by Akart, Bobby
The president bristled, and he was about to give the FEMA head an earful when his chief of staff stepped in to diffuse the situation. “Sir, I don’t think it’s a decision that needs to be made at this particular moment. As I understand it, the rolling brownouts orchestrated by the power companies have proven to be effective at marshalling that asset, so to speak. May I suggest that each agency head continue to monitor how their sphere of influence is impacted by the issue?”
President Helton jutted out his chin and glared at the man from FEMA he’d inherited from the prior administration and never got around to replacing. Without saying a word, the conversation turned to the environmental impact. Representatives from the National Weather Service and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were present for the first time in the afternoon briefing.
“Mr. President, I’d like to bring your attention to the monitors at the far end of the room,” began the woman from NOAA.
He stood from his chair and approached the forty-eight-inch screen.
“You’re looking at an animated GIF generated from a series of images captured by NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite.”
The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP, was designed to collect data on climate change and unusual weather patterns. Launched in 2011, it had been instrumental in studying the effect of Western United States wildfires on long-term climate-change models.
The NOAA scientist continued. “As you can see, this is time-lapse imagery of normal cloud cover being driven by the prevailing winds toward the West Coast. The bright flashes—here, here and here—represent the nuclear warheads detonating in SoCal, San Francisco, and Seattle.”
She paused while everyone took in the images before continuing. “After the mushroom clouds rose skyward, brown smoke began to billow and cascade into the Pacific Ocean. This smoke cloud has already traveled in a westward direction for approximately thirteen hundred miles, forcing the moist air contained in the clouds away from the U.S. mainland.
“As this continues over the coming weeks, this will create extreme drought conditions in some parts of the country, namely the Midwest and Southwestern states. These extreme conditions coupled with the fallout circumnavigating the Northern Hemisphere following the Indian-Pakistani nuclear conflict could result in an extended drought across America’s breadbasket.”
The president stared ahead, emotionless, his face appearing to be devoid of comprehension.
Chandler noticed his lack of response to the NOAA scientist’s statement and immediately jumped in with a question. “How long will this condition persist?”
“Which one, sir? The wind reversal or the heavy haze commonly referred to as nuclear winter?”
Chandler shrugged. “Both.”
“Mr. Chandler, because the moist air is driven back into the Pacific Ocean, the Santa Ana winds are not tempered. In other words, these strong, extremely dry downslope winds that originate inland will remain in place until the Pacific moisture displaces it. What we’re looking at is a massive Arctic high pressure in Canada generating cold, dry air masses for months on end. Coupled with the remnants of all three regional nuclear exchanges, we’re facing an event unimagined by all of our nuclear aftermath models.”
“Well, hell’s bells!” shouted the president as he slammed both fists on the table. “Aren’t you people a bundle of joy. You know what? Misery loves company, and I’ve had enough of all the misery brought into these briefings. You’ll know where to find me.”
President Helton abruptly stood and stormed out of the room.
Throughout the briefings that day, Chief of Staff Chandler had taken a more active role in controlling the discussions. He knew President Helton better than anyone other than the man’s wife. He was starting to see the signs of his old friend having a nervous breakdown.
Earlier, Chandler had had a private conversation with the White House physician who accompanied the president everywhere. It was natural, under the circumstances, for the president’s mind and body to be subjected to extreme mental and emotional distress. However, Chandler was starting to notice the president’s inability to cope.
His recent uncontrolled outbursts and angry fits were just one of the many signs both Chandler and the president’s physician had observed. The president was suffering from insomnia. His doctor had suggested an Ambien before bedtime, but the president refused. He insisted upon being coherent in the event China or Russia decided to attack the U.S.
The president wasn’t eating, and when he did, he complained about stomach cramps and constipation. The stresses he endured had triggered a flare-up of irritable bowel syndrome, which contributed to the president’s refusal to eat.
With each passing day, his condition seemed to worsen. Discussions were held in private between cabinet members, leading to the suggestions the vice president might need to step in to lead the country. Just that afternoon, a staffer loyal to Chandler overheard a conversation about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, a provision in the Constitution that allowed the president to step down, temporarily when appropriate, if he was deemed incapacitated.
The vice president, who was at Raven Rock in Pennsylvania with the military leaders, balked at the thought of invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to force the president to step aside until he got well. Chandler believed the VP might think otherwise if he actually observed President Helton’s actions.
Fortunately, America hadn’t been attacked again. With nuclear missiles, anyway. The threat was now floating above her in the form of nuclear winter—a continuous cloud of gloomy gray that blocked the sun’s rays, effectively starving the living on Earth. Reality was setting in for everyone, especially the president.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Monday, October 28
Near South Lake Tahoe, California
“Dirty snow,” muttered Owen as they got on the road again. “I can’t believe the fires have thrown out this much ash so quickly.”
Lacey repositioned her fanny in her seat. Ford had come a long way in making a comfortable riding spot for passengers since 1967. “You know, Peter said the war between India and Pakistan could cause what he called nuclear winter. That may be part of it.”
“That wasn’t even a week ago, Mom,” added Tucker.
