The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction

by Amy Brashear

  Rodney wouldn’t look anyone in the eye. He held his flashlight up to the ceiling. It was painted blue, I guessed to remind everyone who had to be in here when the bombs went off that the sky was blue.

  We lit more candles around the room. Though it was dark and smelled of mothballs, it was dry.

  “Don’t you think we should close the door?” Astrid asked.

  “Why?” Tyson asked.

  “Because—”

  “Are you afraid of the riffraff?” Terrence asked.

  “No, it’s just already crowded in here and—”

  “Stop talking,” Max said.

  But Astrid didn’t listen, and with all the strength she had in her body, she moved the chair and desk and the bookcase, closing the vault door with a slam.

  We, all ten of us, were stuck.

  Owen sat in the corner with a flashlight on his eyes. You could see the reflection of the light on his sunglasses. He still couldn’t see. It was scaring him. To be honest, it was scaring me too. His eyesight should have been back by now.

  Dylan was working with Max and the bus driver, trying to see which tapes were salvageable, while the director supervised. Astrid was supposed to be fixing their makeup, but she was focused on her chipped nail polish instead. Terrence, Freddy, and Tyson were in the corner discussing basketball, like boys did . . . or maybe like boys were supposed to do? I could tell this wasn’t a normal conversation. Of course it wasn’t. They were as scared as I was. But their pretend topic was the NBA draft in June. All three were talking over one another in a rapid stream-of-consciousness word-barf, arguing about who would have the greatest career: Hakeem Olajuwon,70 Michael Jordan,71 Charles Barkley.72 Terrence’s money was on the white boy, John Stockton.73 Only Rodney was sitting under the makeshift window that had been painted yellow, like the sun was glistening in.

  “Rodney, are you okay?” I asked, sitting beside him.

  He didn’t answer. He looked at me and shook his head.

  “Rodney—”

  He shook his head. “You won’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Tell me.”

  He handed me a Polaroid. It was of a cloud—a mushroom cloud.

  “This is a fake, right?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, it’s real.”

  “Astrid, did you see it too?” I called out from across the room.

  “Oh, the cloud,” she said with a giggle. “It’s just from the bomb that Skeet did.”

  Dylan walked over to us and I handed him the Polaroid.

  “Skeet’s good, but not that good,” he said.

  “It’s part of the film,” the director said, taking his turn looking at the Polaroid.

  “It’s fake, as in—like, not real,” Astrid said, picking at her nails.

  “But the sirens,” Rodney finally spoke.

  “Were part of the film,” the director said.

  “But the Polaroid.”

  “Come on, don’t be so naive,” Astrid said.

  “You’re some dumb rich white girl from London, England, who’s never encountered a real problem in your life. You’re freaking out over your damn nails—” I stopped myself before I snapped.

  “Are you insulting me?” she asked. “How dare you?”

  Rodney took the Polaroid back. “This is real. This explosion wasn’t just put on—it wasn’t fake. I saw it with my own two eyes.”

  Everyone sat around him.

  “I was standing on the sidewalk when the sirens went off.” Rodney was shaking and crying, wiping his nose with his shirtsleeve. “But explosions were going off. I had taken my Polaroid camera. It was like the Fourth of July out there. But then it got quiet. A flash of light and then the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. I looked up into the sky and took one photo and ran. I grabbed her arm and ran into the school, down the hall, and down the stairs to here.” He looked at the Polaroid.

  “Where’s everyone, then?” Tyson asked.

  “Vaporized.”

  * * *

  70 He played center for the University of Houston and was the overall first pick in the 1984 NBA draft. He plays for the Houston Rockets.

  71 He’s a professional basketball player. He’s a shooting guard. He played for the University of North Carolina. He was drafted in the first round but the third pick for the Chicago Bulls.

  72 He’s a professional basketball player. He played for Auburn University. He’s a power forward who was drafted in the first round and the fifth pick for the Philadelphia 76ers.

  73 He’s a professional basketball player. He’s a point guard who played for Gonzaga University. He was drafted in the first round and was the 16th overall pick by the Utah Jazz.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Everyone was in agreement.

  This was real. The bomb was really a nuke. Hollywood wasn’t playing some kind of prank. The cameras weren’t filming, and the lines didn’t call for this to happen.

  “Unless—” Freddy said.

  Strike that. We weren’t in agreement.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  We had been debating how long we had to stay in this fallout shelter, if in fact that explosion wasn’t just regular pyrotechnics, but a genuine nuclear detonation. Yes, as in a nuclear bomb exploding in our backyard. Fallout was radioactive. And we’d been outside. We’d breathed. And drunk. And were covered in radiation.

  We were walking time bombs. Maybe it was just a test that went horribly, horribly wrong. Or maybe we were hit. Maybe Russia finally did it. Or maybe we finally did it, and Russia countered. A preemptive strike, to use technical jargon. I imagined missiles in the sky, carrying deadly payloads to their targets. X marked the spot. It was sure to end in thirty minutes or less. Just like Domino’s Pizza.

