by Ryan Husk
When she saw him going for it, the girl said, “Wait…wait, my house is back—”
“The other way, I know. I know where Joe Frank is, I just can’t take you there. It’s bumper-to-bumper—worse than bumper-to-bumper. We couldn’t make it there without a helicopter. I’m sorry, sweetie. But you can’t stay here. I’m going to take you up a few exits and you can call your folks from there. They can pick you up later. Sorry.”
“But my dad always told me that if somethin’ like this happens I’m supposed to start running for home! That he’d pick me up in case of a nuclear or biological attack!”
Gordon made a face. “Your dad told you that?”
She made a face right back. “You don’t know my dad.”
Just then, Gordon’s cellphone started ringing. He reached forward to check who it was. Molly! Thank God!
“Yours works?” the girl said. “Mine won’t fucking work!”
Gordon put the phone to his ear. “Molly?”
“Gor…we can’t…hav…you…we’re all…”
“What?! Molly, I can’t hear you!”
“You can’t…can…see…did you…cloud from…that face…”
“Molly, you’re breaking up!”
“Lookout!” the girl screamed, and braced herself for impact.
* * *
Interstate 75 wasn’t completely impassable just yet, and Edward was only too thankful for that. At the moment, it was about like it was just before rush hour during the week, only with a bit more wrecks off to the side of the road. One good thing about the end of the world, he thought, smiling, is that nobody cares about swapping insurance cards.
The drive had been rather exciting, a confirmation of his ten years’ worth of warning others they’d best be prepared. It was only a matter of time, he thought. Did they really think it would never happen? Did they really?
Most experts agreed that Russia and Pakistan were the biggest threats in modern times as far as leakages. Russia had the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, spread out over eleven time zones. When the Soviet Union fell, those weapons were up for grabs. Things fell apart. The economy collapsed and jobs were lost, including those centered around guarding nuclear material. No one was beefing up the security around the enriched uranium. The Russians literally had gaping holes in their fences, no one was setting the alarm systems, most of which didn’t work anyway. At some locations, anyone could have just walked out with a great deal of uranium in their briefcase and nobody would’ve noticed. Some years back, one nuclear plant worker had been caught stealing enough enriched uranium and trading it for, of all things, a brand-new refrigerator and a new washing machine for his family.
That’s all it took for a man to sell the uranium necessary to kill millions of people, he had thought a thousand times since hearing it. A refrigerator. A fucking refrigerator! And all these people around me, they thought it’d never come. They thought this would never really, truly happen.
Something like nine million shipping containers entered U.S. ports every year. Studies had repeatedly shown that only five percent were inspected before they were unloaded. All it took was some Russian who’d had enriched uranium just sitting in his basement since 1988, waiting to sell it to the highest bidder. It would become his retirement plan. The uranium would get handed off to some go-between for an al-Queda or ISIS operative, and then the rest would be history. Honestly, it was all too easy.
And all these unprepared people around him had thought it would never happen, at least not in their lifetime.
But is that what actually happened? he thought, looking again at the sky. The evil face had disappeared behind black clouds, and he wondered if he had just imagined it. No, it was real. But what is it?
Atlas’s head came next to his. The dog whined while it licked his master’s face. It was a questioning whine. Atlas wanted to know what the hell was going on. Edward didn’t have any answers for him.
As he zipped by the faces of those too timid to drive along the shoulder, Edward glanced at the panicked, confused faces of those in their new Escalades, old Buicks, multicolored Grand Ams repaired countless times, remodeled Mustangs, salvaged Beetles, and filthy work trucks loaded down with ladders, shovels, and wheelbarrows. Most of these will still be trapped somewhere on a road in the next thirty minutes, he knew. The less aggressive ones will be stuck, either on I-75 or on some other road they desperately exit onto.
Horns all around. Honking. Screeching tires. Cars and trucks zipping around one another. Dozens of cars pouring into the HOV lane. Who cared at this point? More screeching. A fender bender up ahead. Edward swerved around. Glanced at his rearview mirror. The mushroom cloud was spreading. Checked his watch: 10:04. A little over thirty minutes since detonation. Definitely time for the fallout cloud to start spreading.
