by Bobby Akart
But should he? Peter began to weigh the risk of being exposed to the radioactive fallout versus going out of his semi-protective shelter in search of survival gear. If he didn’t leave the relatively safe confines of the storage room, everything he had on his mental wish list might be taken by others who were thinking along the same lines he was.
Peter pulled his tee shirt over his nose and mouth, hoping it would offer a modicum of protection against inhaling any radiation. His clothes were still wet, but they’d have to wait. He placed his gun into the sling pack and emerged from the storage room. After scanning the space and the entrance for anyone observing the store, he stepped out into the mall and immediately headed for Dick’s.
He’d formulated a plan as he’d lain awake earlier. Shelter. Water. Food. Security. He would start in the camping gear and go from there.
He smiled to himself as he made a beeline for the large backpacks and sleeping bags. The athletic shoes and casual apparel had been picked over. Some were looking through the archery equipment. Peter focused on the things that would keep him alive.
He selected a hunting backpack that had several different sized pockets and attachments for bows or rifles. It was also lightweight at only a few pounds, unlike the framed backpacks most campers used.
Peter resisted the urge to grab everything he thought he might need to cram into his backpack. He was prepared to walk thirteen hundred miles to Driftwood Key if that was what it took. A heavy pack would make that all the more difficult.
He gambled on being able to find shelter along the way even though it might mean he’d have to cut his day short if the weather was bad or his stamina gave out. He did choose a ten-degree mummy-style sleeping bag that could be rolled up and attached to the bottom of the backpack. This style sleeping bag would alleviate the need for a tent and would keep him warm in the event colder weather set in as he made the trip south.
He also picked up a tarp and some 550 paracord. In the camping section, he added a couple of different knives, a Gerber multi-tool, and several tactical flashlights with batteries. He was pleasantly surprised when he tried one and found that it worked despite the EMP.
Finally, he turned his attention to nourishment. Dick’s sold LifeStraws, a water filter designed to eliminate contaminants from most any source. The LifeStraw removed cells and germs as well as potentially harmful chemicals.
With his backpack full of camping and survival essentials, he went to the camouflage clothing section and changed out of his jeans and tee shirt. He had to think of living outside, in the elements, under all conditions. He recalled the homeless people of Washington he’d encountered for inspiration.
Despite the time of year, the homeless of America wore everything they owned. Countless layers of undergarments, pants, shirts, and jackets would ordinarily be too hot for most in the summer. When you don’t have a closet, your body served that function.
Peter picked out several packages of boxers and white tee shirts. He chose socks that were appropriate for his running shoes as well as boot socks if needed. He layered himself in matching camo. Khaki material for pants as well as a bulkier outer shell in the event of cold rain or snow. His shirts ranged from short-sleeve tees to long-sleeved heavy cotton. Finally, he added a jacket with a zip-out fleece liner if it became too hot. In Peter’s mind, he could always peel off layers and carry them. If he was underdressed, cold, damp nights would take their toll.
After filling his arms with gear and having a firm plan on deciding what to take and what to abandon later, he made his way back to his hiding place in the storeroom. He laid everything out and considered what items he wished he had. Then he thought about the unthinkable.
What if he’d been exposed to the radiation already? What could he do to stave off the harmful effects of the radioactive poison that would destroy him from within?
He was gonna have to go back into the mall. But first, he needed more sleep.
Chapter Eight
Friday, October 25
Mount Weather Operations Center
Northern Virginia
Deep underground and protected from the carnage above, President Helton was exhausted as the day came to an end. He stood stoically at the head of the conference table, dark circles around his eyes and his hair mussed. His advisors from the Department of Homeland Security and his national security team had gathered in the conference room to provide him a more up-to-date assessment of the nuclear exchange. As the military leaders and intelligence personnel gave their reports, he soaked it in. With each new assessment, the news became grimmer. He wasn’t sure if he could take any more.
The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security tried to respond to the president’s repeated requests regarding the death toll. In an attempt to provide the president accurate information, he made matters worse.
“Sir, admittedly, it’s impossible to have an accurate death toll. That may take many months if we’re able to do it at all. Frankly, part of the problem may have been the ballistic missile warning apps and the overall system employed by governments at all levels.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the president as he furrowed his brow.
“Well, Mr. President, after the first false alarm initiated by Sacramento that was also sounded in Oregon and Washington, many residents failed to heed the warning when a real threat was inbound. By the time they tried to react like their neighbors and coworkers, it was too late.”
“Their hesitation may have resulted in their deaths,” added the chief of staff.
The president shook his head in disbelief and buried his face in the palms of his hands. The stress was taking a toll on him, and many in the room privately had chatted outside of earshot about his ability to perform.
President Helton turned to the team from Homeland Security. “What are we doing to help people?”
“Sir, at this time, nothing,” responded the FEMA administrator.
This response nearly brought the president out of his chair. “What?”
“Well, sir, there are multiple reasons for this. Our vehicular assets in the affected regions were disabled by the EMP. However, even if they were not, the superfires surrounding these cities are covering vast areas of the surrounding terrain, much worse than our simulations ever imagined.”