  The FEMA pamphlet said that we were to stay inside for two weeks—but the sign beside the vault door said five days, tops. We decided to make it six just to be safe.

  We were probably out of our minds, but we didn’t even know if this was really a nuclear missile exploding, or if Skeet had outdone himself. Skeet was talented. He said so himself. We had no idea if this was war. All we had was a Polaroid of a mushroom cloud in the distance of Main Street.

  I think someone would have said something if we were under a nuclear attack. But maybe there wasn’t time. It could have all been movie magic. The makeup department sure did a great job making us look like we were on the brink of death. The makeup on Astrid’s cheeks was peeling.

  If Country A launches an atomic bomb at Country B, and Country B counters with an atomic bomb, and Country C inadvertently sets off an atomic bomb at Country D, and Country E becomes collateral damage, what are the chances that citizens of the world realize that the leaders of the world are doing this war scare for propaganda purposes?

  Eve of Destruction, Book, page 2.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Day One

  December 6

  Who knows the time?

  • • • • • • •

  Freddy found the potassium iodide tablets tucked in the back of a drawer while we were looking for toilet paper. Let’s just not talk about the bathroom situation. They didn’t mention the bathroom situation smell in the FEMA pamphlet. Thankfully, whoever remodeled this place had the decency to put up a shower curtain, and not one of those clear ones but one of those decorative ones, so we couldn’t see the person do their business, though the sounds were on another level. Radiation didn’t stop bodily functions. In fact, it kind of made them worse, especially when we started adding blood to the equation. So we were happy when Freddy found the potassium iodide bottle.

  Unlike the scene in the movie where I died—Helen sacrificed her life for Hank to live—I wasn’t going to make the mistake like Helen did. I was taking the pill.

  “Everyone needs to take one,” Freddy
said, frowning. “Sadly, there are only nine pills for ten people. Someone will have to sacrifice their life for ours.”

  “Dude,” Rodney said, “are you serious?”

  We looked at one another and then at the bottle in Freddy’s hand. He shook the pill bottle at us and smiled.

  “Should we take a vote?” Astrid asked.

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “I say we let the crippled . . .” Astrid said, her voice trailing off while looking at Owen.

  We all turned to him.

  “Even though I can’t see, I can feel all your eyes on me. Am I right?” he asked.

  “No,” we said in unison, lying.

  “Liars,” he said, crossing his arms.

  Someone found a banana and tossed it at Terrence. It was dark, so I couldn’t tell who.

  “Okay, that’s racist, and hell, no,” Terrence said.

  “Bananas have potassium,” someone said, disguising their voice. “That’s not racist.”

  Terrence peeled the banana and ate it. “Oh, that’s racist, but I still want my damn pill.”

  “Since you all obviously want a pill, maybe we should—”

  “Hell, no, no games, nothing,” Max said, walking up and snatching the pill bottle out of Freddy’s hand. He shook the bottle. It was full. “You are a bastard. A bastard that is most definitely going to hell.”

  “Dude, it’s a joke,” Freddy said, laughing.

  Terrence grabbed the bottle out of Max’s hand and started handing out pills. When he got to Freddy, even though they were friends, he considered not giving him one, but he did because it was the right thing to do.

  Potassium iodide side effects include: stomach or gastrointestinal problems, rashes, inflammation of the salivary glands.

  We all had the side effects.

  Also to note: there were no plans for what to do with the buckets after they were full.

  Radiation Sickness Symptoms

  nausea and vomiting

  diarrhea

  headache

  fever

  dizziness and disorientation

  weakness, fatigue

  hair loss

  sloughing off of skin

  mouth ulcers

  infections

  low blood pressure

  skin burns

  dehydration

  bleeding from nose, mouth, gums,

  and/or rectum

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Day One (later)

  December 6

  Who knows the time?

  • • • • • • •

  We were digging through drawers and found some supplies that made us question our teachers’ extracurricular activities. The condoms were a bit worrisome.

  “What if we need to repopulate the earth?” Tyson asked.

  “We won’t need these, then,” I said.

  “But we might.”

  “Dude, did you pay attention in biology? You. Don’t. Wear. Condoms. If. You. Want. To. Make. A. Baby.”

  “Classy,” Astrid said, nodding.

  I went back to digging in the drawers. Battery-powered radios. But we tried and kept trying to get a signal.

  It had only been one day in here, and we were bleeding from orifices that we hadn’t thought could bleed, and the boys were still thinking with their penises.

  Ugh.

  “Oh, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,” Max said over and over again, pulling out a heavy green metal box. It had a handle and knobs and switches.

  “Just say ‘shit,’ boy,” Dylan said, curling up on his cot with a blanket. He had just spent a lot of time on the bucket.

  “Okay, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, better?”

  “Much.”

  “That’s a Geiger counter,” I said.

