.”

  Interjecting in the conversation was Kevin. He had been listening and stepped forward., “Liberty Bruce Motors.”

  We all looked at him.

  “Liberty Bruce,” he repeated. “A buy here, pay here place five blocks away. I bet it’s still standing. Small white building, the cars are all in the lot, the keys to the cars are in a cabinet behind the one desk. That’s how I got the car to get my mom.”

  “So, you did steal it?” Mark asked. “Like the cops said. You told us it was a friend’s car.”

  “I did. I didn’t want you to think you helped a thief. I’m not. In a way he was a friend, I was trying to get a car there before the bombs.”

  Mark grumbled. “Okay, so we can … steal …” he looked at Kevin. “Some cars for the group once we know where we will all go. The scouting party takes Devon’s car, if it runs. The radios may not reach any camps, but they should work between us. We send out a group to find a destination. Radio back when we do.”

  “We?” I asked. “You’re volunteering?”

  “I am,” Mark replied. “These people helped us. It’s the least I can do. I’ll head out first and keep them posted along the way. Let them know what’s out there.”

  “Count me in,” Ted said. “I’m ready to see what’s out there.”

  “Me, as well,” Joan added.

  I didn’t say it at the moment, but in my mind, I knew Macy and I would go along, too. I would be raising my hand and saying, “Us, too.”

  The garage offered a level of safety, but for how long. I knew it was risky taking my daughter, but unlike the scouting mission to the hospital, I couldn’t leave her behind.

  Not this time.

  Whoever went out with the first group to leave the garage wasn’t coming back, they were finding a place, whether they were waiting for the others or not.

  Mark, Ted, Joan, Kevin and I were all strangers the day the bombs fell, but we had turned into more than that.

  Three of them were leaving, I had no choice but for me and Macy to go along with them.

  We started this journey together.

  We would continue the journey together. I didn’t want it any other way.

  And it was time to leave the safety of the shelter and finally face what was left of the world.

  THIRTY-ONE – EMERGE

  Taking Devon’s expensive SUV was great in theory, but that went only as far as the ramp to the street level. I was glad common sense kicked in with us before we loaded up only to be stuck.

  The amount of debris, thrown cars and bodies, along with broken glass made it impossible to even try.

  We ended up using Kevin’s Liberty Bruce Motors idea and siphoning gas from Devon’s vehicle.

  Mark went out with Walter the nurse to find a car and get it as close as they could.

  Walter was a good guy. He was one of the survivors that had family out there, just outside of Cleveland, he said. He was a traveling nurse.

  They made several trips to get the car and load it.

  In the government supplies there were handheld radiation readers, or Geiger counters as Devon called them.

  The levels had dropped to seven point eight millisieverts per hour or less than one rad.

  Safe enough to move about outside for a limited time.

  They found an older and unattractive station wagon. Though not the best thing on the eyes, it ran.

  Kevin made a comment that he only saw older cars in every apocalypse movie.

  Thinking about it, he was right. I always assumed it was a budget issue with the studio.

  While they made the trips to the geek wagon, me, Macy and Joan moved up to the first level ramp with our supplies. It allowed for our eyes to start to adjust to the brighter surroundings. It also allowed me to see how truly pale we all were. I hadn’t looked at my own reflection in a long time, nor did I want to. I knew how I felt, I was only now starting to get stronger. If Joan and my daughter, who were healthy as horses, were pale, I probably looked like death.

  I know Mark did.

  It would change once we emerged into some semblance of ultraviolet light.

  We tested the radio several times with Mark, it worked well, and we held high hopes it would keep us in contact with Level Three, the radio code name Mark gave them.

  Ours was the Road Warriors or RW, the giving of nicknames made no sense, we hadn’t heard anyone on the radio other than ourselves.

  For three days we soaked our old clothes to disinfect them and get them clean. It felt strange putting jeans on again after essentially wearing pajamas for weeks.

  The clothing, radio tests … the car… it was time to move out.

  Twenty days after the bombs were dropped. Time enough to heal, feel better and mentally prepare.

  There was no definitive plan, our only plan was to get on the first available roadway out. We had an idea of where to go, we were focusing on the evacuation centers. That was it.

  We would radio along the way, like live stream broadcasting.

  Van was on his feet and stayed behind with Adina who had ended up knowing a few people on Level Three.

  Kevin decided to stay back with his mother. That wasn’t a surprise, I would have been surprised if he didn’t.

  I felt this strange unexpected sadness when I said goodbye to him. Not a feeling of foreboding, just sadness that I was leaving him.

  I guess despite what I believed, I cared a lot more than I thought I did.

  I embraced him whole heartedly. He thanked me again for that first day. My mind flashed back to him in the back seat of that police car, his face bloodied and eyes so lost.

  We all said our goodbyes, but kept them short, in my mind and heart we would see everyone again.

