by Ryan Husk
A sudden pain struck her, like a hammer smashing against her skull. Margery winced, and her eyes started watering. She had taken a few ibuprofen when they stopped, but those would take a minute to kick in, and even when they did, they would do little good. The pain came on so intensely that she saw colorful strobes on the backs of her eyelids.
“Lord Jesus,” she said under her breath. All her words were lost on the wind and over Marshall’s roaring Classic, but Marge’s mama told her that Jesus hears everything and she believed it. “Lord, watch over us. Watch over those that’ve died, an’ help ease their passage into the other world. Help guide them softly, gently into yer lovin’ arms. An’ help all of us down here. Watch over Marshall, an’ Wade, an’ Jeb, an’ Mr. and Mrs. O’Hare, an’ those men Edward an’ Gordon. But most of all, please watch over little Janet. Lord, she’s under an awful test, an’ I know that’s on you, but y’all gotta give her a break now, hear? Amen.”
Margery didn’t say a prayer for herself. The Lord helps those that help themselves, that’s what she was always taught. And He also doesn’t like crybabies.
When she opened her eyes, she blinked a few times. She looked back up at the sky, saw one half of the Face. Margery imagined dust particulates were polluting the air, way ahead of the cloud, so thin that they couldn’t be seen, just absorbing light.
Then, something else caught her eye. She looked to her left, southward, and spied three specks coming closer. They glimmered in what light was left…Helicopters? she thought. Whatever they were, they weren’t coming anywhere near Marge and the Gang. She slapped Marshall on his shoulder, then pointed. Then she turned and waved at Jeb and Wade and the others, gesticulating at the sky off in the north.
* * *
“What are they?” asked Janet for the third time.
Gordon wasn’t really listening to her. He had rolled down his window and was craning his neck out to catch glimpses of the helicopters between the trees. He squinted his eyes, saw that they were headed southward, clearly. He came back inside, rolled his window up, and then looked at Edward. “They’re not searching for us.”
Edward shook his head. “Nah. Incident response forces. CBIRF, and the like.”
“Cee-berf?” he asked.
Edward nodded. He checked the jeep’s radio for a moment, switched it off in frustration when all he got was static. He doesn’t want his suspicions to be true. That, above all else, worried Gordon the most. Up until now, Edward had shown clear signs of jubilance living in this terrifying new world. But now, he looked rankled. Someone had flipped the script on him, changed what was supposed to happen, and he wasn’t liking that one bit.
“What’s cee-berf?” Gordon asked.
The ex-soldier explained in the most monotone voice. “At this point, the government will initiate the mass-casualty response plan called RTR—that stands for Radiation, Triage, Transport, and Treatment. RTR 1 and RTR 2 are names of zones established where the injured can be taken for greater care. National Guard and Department of Defense assets will be utilized to fortify these zones, begin the searches.
“CBIRF is the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force. Guys with the very best technical training and protective equipment—the military guys with all the ‘spacesuits’ you see in movies. CBIRF Marines and the firefighters will try and get as close as they can to the devastation, go block by block, and scribble symbols in chalk on the side of houses and buildings as a signal to other search and rescue operators about their progress, or whether or not this is an area too dangerous to enter. But…they’ll go for ‘low-hanging fruit,’ meaning the easiest victims to reach.”
Gordon glanced in the back seat. Janet was still in the fetal position next to the dog. He looked back at Edward. “What does CBIRF do next?”
“They operate using the DIME system. That’s a sorting system that places victims in one of four categories: Delayed, Immediate, Minimal, and Expectant. A black tag placed on a body means expectant—going to the morgue. Those are the folks with massive doses of radiation, and with third-degree burns over twenty-five percent of their body. Nothing can save them.” He recited it coldly, as though he was reading it from a book. “A red tag means the subject needs immediate surgery—suffering from hemorrhaging, crushed limbs, ruptured internal organs, et cetera, et cetera, you get the picture. Yellow means delayed treatment. Green tag means minimal injury. Yellow turns to black if adequate equipment or personnel aren’t immediately available.” He looked at Gordon. “There currently aren’t enough respirators, burn bandages, or salves for even one attack on one U.S. city. So, you can count on lots of black tags.”
