The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. I wanted to say, “Why are you wearing that mask?” but I was afraid it would embarrass him. A gas mask isn’t exactly macho looking.

  “They’re in our safe room,” he said. “I’m wondering why you’re not in yours.”

  I stared, surprised by the question. “There hasn’t been a storm or anything.” He gave me an inscrutable look.

  “Something took down the grid and until we know for sure it wasn’t a terrorist’s bomb, you should stay safe. Radiation levels are worst right after a blast.”

  I felt myself gaping. “Radiation levels? How do you know there’s radiation?”

  “Well, we don’t know for sure; we actually have a radiation detector but we can’t find it. How’s that for being prepared, huh?” When I didn’t smile, he added, “Do you guys have a detector?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” he said, “If we’ve had a solar flare, then it’s safe to be outside; that sort of radiation doesn’t pose much more of a threat than normal sun. But if it was a bomb there will be nuclear fallout, and until we know for sure where it hit and which direction the plume went, we need to play it safe. At least for the first few days.” He paused. “Unless there are more bombs, in which case I don’t know how long we’ll need to stay sheltered.” He studied me. “You rode here all by yourself?”

  “I didn’t want Mom to leave when Dad’s already missing.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Tell me what happened. How is he missing?” I told him quickly about Roy and the school kids, adding that I didn’t trust that bus driver from the start. His frown deepened.

  “We’ll need to pray about this,” he said. Where does he live?”

  “Who?”

  “The bus driver, Roy.” I felt like a dimwit and I blushed. My mind seemed to have latched onto the words “nuclear fallout” and I couldn’t think straight.

  “Well, I’m not sure, exactly. I know it was north-west of us, I heard my dad say so.”

  Mr. Buchanan’s expression changed as soon as I said I wasn’t sure.

  “If you don’t know where he lives, I don’t see what we can do. It’ll mean spending many more hours out there, not knowing if we’re exposing ourselves. Do you see what you’re asking, Lexie?”

  I nodded miserably.

  “But I’ll tell you what, we will pray for your dad’s safety.”

  I thanked him and turned to go.

  “Hey, how long did you guys spend outside yesterday taking those kids home?”

  I thought for a moment.

  “Three or more hours, easy,” I said. He nodded, but his face went blank. I could see he wasn’t going to say if that length of exposure to fallout might be really bad.

  “Come and get warmed up before you go,” he said. I peeked out at Promised Land. She’s such a good girl. She was munching, patiently hanging in there, despite the long ride and now being left standing in the cold. I followed Mr. Buchanan to the basement safe room. Mrs. Buchanan greeted me really warmly, and the whole family seemed especially happy to see me. I felt so ridiculous because as they surrounded me with hugs, I started crying. The Buchanans are good friends but they aren’t usually THAT affectionate. I think they were happy to see someone else after being isolated in their safe room for a day and a night.

  “Lexie’s just gonna warm up before she has to ride back home,” Mr. Buchanan said. He proceeded to talk with his wife, telling her my tale. I wiped my eyes and got a hold of myself as the younger ones bulleted me with questions.

  “How did you get here, Lexie? On Rhema?”

  “What are the girls doing?”

  “Is your family staying in your safe room like we are?”

  “Weren’t you afraid to leave the house?”

  “Give Lexie some room,” Mr. Buchanan ordered. The little Buchanans instantly obeyed and I busied myself warming up by the kerosene heater, admiring the fact that they’d thought to install a heat source into their safe room complete with an outside, tiny air vent. Blake came over and stood next to me, saying nothing. He shoved both hands in his pockets and rocked a little, as though he was trying to think of something to say. Somehow I felt he was being supportive, and I turned to gaze up at him gratefully. Blake’s tall and sandy haired, “one tall drink o’ water,” my mother would say. You can see at a glance that he’s the mild-mannered type. I guess some people would call him a geek.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, and then in the next minute I’d told him the story of Roy and the kids. The whole family fell silent as I spoke. Talking about it filled me with fresh worries about my dad. Mrs. Buchanan came and put an arm around me.

