by Harley Tate
Two weeks sitting on his hands, not knowing if his wife were alive or dead?
He’d rather drive straight to the heart of the city and find her charred remains than stay there in the dark. Grant exhaled. No matter how much it pained him, he would have to wait until he had more information.
As he sat there agonizing over all the what-ifs, the front door opened. Another trucker stepped inside with a spiral notebook in one hand and a beer in the other.
Dennis spoke first. “Give us good news, Pete.”
“The wind’s headed due east at about ten miles an hour. Assuming it stays constant, the fallout will spread over the next week straight from Atlanta to the coast. Everything on the west side of the city should be fine.”
“What about north?”
Pete gave an encouraging nod. “Assuming the wind doesn’t change, it should be fine. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Grant leaned back in relief. Hampton sat due northwest from Atlanta. If the winds stayed in this direction, Dawn would be fine and he could head there soon.
Bill motioned to the back of the store. “We’ve got working showers. The heat’s natural gas and it’s still running, too.”
Grant glanced at his suitcase. “Any chance the washers work?”
“Nope. But there’s an oversized sink. You could scrub up your clothes by hand and hang them on the line.”
“Thanks.” He turned to face the group. “I appreciate all of you letting me stay and listen. I needed to hear it.”
Dennis nodded. “Anytime. Most of us are sleeping in our berths tonight, but you’re welcome to a bench in the restaurant. Might be warmer than that old beater out there.”
Grant smiled. “She’s not a beater. She’s a classic.”
Dennis shook his head. “I’m more of a Caddy man, myself.”
“Oh, don’t get me started.” Bill leaned back in his chair. “It’s Ford all the way.”
“You mean one of those found-on-roadside-dead things?” Travis grinned. “Chevy’s where it’s at.”
Grant laughed and pushed out of his seat. At least in the face of uncertainty, these men still had their sense of humor. He wheeled his suitcase toward the showers and exhaled. At the most, he’d wait a few days.
Then he could find his wife.
Chapter Twenty-Three
LEAH
Barnes & Noble
Greater Atlanta Area
Saturday, 9:00 p.m.
Leah smacked the book lamp as it flickered in and out. Ever since opening the book about Hiroshima, she’d barely moved enough to blink. So far, she’d learned all about nuclear weapons and what to expect in the immediate aftermath.
It was horrible. Every sentence made her thankful for the Barnes & Noble and the tire iron in the back of the Buick.
If the window hadn’t given way at last, or she hadn’t made the right onto the larger road and come across the bookstore, she would be dead or dying. For people exposed to the blast, those close enough were incinerated. Those within two miles were burned worse than any sunburn, some even imprinted with the patterns on their clothes.
She thought about Georgia Memorial. Kelly and Stacy and all those babies. Even if they survived the heat, the building could never withstand the force of the explosion. The concrete would crumble and every patient and nurse and doctor would die.
Leah closed the book and sucked in a breath. Her heart ached for her friends and her coworkers. A flood of more tears filled her eyes and she squeezed the bridge of her nose until they passed. The remaining headache forced her eyes open.
If she hadn’t left with Andy in the morning, she would be dead. Turned to dust or vapor and Grant would never know. He would never find her body.
Wiping at her blurry eyes, she opened the book again. After explaining the blast, the author moved onto the mushroom cloud. Made of vaporized particles of earth from the crater caused by the bomb, the cloud was full of radiation. Within thirty minutes after the blast, those particles began to fall back to earth.
The first two days were the most dangerous. She read about how radiation is measured in absorbed radiation doses, or rads. At sufficient exposure, a person’s hair would fall out, followed by a reduction in blood cell count. Nausea and vomiting would soon follow. It was a gruesome and unpleasant way to die.
Did Andy make it into the basement? What about so many of his neighbors? She thought about Becky and Tom, and all the other people she didn’t even meet. Did Andy’s little dogs, Tinker and Bell, get left in the cold January air to suffer radiation poisoning?
Leah looked down at her skin. I wasn’t outside for long enough to be exposed, was I? The book outlined ways to minimize exposure and she pored over the details. Decontamination worked: changing clothes and taking a shower actually reduced exposure.
She shrugged off the blanket and threw it away before grabbing her duffel and rushing to the coffee shop sitting in the middle of the bookstore. Better safe than sorry.
Grabbing another book light, she clipped it to the edge of the sink before stripping out of her clothes. She dumped them all in the sink, filled the basin with water, and added a heavy dose of dish soap. As the cold from the tile floor seeped into her bare feet, she grabbed her dirty shirt from inside her duffel and soaked it in water and soap. Using it as a sponge, she cleaned her skin as best she could, dripping and splashing water all over the tile.
Leah hesitated with her hair, since she was already shivering and chattering in the cold air. But she didn’t have a choice. If vaporized bits of radioactive particles were all over her clothes, they were in her hair, too. With a pitcher of water and even more soap, she washed her hair, dunking her head in the water again and again until fresh water ran clear.
Her fingers fumbled with the clothes as she agitated the water. Leah tried to scrub them with her hands, but she couldn’t get a grip. Come on, Leah. Don’t get hypothermia.