“Jesus.”
“Portable disaster morgues will be flown in. DMORTs, Disaster Morticians, will have to take care of processing the dead.”
Gordon massaged his temple again. “Jesus.”
“It’s gonna be a tough call. Depending on the damage and the information coming in about the direction of the fallout cloud, they’ll have to decide whether it’s best to evacuate or keep people where they are. If they evacuate, people will be more exposed as they travel, potentially staying in the fallout cloud longer and in higher doses of radiation; still, they might escape and it might be better for them to get away. If they keep people where they are, though, they’ll be constantly exposed to radiation, but smaller doses than if they were outside. So…” Edward turned both palms up and moved them up and down, weighing the moral dilemma in his hands.
Gordon massaged his temples a little more. Then, something occurred to him. A hopeful thought. “Hey…hey, maybe that means it’s not so bad. I mean, they’re still sending people in to help. That’s gotta be good, right? I mean, they wouldn’t be trying to keep us in if they’re also trying to come in here and save us.”
Edward shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Why only maybe?” he said. Gordon realized he’d expected to be deflated by Edward, and wasn’t wrong.
“Because CBIRF officials also conduct investigations. They might only be coming into the blast zone to search for…for whatever it is they’re looking for. They might be just assessing containment, getting a reading of all the radiation levels, hoping to predict just how far fallout will ultimately reach.” He sighed. “Sorry, don’t mean to squash your hopes there Gord-O, but it doesn’t mean we’re saved.” He shook his head. “Far from it.”
* * *
The road looked familiar. Yes, a back road, one Wade had taken occasionally to get home to Linda in a respectable time. Cut across here, and…yep, there it is. The dirt road ran parallel to a few of the trails on the outskirts of Madison Farm, and some of the trails they took the Budweiser Clydesdales for a trot on.
Wade gave the signal to Marshall and Jeb, and the signal was passed down their caravan to Ed and the O’Hares. The road was paved, but the parallel road was of dirt and gravel. Trees stood sentry along the road, blocking their entrance onto the farm’s road, so Wade had to cruise down the road a bit, searching for an opening in the trees. Finally, he came to a spot with only a stump; presumably, one of the trees had fallen over in a storm or the like. Wade waved to the others again, and dipped over onto the grass, and then onto the gravel road. Marshall and Jeb followed. Edward and the O’Hares had to slow down considerably to make sure they squeezed between the rest of the trees.
Once they were all on the gravel, Wade resumed the lead. He continued down the path half a mile before cutting across a verdant green pasture. Two horses were running scared at the far end; other than that, they were alone. The main ranch compound could be seen a quarter of a mile to the southeast, but he saw no vehicles, and no ranch hands about. Country boys can survive, like Hank Jr. always said, he thought. But they also know when to pack up the kids and run like the wind.
Suddenly, a blood-red light fell across the land. Wade looked up. “God…” he breathed. A bevy of clouds had moved in out of nowhere, coming up from the south, bunching up together before swirling out of the way, revealing a portion of the Face. That g
reat red eye was brighter than ever, it burned like fire, with massive, rippling waves of yellow and orange at its core.
Beside him, Marshall picked up speed to match his, and hollered over, “Fuck me, boss!”
“Yeah,” he hollered back. “Fuck me, too.”
