By the sixth day the ventilation fan stopped working and the temperature in the shelter soared. The stench from the chemical toilets and body odor hung heavily in the air. I noticed mealtime portions had grown steadily smaller. One night at dinner I asked George if he had noticed, too.
“Yes!” George proclaimed. “You’re right. They are giving us less food every day. I think they’re trying to starve us to death.”
Gloria shook her head. “George, you and your imagination.”
Suzanne and Jennifer ate dinner with us most nights as did a young man named Ben. Ben was a construction supervisor who had developed an interest in Jennifer. I honestly could not imagine worse circumstances to pursue romance but I kept my mouth shut.
As I looked over my meager meal I mopped sweat from my brow and declared, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
George looked up from his tray and said, “Me neither. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m thinking about leaving. Getting out of here.”
“Are you crazy?” Ben said. “That would mean certain death. You heard what Ms. Jackson said.”
“No one else has left,” Suzanne pointed out. “Except for that man with a gun.”
I said, “I think I can manage. I know a little bit about nuclear radiation.”
I struggled with how much to say here. I didn’t want to give away too much. I have learned that being too transparent about my survivalist ways can work against me. The responses run the gamut from ridicule to instant mooching. The latter comes from people who feel entitled to share in the benefit of my preparation despite the fact that they’ve never given a moment’s thought to their own preparation.
I continued. “Radiation degrades quickly after a nuclear blast; the rate of decay is exponential over time. For every seven units of time, the level of radioactivity decreases by a factor of ten. Two days after a nuclear blast the level of radiation has reduced to 1/100th of the initial reading, and two weeks after the blast it’s reduced to 1/1,000th. It’s called the seven-ten rule.”
Jennifer laughed. “Are you some kind of scientist or something? I thought you said you were an accountant.”
“I am an accountant. I just…watch a lot of documentaries, that’s all. Anyway, I’m not saying it’s safe to go outside right now, but the time is coming when I think my chances of survival might be better out there than they are in here.”
“When will that be?” George asked.
“Couple days,” I replied. “Generally, eight or nine days after the blast, or two weeks if you really want to be safe. I imagine that’s when they are going to turn everyone loose: two weeks.”
“So if you leave, what are you going to do for food and water?” Ben asked. “Everything’s going to be radioactive.”
“Well, not everything,” I said. “Canned goods and bottled water are generally safe as long as you wash the containers before you open them. You can drink water from a river or a stream if you purify and filter it first. You take potassium iodide tablets to prevent radiation from causing thyroid cancer.”
“Do you have any?” Suzanne asked.
And it begins, I thought – the mooching. And the lying. They mooch, I lie. “Sorry,” I said. I learned a long time ago that if you give in to every request you’ll end up just as dead as everybody else.
“Say, are you one of those survival guys?” George asked.
“No, not really. Like I said, I watch a lot of documentaries.”
***
Forty eight hours later marked eight days since I’d entered the shelter. I decided it was time to leave. I announced my intentions over breakfast.
“You’re really going to do it?” George asked.
“That would make you the first to leave,” Jennifer said.
I looked each one in the eye and said, “I’m really going to do it. I can’t take this place anymore. I need my freedom. I need to breathe. Plus, I think it’s safe outside with the right precautions.”
George said, “Well, you’ve got a pair, I’ll give you that.”
“George!” Gloria exclaimed. “Language.”
I said, “I wish you all the best. Maybe after this is over we can get together sometime.”
Gloria said, “I’d like that.”
Agreement all around.
I stood and shook George’s hand. “Good luck to you,” he said.
After handshakes and hugs I found Ms. Jackson who was sitting with one of her bodyguards.
“Ms. Jackson,” I said. “I’m ready to leave now.”
“You can’t do that,” she said. “It’s not safe to go outside yet.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Her bodyguard said, “You heard the lady. You can’t go outside, fool.”
I cleared my throat. “Thank you for everything, it’s been wonderful. But, it’s time for me to go.”
Ms. Jackson glared at me, clearly rattled by my challenge to her authority. The look on her face said, ‘I’m in charge here and I will decide when you can leave.’ With each passing day her ego had grown by leaps and bounds. What began as shelter captain had morphed into some kind of supreme being. She held the power of life and death over us. She could throw any one of us outside at any time. She was judge, jury, and executioner. And while we had been disarmed, she was protected by a couple of NFL linebackers. On top of that, we were completely isolated from the outside world so she answered to no one. It was a powerful combination of circumstances that had gone straight to her head. In Ms. Jackson’s case, she seemed particularly vulnerable to succumb to it. She struck me as the type who’d played the victim most of her life. Now with the measure of power she’d been given here, she was anxious to ram it down people’s throats. “What is your name?” she demanded.
“Steen O’Mannon.”
She rifled through some papers until she found mine.
