“No cooking or fires, until we confirm the ventilation tomorrow. Bathrooms are downstairs in the tunnel, men go left, and women go right. Take this flashlight with you if you go. Be sure everyone has a cell phone or light source. I am passing out your share of toilet paper. This is it, when it’s gone, it’s gone.”
Of all David said, Zeke noticed this seemed to cause Ashley the most alarm.
“Maybe we will find some more toilet paper later,” David assured Ashley.
“I will take first watch,” Zeke said, grabbing the shotgun, a whistle, and a 9mm and two clips. David wrote out the time on the back of his Physics syllabus, taking the midnight to two am slot, and passed it around.
Zeke expected more questions from Doron as to why they needed an armed night watch. But no one asked, they seemed focused on absolute equality of their individual toilet paper ration, counting the sheets carefully.
The concrete floor would be a tough mattress with attitude Zeke thought. He watched Karen inflate the two air mattresses and gave one to Jorge and one to Liu to sleep on. David handed Jorge and Ashley a wool blanket. David took a poncho and folded it in half and used his school backpack as a pillow. Zeke took the other poncho.
By the time he left, Karen had erected the dome tent and offered it to Ashley, making sure she understood it was only for the first night. The tent would be rotated each night among everyone. She zipped her backpack open, emptied it, and slid it underneath the floor of the tent vestibule, using the padded shoulder straps for a pillow.
Zeke wondered when it would be his tent night, but didn’t ask. He thought that would seem like he was being a whiny baby.
________________
Doron was jarred from a deep sleep by the overpressure. It was exactly like what he had felt in the school basement when the nuke attack started, only fainter. He heard a deep thump, then the tunnel quaked, like a severe earthquake tremor.
Ashley screamed, and Doron calmly said, “Another nuke, probably twenty five miles away.” The manhole covers rattled and clanged eerily in the darkness.
“We need to check all the manhole covers to be sure they are not covered in debris,” Doron said.
“Be sure to stay clear of anything dropping on you when you open the manhole covers,” Doron finished.
Doron did not tell them he was worried about the manhole covers being welded shut by the thermonuclear heat, trapping them in a tomb as Zeke had feared.
Liu and Ashley headed upstream. Karen, and Ashley and Zeke checked downstream, and soon confirmed all four manhole covers were open, and not blocked.
No one said anything, but Doron and everyone else knew David had saved their lives but sheltering in this tunnel. Again.
Doron knew it was completely irrational, but he was beginning to bitterly resent it.
19.
Diary of Liu Nguyen
It’s very dark. I am on guard duty, everyone is asleep.
Why did I follow David here? I don’t even know him.
David saved us from being buried alive in the building and got us to this shelter
David had a plan, while we were in shock, we had no plan, no direction. But he did.
He was leaving right then, you could go, or stay, it was your choice, but you had to decide immediately. You knew he would leave you, he left the teacher.
Somehow the very fact that he would leave you was comforting, it’s not like he was trying to trap you.
But mainly I did not want to be left alone, and everyone else was going. With everything that is happening, the worst fear is being alone. And the darkness.
David suddenly woke up, startled. Liu had jostled his foot with her shoes, and now stood quietly for David to begin guard duty. She handed him the shotgun, flashlight, watch, and whistle.
“Anything happen?” David asked.
“It sounds like it is raining,” she said.
“Is the tunnel flooding?” he asked quickly.
“No, it looks like we are at a high point, or maybe the rain is building up,” Liu said, heading to the women’s side to sleep.
When David climbed down the steps to the sewer tunnels, he saw Zeke sitting against the wall staring at nothing.
“Okay?” David asked.
“I am hurting about my kid brother and sister, LeShawn and Monique. Are they OK?” Zeke asked. David didn’t answer, because he didn’t know. No one knew, and that was the problem.
“I am walking to the other manhole, want to come?” David asked. Zeke nodded, then grabbed the shotgun and the 9.