“Your uncle said it was possible,” said Lacey, who turned sideways to address her son. “What else was in that medical kit?”
Tucker searched under their jackets and found one of the two-inch-thick, flat boxes. He poured the contents into his lap, where he examined them one by one.
“Well, here’s a first aid book, sort of. It’s really a booklet stapled together.”
“What’s it called?” Owen asked.
“Where there is no doctor,” Tucker replied. “It looks like instructions on first aid stuff to do on your own.”
His mom reached into the back seat, and Tucker gave her the booklet. “What else?”
“Here are four packets of tablets called IOSAT.” He turned the package slightly so the small amount of sunlight that filtered through the sky helped him read the fine print. “Potassium iodide. Thyroid blocking in a radiation emergency.”
Owen glanced at Lacey and then back at Tucker. He tried to maintain his composure while inside, he was cursing himself for not going through the supplies sooner. Of course, he thought to himself, the contents of the kit would be directly related to radiation exposure.
“Will you pass those up to your mom so we can decide if we should be taking them?”
“It might be too—” Lacey began before Owen abruptly cut her off.
“We’ve been out less than twenty-four hours.”
“They expired last year, Dad,” said Tucker as he handed them forward.
Owen sighed. “That doesn’t mean they’re bad. Maybe just a little less potent.”
While Lacey examined the packaging, Tucker reported on his next find. “This thing is called a RADTriage radiation detector. It’s like a credit card only it somehow dete
cts radiation. Crap. It expires two years after it’s made.”
“What’s the date on it?” asked Lacey.
Tucker handed it forward. “Ten years ago.”
“That fallout shelter was worthless!” complained Owen. “We had a better chance of dying from being trampled or smoke inhalation than nuclear fallout. I wish we had a Geiger counter or something.”
Lacey shrugged. “They wouldn’t have worked anyway after the nukes hit.”
“Then we have these things,” added Tucker. “Blue surgical masks.”
He handed them to his mom, who shook her head side to side. “Now this is something we needed from the start. If the damn lights hadn’t gone out, we would’ve known about these masks and worn them as we left.”
“Hold on!” yelled Owen.
Without warning, their Bronco was sliding sideways out of control. He’d rounded a curve and suddenly found himself on an icy overpass crossing over a small stream. There were several cars piled together on top of the bridge, blocking their path. Owen, distracted by their conversation, overreacted somewhat and sent Black & Blue into a hard slide toward the guardrail.
He turned into the slide by maneuvering the steering wheel so the front wheels were pointed in the same direction that the rear of the truck was sliding. He’d exaggerated the slide because he forgot to take his foot off the accelerator. When he finally did, the vehicle was sailing sideways toward the pileup.
Suddenly, the front tires grabbed less icy pavement, causing the back to turn completely around. They were now moving backwards toward the pileup. Owen slammed on the brakes, which slowed the Bronco somewhat, but it didn’t prevent it from backing into the side of a red Kia Soul compact.
The impact threw everyone against their seats. The lightweight compact car was too small to damage the steel bumper of the Bronco. However, it did serve to slow their progress toward the pileup. Seconds later, they came to a halt, pointed in the opposite direction, but part of the seven-car wreck.
“Is everyone okay?” asked Owen.
Lacey nodded that she was, and Tucker didn’t reply, as he’d already begun to move the duffel bags around so he could get out.
“Tucker?” asked Lacey.
“Yeah, I’m fine. We gotta get out there. I saw bodies lying in the road.”
Both Lacey and Owen exited the truck simultaneously. After Tucker shuffled bags around, he was out, too. The first thing the three noticed was how cold it was.
“How did it get this cold in just a couple of hours?” asked Lacey.
“We’ve seen it before when we’ve been up this way,” replied Owen.
“Not in October,” she countered.
Tucker handed his parents their jackets, and he walked past them, sliding on his coat as he walked gingerly on the icy overpass. He glanced inside the Kia to confirm it was empty, and then he squeezed past the fender of a pickup truck that had run into the rear of a Chevy Camaro. The Camaro’s trunk lid had been forced upward by the impact.
Next to the pickup’s front bumper lay a dead man with a pistol by his side. A bullet-riddled body hung half in and half out of the Camaro. Both men were bloodied from what appeared to be a gun battle between them.
“Wait, Tucker! It may not be safe.” Owen attempted to catch up with his son, but Tucker wanted to see what had happened. By the time his parents had caught up to him, he’d picked up the pickup driver’s handgun and was examining it.
“Tucker, put that down,” his mother ordered. “The police will want to photograph and print that.”
“Mom, there are no police,” said Tucker. He handed the weapon to his father and walked to the other dead body. There was a handgun lying under his shoulder. Tucker didn’t hesitate to reach for it, apparently unaffected by the two dead men, who were covered in blood and snow.
“Where is everybody else?” asked Owen. “I count six other cars, but there are only these two drivers.”