“Steen O’Mannon,” she repeated, drawing out the name. “Alright Steen, if you’re sure you want to do this...”
“I’m sure.”
“Sign here.”
More legalese, the city’s attorneys had been working overtime.
“Collect all your things and meet me at the door.”
“I don’t have any belongings, this is it,” I said, pulling at my shirt.
She stared at me for a moment while she digested that. Then she stood and said, “Okay, follow me.”
I followed Ms. Jackson to the door, the bodyguard was close behind. The room grew quiet as everyone watched what was happening.
“You know you can’t come back,” she said.
“Yes, I know. Thank you. You’ve made that quite clear.”
We reached the door and she punched in a code. There was an audible clunk.
“Alright, there you go. Goodbye Mr. Steen.”
Chapter 6
I stepped out of the library and into the light of day. The sky was clear and the fresh air smelled wonderful. I stood for a moment just to take it all in. I’m sure the people in the shelter envisioned me stepping into a hellish nightmare, my eyes bulging as violent convulsions gripped me while I clawed at my throat and gasped for air.
I looked around and tried to get my bearings. Nothing looked anything like it had before. All around me were pieces of things – pieces of buildings, vehicles, trees, insulation – just a big jumbled mess. My truck that I had parked in the parking lot was gone. The whole parking lot was gone. So were many of the buildings.
I had no idea where ground zero was. The library was relatively close to the center of downtown, so I could have been standing at ground zero for all I knew. No, if the nuke had landed right here there would be absolutely nothing left.
I picked a direction at random and began walking. If figured if I didn’t find my truck heading in one direction, I’d try another. It was still early in the day and the air was fairly cool. A gentle breeze blew which came as sweet relief from the rancid air
inside the shelter.
I walked a block or so and found nothing resembling my truck. I turned around and headed back the other way. As I approached the library I noticed most of the top floor was missing. There was no one outside.
On my third attempt I finally located my truck, or more correctly what was left of it. It was pushed up against a building and battered and bent almost beyond recognition. It was no doubt totaled but I was just happy to find it. I was beginning to get concerned about being exposed for so long. I rushed to the truck and tried to open the door. Nothing doing, it was wedged shut. The roof was caved in and the other door was pinned against the building. The roof was crushed in so far that I couldn’t fit through any of the window openings.
I looked around and found something to pry the door open. It looked like it belonged to a car – an axle or a steering column perhaps. I went back to the truck and got to work on the door. After a few minutes I managed to pry it open. I was relieved to find my survival gear still intact. I donned the Tyvek suit, leather boots, gas mask, body armor, bugout bag and weapons.
I located my compass and started heading south. I had an ample supply of food and water at my house which would last me until things got back to normal. Or, as normal as things could get after a nuclear war. Tens of millions of people the president had said. I shook my head in disbelief. If I hadn’t lived through the EMP attack and the zombie virus I probably wouldn’t have been able to comprehend numbers like that. But I knew what it meant: now there were less than 100 million people left in the country. Those are numbers not seen since World War I. We were a country in decline and it seemed like the whole world was against us.
I picked my way through the city ruins coming across numerous dead bodies in the process. I wondered whether they had died instantly from the blast or if they had died later from radiation poisoning. I recalled the research I had done a few years earlier. Radiation exposure is measured in Roentgens. People who receive high doses of radiation, over 1,000 Roentgens, go into immediate shock and die within hours. A lesser dose of radiation, 500 to 1,000 Roentgens, causes its victims to suffer severe nausea and vomiting for several days. The symptoms include bleeding under the skin and bleeding of the gums. All of their hair falls out a week or so later and the symptoms just get worse until they die. People who receive a lower dose, less than 500 Roentgens, experience nausea and vomiting within 24 hours which lasts for a few days. After that they experience some hair loss, fatigue, and sore throat. Only half of the people at that level of exposure will die.
After trekking a few more blocks, I saw another body. I decided I would have a closer look. I could see it was a man. He had on pants, dress shoes, and a short sleeved golf shirt. He was lying on his back with his body in a contorted position and it looked like he had taken quite a beating. His eyes were swollen shut but his mouth gaped open. He looked like he had been relatively young, perhaps 30 or so. His tongue was swollen and it protruded from his mouth. He had all of his hair, which was key. That meant he did not die from a prolonged bout with radiation poisoning. He either died relatively quickly from a massive dose of radiation, or the shock wave took him out.
I walked a few more blocks and decided to stop for lunch. I had to think about the best strategy for eating out here. It looked like it had probably rained since the attack, which was a good thing. That meant much of the radioactive fallout had been washed away. However, everything that had come in contact with the fallout would still be radioactive. At this point the radioactivity had dropped to a level where touching something contaminated wasn’t going to kill me. The biggest threat was ingesting radioactive material – a speck or a piece of dust – either by breathing it or swallowing it. That would expose my internal organs to radioactivity which are more susceptible to radiation compared to our skin. I decided I would be better off eating outside in the open. The fallout had stopped and the rain had washed much of it away. If I went inside a building to eat I would likely kick up radioactive dust that could potentially end up in my stomach or lungs.