  “Let’s pray over her,” she said to her husband. The family surrounded me. Each one touched me, the little ones hanging onto my jeans or putting a small hand tenderly on my arm. The adults had a hand on my shoulders; Blake put one of his around my elbow. Mr. Buchanan prayed, and then Mrs. Buchanan. It was deeply comforting. I suddenly felt…well, protected. I don’t know how else to describe the cocoon I seemed to feel around me during those prayers.

  I thanked everyone and got ready to leave. Mrs. Buchanan pushed a cup of hot soup into my hands saying, “Here, don’t go on an empty stomach.” The soup was wonderful. Finally I went to leave but Blake came over to me, his eyes pensive.

  “Hey, I’ll be praying your dad gets home soon.”

  I nodded, but stared at the floor. “Thanks.” It wasn’t the help I’d hoped for. But I liked the way I had his full attention. Blake was the sort of guy who seemed chronically busy thinking so that when you spoke to him you could never be certain whether he had heard you or not, or, if he had, if it would penetrate the fog of his swirling thoughts enough to register. But I was definitely on his radar at the moment, and I liked it. It occurred to me that if anybody had a good handle on what might have happened if we’d indeed experienced an EMP, it would be Blake. I peeked up at him.

  “Do you think there’s dangerous radiation out there?”

  He frowned. Then he shrugged. “Hard to say. We don’t know what caused the pulse…You know how parents are,” he added with a little smile.

  “I know. My mom and dad are making me carry a firearm.” He said nothing and just nodded, making me think he agreed with that caution.

  “What if it was just a solar flare?” I asked hopefully. The visit had definitely given me new things to worry about. “A solar flare wouldn’t cause dangerous radiation, would it?”

  He looked uncomfortable, shifting on his feet. “Well, the thing is, whatever caused such a widespread outage is likely to set off a chain reaction leading to nuclear fallout; even if it wasn’t terrorists.” He looked almost apologetic. “But you’ll be okay for now if it was a flare. See, the radiation from a flare is stronger than usual but not deadly. The real danger is what happens afterwards because of the grid going down. Like at Fukushima. Nuclear power plants depend on electricity to function properly, so we could see multiple leaks throughout the country…that’s a danger regardless of how the grid went down.”

  My heart lifted and then sank at his words. We may have escaped contamination so far; but it might be coming anyway. He touched my arm as if he was going to say more but his dad said, “I’ll walk you back upstairs.”

  As we left Blake added, in a louder tone so I’d hear him. “If the reactors blow, it’ll be in two weeks or so.” When I looked back at him with a worried frown he said, “With two weeks to shut things down, even manually, they may never blow.” I realized that was supposed to be good news, so I gave him a weak smile.

  “We gotta pray they don’t,” he added.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Mrs. Buchanan hurried over to give me a last hug. “Give your mom our love and tell her we’ll continue to pray for your dad’s safe return.” I nodded my thanks to her.

  “I’m sorry we can’t search,” Mr. Buchanan said as he led me back up the stairs.

  I couldn’t bri
ng myself to say anything expected like, “That’s okay,” or, “I understand.”

  I did understand—if the Buchanans were right about there being radioactivity about, I couldn’t blame them for staying in their shelter. But I was too raw to be kind. As I mounted the horse, Mr. Buchanan watched with the door opened a crack. It opened more.

  “Hey, just in case. Change your clothes and put ‘em outside when you get home and get your mom and the kids into the safe room and live in there for the next 48 hours, okay?”

  “What about my dad?”

  “If he gets home and can’t find you, he’ll check your safe room.”

  I turned to leave. Tears filled my eyes. I’d really thought the Buchanans would jump into action, joining me on horseback to search for Dad. The prayers had felt great and I really appreciated them but now, back in the cold white silence, I was immediately in worry mode.