More screeching up ahead. A silver Lincoln-Mercury slamming into the side of a nondescript white work van. People on the other side of I-75—the side moving south—were coming late to the party, realizing that the mushroom cloud dead ahead of them was no joke, and were now cutting across the median to get into the northbound lane. I-75 North was getting pretty packed.
Ahead of him, the swirling clouds briefly broke, and he got a peek at just a fraction of that sinister grin in the sky. Then, the clouds swirled again, and it was gone. Atlas growled and barked at it.
Brake lights lit up all around him like Christmas lights. Edward slammed on his brakes, swerved further off the shoulder, into the grass, around two work trucks, then back onto the shoulder, then zipped across to the middle lane. Another wreck had brought everyone up short. A slow, dangerous pile-up was commencing. Up ahead, another Cartersville exit was within sight. A few others had discovered the wisdom of taking the exit, crossing over the bridge, and using it as a shortcut to rejoin with I-75 North farther down the line.
Edward thought for just a second, made a snap decision. He waited for the slightest of openings in the far right lane, then zipped in front of a Porsche, scraping the front end of it, receiving honks for it. Ignored them.
He zipped up onto the offramp, following right in behind a small caravan of other likeminded individuals looking for a shortcut.
The world shook. Another bomb! No…no, it was just another aftershock. A bomb of that magnitude could do a number on the land, or send out another blast wave moving slower than the first. Predictable in some ways, unpredictable in others.
Edward glanced in his rearview. The cloud was spreading, having reached its maximum height of around 15,000 feet. Next would spread the radioactive fallout, according to whichever way the wind was blowing. The DF Zone, or Dangerous Fallout Zone, would be a twenty- to thirty-mile radius from ground zero.
“Jesus,” he whispered to himself. “Jesus Christ on a fucking bicycle!” He was born for this, and yet he was still scared. Exhilarated and scared.
The offramp was flooded with people with the same idea: go over the bridge, cutting over much of I-75 North, then hop on over to the onramp to rejoin I-75. The Wrangler was able to go off the road slightly and make its way around so that Edward needn’t bother with—
A car smashed into him from the side. The Wrangler’s right tires were forced into the ditch. He had been going about thirty miles an hour, and when he hit the lowest ebb of the ditch and shot up the other side, it cut his speed almost to zero, then slammed him back into his seat. In the back, Atlas yelped as he was flung forward and smacked against the passenger seat. Glass shattered from the driver’s side window. Edward took only a moment to glance out his window. The driver of the Camry that hit him was trying to restart. It whined and whined, but wouldn’t go.
Edward glanced back at Atlas. “You okay, boy?”
The dog growled irritably as he climbed back into his seat.
Edward had just started to put himself in reverse when he watched the driver of the Camry get out. He was a short, pudgy, balding black fellow dressed in business casual. The girl that got out of the passenger side didn’t look like she
could ever be his daughter—he was black and she was white. Maybe that was prejudiced of him, but it seemed like a good guess.
Edward gained enough traction to start back up the ditch. That’s when the driver of the Camry stuck his head through Edward’s window. “I need a lift!”
“Asshole! You’re the one hit me! Not my problem!”
“Listen, me and the girl, we’ve got no other way—”
“Fuck you!” he said. But the jeep lost traction as he floored it, sliding back down to the bottom of the ditch again. He backed up without checking his rearview, heard a scream from behind.
The Camry man ran back to his window and said, “You nearly ran over her!”
“Not my problem!” he repeated. And it wasn’t.
“It is now!” the black man said, and pulled out a Glock and aimed it squarely at Edward’s head.
“Fuck!” the black-and-pink-haired girl shouted. “Is that…is that a gun? Are you seriously doing this right now?”
Unbelievable, Edward thought. Un-fucking-believable. I go through the trouble of getting go-ready and the rest of these motherfuckers panic and try to jack me?