Tucker was remarkably calm under the circumstances. “Maybe they ran off when the bullets started flying? If their cars didn’t run, what would be the point of sticking around and getting shot.” He studied the semiautomatic pistol and knelt down to wipe the blood off on a clean part of the dead man’s shirt. He stood and handed it to his father, who was now holding a weapon in each hand as if they were sunny-side-up eggs poised to run off his palms if he didn’t hold them just right.
“How are we gonna get through this?” asked Lacey.
Owen stepped forward with his palms up, guns in hand. “I think we could ease by the Camaro here and nudge our way over that way. If we hug the guardrail, we can force our way past those last couple of cars.”
Lacey looked around as the snow began to fall in heavy, thick flakes. The weather would only make their task more difficult if they hesitated.
“Okay, that’s all we’ve got.”
Tucker grabbed the Camaro driver by the arms and dragged him out of the front seat. He slid the corpse out of the way next to the car’s rear wheels.
Owen looked down at the guns, and he finally had the courage to grip them by the handles. It was a symbolic gesture as he took ownership of the two weapons, something he never thought he’d do. Then he made another suggestion that was a first.
“I think we should go through these cars and see if there is anything we could use. I know, I know, it’s like stealing. But really, is it? This has all been abandoned. And certainly, these two dead guys won’t know.”
“Dad’s right. We already know that we might have to steal gas to keep going. We might as well see if there’s anything we need. We can always leave the rest for somebody else.”
Both guys looked forward toward the pileup as they contemplated their first attempt at looting, or foraging, depending on how they looked at it. They were surprised when Lacey spoke up.
“Are you talking about stuff like this?” she asked as she reached into the pickup truck bed and lifted one of two red five-gallon gas cans onto the fender. For Lacey, there was no doubt. She considered their actions to be foraging and necessary for her family’s survival.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Monday, October 28
CVS Pharmacy
Fairfax, Virginia
There was an old saying in the American Midwest. Pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered. It was an idiom applied to any number of things that meant a person should be satisfied at some point because when they become too greedy, they may lose it all.
Peter and Jackie had gone to great risk to break into the CVS Pharmacy. Evidence of looting was everywhere in that part of Fairfax, Virginia. The mall had been taken over by an armed gang. Vehicles were burning around them. Soot-filled air threatened to kill people with compromised respiratory systems.
He had one job, which was to locate insulin for the diabetic grandmother. However, the opportunity arose to pillage an actual drugstore and its prescription medications. Peter suspected that those who followed him would seek out opioids, narcotics and all kinds of mind-altering drugs. He took a different approach.
First, he secured Asia’s insulin. He knew nothing about it. The brands varied, and their uses did as well. Rapid acting. Short acting. Long acting. It didn’t matter. He shoveled it all into a CVS Pharmacy shopping tote and set it next to his point of entry. Then he went shopping.
He prioritized finding pharmaceutical-grade potassium iodide, a task that took ten minutes as he searched for a needle in the haystack. Periodically, he shouted to Jackie to confirm they were still safe. Her response was always the same. Nothing.
So Peter continued rummaging around. This time, he was in search of antibiotics. Lacey had impressed upon him the importance of a basic first aid kit with antibiotic ointments when they camped in the wilderness. An infected injury could spread rapidly before the camper could see a doctor. Peter had never taken antibiotics, but he recognized the generic names—amoxicillin, doxycycline, sulfa drugs and cipro that was often used for respiratory infections. He thought that would be especially valuabl
e with all the nuclear fallout in the air.
He filled up another sack with the antibiotics and set it on the countertop. Lastly, he thought about the most sought-after drugs on an abuser’s wish list. Could he use them as a bargaining chip? What could he trade fentanyl for? It was a pain medication a hundred times more potent than morphine.
With his flashlight leading the way, he studied the pharmacy shelves, looking for the opioids, stimulants, and even the depressants. He smiled to himself as he mumbled, “Take ’em up. Bring ’em down. Keep ’em stoned in between.”
“Peter!” said Jackie in a loud whisper. She was just outside the pharmacy. “I didn’t see them coming.”
“What?” he asked nervously as he dropped the bag half full of downers. “Who?”
“Shhh!” she implored him to keep his voice down. “They came running from around the corner. I didn’t know whether I should shoot them.”
“Come on, man!” a deep voice bellowed from the front of the store.
Peter pointed toward the left where the shampoos and hair care products were located. He felt certain that wasn’t what the men were interested in. “Hide over there. If they start shooting, I’ll yell fire. You’ll have to help but not until you hear my voice.”
“You kids get the hell out of here!” ordered another man.
“Go! Go! Go!” ordered Peter in a loud whisper.
Suddenly flashlights were darting across the ceiling and the floor. The illumination from one barely missed Jackie as she darted in front of the approaching men seeking a place to hide.
“It’s locked down!” One of the men shouted. His partner quickly rebuked him.
“We got this, man. Stand aside.”
Peter moved the totes of insulin and antibiotics across the counter to the side of the computer register. He wasn’t sure how this was going to play out, but he certainly wanted to stay alive first and protect the drugs second. He crouched down and moved as far back into the dark recesses of the pharmacy as he could yet still be able to watch their movements.