The water level in the tunnel had risen about three inches. Zeke and David were able to stay out of the water by putting their feet on both sides of the stream in the round tunnel. David wondered if this water was carrying fallout. Logically it seemed if it rained on fallout dust, the radioactive dust would be carried by the water. He wondered if they were being radiated as they slept. Hope not, he thought grimly. But not much I can do about it now.
They reached the uphill manhole cover quickly. David wanted to open up the manhole cover and check for fallout, but he knew that was stupid. Instead he turned on his flashlight and began checking around the platform.
“Do you think about your family?” Zeke said during their tunnel crawl back to the repair deck.
“Yeah,” David said. “My Mom is still in Alabama selling the house. My Dad had been on alert for about a week before this.”
“I have a brother and sister in Head Start,” Zeke said. “I am going for them.”
“How far away?” David asked. Maybe this was doable.
“About seventeen miles.”
“No way, Zeke. The fallout is killing everything out there not sheltered as we speak. ”
“I can get a car, be there in a flash.”
“The Electro Magnetic Pulse may have fried all the computer chips in all the cars. The experts argued about that. They may not run. You would have to find a really old pre chip car, like 1960s.”
“I have got to know. I am all they have,” Zeke spat out, turning his head.
It was quiet for a few minutes, the only sound was the sloshing in the tunnel.
“If you find a car, I can up armor the car for fallout, with sandbags and barrier protection,” David said. “I’ll go with you at daylight, but navigating is going to be tough.” Truth was, the trip was dangerous, reckless, and that intrigued David.
“No, you don’t need to go. This is my business. I just need your help to figure it out,” Zeke said.
“I am all in,” David said.
“Besides, I owe you for that block in the game,” David laughed, to lighten the mood.
“I did save you from that middle linebacker. That boy had your number,” Zeke laughed. When the laughter died, no one said anything for a while.
“But Zeke, there may be nothing left of their school. You saw our school,” David said gently.
“I know,” Zeke broke down. “I know,” Zeke said, swallowing hard.
“If there is nothing is left, we turn around?” David asked, waiting for a commitment.
“Yes. Because then I will know.”
20.
“Zeke and I are going to look for his brother and sister,” David casually explained to the group, as he gathered his military backpack the next morning.
“Are you stuck on stupid!” Karen screamed, louder than she had intended.
“Fallout has just started, we had four nukes and you are going on a field trip?” Karen said, struggling to calm her voice down.
“We are going to find an old car that will operate after the electromagnetic pulse. We need help making sandbags for radioactive shielding on the floor. We are going to dig under the shaft which is not cemented in,” David explained.
“We will be back in half an hour,” David said.
“Word is traffic will be light,” David smiled. Karen was not having any of it, she was livid.
“David, you know Karen is right, even your own book says no movement for three days,” Do
ron argued. Doron probably knows we need David, otherwise he could care less, Karen thought.
“We are going,” David said softly, and with finality.
“I will go, ” Jorge said.
“No way, hello, you have a broken leg,” Zeke replied, pointing.
“Every night in our neighborhood we would fix someone’s old beat up car. We used to fix up cars sold at the insurance auction that had been stolen, and the ignition ripped out. So I can hotwire almost anything. Find a car, and I will hobble over there,” Jorge said.
David shrugged. “Well I have never hotwired a car,” he said.
“Now when we come back we will need to be decontaminated with water to get any dust removed,” David said.
“We will come back to the north hole only. We will not come here unless we can be decontaminated,” David explained.
“Karen and Liu, see if you can rig up some kind of improvised shower over the tunnels before we get back. Doron, we need you and Ashley to study decontamination from the survival book. You need to be our experts in about an hour,” David said, as Doron nodded. Ashley looked surprised, but also nodded. “You need to be prepared to brief everyone else also.”