“Listen, man—” he started.
“No, you listen! You’re giving us a ride and that’s that!”
Edward did not move. All around them, cars were honking and skirting around the shoulder. Ants fleeing the anthill once someone had doused it with kerosene and set it on fire. Finally, he nodded, and the pudgy man walked around the jeep with the gun still aimed at Edward through the windshield. When he passed in front of the jeep, Edward almost floored it, but then he realized that the jeep hadn’t got any traction before, so revving the engine at the man might make him panic, make him fire anyway.
“Get in,” the man directed the white girl. She pulled the seat up and dived into the back, throwing her backpack in with her. Atlas gave her a questing sniff, and the girl seemed mollified to see a dog.
When the pudgy man got in, he righted the passenger seat and slid inside, keeping the Glock trained on Edward. When he shut the door, he said, “Sorry about this. Please, just drive.”
That was so funny Edward smiled. He nodded, put the jeep in gear, and backed up farther this time, giving himself more space to race along the ditch and pick up momentum. A green Ford truck honked at him as he tried to claim a piece of the road for himself, and a few others tried to keep the jeep from merging into the right lane, but Edward was having none of that. He checked someone by their bumper and then they were on their way, racing along the shoulder of the road.
“Sorry…sorry about hitting your jeep,” the man panted. “We’re just…we’re scared is all.”
“Holy fucking shit!” the girl screamed from the back. “Have you guys seen the cloud now?”
Edward glanced down at the Glock aimed at him, then at the girl in his rearview mirror. “Keep your head down. You’re blocking my view.”
“Sorry, but have you seen this?”
“I’ve seen nothin’ else for the last thirty minutes.”
“What happened?” asked the man in the passenger seat. “Do you know? Are they saying anything on the radio?”
“Nobody knows shit,” Edward said, glancing at the pistol again. “People on the radio are still trying to confirm whether or not it was an attack or some kind of accident.”
“Maybe…maybe that’s all it is. Maybe it just looks worse than it is. A meltdown that just sent up a big fireball in the sky, maybe. Or it’s—”
“What about, like, that face?” the girl asked.
“Jesus,” the pudgy man said. “Jesus, this can’t be happening…”
Edward glanced at the man, annoyed. Glanced at the pistol, even more annoyed. Looked in the rearview, saw that the girl was getting friendly with Atlas, letting him lick her fingers. Then looked back at the road. “There aren’t any nuclear plants around Atlanta. And even if there were, they don’t go off like that when they have a meltdown. It doesn’t work like that.” He looked at the pistol, then swerved around a Tacoma that hopped in his lane. “Look, ya mind not pointing that thing at me, partner?” The man looked at him mistrustfully. “We might’ve got off on the wrong foot back there, but things are crazy right now.”
“I know things are crazy,” he said. “I also know you almost hit her when you backed away from me.”
A glance to his rearview mirror. “Sorry about that, sweetie. That was an accident. Didn’t see you.”
The girl just looked at him blank-faced, like none of what he said was registering, or like it didn’t matter. If she’s smart, she realizes it doesn’t. Not compared to what’s behind her. Then, as if reading his mind, she turned and looked at the mushroom cloud through the rear window. Suddenly, something seemed to catch her attention. She leaned over the back seat, started rummaging around. Edward watched her closely. “Is this a bug-out bag back here?”
Despite everything, Edward found himself impressed. “Yeah.”
“A what?” asked the pudgy man.
“It’s a bug-out bag,” she said. “My dad’s got one in his car and his van. You fill it full of, like, three days’ worth of water, duct tape, crow bars, some oats and other food in case, like, ya know, you gotta bug out.”
The man with the gun looked at Edward with renewed interest. “You got a plan?”
“Yeah,” he said, swerving around another motorist. “Yeah, I got a plan.”
“What is it?”
“Get out while the gettin’s good.”
“Well, I’ve got a stop to make.”
“As long as it’s a stop beyond Blue Ridge.”
