How right he was. Even in pain, Nicky allowed for our aid. The numbing solution helped in her taking the medication. That was step one. Step two remained to be seen. It was a ‘wait and see’ with her.
For as much as I did not want to speak to Tammy, I didn’t want anything to happen to her. I walked up to her door, knocked once, told her not to respond, then I informed her that outside the door were two antibiotics, two valium, and a bottle of water. Her choice to take them or not. When I snuck up an hour later, the medication was gone.
It was a weird thing, but my mind kept on going to all those old nineteen fifties movies about nuclear war. One especially. ‘The Cyclops Man’. Though a ‘B’ horror flick at best, it rang eerily true to some extent. In the movie, the man was exposed to an atomic bomb. The radiation made him grow, but it also made him insane. Not that Tammy was a towering fifty feet, but she most certainly had hit a maddening stage, just like the character in that movie.
Even if she was healed, Tanner believed there was no turning her back. In his opinion Tammy had exceeded the normal boundaries of realism and rationalization. Mrs. Yu needed six stitches, and Tammy’s attack upon her was a warning. He cautioned again not to let her back in the shelter. He asked me to tell Burke everything. I promised Tanner that I would think about it. But by the time I arrived home, I couldn’t tell Burke. He was already in a fit of anger that Tammy had left me at the rescue station alone.
I was anxious about reading the documentation that Tanner had given me. However, since Burke and I decided not to tell the others right away, I knew I couldn’t pull out those papers. Waiting had its advantages. It gave me time to get informed.
Everyone settled at his or her usual time, and then I held out a little longer before grabbing a small lantern and positioning myself at the kitchenette table. It was quiet. When I pulled out the documents I was astounded at what I needed to make heads or tails of. I wasn’t a scientist, and I wondered if I would be able to interpret what was given to me.
At first, I leafed through the stack, and then I spread them about. The second time I went through them, the data made more sense. By the third run through I was taking notes. That’s when Davy found me.
In an unusual occurrence, he was without Simon. He sat with me and asked what I was doing. By all accounts I was busted. I could have searched for a story to tell him, some tale or lie. But I didn’t. I was honest and blunt. I told him, “Davy, nuclear winter is heading our way. These are the stats of where it’s been.”
Davy projected no shock or surprise. In fact, he looked at me as if what I told him wasn’t a news bulletin. I was very grateful that I opened up to my son. He scooted his chair closer and together we hovered those documents.
It was evident—through sporadic handwritten scribbles—there was some who tried to blame the severity of the cloud on multitudes of different things. One person even attributed topography to the fluctuation. Good in theory. Not on paper. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see what was happening. Like Tanner had said, it was moving our way. Losing potency along its course, but it was still going to be a killer.
The Army gathered their statistics in a raw form, but it was the best that they could do. I was impressed. A world torn asunder yet, someone was still running about with a clipboard, collecting information, recording it for others. The newest history books in the making. Ironically, the information assembled was going to help preserve the future generation that would read that information.
In a way it was fascinating. Images bounced off of functioning satellites provided a view of the cloud as it moved across the country. From the photocopied images the cloud looked like a huge snowstorm that extended from the top of the world to the bottom. Occasional paragraphs of reports informed us that the military used some sort of land rover to survey populated areas. The rover would roll in just before the arrival of the cloud, then dig in and roll back out after it was clear.
In the beginning the nuclear cloud held tight over the west coast teetering in which direction it would move. My guess was, fingers were crossed that it would head west, hit the pacific and go directly to China where it belonged. It didn’t.
They started the reports in Utah. The scariest of all the data came from Salt Lake City. The army suggested that sixty percent of the area’s population survived the blast. Amazing. Sixty percent. Then came the cloud. For four days it loomed over the city. Radiation levels skyrocketed to near two hundred rads per hour and temperatures dove to minus sixty degrees. When the radiation dropped, temperatures rose, and the cloud moved on… the army moved in. The city was dead. Rovers rolled out, calling over speakers for those who could hear to ‘come on out’.
Nineteen people responded.
Things were brighter in Dallas. Radiation levels peaked at one hundred forty and temperatures only made it to minus fifty. The last count, twenty-seven hundred people had checked into a rescue station. Population figures hadn’t arrived from Chicago, but they boasted better news. Their rads only hit one hundred. However Indianapolis was the winner in warmth, they dipped to a mere minus thirty-five.
Though there were numerous reported cities, the statistics stopped in Indiana.
It was doom situation, but the progression of the cloud brought a progression of hope.
Davy and I sat for hours over those papers, until the sun came up. It amazed me that with each passing hour, the more level headed he and I became. Plotting and planning, what needed done, and how we would implement those plans. Detail after detail. Miniscule to large.
We were our own scientific team. Deciphering what we read, putting together logical theories based on facts. We deducted our own conclusion of when the cloud would arrive and what level of vengeance it would bring.
We gave our best guesses.
Sitting with Davy, discussing the situation was a dose of medicine that I needed. We were focusing on survival, something we knew we were getting quite good at. There wasn’t time to panic, because our time and energy would best be used in getting things ready. All the worrying in the world wasn’t going to change things.
Fact: It was coming.
We had to buckle down, prepare and brace ourselves. Everyone one of us had made it through a big hurdle, and there was no reason to believe we wouldn’t make it through another.
21. Digging In
We were ready. After taking an entire night to get informed about the impending situation, I told the others. They handled it well. For the most part, all but Tammy. She scoffed at the notion, argued that it was something from a sci-fi movie, and when I showed her the facts that were presented to me, she smacked away my hand sending the papers flying. I didn’t have to say anything, Burke said it all. When Tammy stated we were being ridiculous for getting ready, Burke merely told her, ‘unless you’re too sick, dying, or a small child, you will help us. If not, then anything that we do in preparation, will be benefits you will not reap when the time comes.’
Everybody helped out and pitched in. We didn’t expect Nicky to aid, she was too sick. But after a couple days on the antibiotics, though ill, her strength was getting better and she took over the task of inventory. Tammy did as little as possible. Simon and Matty played organizers of all the stuff. Davy joined the ranks of the men by being a laborer.
We spent days gathering items from other homes. Things that we felt weren’t contaminated, like: blankets, wood, furniture that could be burned in the fireplace. Everything from my basement was moved to Mark’s house so it wouldn’t freeze. Craig made radio call after radio call spreading word throughout the airwaves of the approaching nuclear cloud. We hoped that people heard. No one responded. Dan worked diligently for days creating a makeshift outhouse over the drainage pipe in the garage. Hating to say it, he did well.