They finally crossed to the far side of a field, where a swinging steel gate was closed and merely tied off to a wooden fence. Wade pulled to a stop, popped out the kickstand, and jogged over to the gate. He unwrapped the rope, kicked the gate wide, then ran back to his bike and waved the others on through. Here, they came upon another dirt road, but one well kept, flattened, and serving as the road networks for this miniature “town” of a ranch. Horse stables over here, hay barns over there, a tool shed by the roadside there, and a giant building with an open garage just up ahead. It looked like a warehouse, and through the open bay doors Wade saw huge tractors, lawnmowers, three ATVs, two Ford trucks and a spotless red Porsche convertible. Joel Madison’s father had owned that, and Wade recalled one of his partners on the force saying he’d pulled Joel over once while driving drunk in it, but he’d been so close to his house that he’d let Joel go. But Wade had always known it was because the Madisons were one of those families, the contributors, the ones that could almost (not quite, but almost) get away with murder in small towns like this.
Under the watchful gaze of the Great Red Eye, Wade guided them through the network of dirt roads, and finally onto a cleanly paved one. They passed the main estate, where Joel always held his big parties, wasting his father’s money on booze and prostitutes and potential new business partners. But Joel Madison hadn’t expanded his father’s business at all. Indeed, Madison Farm was in stark decline. Last Wade had heard, the Budweiser Clydesdales weren’t being sent here to train anymore.
But I bet he still has the racetrack around back, and the roads leading around it.
They made their way around the main house. The front door was wide open, Wade noticed. He also noted the tire tracks across the front yard, which had torn up the grass and slung mud across the fountain with naked baby angels frolicking in waterspouts. Got the hell outta here fast, didn’t you, Joel?
Then, Wade spotted a dog on a chain, tying it to a doghouse. He slowed his roll a bit, came alongside it. It was a black Lab, one that barked and barked but then quailed as soon as Wade came up to its house. Wade held up a fist to signal to the others to stop. He stepped off his bike and walked over, unhitched the chain. “There ya go, feller,” he said. “I gave you a fighting chance. The rest is up to you now.”
Wade hopped back on his bike, and waved the others to follow. In the lull, though, without his engine grumbling so loudly, he thought he heard the distant rumor of thunder.
* * *
Janet was still lying in the back seat. She felt a little better now, a little more stable. The Humolog injection and the lisinopril pills were working. Her mind felt more like it was hers again, and not spiraling out of control. She was thinking more clearly now. In fact, she didn’t even feel like crying anymore. Perhaps that was just the shock—logically, she knew she couldn’t just be over the deaths of countless family members, possibly including her mom and dad—but for the moment all of that was set to the side, as if she had moved it all into one file of her computer, not to be forgotten, but to be dealt with later.
Calmly, she looked at her phone. She tried switching it on and putting it to her ear, but heard nothing. Text messaging seemed to still be working, so she tried her parents. Nothing. After a few minutes of waiting, she tried Jesse again: what’s happening with u? contact me soon plz, I’m worried about you :-(
Janet hit SEND, and waited.
While waiting, something rumbled from beneath her. Or, wait, no…not from underneath her, from above her. From all around her. Janet raised up slowly, looking around. She just now realized how the world was suffused in blood-red light. She looked outside, and gasped at the single, hellish eye glaring down at her. Storm clouds were forming around it, and she saw lightning ripple through it
The rumbling came again, almost lost over the sound of the Wrangler’s engine. She looked in the front seats at Edward and Gordon. Neither one of them remarked. A few minutes ago, Marshall had slowed down and asked Edward about the red-glowing eye overhead, but Janet had been in the fetal position waiting for her medicine to kick in, not really paying attention.
Now, she realized the danger. The thunder. The approaching storm. “Edward?” she said, noticing that her voice was very soft, and unaggressive. She had unconsciously taken on the tone she had once used when coming into her parents’ bedroom at night, trying to lightly wake them and tell them about her nightmare so she could sleep with them. “Didn’t you say somethin’ about, like, the water table getting polluted with the first rain? And, like, the topsoil, too?”
Edward said nothing for a few seconds.
The Wrangler started to slow. Then, Edward honked his horn, and stuck his fist out the window and raised it high. Behind them, the O’Hares swung their Chevy to the side of the road and pulled to a stop. Ahead, the Bearded Biker Boys slowed, turned around in the road, and trundled back to them. Edward didn’t get out, but shouted out his window. “I didn’t wanna do it, but it looks like those clouds are coming in fast. I think we need to take shelter.”