As she rubbed her bare arms to warm up, Leah scampered back to the blankets and grabbed a new one. Her toes were numb, her fingers barely worked, but it was worth it. A cheap blanket from a bookstore never felt better as Leah wrapped it around her shoulders.
She waited until the feeling came back to her fingers before heading back into the kitchen and rinsing her clothes. Staring at the wet heap in the sink, she hesitated. If she left them there, they would never dry. But it wasn’t exactly a full-service laundromat.
There has to be something.
Leah grabbed the book light and spun around. She spied an extension cord looping around the back off the now-worthless refrigeration unit and pounced on it. Fifteen feet long, it would do the trick. Looping it around one of the handles to the display cabinet showing off stale muffins and hard croissants, Leah stretched it across the tile to the opposite side. She looped it around the iron railing separating the coffee shop from the rest of the store and tugged to make sure it would hold.
One by one, Leah hung up her clothes. She smiled at a job well done. Radiation gone. Decontamination complete.
Before heading back to the far corner of the store, Leah grabbed the book light, a muffin, and a bottle of water. She opted for a spot one row over from where she’d been before in case she tracked radiation into that area.
As she eased herself down, reality hit her. She was alone in a bookstore with no one to talk to and barely any food. The water still worked, but for how long?
She glanced up at the dark all around her. Can I really stay here two weeks? Can I wait that long to find my family?
Dawn must be worried sick. Even in Hampton, she would have seen the blast. They would have to know about the explosion, even if they didn’t know what caused it. Leah’s eyes went wide. What if her sister tried to find her? Leah hoped her husband was there to calm her down and keep her home.
She knew she should sleep, but worry propped her eyelids open. Wrapping the blanket tighter around her shoulders, Leah wandered back out of the aisle and took stock. Children’s books, art history, architecture. Travel.
Leah paused.
Travel would have maps. Maybe she could plot a way out that would give her an early chance. If she could find a way out of the bookstore where she wouldn’t run the risk of radiation exposure, she could leave.
Exhaustion tugged at her eyes, but she fought it off and found the shelf stuffed with maps. Leah pulled out every map of north Georgia and Atlanta before heading back to her little cave.
She didn’t know if leaving early would be possible, but she could at least try to figure it out. She could sleep tomorrow.
Tonight, I’m making a plan.
Chapter Twenty-Four
GRANT
Highway 72
South Carolina Border
Wednesday, 10:00 a.m.
Three and a half days of being cooped up in a dark building with over fifteen truckers would drive anyone insane. Grant sat beside Pete in the cab of his eighteen-wheeler, going over the readings again.
The whole truck was outfitted like a beach in southern California with ocean blue walls and a surfboard shine to the dash. But the chill vibe did nothing to ease Grant’s anxiety.
He ran a hand over his newly growing beard. “Are you sure it’s safe? I can head to Hampton?”
Pete huffed out a breath and turned to him. “Dude. I’ve been over this like eighty times. The winds have stayed constant and are headed east. The plume is spreading toward the coast. Hampton is in the clear.”
“How far south can I go?”
Pete hesitated. “I wouldn’t stray nearer than twenty-five miles. Maybe thirty.”
It didn’t give him much to work with, but at least he could find out if Leah was safe and at her sister’s. Grant nodded. “Thanks, Pete.”
“You’re welcome. Now get out of my cab before you totally wreck the mojo.”
Grant smiled and clambered down to the parking lot. He checked the time. The guys inside had just started their morning reach-out to other ham radio operators. Grant hurried inside to listen.
The bells jingled on the door and Bill lifted a hand for silence. Grant eased the door shut and approached the table. He stopped beside Randy, the man who shared the nuclear weapon knowledge on Grant’s arrival.
A radio sat beside the window, its huge antenna anchored to the roof for better range.
“Like I said, it’s bad. Charlotte’s destroyed. From my window, I can’t see any major buildings left standing. There are fires all over downtown. I can see the smoke in the day and the flames at night even without the scope.”
Randy leaned over to whisper. “He’s holed up in an apartment building outside the city. Got a sweet telescope that lets him see everything.”
Dennis asked another question over the ham. “Any military presence you can see?”
“Nothing. Not a single one.”
Grant frowned. Shouldn’t they have mobilized by now?
Two and a half days was enough time for the army to assemble teams and start fanning out. They would be securing the bomb sites and triaging the sick and injured. It was standard practice for any kind of attack. They drilled for that kind of mission when he was active duty.
Would lack of phones really make that much of a difference? Military bases had radios and EMP-hardened equipment. Some Humvees would have survived the EMP. Fort Bragg was two and a half hours from Charlotte. Soldiers should be in the city already.
He paused. Unless they were told to wait because of radiation.
With all the testing from the Cold War, the military would know when it was safe to enter a hot zone. If the people now sick with radiation poisoning were going to die no matter what, he could understand the wait. It wasn’t the humanitarian choice, but it was the sensible one. Keeping soldiers from getting sick meant more men to fight. For all Grant knew, America could be at war.
But two weeks was a long time to wait.