  “That’s, like, from the old movies. That’s not real,” Astrid said.

  “It’s real.”

  “Like this?” she said, waving her arms about.

  “If it goes off, then yes, it’s real,” I said.

  “Turn it on,” she said. “Turn it on.”

  Max didn’t want to be the one who confirmed our worst nightmare. None of us did. I think we enjoyed the little oblivion that we were living in at the moment. Dylan finally gave up, threw his hands in the air, and told us to shut the hell up. He grabbed the Geiger counter, which had been put on the floor. He flicked the switch, and it buzzed. There was no denying it. Radiation. He moved around the room, placing the Geiger counter in front of each of us, and then himself. We were all radioactive. He turned it off.

  For a while no one said a word. What was there to say? Our worst fears were realized. Whatever had happened out there had emitted radiation. And we’d gotten a high dose of it.

  It was a leap from radiation poisoning to X-Men. But it was made. At least Rodney was optimistic.

  Dead parents. Check.

  A dose of radiation. Check.

  Like the greats (Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the Flash, Firestorm), we have our tragic backstory.

  “We’re the children of the atom,” Rodney said, tearing a Razorback basketball T-shirt in half to cover his face from the fallout that he was convinced he was breathing in.

  “No. I think that’s our children,” I said, picking at the dead skin on my thumb.

  “This isn’t fucking X-Men,” Terrence said, slamming his empty water jug on the ground.

  “Well, fuuuuuuck!” Rodney said.

  “Fuck is right,” Freddy said, grabbing a chunk of hair that had fallen from his head and stuffing it deep in his back pocket. “Was this supposed to happen?” he asked.

  “Maybe they’re messing with us. Maybe this is just good makeup,” Astrid said, taking out her lipstick from her now brown-pink jeans.

  “Damn,” Freddy said, sticking his right index finger into a sore on Astrid’s right cheek. “I can touch bone.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Kitty is good but not that good.” Freddy wiped his finger on his pant leg.

  “But we were on the mountain, and we didn’t get the seventy-five-dollar treatment,” I said.

  “Yeah, Laura’s right,” Terrence said.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Freddy said, tightening his ponytail, but all that did was cause his hair to break and fall to the floor.

  “I’m one step closer to becoming Professor X,” Rodney said.

  For several days, Pikesville remained immobile. It was unclear what had happened. There was no message from the president. Was he alive? Did he make it to Mount Weather? Was there a cease-fire?

  Eve of Destruction, Book, page 185.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Day Two

  December 7

  Who knows the time?

  • • • • • • •

  Dylan, Tyson, and I were working on the shortwave radio that we found in the back of a closet. Dylan messed with the antenna. Max and the bus driver were working on the walkie-talkies. And the director was asking the same question over and over again: “This is Griffin Flat High School. This is Griffin Flat, Arkansas. Is there anybody there? Anybody at all?”

  The walkie-talkies weren’t working just like the radios weren’t, but that didn’t stop us from trying. We were trying anything. We didn’t have anything to lose. When those six days were up, we didn’t know what or who would be out there when we opened those doors.

  We spent most hours in the day sleeping. Then reading. I read Eve of Destruction by Boudreaux Beauchamp to the group. When my voice got tired or I started coughing up blood, someone else took over. When we weren’t reading or talking about TV shows or movies, we were forcing food down and trying to keep it down.

  “Ugh,” Astrid said, touching her armpits. She smelled her fingers, shook he
r head, and went back for another swipe. “I need a razor.”

  “Don’t look at your legs,” I said, looking at mine.

  “I didn’t even think about that. Kill me. I’m losing my hair on the top of my head but nowhere else.”

  “We’re going to have to use Nair when we get home.”

  “And tweezers. My eyebrows are out of control.”

  Dylan hit the shortwave radio with his fist. It left his knuckles bloody, but we heard a little less static, and then we heard a man’s voice.

  “Broken Arrow,” said a man.

  “Copy that,” said another man.

  “Do they know that we can hear them?” Terrence asked.

  “Doubtful,” Dylan said, trying to make out what they were saying by messing with the signals.

  The signal was kind of clear. Clear enough to let us eavesdrop on a conversation between two men.

  Man 1: “Devastation?”

  Man 2: “Affirmative.”

  Man 1: “Survivors?”

  Man 2: “Negative.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Day Two (night)

  December 7

  Who knows the time?

  • • • • • • •

  “Nuclear war? There goes my sex life,” Freddy said. Though we didn’t say it out loud, we all agreed.

  Tyson, Dylan, the director, and the bus driver were asleep, so they didn’t hear us talking about sex. I was glad for that. That would have been awkward.

  “I’m going to die a virgin,” Astrid said.

  “Wait—you’re a virgin, really?” Max asked.

  “Why would I lie about that?”

  “But you’re a movie star. You can do anyone you would like.”

  “I have standards—” Astrid started.

  “What about Drake Cooper?” I asked.

  “Ugh. Publicity. We barely held hands.”