“Where?” hollered Jeb over his engine. “We’re out in the middle o’ fuckin’—”
“That warehouse back there. You saw it? Tractors and lawnmowers, all that? I think we’re about to get—shit!” The first couple of specks of rain hit the windshield. Janet saw it, and saw a few other specks hit the windows all around her. “We need to get inside, now! I’m turning back, me and Gordon and Janet are taking shelter. I recommend you guys come with.” He put the Wrangler in reverse.
Outside, Janet could see Wade nodding vehemently. “Jeb, go tell the O’Hares what the plan is. Let’s move it.”
Suddenly, their caravan turned sharply, like a centipede curling in on itself and retreating from some predator.
The rain picked up a bit. A few more specks. Then, Janet looked out her right window and spotted a few long needles stabbing down. A louder grumble, this one closer. Now, there was a much stronger wind.
“Shit,” said Edward. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Janet could feel her heart racing. Not good for blood-sugar, she thought. At this rate, she could go through several months’ worth of medicine in a week.
The rain started coming down heavy all at once. Janet could feel the panic creeping back in her. Her fears crowded around her like old friends. She closed her eyes, took deep breaths, tried to stay calm. Just breathe. Just breathe. A tactic taught to her by a physician her mother found online once. Just breathe and collect your nerve. Forget all fears. Concentrate on something soothing. It was meant to help her control her anxiety levels, and thus her blood-sugar drops and spikes, but if it ever helped, it only did so marginally.
The rain stopped all at once. Then, it returned, but only in a slow pitter-patter. Fat globs of rain smacked on the roof of the jeep, and whereas that wouldn’t have bothered Janet before, knowing what Edward had told them about radiation poisoning and sickness…each pang against the jeep’s roof seemed like a bullet being fired through the window.
“C-can this rain r-really hurt us?” she said. “I mean, the b-bomb just went off…”
“The rain here is at least partially saturated with radionuclides,” Edward said. “The bikers can’t get caught in it, and it’s best if we hole up here for now. We don’t know how long the rain will last. Might be hours, could be days. We need shelter.”
Gordon was holding tight to the handle above his door, what Janet’s daddy had always termed the “oh shit” handle. He cleared his throat, and said, “Might be it’ll be gone as fast as it came in. Seems to be pushing hard that way, north of the Eye.” It was strange to hear someone put the red-glowing eye so matter-of-factly. North of the Eye. As nonchalant as saying The storm’s moving west of the Mississippi River.
The Face and its glowing Eyes had quickly become a fixture in the sky.
“Maybe,” Edward allowed. “Janet, grab my go-ready bag. Right now, get it!” Still trying to keep her breathing under control, she scrambled for it. “Make sure the Geiger counter is still inside. You got it?”
“I got it,” she said, holding up the bag.
“Good, now hang on to it. When we get out, be ready to run.”
They made it back to the warehouse, and just in time. The rain was starting to pick up again. She looked up. That was a mistake. That baleful Eye was staring down at her incriminatingly, like it meant to snatch her up, and only her.
The bay doors were open, but mostly blocked by the large farm machinery inside. The Bearded Biker Boys were all able to squeeze inside without getting off their Harleys, but Edward had had to pull to a stop just in front, aiming the jeep’s driver side at the warehouse. The O’Hares pulled right in behind them, but Colt O’Hare didn’t have the wisdom to pull up with his doors facing the warehouse’s bay doors. Instead, he and his wife got out and just bolted through the rain, getting soaked in the process.
“Give me the go-ready bag,” Edward said.
Janet passed it up to him. “Do we have to do this? Do we need to go inside?”
“My window is shattered thanks to Gord-O, remember?” He pointed to the missing window. “We’re gonna get rained on no matter what, at least this way we get to some shelter, and don’t get quite as wet. Remember to bring your medicine kit and everything. All right, guys, here we go!” he said, about to open his door.