Healthy people would begin to panic. There would be chaos and bedlam in the streets. He couldn’t imagine the horror of the major cities. Outside the blast radius, people would be alive, but desperate. Dwindling food supplies, scarce water. No electricity or information. So many cell phones with dead batteries or no signal.
He had to get to Hampton and find his wife. Grant leaned closer to Randy. “How long before radiation symptoms manifest if someone were close to the blast?”
“Depends on the dose.” Randy glanced up at the ceiling, trying to remember. “A mild dose would bring on nausea and vomiting within forty-eight hours, followed by headache and weakness. More severe exposure would speed up the timing. A large dose could bring on vomiting within the hour, along with dizziness and disorientation.”
Grant ran through the timeline in his head. “So the people exposed to enough to kill them are already sick.”
Randy hesitated, pulling Grant away from the radio to not disturb anyone listening. “Many are, but not all. Lower doses, or doses over a prolonged period of time will lead to bone marrow destruction and death of internal cells that regenerate quickly.”
This was way out of Grant’s comfort zone. He wished his wife were here to explain it to him. “Like what?”
“Your intestines, for starters. When they’re damaged or killed by radiation, they don’t replicate, so the GI tract doesn’t heal itself. You can die of sepsis or anemia or a million other complications.”
“If the radiation doesn’t kill you right away, you die from its side effects?”
“Yep. For some complications, it could take months.”
“Like going blind.”
“Exactly.”
Grant pinched the back of his neck. He had to find out if Leah was okay. If she had been exposed to a high amount of radiation, but made it to Hampton, she would already be sick. One look at her and he would know.
He thanked Randy and retreated to the bench he’d claimed as his makeshift home. With Pete’s determination that the road was clear to reach Hampton, and the word from Charlotte that the cities were falling apart, Grant made up his mind.
He was leaving.
He packed up his suitcase and wheeled it back toward the group of truckers around the radio. He caught Dennis’s eye and the man made his way over.
“Heading out?”
Grant nodded. “I appreciate you letting me stay here and share in your food and all the knowledge.”
“That’s what people do.” Dennis stuck out his hand and Grant shook it. “You head back this way, stop in and see if we’re still here. Most of us won’t be leaving until the two weeks are up.”
“Will do.” Grant waved at the rest of the crowd and headed out to the Cutlass. It sat right where he left it, all alone in the car parking lot.
He stared out at the trucks that would probably never start again. They were lucky to all be there, taking a load off from the drive when the power went out. If not, who knows where they would have been. Driving smack through the middle of a major city, most likely.
Grant put his suitcase in the back seat and slid in behind the wheel. He tapped the starter wires together and the Cutlass sputtered to life. As the car backed out of the space, Grant exhaled. I’m coming, Leah. Just hold on.
He headed due west, following the handwritten map Bill had drawn on a scrap piece of paper. The farther he traveled, the more surreal it all became.
He passed little farm houses with white clapboard siding and black shutters. A double-wide with a dog house out front and a five-year-old kid kicking a ball in the gravel driveway. A horse grazing along the fence line. Cows in the distance.
How would everyone survive without power? Would the water keep running in the taps? Would the gas stay on? There was so much Grant didn’t know.
So much uncertainty and fear. The nuclear detonation consumed his thoughts for the past two days, but out in the country, other fears surfaced. Dawn lived in a small town where everyone knew each other and nothing was secret for long.
How would they be getting on, three days without power?
Grant increased his speed, worry and anxiety spurring him
on. He dodged a handful of cars abandoned in the road before turning to head north to Hampton. Forty miles outside of Atlanta, it was more a little town that got swallowed up by expansion than satellite suburb for the well-to-do.
It didn’t take more than half an hour to reach the city limits. With a population of a little over twenty thousand, Hampton’s main drag housed the county courthouse, a string of strip mall lawyers, and a couple of restaurants that didn’t try to be hip.
Grant eased onto Main Street and slowed. An old Georgia red brick building with boarded-up windows took up the entire first block. Chain-link construction fencing blocked it off with signs proclaiming, Your tax dollars at work! Restoration in Progress!
Grant snorted. Not anymore. A gazebo with a historical marker sat in the middle of a manicured lawn in front of the old courthouse. A gathering of people huddled together beneath the patinated copper roof. They all turned to watch him drive by.
He stopped at the stop sign and turned left toward Dawn’s street. A classic Victorian-era house sat on the corner. A child played on the front step with a toy stable and plastic horses. Grant drove past.
On the next street, Victorians gave way to 1920s craftsman bungalows and even smaller 1940s cape cods. He turned into Dawn’s neighborhood with growing apprehension. People milled about outside. Neighbors chatting with other neighbors, teenage boys playing soccer in the middle of the street.
Every person turned when they heard the rumble of the Cutlass. He frowned. In a town like Hampton, he couldn’t have the only working car. He’d already passed his fair share of beaters, some even older than the ’77.
But he supposed he was still a novelty; a stranger.
Turning onto Dawn’s street, he counted the houses. She lived in the fourth one on the right. A tiny little brick bungalow with a kelly green front door. He bounced up the driveway and came to a stop behind a ten-year-old Kia Sedona. Dawn’s car.