I sat on a chunk of concrete and took off my gas mask. I retrieved the potassium iodide tablets and an MRE from my backpack. Although it’s a far cry from a gourmet meal, at least an MRE is satisfying. The military packs a lot of calories into the average MRE, unlike the tiny meals they were serving us at the shelter. Another week in that place and my body might have literally gone into starvation.
I spent the remainder of the day picking my way through the ruins. At nightfall I ate dinner and slept between two chunks of concrete.
* * *
The next morning I awoke with a bad headache and a stiff back. Sleeping out in the open on piece of concrete wearing a gas mask is nearly impossible. I thought about how miserable I felt. As they say, war is hell. Hard to believe that man would invent such weapons that can turn a perfectly good world into such a wretched place.
After taking my vitamins and eating breakfast, I continued on my way. After a while I began to realize that the level of destruction was getting worse, not better. I found another body and checked it out. This one had little skin and less clothing. The person looked like they had been roasted alive. How could I have missed it the night before? I was headed in the wrong direction. I was headed toward ground zero rather than away from it.
I stepped away from the corpse and sat down to think. Just like the day before, I wasn’t sure where I was due to the lack of recognizable landmarks. I took a deep breath and came to the conclusion that there was very little chance my house was still standing, or that I would be able to find it even if it was. I needed a new strategy.
Obviously I had to change course. Heading south was taking me straight toward ground zero. If I headed east I’d end up at the beach. I had no idea what was going to happen next, but if the North Koreans were going to invade that would be the place to do it. That left me with north or west. As I sat and considered my options, my thoughts were interrupted by someone shouting.
Chapter 7
“Butt-plug licker!”
I wheeled around to see a black man standing behind me. Where the hell had he come from? He startled me. The man was mostly bald on top with a week’s worth of growth on his head and face. I put him at around 45. He wore a brown short sleeved shirt and a pair of dark green pants. Both the shirt and the pants were tattered and filthy. I wondered if he was homeless, but the backpack and the relatively recent shave said he probably wasn’t. I said, “Excuse me?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “Naw, nothing. I don’t know. I didn’t mean nothing.”
Not homeless. Crazy. I asked, “What are you doing out here?”
“G’oh boy!” He seemed to have the wind knocked out of him, then he stumbled backward.
At that point I started thinking maybe he wasn’t crazy, just drunk. I asked, “Are you alright?”
He laughed and bent over, then suddenly his face turned serious. “I don’t have a gun.”
I said, “Okay, I can see that. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
He moved toward me and held out a hand. “Otis Junior’s my name. How do you do.”
I didn’t know what his problem was, but I figured whatever was wrong with him I wasn’t going to catch it by shaking his hand. Not with all of my protective gear. We shook hands and I introduced myself. Then I asked once again, “Otis, what are you doing out here?”
“This is where I live,” he replied, then he trembled a bit.
“Are you alright?”
“T-t-tour, t-t-tour—”
He was trying to tell me something, and appeared to come in and out of focus. One minute he was fine, the next he seemed possessed. He reared his head back and shouted, “Lick my balls!”
I threw my hands up. “Alright, that’s it.” I turned to go. “Have a nice day.”
“Tourette’s syndrome!” he shouted. “I have— I have Tourette’s syndrome. Sorry. Sometimes I just blurt things out. I can’t help it. It’s a disease.”
>
Tourette’s syndrome. I’d heard of it, but I’d never actually met anyone who had it. I studied him for a minute. I didn’t know much about it, other than seeing something on television and maybe hearing a joke or two. I asked, “Otis, are you homeless?”
“No, I told you, I live here.”
“Out here.”
“I used to live here, before the damned Koreans blew everything up.”
I was struck by his sudden lucidity. I asked, “How did you survive the nuclear blast?”
“I was…G’oh boy! Whoop! Whoop!” He shuddered, then returned to normal. “I was visiting my cousin. He lives on the Westside. Then yesterday I decided to come back home.” He threw up his hands. “Only now I don’t know where my home is. Nothing’s left.”
“Yes, I’m having the same problem. Listen, it’s not safe for you to be walking around out here without any protection. You at least need a mask. If I had another one, I’d lend it to you.”
“Naw, I’m alright. I figure maybe I best head back to over Grover’s place anyway – that’s my cousin. There ain’t nothing here for me no more.”
“He lives on the Westside, you say?”
“Yeah.”
“How were things there when you left?”
“Helluvalot better than they are here, that’s for sure.”
How to Survive a Nuclear War Page 3