  The idea struck me to ask some of the kindergartener’s parents where the driver lived. I remembered where some of the houses were where we’d dropped off kids. One of the parents was bound to know where Roy lived. But then I realized it didn’t matter. I couldn’t go there alone and expect to be any help if my dad hadn’t been able to handle that guy. And maybe we were all dead anyways, from nuclear fallout we hadn’t known was around.

  I thought of those kids sticking their tongues out to catch snowflakes. Was it clean snow or deadly contaminated snow? Suddenly the magnitude of being totally in the dark about the outside world and what had happened to cause the EMP felt overwhelming. I wished I had taken the time to practice using dad’s amateur radio. We needed it desperately.

  I rode Promised Land hard, trying to keep down a sense of panic. I even gave up the fields, taking the roads I knew well because they were faster. I saw people walking and headed to the opposite side of the road. One man motioned at me and waited as though he wanted to talk, but I remembered my dad’s words and I let Promised Land gallop past.

  “Hey!” he called, in an angry voice. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get home. If there had been fallout, then he was dead anyway, just like me and dad, and Roy and the kids.

  At home I planned to drag out an encyclopedia and read about radiation poisoning. (Yeah; we have encyclopedias. When they were selling for a song because all the information was available online, my parents picked up a set. I have to hand it to them for being far-sighted.) Anyway, if we were poisoned, I wanted to recognize the signs. I thought of how we’d prayed for Dad and the feeling of assurance I’d gotten from the Lord. Had I been mistaken? Was I imagining that feeling? And just now, at the Buchanans’ house—hadn’t I felt safe? As in a cocoon?

  But maybe it was all an illusion, just wishful thinking. Maybe all those years of prepping for a disaster were pointless, too. All that effort, the years of storing food little by little, putting aside what we could, the wood-stoves and solar panels, the cost of the safe room. I reflected bitterly how we’d given up Disney one summer to fix up that room. On and on it went, my mind raising images of all we’d done to prepare—the gravity-powered water filter, so effective we could take water from a pond and it would become drinkable after going through it.

  What good was it now? What good, any of it? I pictured our storeroom lined with shelves of products, all for seeing us through an emergency. And now I pictured all of us dying from radiation poisoning despite it all. The tears kept trickling as I rode, making painful rivulets as they hit the icy air on my exposed cheeks and face. I urged Promised Land faster, anxious to get home.

  If I was going to die, I wanted to die at home.

  How could You let this happen, God?

  At home, I took care of the horse, crying harder when I saw Rhema’s empty stall. When I got back in the house I sat down at the kitchen table and cried some more. It was colder in the kitchen than in the main living area but I didn’t care.

  “Mama, Lexie’s crying!” I looked up. Lainie was staring at me with big eyes.

  “Are you crying ‘cos daddy’s not home yet?”

  I nodded. That was partially why. And then it hit me that Lainie and Laura and Justin hadn’t been outside yesterday. It was only dad and I who had taken the kids home. And mom had been outdoors only briefly. This meant they may not have been exposed! I suddenly felt a little better but not a whole lot, because I might still be dying. But it was a great relief that we weren’t all dying. Mom came out, holding Justin on one hip.

  “What’s the matter?” She hurried over to my side and stroked my hair. “What did the Buchanans say?”

  I looked up at her. Mom’s still really pretty in her forties. Even when she’s worried. We’re both blondes but I look more like my dad than her.

  “Mom, do we have a radiation detector?” She looked at me for a moment and then comprehension dawned and her eyes widened.

  “Oh, no!” she said. “What did they tell you?”

  “Do we have a detector?”

  “What is it, mommy? What is it, mommy?” Lainie cried, tugging on my mother’s shirt.

  “Did they find radiation? Are we in a fallout zone?” Mom asked.

  “What’s radiation, mommy?”

  We both ignored Lainie.

  “They don’t know,” I said. “They can’t find their detector. But they’re staying in their safe room just in case.”

  She stopped. “You mean they won’t help us find Dad?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Hmph!” she said. “Here,” and she handed me Justin. “I think I know where ours is. Hold on.”