  “Remember,” Devon told as we prepared to leave. “Don’t be deceived. Try to avoid being out for long periods of time, check your dosimeters often. Especially after you get farther out. You aren’t leaving the radiation, you're chasing it.”

  Chasing the radiation.

  It made sense after thinking about it. The radiation moved with the jet streams and wind.

  As Devon described, like spreading peanut butter, if you start out with a glob, the glob gets smaller as you move the knife, but there is still a glob.

  We were headed into the glob. Or at least running behind it.

  Emerging back onto the street wasn’t as much of a shell shock as it was the first time, at least visually with the damage and destruction. But we emerged into a totally different beast of a world then we did days after the bombs.

  A much colder and grayer world. The dust from destruction had seemed to permanently cloud the sky. It was July, and the weather felt like fall. There was no wind, no sound, it even felt silent.

  I looked for people, the looters that Joan had told me about, I saw no one.

  If they were out there for days, more than likely, they were sick somewhere now or worse, dead.

  Even with the tacky station wagon loaded, we still carried supplies.

  Macy held my hand, looking around, studying her surroundings. She wasn’t buried beneath a lead blanket that served as blinders for everything around her.

  I could feel her little fingers tensing around mine every time we passed something horrifying, and we did often.

  As we walked down the street closer to where Mark had placed the car, I saw evidence that people tried to survive. Somehow believing that if they stayed just inside the store fronts they would be safe.

  Their lifeless bodies huddled around each other were like a tragic window display.

  There were more than I thought.

  If they just would have gone into the building or below.

  Ignorance makes for a har
d call, especially when dealing with something like nuclear war.

  None of us ever believed it would happen, we never bothered learning.

  Why would we?

  But it had happened.

  Those who died in front of the broken windows believed they were impervious to danger as long as they were sheltered.

  Just like I thought I could run my hand down the wall without repercussions.

  I wasn’t just touching dust, I was touching death.

  They weren’t breathing air, they were breathing poison.

  An invisible poison that cut right through them.

  I was so grateful when we finally arrived at the car.

  We loaded the rest of our things in the back of the wagon and got inside.

  Mark would drive first, he and Joan sat up front. Ted, Macy and myself in the back.

  “Ready?” Mark asked, his voice sounded shaky, he was as nervous as the rest of us.

  No one replied, there was no need. It didn’t matter if we were ready or not, we were in the wagon and perched to go.

  Mark started the car.

  THIRTY-TWO – MOVE AHEAD

  The sound of a baby crying in the distance filled the air, it wasn’t a newborn, they had a distinctive cry. This was a young child unable to verbalize what was wrong, what hurt or if they were hungry.

  I heard that cry for the longest time. Listening from the car trying to pinpoint where it came from. Did we pass the baby, or were we approaching it? Maybe the world was so quiet the sound of the cry just cut through.

  I prayed that there was an adult with him, that someone was trying to tend to the baby’s needs. Common sense told me that after three weeks, somebody had to be taking care of the baby.

  Were they still there?

  We moved at a slow pace going northeast. The houses and building were farther apart, the road less covered with debris.

  As we moved to the end of the neighborhood, the crying stopped.

  The dead silence returned.

  “Someone is holding him,’ Ted said softly. “Someone has the baby.”

  When he said that my heart broke thinking about all the children out there who lived through the bombs, the ones that didn’t know not to go outside.

  The ones that were alone crying in sickness and pain.

  It made me hold my daughter a little tighter.

  We checked in often on the radio, probably more so to make sure we still were in range and we still had communication with the others.

  I just wanted us to move, to be able to drive faster without the painstaking slow pace that seemed like we were on some tour of Hollywood homes. With the tour guide announcing every sight.

  “And over there you see McDonald’s, the staple of America fast food. It’s gone now. If you look to your right, where the family of three is sleeping, that used to be Mosely’s car shop. Good old Mosely was on an evacuation bus, right smack on Bigalow Boulevard when the bombs fell.”

  The good thing about moving farther from Bloomfield was people. We did see more people.

  They camped out in small parks, on the sidewalks. I stared at them and they stared back as we drove past.

  None of them looked any better than us, they were pale, sores on their faces. Some had lost hair, some were burned. They huddled around garbage cans of fire trying to stay warm.

  What were any of us thinking? The amount of energy I expended trying to learn and get out of the city could have been spent finding a spot far enough away and below, waiting it out.

  Did I actually think the traffic would miraculously move and I’d be free from the bombs?

  I should have known better, we all should have known better.

  Finally, we made it from the side, finagling our way to Butler street and to the 62nd Street bridge. I honestly didn’t think we’d make it over. I feared, like the Bloomfield Bridge, it too would be packed with traffic.

  Apparently, that evacuation route was clear.

  It was frustrating to me, all that time sitting on the bridge simply because I needed to get to the campsite south of the city, when my main concern should have been just getting out.

