Some workers said to help, give them what they needed to be pain free, while others simply stated, give them a blanket and walk away.
All of her life, Deana knew exactly where her path would take her. Never did she go on a whim, or be spontaneous. She was always in control. At that moment she just wanted to scream, cry perhaps and run away. She didn’t have a clue what she would do one minute from the next. Like with the child before her, she made the decision to take it patient by patient, case by case, who to help, who not to help. For now all she could do was her best, never stop, just push forward. That was all she could do. She struggled against working in an automatic mode, but somehow that seemed the safest route. It kept her somewhat emotionally detached. As long as no one she knew walked into the hospital, Deana would be able to keep it together.
PART TWO – AFTERMATH
Five Days Later
TWENTY-ONE – Realism
It took a few days, but Kit finally got into some sort of steady routine in the bunker. Her sleep schedule was more normal and her body started to know day from night, despite the fact that there was no sun, or windows.
Her headache finally subsided and she focused more on staying busy rather than the pain in her head. She spent a lot of time slowly organizing that storage closet, learning about those in the shelter. She was surprised to find out Harland’s last name was Cooper. For some reason she assumed he had a first name like Joe, or Sam.
On day two they had made contact, although briefly, with several of the survivor stations in Maltese and Elcort, along with Schriever. Just when Kit thought to ask about her son and brothers, they received word to shut down for a day, there were possibly more incoming missiles.
That was a frightening day.
To hear more were coming just astounded her. When would it stop? Would it ever stop? Was it the mission of the enemy to beat the United States into submission? If so, what would that accomplish? There would be nothing left to conquer.
When they powered back up, they had lost radio communications with Schriever. For sure, Kit believed more weapons were used. The fire station in Elcort reported they hadn’t seen any flashes, or heard any explosions.
“It’s possible they went radio silent,” Harland said. “No explosions, I’m gonna guess that’s the case.”
“When will I be able to go to these places and look for my son and brothers?”
“Give it a week, levels might drop enough that you can go out and not absorb too much radiation,” Harland said.
Then he indicated that the levels were already following the seven ten rule nicely.
“At least I don’t fear radiation sickness anymore,” Kit said.
Harland tilted his head with a, “Well.”
“What? What?” Kit panicked.
“No, you don’t have it.” Harland waved his hand. “You really weren’t exposed too much if at all. However… there are some who probably were exposed. Funny thing about radiation. There’s a latent stage when the body is breaking down, but the person feels fine. Then bam, one week later, you’re bruising, bleeding, your hair falls out…”
Kit cringed. “Why would you tell me that?”
“You asked.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I read that book,” Abe said. “The part about radiation. I thought that happened right away.”
“Only in really high doses,” Harland replied. “That dose kills you in a few hours, or days. It’s that middle exposure that’s bad. Fifty percent chance of beating it with, or without medical help. Low doses, you’re body recovers. It doesn’t really have that big misleading latent phase, like the moderate dose tends to.”
“I feel bad for those people,” Abe said. “I mean, they probably think they’re fine.”
Harland looked at Kit. “Yeah, me, too.”
He was joking of course. In Kit’s opinion it was in bad taste because he knew how neurotic she was about it.
Harland was an honest entity and whether he really knew what he was talking about when it came to radiation, nuclear war and so on, he sounded as if he did. For the most part he shot down a lot of what she speculated. Abe was no help, he claimed he didn’t know enough to make the call on who was right, or wrong.
It made interesting conversation and helped the time pass. There was and would be a ton of time to pass.
Over breakfast, they sat around the table. It was their routine. Eat, discuss, argue, go about a task, repeat.
For all the things Kit said and Harland counteracted, he never shot down her hopes of finding her family, or even making it out west to Washington State. He actually told her when it was all said and done, when it was safe to go look, he’d help her devise a plan.
Safe was the definitive word. They weren’t just dealing with radiation.
“Good news,” Harland stepped from his office into the main room. “Nicely down to three rads.” He walked to the coffee pot, poured a cup then joined Kit and Abe at the table. “Couple more days we may get down to one. Just as predicted. Don’t hold me to that. We’re still getting levels from the west. But if it drops to one, we should be able to go look for your son,”
“Three?” Abe asked. “I read in the book you can go out for short periods of time if it’s under eight.”
“You can. To be safe, I’d advise not to. Time can get away from you. If you go out, stay indoors for just as long if not longer, as you were out.” Harland replied. “Avoid long periods of daylight and sun.”
“There is no sun,” Kit said. “We’re probably in nuclear winter.”
“If that happens,” Harland said. “It will take a while, and it’ll be more of a drop in temperature. There’s also just as much chance of a nuclear summer. Which is just the opposite. I imagine the sun is out today, it’s maybe no more than an overcast day. But bright.”
“You don’t know that,” Kit said.
“Sure, I do.”
“How?” Kit asked.
“I went out to get an accurate reading today.”
Kit gasped. “Harland, that’s dangerous.”
“It’s fine. I’m older. For some reason radiation absorption is lower for seniors. “Besides, at this point, I’d have to be living outside for a few days straight before I started…”
“Doctor Cooper!” a male voice in the distance, called out.
Harland stood up. “What the heck?”
Someone pounded on a door.
Bang-bang-bang-bang. “Doctor Cooper.”
“The storm doors,” Harland said and went to his office where the main door was that led out.
Kit and Abe quickly followed.
When they arrived in the office, Harland had opened the main door, then indicated for Kit and Abe to stay back.
“Stop pounding!” Harland hollered and walked up the steps. “Who’s there?”
“Bill.”
Kit listened as Harland unlatched the lock and the door squealed as he opened it.
“What’s going on?” Harland asked.
“It’s bad, Dr. Cooper. We have four or five workers at the hospital and we have a ton of sick that came from the Colorado Springs area. Elcort said they are overrun as well. Doc, some of these people are bad. I mean, hurt. We don’t know what to do.”