“And at a faster rate, sir,” added the DHS secretary. “Weather satellite data indicates winds at ground level have reached hurricane force, and current infrared imagery reveals air temperatures within the zone of fire can exceed two hundred degrees, near the boiling point of water.”
“Sir, if I may explain?” said Dr. Theodore Pascal, a scientist with the United States Geological Survey, or USGS. “This is my first opportunity to attend a briefing of this nature. I am the leading volcanologist for the USGS.”
“Volcanoes?” asked the president.
“Yes, sir. Although my area of expertise has routinely been applied to nuclear detonation analysis.”
“Okay, proceed.”
“Mr. President, at the period of peak energy output, a one-megaton nuclear weapon can produce a temperature of one hundred million degrees Celsius at its center. That’s four to five times the temperature at the center of the Sun. This sudden blast of energy results in enormous emanations of light and heat for hundreds of miles.
“The light can cause blindness, but the biggest threat, in addition to the direct impact, of course, can come from the ferocious hurricane of fire pushing away from ground zero. These fires, once initiated, will not only destroy everything in their path, but they will, very efficiently I might add, heat large volumes of air near Earth’s surface.
“As this heated air rises, cool air from beyond the vast burning area rushes in to replace it. The ground-level winds will reach a hundred miles per hour or more, forcing the superheated air into the stratosphere. This air will be full of radiated debris together with lethal toxic smoke and combustion gases.”
The president held his hand up, directing Dr. Pascal to
pause for a moment. “I assume this happened in South Asia and the Middle East to an extent.”
The volcanologist nodded. “South Asia especially. The nuclear warheads may not have been as strong as what North Korea delivered, but the sheer numbers have resulted in a climate catastrophe unsurpassed since the last eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.”
Chief of Staff Harrison Chandler asked, “This is devastating, to be sure, but how does it factor into casualty estimates?”
Dr. Pascal responded, “Sir, the standard model for calculating deaths and even nonfatal injuries from hypothetical nuclear attacks assumes the same casualty rates will occur from blast overpressure as those which occurred at Hiroshima at the end of World War II. We call this the blast effect or blast scaling. It’s standard methodology used by government agencies to estimate casualties in nuclear war.
“I maintain this methodology is wholly inaccurate because the Hiroshima death tolls didn’t take into account the deaths resulting from the superfires and contamination of the atmosphere. I and most of my colleagues at the USGS and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena believe the death toll will be four to six times what the generally accepted methodology allows.”
“Mr. President, if I may,” interjected the secretary of Homeland Security. “This issue is important because the natural inclination is to rush into the blast zone to look for survivors and provide them medical assistance. This may sound callous, but we can’t help them, sir. We can, however, as Dr. Pascal will confirm, help those outside the immediate blast area.”
“That’s correct, Mr. President,” added Dr. Pascal. “In our estimation, as it relates to the fires, those within a one-hundred-mile blast radius cannot be helped. It’s possible to provide assistance beyond that on a city-by-city basis.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the president.
“Sir, by way of example, each of the West Coast cities have been subjected to a fireball so hot that it began to violently expand outward from ground zero at several million miles per hour. It was slowed only by its hunger for combustible materials. As this shock wave pushed farther away from the point of detonation, it expanded for hundreds of miles, an unstoppable force immune to any form of firefighting methods.”
“What can we do?”
“Find a way to notify survivors of what is coming their way.”
“And tell them what?” asked the president as he leaned forward in his chair.
“Run.”
Part II
Day nine, Saturday, October 26
Chapter Nine
Saturday, October 26
Fair Oaks Mall
Fairfax, Virginia
After making another run into the mall, Peter Albright slept until the next day. He woke up refreshed but very sore from the beating his body had taken when the bomb was detonated in DC. He lay there in the dark, doing a medical self-assessment. He put his body through an examination, searching for any feeling or sensation out of the ordinary. He breathed deeply in a prone position and then standing with his arms high over his head. He really didn’t know what he expected radiation poisoning to feel like, but thus far, he wasn’t showing symptoms of anything other than muscle soreness, hunger and an incredible thirst.
Before he urinated in the store’s toilet, he opened up one of the LifeStraws and tried it out. He removed the tank lid of the toilet and partially submerged the plastic device into the water for about twenty seconds. Then he primed the pump, so to speak. He took five quick sips through the opening to get the water flowing. Once it was filled, he took a tentative draw on the capped opening. This was his first time drinking toilet water, and he wasn’t overly eager about the concept.
The taste was musty and somewhat chalky, but it didn’t repulse him. He took a longer sip this time, even swirling the water around his mouth to reach every parched area.
“Not bad,” he said with a laugh. As he peed, he blew the excess water out of the LifeStraw to keep the filter clean. He glanced down at the toilet bowl and wondered if the LifeStraw would filter his urine. He hoped it would never come to that.