They filled four backpacks with dirt as improvised sandbags to put on the floor of car for radiation shielding. With everyone taking a turn with the shovel, they were finished in a couple of minutes. The backpacks would also provide some shielding from radiation while they were car shopping on the front and back of their chest. The dirt filled backpacks were like body armor against radiation, but very heavy.
“Take off your socks,” David told Jorge and Zeke, as he took off his own socks and filled them with dirt and tied the top with parachute cord.
“Gentlemen, now take your dirt filled socks and put them in your crotch, after the women leave. Be sure the socks cover your entire package. Your future literally depends upon it,” David said.
“Women, if you will excuse us please, and go down the tunnel. The following presentation is rated R for full frontal nudity,” David said with a smile.
“Countdown, three , two, one,” David said.
Karen turned and the women followed immediately, and fled down the tunnel. She had angrily demanded earlier that David have the men give notice before changing clothes in open view
“Let’s steal some wheels,” Karen heard David echo in the tunnel.
Diary of Liu Nguyen
David leaves on a foolish, suicidal, rescue attempt for Zeke’s family.
David is too soft, he is an easy mark for a sad story. This may make him a poor leader now that life and death is on the line.
I will watch him carefully if he makes it back. Maybe time for a new leader. But who? Maybe Karen.
Why is Zeke special? We all have family out there.
The radiation will probably kill them all, it’s in that Green Book of David’s Dad.
Without David, the group will be in trouble. After only 1 day, he is clearly the leader, the glue that keeps us together. While it is only 1 day, he has saved our lives twice in 24 hours, from the collapsed building and then by getting us in a fallout shelter That builds bonds that would take years to develop in the world.
We need David for our own survival.
I think Doron is planning what will happen when they don’t return, and how he can use that to his benefit.
Karen told me some of the candy bars are missing, she suspects Doron. She was going to tell David this morning, but now it’s kind of irrelevant.
Karen admitted she had no evidence, what is important is she suspects him.
Karen quietly told me to keep my shotgun with me at all times until David gets back.
I said you mean “if they come back” and barely controlled fury flashed across her face as she said,
“No, I mean WHEN David comes back.”
She didn’t mention Zeke or Jorge….
21.
Zeke started to open the manhole cover, when David yelled, “Wait!”
“We have been underground a while and our pupils are dilated. Shut one eye when Zeke opens the cover,” David said. Zeke opened the manhole cover and they were blinded for a few seconds by the sunlight, as their eye adjusted. The sky was dark and overcast, but after the tunnel it was blinding.
“Now slowly open your closed eye and we should be able to see,” David said. Dust fell into the tunnel. Zeke noticed the dust did not stay airborne, the dust was heavy and clumped together like wet snow.
Zeke climbed out first, then David held Jorge’s crutches as he pulled him up. Karen had rigged Jorge up a sturdy leg brace using two pieces of metal rebar and four backpack shoulder straps, above and below the fracture. David climbed out, trying to avoid the dust.
The falling dirty white dust looked especially lethal. The dirty fallout was suddenly visible only about twelve feet above their head, as it fell through the thick black smoke.
The smell of burning gasoline, rotting carcasses, and concrete dust burned his nose. It was hard to breathe, and the dirt backpacks were heavy. They all had bandanas over their mouth and nose, like cowboys in the old westerns. He suppressed an urgent need to puke.
Everywhere they looked was covered by the dust. It was hard to recognize any landmarks. Everything was leveled and covered with dust.
“Check for snapped stubs of the heavy cement street light poles, they should show the road footprint,” David said. “That’s what they do in mountain road snowdrifts.”
Zeke saw a line of the remains of four power poles in a straight line and took off, leaving deep footprints in the fallout. David realized they could be easily tracked by the footprints.
“This one has a split level garage. Half of it is caved in,” Zeke shouted. The house had been built on an incline, with the garage about two thirds underground. The blast had destroyed the house, but blew the debris away from the garage. The ground floor of the house collapsed through the rear half of the garage, but the twin garage door was visible.
