“We’re in good shape then. What was the outside reading?” Calvin asked.
“Only fifty Röentgens/hr, but I swear I could see the needle creeping up as I watched it.”
“Probably is. Let’s get a few things and set up for an extended stay in here.” He hugged her and said into her hair, “We’re going to be okay. We just have to hunker down and deal with it.”
“I know,” she replied, slipping from his embrace. She gave him a quick kiss, and then hurried off to the bedroom, Calvin following quickly behind. It took only a few minutes to bring down enough clothing and toiletries to last for several days.
It was several days and more before they ventured outside. It was two days after things started before the radiation peaked. Calvin assumed it was the massive fallout from the Dakota missile sites. That was about the same time that he and Nan began to cough. Calvin suddenly looked at Nan and said, “I forgot to put the filters in line with the HVAC system!”
He ran for the garage and quickly diverted the air intake through the filter pack and hurried back to the kitchen.
An anxious look on her face, Nan asked, “Do you think it’s poison gas?” She coughed to clear the burning sensation in her nose, mouth, and throat. The smell was fading.
“No. No. It’s obviously gas, but it had a sulfurous smell. I’m thinking its fumes from Yellowstone or some other volcano. But it could have been poison gas, or lethal fumes from the volcano. I should have switched in the filters immediately. Actually, several of the really bad volcanic fumes are odorless. I could have killed us both!”
“It’s all right, Cal,” Nan reassured him. “It worked out okay.” She added, lightly, “Just don’t do it again,” to try to make him feel a little better.
“You can count on that. I guess we should eat.”
They pretty much ate, read, and slept, with some time spent listening to the shortwave radio from time to time. They heard enough to know that the situation was essentially worldwide. There had been a nuclear war. And Yellowstone had blown. But there were plenty of survivors in some locations. Survivors like themselves.
After a week of being closed in, they began to lose power from the solar cells. It was often cloudy with volcanic ash, which continued to fall steadily. Calvin surmised that the panels were probably covered with the ash. They had several LED flashlights and lamps, with plenty of batteries for them, so they had plenty of light. The stove was propane and they also had plenty of that.
They were getting anxious to get out after the first fourteen days, but the radiation level was still too high. But it did rain and Calvin checked the battery charger the next day. They were getting current again to the batteries. Nan suggested they wait for a couple of days to let the batteries recharge before they began to draw power from them. Calvin agreed.
“I think I should come with you,” Nan insisted on the twentieth day after the attack. “It will be safer if we both go out.”
“But I don’t want you to get any more exposure than you absolutely have to.”
“Well, is this trip absolutely necessary?”
“I can’t say its life and death, no. But we… I need to check on some things for my own peace of mind.”
“I have that same need, Calvin.”
Calvin knew better than to press it any longer. Nan had a mind of her own, and when she was right, he had to admit it. They both put on Tyvek footed and hooded coveralls, put on respirators, gloves and boots. They taped the joints for each other, and then ventured outside. Everything had come through with flying colors. They took a little time to wash off the U500, after looking around the place. After that they opened the garage and brought out the A300 and the Toolcat. Both had buckets on them and were used to good effect to clear the parking area of its accumulation of ash.
“That’s enough for today,” Calvin said. “Let’s go in the garage and decontaminate and wash the residue back under the garage door.”
Nan had had enough. The sight of the new accumulation of ash, even after the rain had knocked much of it off the trees and down the ravines rather got to her. It was a drab, gray-brown day, even with the sun shining.
But it rained again that night. When they checked the next morning the sky was still hazy, but without falling ash and the trees had been washed clean. They checked the survey meter. Down just a little from the day before. They could risk a quick trip to town. “We turn back at any sign of trouble,” Calvin said. “We can’t afford to be out of the shelter for more than four hours.
After checking the U500 with the survey meter, they decided to wash it down again. There wasn’t much accumulation of fallout, but there were still fine particles of fallout coming down. It was low levels of radiation, but it was better to reduce the risk as much as possible.
They didn’t get very far. And it wasn’t just the effort to clear the two foot accumulation of ash from the road with the loader bucked mounted on the Unimog. Only halfway down their drive and they came upon a truck they recognized. It was Herbert Anderson’s old truck. The truck was off the road. “Oh, no!” Nan said softly, seeing the two forms inside. The bed of the truck was piled high with cardboard boxes.
It was obvious the two were dead, their bodies already decomposing. “What do we do, Calvin?” asked Nan. “We can’t just leave them here.”
“No, we can’t. Let’s go back to the house and get something to wrap them in. Or wait. Let’s see what they might have in the truck. Every single manufactured item that exists is going to be precious from now until industry is back on its feet. We can’t afford to use anything we don’t have to, unless it’s for a very good reason.”
“This is a pretty good reason,” Nan replied.
“I know, honey. It is. But let’s just see what they have.” They went through the boxes in the truck. The rain had washed the fallout off the boxes. It had also ruined many of them. They contained mostly canned and packaged food, some of which was ruined from the exposure to the elements. It also looked like squirrels or birds had been into some of the packages. Most was salvageable.
One large box contained sheets, blankets, and a folded up air bed. Nan stared at the contents. “They were coming out to stay with us,” she said.
“From the looks of the ground under the truck they waited quite a while. Got caught in the worst of the fallout. I’m thinking Mr. Anderson had a heart attack on the way out and she just stayed with him until she died from the radiation.”
“You’re probably right,” replied Nan. “I guess we can use the bedding to wrap them in, can’t we?”
“Yes.” Calvin looked over at Nan. “I could use some help doing that, but I can bury them by myself.”
Even through the faceplate of the respirator, Calvin could see Nan’s face go even paler than it already was. But she nodded and turned to get out the bedding.
It was an ordeal, but they got the bodies out and wrapped up in the sheets and blankets. Nan stayed with Calvin as he took the truck back to the house and fired up the Toolcat. A few more minutes and they had the backhoe attached, and were on their way back to the Anderson’s truck. It was the work of only a few minutes to dig a large grave for the couple.
Nan helped Calvin lower the bodies inside, but couldn’t watch when he refilled the hole. Silently they loaded the goods from the back of the pickup to the bed of the Toolcat. Nan climbed back into the passenger seat of the Toolcat and they went back home. The trip to town would have to wait a couple of days.