In addition to waking up refreshed and well rested, Peter had a new sense of clarity on the situation he faced. He also was able to recall some of the things he’d learned about a post-nuclear world over the years. His mother had suffered from hyperthyroidism before she passed away. This occurred when the thyroid gland produced too much of the hormone thyroxine. She didn’t even know she suffered from an overactive thyroid until her body’s metabolism began to accelerate, causing an irregular heartbeat and unexpected weight loss.
Her doctor had suggested she take potassium iodide to treat the hyperthyroidism. He recalled her saying at dinner one night that it would come in handy to block radiation. It was the same medication, she’d told the family, given to people who’d been exposed to radiation.
Peter was now on a mission to locate a GNC or other vitamin store that might be located in the mall. In addition to taking the potassium iodide, if he could find it, he would stock up on other basic vitamins and minerals to supplement his diet. He expected to be missing quite a few meals.
Stealthily, he ventured out of his demolished store and into the mall corridor. He’d wrapped a shemagh around his face. A shemagh was an Arab scarf adopted by many American soldiers when serving in the Middle East. It was an effective way to protect their faces and necks from the sun, wind, and sand. Apparently, hunters used it for protection in rainy and cold weather. Peter added two of them to his pile of supplies, as well as a couple of gaiters, to use as a preventive measure against ingesting fallout.
As he made his way into the center of the mall, he was astonished at how things had changed since the day before. A veritable tent city had been established in the center of Fair Oaks. Furniture had been pulled together, and sheets were stretched over it to create a sense of privacy for those who slept underneath. People were consoling one another, and some were passing out days-old food that had been found in the mall’s food court.
There were still looters, but their stores of choice—athletic shoes, jewelry stores, and high-end handbag retailers, had been emptied. Peter carefully made his way to an information kiosk in search of a vitamin and supplement store. There wasn’t a GNC, but he did see a listing for the Vitamin Shoppe. The kiosk map had a red sticker with an arrow pointing at the location with the word NEW written on it.
Peter smiled. He glanced around at the refugees, who seemed to be from all walks of life. They were most likely stranded motorists seeking shelter. Their eyes darted in all directions, partly out of concern for the threats from others and partly because they expected help to arrive at any moment. Peter sighed when he considered their fate. They had no idea. Help was not coming.
He casually strolled through the mall, allowing the dim light streaming through the skylights to lead him. The day before, the sun had barely shone through the clouds and smoke. Today, a layer of blackish soot covered the skylights, almost obliterating the sunlight. Peter closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief as he realized the sooty substance was a sign of things to come.
He reached the Vitamin Shoppe and cursed under his breath. Unlike the steel-grate roll-up door at Dick’s Sporting Goods that had been pried open, nobody had found vitamins worthy of the effort. He stood back from the entrance to examine the stores on both sides.
On the right was a store called BCBG Maxazria. He scowled as he wondered why any retailer would call themselves a name that nobody could pronounce, much less make sense of. Regardless, the BCBG store was certainly popular with looters. The women’s clothing store had been hit by a swarm of female locusts, who’d taken everything except the racks and a few hangers. The only clothing left behind had been trampled beyond recognition.
To the left was a hallway with the symbols for the men’s, women’s, and gender-neutral restrooms. Peter rolled his eyes and started down the hallway. He pulled one of the tactical flashlights out of his camouflage cargo pants and lit
up the hall. He flashed it upwards and traced the drop ceiling full of square fiberglass tiles.
The first door was marked with the gender-neutral sign. Basically, it was the men’s sign with the women’s sign combined with the universal symbol for handicapped accessible. Inside, it looked like any other men’s restroom except everything was enclosed by stalls. He shrugged, not sure what the point was, and made his way to the toilet. He stepped onto the seat, and then after another step up, he was able to stand on the tank.
He reached up and forced the ceiling tile upward so he could take a look around. Using his flashlight, he lit up the enclosed ceiling and directed his attention toward the vitamin store. There wasn’t a block partition wall separating them.
Peter placed the illuminated flashlight in his mouth and grabbed the block wall to hoist himself up. He pulled his lean frame upward, and with a slight kick, he landed on his belly on top of the wall. He squirmed until he was sitting cross-legged on a steel I-beam.
With his fingertips, he pried up a ceiling tile over the Vitamin Shoppe. His flashlight allowed him a good look at the store’s checkout counter. He was in business. After he replaced the ceiling tile in the restroom, Peter dropped into the vitamin store and looked around. It was remarkably untouched and in the same condition as when the employees had left it the night before the nuclear attack.
Peter exercised light discipline by directing his flashlight away from the entrance so he didn’t attract any attention. When the time came, he’d manually roll up the steel-grate door so he wouldn’t have to play Spider-Man again. Besides, he planned on loading up on what he needed. These supplements might warrant picking out a duffel bag at Dick’s to carry them.
Like any shopper, he located a plastic basket with handles to make his selections. His first stop was the section offering mineral supplements. After a moment, he located a 240-count bottle potassium iodide with a strength of 32.5 milligrams. He tried to read the dosage label. He had no idea how many to take to stave off the effects of radiation poisoning. Peter opened the bottle and swallowed four of them. This would give him a sixty-day supply.