The pudgy man winced. “Blue Ridge? You’re going that far?”
“Farther. But that’s where I’m stopping for gas.”
“I need to find my wife—”
“You don’t need donkey dick,” Edward said.
The man rankled for a second. A flash of anger in his eye. A man having a bad day, and sensing it getting worse. “I’ve still got a gun, pal.”
“Yeah, and if you were smart you would’ve carjacked me instead of making me the driver.”
“I can—”
“What, shoot me?” Edward laughed, checked the speedometer. “We’re going fifty-seven miles an hour right now. Think you can pull that trigger, toss me out, take the wheel, and keep this jeep on the road, all without slamming into something. You’d be a good one if you could, Gramps!”
The pudgy man started to say something. The girl leaned forward. All at once, there were tears in her eyes, her lips trembling. Fighting the shock. “I, uh…my dad…he told me if something like this happened, like…like, I can’t leave my parents, ya know? They’ll be coming for me…” She trailed off.
Edward looked back at her, saw that her knees were bloodied, her clothes were dirty, and her face was smudged. Like an assault victim, she doesn’t really know if she’s coming or going. Then, something occurred to him. “You mean, this fucker here’s not your father? Who is he, then?”
“I picked her up,” the man said. “On her way from the school.”
“Oh, yeah? Pick up many girls on their way home from school, Gramps?”
The old man looked at him. “Fuck you.”
“We already covered that,” Edward replied, pulling around a pair of cars that had slammed into one another and caused a small stall on the road. “Sorry, Gramps. But no wifey for you, and no daddy for you, little girl. Either o’ you want to live?”
“What kind of question—”
“Fact!” he shouted. “A chain reaction just went off. Fact! The atom splits, and kicks out two neutrons. Fact! Each o’ those neutrons splits one more atom. Two makes four, four makes eight, eight makes sixteen, like that. Fact! Within the span of nanoseconds, billions of atoms were splitting. A bomb like this one goes off maybe around six or seven hundred kilotons, at a temperature and a pressure greater than the inside of the fucking sun. Fact! Neutrons, X-rays and gamma rays going in all directions—radiation fallout. Fact! Everything vaporize
s within the fireball, which can be anywhere from ten to fifty miles wide and thousands of feet high, maybe somewhere in the vicinity of 550,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Fact! There’s the blast wave, the force of which knocks over buildings—cement, girders, and all. Fact! The pressure wave crushes organs—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Pistol Man shouted. “We’re all still alive! We don’t have to worry about—”
“Fact! Anybody near the epicenter is vaporized. About twenty to fifty thousand more people dead within seconds after that. Fact! Another fifteen thousand or so injured, ninety-five percent o’ which won’t survive their wounds and the immediate radiation. Fact! Over the next twelve hours, another one hundred thousand will be dead from being trapped and waiting for help that’s never gonna come. Any o’ this sinking in, Gramps?”
“But we’re alive!”
“The EMP has shut down everything electrical for ten miles outside the blast zone. Search and Rescue teams don’t have a leg to stand on when they walk in there,” Edward explained. He looked at Pistol Man with disgust. A fucking nobody who now thought he was a cowboy not to be trifled with, whose biggest worry thirty minutes ago had probably been trying to figure out how he was going to make it to poker night with his pals and still have time to get his Viagra prescription refilled. Now look at him. Never known a day of hardship in his life, and now he’s going to take from those who’ve spent their lives in wiser preparation.
“Search and Rescue teams will be going into the city,” said Pistol Man, still not getting it. “We’re headed out!”
“That’s right. But people trying to leave the state will be flooding the interstates, moving over to the lanes of oncoming traffic, trying to find a way around,” Edward explained. He jerked the wheel to pull off the road a bit, onto the grass, grinding the side of the jeep against the guardrail and provoking a scream from the girl in back, and a protesting bark from Atlas. When he got back onto the shoulder, he said, “Then, the EMTs and medical personnel will be stuck in traffic. They’ll only add to the traffic. Fact!”