  “Is Daddy LOST?” Lainie asked me, her little face frozen with fear.

  “No, he’s not lost!” Mom cried, hearing her as she left the room.

  Lainie turned to me. “IS daddy lost, Lexie? Is that why you’re crying?”

  My heart was pounding but I tried to focus on my little sister. Thing was, instead of tears, now that I’d shared the news with my mother, I just felt restless energy. I forced myself to smile. “Daddy will be okay,” I said. “Jesus is taking care of him.” I said it by faith, not feeling it in my heart. Lainie nodded at me dubiously but she turned to go back to playing with Laura in the family room.

  It felt like a long time until my mother returned. I had to keep settling Justin, who wriggled every few minutes to get down. Lainie returned.

  “What is mom getting, Lexie? What’s a ‘tector?”

  “Nothing. Go and play,” I told her.

  “No!” She crossed her arms and glowered at me. “I want to know!” I might have smiled at her puckered up little face except I was in no mood for smiling.

  “I’m staying right here ‘til you tell me!”

  “Well, I’m not telling you, so just stay there if you want.”

  Lainie continued to nag until I was ready to shout at her. I was so tense that if I hadn’t been holding Justin I might have really lashed out. But suddenly it occurred to me that her standoff wasn’t about knowing, really. She just wanted an answer, any answer. Lainie hated to think we weren’t telling her something; it didn’t matter what it was.

  “Fine! She’s getting a radiation detector.” I watched Lainie’s face and could tell (as I suspected) that she had no clue what that was.

  “Okay,” she said, and just like that, turned and walked away. I sighed. And then mom was back, holding the detector.

  “I’m not sure how to use this thing,” she said, “but I’ll give it a try.”

  “Wait, Mom,” I said, after watching her get her coat on. “I’ve been outside a lot already; let me try.” She hesitated, and I could see she didn’t want to let me.

  “Mom, if I’m sick already there’s no sense in letting you get sick too.”

  Reluctantly, she handed it over. It was two pieces, attached by a cord. One looked an awful lot like a magnifying glass except that wasn’t its purpose at all.

  “Here’s the information it came with,” she added, pulling some folded papers out of her back pocket. “I guess we’d better read up on how to do this.
” She sat down, taking Justin from my arms. “We practiced using most of our stuff, but I never honestly thought I’d have to use this thing. I think your dad knows how to use it.”

  “Give it to me,” I said. I spent the next ten minutes poring over those instructions, wishing my dad was there to be doing it instead of me.

  “It measures alpha, beta, gamma and x-ray radiation,” I said.

  “I’m pretty sure we only have to worry about gamma rays,” said Mom.

  “I’m trying to figure out how to tell which it’s measuring,” I replied. I looked up at her after a few more minutes. She was feeding Justin from a baby food jar. The baby seemed impervious to the fact that the house, overall, was cooler than in the past. He was happily accepting each proffered spoonful, his messy mouth evidence of his enjoyment.

  “Mom, I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted. She looked over at me.

  “Okay. Can you finish feeding him? I’ll see if I can make heads or tails of that.” I took over feeding the baby. After a few minutes she said, “I think I got it. I’m going outside. I’ll be right back.”

  I met her eyes. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “What for?”

  “I should be the one doing that.”

  “Actually no, you shouldn’t be,” she said. “I almost forgot. Radiation is cumulative. If you’ve been exposed already, the last thing you need is more of it.”

  About ten minutes later mom came back in. She was flushed.

  “I can’t seem to get anywhere with this. I’m not even sure it’s working,” she said unhappily. “Maybe I’m missing something very simple, but I don’t know what.” She paused. “I guess we’d better grab some stuff and move into the safe room. It’s probably too late to avoid the worst exposure but just in case it might help, we have the room, we may as well do it.”

  We both started collecting things to take with us but then I remembered something.

  “Mom, don’t we have those pills? To counteract radiation?”