by Ryan King
*******
They stayed in the basement for nearly four weeks. There were more sirens and vehicle activity the first few days, and once an inaudible loudspeaker announcement, but there had been no sound above ground for the last three weeks except for possibly the quite scurrying of a few animals.
Nathan thought they would have to leave after only ten days due to lack of water, but Joshua came up with the idea of drinking out of the 80 gallon hot water heater in the basement corner. They also ended up eating all of Daisy’s dog food. They each suffered mild radiation sickness symptoms, but nothing more severe than nausea, lack of appetite, and headaches. He thought they would make it without further sickness as long as they were careful about exposure. By the time Nathan decided to leave the basement, all the radio channels were ominously quiet.
Nathan covered his mouth with a wet bandanna and walked upstairs and outside with the shotgun ready before him. Everything was still and silent. He surveyed crashed cars, bloated bodies in the road, and smoke from old fires in all directions. A layer of dirty ash covered every surface. Nathan was the only living thing he saw under the grey foreboding sky. It was late fall, but the air was colder than it should be and the clouds were dark and menacing. Although he didn’t like the idea of starting out with winter approaching, Nathan decided it was best to get his family away from the large cities while he could. Those cities were going to continue to emit deadly radiation for generations.
They emerged from their den thin, shaky and pale. They gathered all the guns, ammunition, food, water, clothing, and supplies they could. Any item they took that wasn’t in the basement with them was wiped down carefully to remove radioactive particles. Despite their hunger, Nathan was afraid to eat any of the topside food until they moved further from the radiation centers and he insisted they boil whatever water they used.
They drove as far as possible on jammed highways for several days before being forced to pack up and begin walking west. They occasionally saw small groups of other survivors doing the same. People they met didn’t talk much, just kept their distance and continued moving. These others were universally dirty, unkempt and fearfully nervous almost to the point of craziness. Nathan wondered if he and his family looked the same.
The day Daisy died was a low point. It happened after only a few weeks of traveling. Nathan wasn’t sure why, he had heard somewhere that dogs’ tolerance to radiation was much higher than humans. Maybe she just couldn’t handle the stress. They buried her with sorrow and kept moving.
Over the next few weeks they traveled west occasionally seeing individuals at a distance, but never approaching. The bodies with signs of foul play in their path reminded them that caution was now paramount. Nathan and his family had fought off attackers on three occasions already. Fortunately, none of these bands had possessed guns or been too clever.
It was disturbing to Nathan how quickly society broke down into brutality. A week ago they came to a still smoldering and deserted town. Everything was covered in soot including a body hanging from a lamp post by a chain around its neck. A hand scrawled placard on his body explained “Arson Bastard”. Another time they approached a small group of houses in the twilight and saw a large sign saying “Stay Away!” They had run across many such warnings, but the three severed rotting heads hanging from trees, just out of reach of any larger scavengers, made Nathan keep walking even though night was approaching.
At least they were away from the decaying death in the streets. Nathan believed these scenes were probably similar all across the country. All the major cities were destroyed. In rings around these cities were various degrees of “dead zones” with increasing levels of radiation depending on how close they were to a nuke impact. The further they moved away from those cities, the less they saw of mass graves and piles of bodies covered in swarms of feeding rats, vultures, and insects. Nathan also began to feel more comfortable eating any canned food they discovered and found it unnecessary to keep their faces covered with wet cloths.
Ironically, it seemed that the instances of suicides increased further away from the cities. Nathan couldn’t at first understand the families they found sitting around their dinner tables, all dead from eating or drinking poison together. He thought it must simply be despair at the idea of living so differently and without hope. In a strange way, these suicides unnerved him more than anything else.
The highways were totally clogged as they approached the West Virginia border. Vehicles piled high with belongings were packed in so tight they touched in many cases. Both sides of the highway, the median, and even the fields on the sides were stuffed with immobile cars, trucks, and RV’s headed west. They were forced to walk along the tops of these vehicles the last few miles to the border. Large spray-painted plywood signs declared the state quarantined and that no one would be admitted. Empty military vehicles were lined up along the border, but the soldiers, supplies, and weapons were gone. A few rotting bodies showed evidence of trying to force the issue, but not as many as Nathan would have thought. The soldiers had likely lost heart and abandoned their posts, letting the streaming masses of desperate refugees cross the border. Nathan suspected it had been futile.
On the other side of the border was an abandoned and ransacked military camp. In a nearby field behind a field hospital were neat lines composed of hundreds of recent graves. They conducted a futile search for anything of value, but all food, shelter, tools, and even scraps of plastic sheeting were long gone. The family hurried away from the depressing scene.
Murderous and wild rogues often crept in the forest and along the shadowy road edges awaiting an opportunity to attack them. Nathan at first called out to them to ease their fear and hesitation, but learned that these men and women were no longer to be trusted regardless of who they once were. He tried simply to scare these small groups of stalkers away. They would run off for a time only to return soundlessly at night. Nathan now shot at them with the rifle if they refused to show themselves, he was taking no chances.
Moving. Always moving now. They were like nomads. Nathan previously believed such a life would be romantic and reminded him of the Plains Indians, but he thought with wry humor that hunger, cold, and fear just sucked the romance right out of nomadic living. Their time in the hunting shack was warm and restful, but they must not get complacent. This wasn’t home and he was frankly surprised they had made it so far. Nathan brought himself back to the present.
It’s time to move, he thought. We've been in the shack too long. He couldn’t say why he felt this, but knew to trust his intuition. Nathan remembered the four bodies at the bottom of the hill, probably nothing but bones now. Could have been us. Hell, might be us by the end of the day.
“Let’s pack up,” he said to the room without turning from the window, “time to get on the road again.” Nathan started to hum that Willie Nelson song, but stopped when he realized it made him sad.