  The open roadway had only a few abandoned cars with doors open. I suspect the drivers took off running when their car stopped.

  The trees that lined the road, the overgrowth of foliage was all dead. Winter dead.

  I didn’t see another car, and I looked behind us.

  “Stop,” I said to Mark.

  “Why?”

  “I … I have to see.”

  His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror and he slowed down, then stopped.

  “Where you going, Mommy?” Macy asked.

  “I need to see, Baby.”

  “See what?”

  “The city.”

  I knew the stretch of roadway well, I knew it was the bend that when coming from the north the city came into view.

  We all stepped out of the car.

  There was a world of difference from seeing the picture on Joan’s phone.

  It was real.

  Though far in the distance, the top of the skyline was different. The triangular skyscraper had been reduced to two beams, I’m sure there was more remaining, but from my vantage point it didn’t look like it. Jagged edges and shadows made up the rest.

  “It will never be the same, Mommy,” Macy said, grabbing my hand.

  “No, baby, nothing will ever be the same.”

  I felt sadness and overwhelming anger. It wasn’t an act of war, two countries taking it too far. It was one entity deciding the fate of humanity.

  Taking a bright future away from my child and replacing it with darkness and danger. This wasn’t the world she was supposed to inherit.

  I hated that I had faced it.

  Those who did it thought they won.

  Maybe they did.

  In my mind and heart, we as a people had to do everything we could to steal that victory from them.

  It didn’t start with government or military, it started with people.

  They destroyed our buildings, but they didn’t destroy us.

  Not yet.

  THIRTY-THREE – WHAT WE DO

  The signs started to appear just after the Freeport exit on Route 28. We talked about going through Freeport, but with the evacuation center only a few more miles away, we opted to aim for it. It had to be big, it was set up in the state’s largest mall.

  First came the signs, then came the survivors.

  We started seeing them on the road walking in that direction. So many of them calling out to us, asking us to stop.

  For what?

  Where would we put them?

  It wasn’t like a massive exodus of people, more of a steady trickling that led all the way to the roundabout road that encircled Pittsburgh Mills Mall.

  When we first arrived, we saw nothing that looked like an evacuation center, no indication that people were even there. Then as we drove around toward the other side, we saw a bus, a couple of military trucks. Finally, when we passed the sporting goods store we saw tents, rows and rows of them.

  But we didn’t see that many people.

  “I’m thinking we don’t drive right up,” Mark suggested. “Let’s park back here with the other vehicles and walk to see what’s going on.”

  It was a good idea, and we parked by the bus, almost hiding the station wagon.

  “Level Three,” Joan called on the radio. “You there? Can you hear us?”

  A second later, Devon came on. “We read you.”

  “We made it up twenty-eight,” Joan said. “Evacuation center is at the Mills Mall. Looks operational, although not seeing many people here. Saw a lot, I’m assuming, trying to make it here.”

  “People are emerging now around us,” Devon replied. “Probably seeking help. Let me know what you find out.”

  No sooner had we all stepped out than we were approached by a soldier.

  “Can I help you? Entrance to the camp is that way.” He pointed.
/>   “Thank you,” Mark said. “As you can see, we drove. We didn’t know where to park. Thought it was better here. Is there someone in charge?”

  The solider looked at Mark curiously. “Did you need something? There are different people trying to keep it together for different things, there are different aspects of this place. Some of you look like you might be sick.”

  Mark shook his head. ‘Actually, on the mend.”

  “That’s good. What did you need?” he asked again.

  His question made me pause. What were we doing there? Really, what did we need?

  I simply blurted out. “We just have questions. That’s all. We don’t really need anything.”

  “I don’t know how many answers anyone has, but I’ll show you who you may talk to.”

  He took us to a man that I expected to be frazzled, no real reason to think that, I just imagined with the camp being so big everyone would be beside themselves.

  He wasn’t. He was actually pleasant and composed. He was in a tent alone, it looked like an office, and he was separating items out of MRE’s when the soldier brought us to him.

  He introduced himself as Edward then said, “Glad to meet you folks. Give me a second, I’ll get your information.” He walked across the tent. “I’m making boxes. I heard there are a lot of people on the highway.” Edward grabbed a clipboard. “Okay,” he said, exhaled and sat down. “If you don’t mind being together, and you’re just passing through, I can give you a tent that’s already stocked. Then again …” he reached out and cupped his hand on Macy’s chin. “This little one looks pretty healthy, good job. I would choose the north entrance, that’s our family area. Keep her indoors. Find a store, a set up, we’ll do what we can.”

  I looked at Mark, he looked at me. We all kind of looked at each other.

  “Okay,” Edward said. “What am I missing? You’re here for refuge, right?”

  I shook my head. “More so information.”

  “Oh.” He cocked back. “Okay. What can I help you with?”

  We hadn’t planned for an interview. “You’re still here after three weeks,” I said. “How many people are here?”