“There are two cars in here, a Honda Accord and an old Ford Mustang,” Zeke shouted.
“Can we get them out?” David shouted.
“The back of the garage is smashed in, but the cars are not crushed,” Zeke said excitedly.
The owner of this house was a real mechanic, Zeke thought as he looked at the blasted remnants of overturned red tool boxes. Both cars were locked. Zeke grabbed a wrench and smashed the backseat window of the Mustang, then unlocked the door. He felt underneath the sun visor, under the seat, and in the ash tray hoping for a key.
“I’m in, but no keys,” Zeke yelled.
Jorge cut some wires underneath the steering column. Zeke could hear the ignition catch, as he watched Jorge kneeling by the car, but the engine would not start. “Wait,” Jorge yelled, hobbling up.
Zeke walked carefully around the front, and popped the hood. This was the classic 1965 or 1966 Ford Mustang, he thought. This beauty was born before computer chips were invented. Doron has assured him 1960s cars would run even if the Electronic Magnetic Pulse of the nukes had fried all the electronics of the new cars. Zeke sat back in the driver’s seat, and could see Jorge busily adjusting something through the hood.
“Guys, let’s push the car down the driveway, then work on it. This roof has already collapsed and is not stable,” David warned. Sounds good, Zeke thought, fearful of being entombed.
“You steer, Zeke,” David said as he shoved the front of the Mustang down the hill. Zeke kept the Mustang straight and the car came to rest at the bottom of the cul-de-sac.
Jorge hobbled out of the garage excitedly, “Zeke, press the gas pedal all the way to the floor, leave the pedal there, do not pump it, then connect the green wires I attached,” Jorge yelled.
The engine roared to life. It sounded incredibly loud, maybe the owner had modified the muffler, Zeke thought.
“How much gas does it have?” David asked.
“Quarter of a tank,” Zeke yelled.
David looked around, and foun
d an empty five gallon red plastic gas tank next to the lawnmower in the garage and grabbed it.
“Jorge, cut us a piece of water hose in case we have to siphon gas,” David yelled.
Zeke looked around trying to get any directional bearings. He did recognize two collapsed overpasses about a mile away, so the interstate was to the east. His neighborhood was just before the bridge.
David took off his backpacks full of dirt, and laid them on the front passenger seat and the back seat.
“Zeke, you may want to put your backpacks on the floor and sit on the other one to shield the radiation,” David said.
“Jorge, you sit up front with Zeke,” David said.
“Wish we could have found a four door car, but at least it runs,” David said.
“Zeke, the Interstate is east of here,” David said.
“There are the overpasses, I think it’s that way,” Zeke said pointing.
Zeke took off slowly, looking for roads heading east. David slung his AR 15 and his 12 gauge facing out the back window. Zeke felt much better without the backpacks on.
“Guys, be sure none of you has a gun pointed towards me,” David said. Jorge reached over and put Zeke’s shotgun in his lap facing out Jorge’s door, and moved both 9s facing forward.
It was hard telling where the roads were, and there were a couple of very hard hits as they ran over curbs and debris. Zeke wondered if they had punctured their gas tank. But he was able to keep mainly on the road and they could see the collapsed overpass ahead.
“Remember, it’s like hiking in the woods, try to locate landmarks for the trip back,” David said.
The Interstate overpass had collapsed, grinding semi-trucks, small cars and reinforced concrete into debris pancakes. It took a while to thread around all the smashed cars, and Zeke realized that for long travel they would need motorcycles to dodge the debris.
As they approached the second overpass, David asked, “Zeke, is this near your home?”
“Yes, about two blocks away.”
“How about we walk up the dirt embankment of the collapsed overpass to get a good look at the neighborhood,” David said, suspecting nothing would be left of where Zeke lived. They parked the Mustang, and left the engine running while they climbed up what was left of the overpass.
Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own. Page 8
