Erik Otto - Detonation

Aside from a barricaded door, it looked like the borehole was the only way to enter the stadium. He knelt behind one of the buses in the parking lot and made sure his assault rifle was loaded. He also loaded a grenade launcher and strapped it to his back.

He heard another loud rumbling noise in the distance. The sky flickered with light. It was another nuke, but much farther away. He stayed down and closed his eyes until he was sure the light wasn’t the precursor to a more devastating shock wave.

At least the meds were having a positive effect. His body’s objections began feeling more tolerable than torturous.

He progressed forward, from one point of cover to the next, his rifle raised, probing every step of the way.

The borehole was about ten feet tall. He tested his foot on the ground in the hole. It was hot, but it didn’t burn his shoe. He took a deep breath and walked into the smoke, gun barrel leading the way. The smoke was dense—dense enough to obscure his vision.

On ops missions he would never have walked into a smoking hole like this without knowing what was on the other side. But he didn’t have time, and he didn’t have the energy or patience to be careful.

He had been holding his breath. He needed to find air. He could either go back, or go forward to some unknown end. He chose to go forward.

He gasped in some sulfurous air and gagged on it. He fell to his knees. Here the smoke was less thick. He could breathe better next to the floor. But the floor was so hot. He took a few rough breaths and then scurried forward, finally breaking out of the other side of the tunnel.

The tunnel opened up into a large field enclosed by huge walls.

And here is where the people were. There were thousands of them.

The bodies were locked in various states of agony, hands grasping at their throats, limbs splayed at odd angles. A putrid smell told him that in many cases their bowels had been recently relieved. The dead weren’t decaying yet, except for one small corner of the field where bodies had been stacked. That’s where the vultures feasted.

Most had died recently, very recently.

He summoned his military training, walling off the sights and smells around him from his emotions. If he let his emotions in, if he let his conscience contemplate what was before him, it would surely paralyze him.

He became possessed, systematically walking through the field of corpses, scanning tormented faces, rolling bodies to and fro, disrespecting the newly deceased in countless ways. All that mattered was the living, if there were any.

It didn’t take long. He found Pauline first.

Axel dropped to his knees, his jaw tight, his hands in fists.

Pauline’s face showed less pain than the people around her. Maybe it was because she wasn’t focused on her own torment but rather on reassuring her children. Wrapped tightly in Pauline’s arms, with her head nestled into her breast, was Erin. Also clutching Pauline’s arm desperately, her face in such agony that it almost looked alien to Axel, was Sasha.

Axel’s tears flowed, but he didn’t take down the wall, he didn’t stop there. Zach wasn’t here. Zach could be alive.

But he wasn’t, of course.

He was nearby, buried under the body of another man, his hands clutching at his throat like so many others.

Axel finally sat down, a lonely life form in a sea of the dead, and shut off his military training. The wall was there for his family, so he could succeed unencumbered. His training was for them, so he could protect them. But he’d been unable to protect them. Now they were gone.

He let out a mortal scream. “No!” he said. He screamed again, “No!” Then his chin fell to his chest, his eyes streaming tears.

He couldn’t bear for his eyes to absorb any more images from the forlorn world around him, so he closed them, and he sat there in silence, sobbing. Several minutes passed in this way. His pounding headache was asserting itself again, as was the nausea, unsympathetic to his emotional state.

A fleeting thought told him he should get back to the sanctuary. But what was the point? What was left to fight for? And how? His chopper was destroyed, and he had no way of contacting Nelly.

“Daddy?”

Axel opened his eyes and turned toward the voice. There was a boy standing in front of the open hole he’d entered through. His clothes were blackened and his hair disheveled and unkempt. There was something he recognized about the boy—maybe his face, or his voice, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“Come here, son,” Axel said, standing.

As soon as he took a step toward the boy, the boy turned and darted into the smoky cylinder.

Axel paused, considering his options. There were no other options.

He stepped carefully over the piles of bodies and jogged down to the tunnel. This time he took a deep breath and pushed right through to the other side instead of moving forward more cautiously. When through the tunnel he could see the boy again. He was already a good forty yards away from him, looking back with a blank look on his face.

Axel raised his hands and called out, “I have food, water. Do you want some?”

The boy just frowned. Axel started walking toward him.

When Axel was only a few yards away, the boy turned and sprinted away.

“Wait!” Axel said, running after him.

The boy was remarkably fast—too fast for Axel in his compromised physical condition. So Axel just jogged after him, hoping the boy would tire eventually.

Or maybe Axel would tire first. Axel began feeling weak. His jog slowed to a staggering walk. Even his walk was too much motion. A wave of nausea overcame him, and he stopped to vomit bile on the pavement in front of him.

He couldn’t go on. He sat down on the hard surface, misjudging the distance and falling onto his buttocks. The nausea wouldn’t relent, despite the medication. He felt weak, so weak.

When he next looked up, the boy was standing in front of him, just a few feet away.

“You’re daddy’s friend,” the boy said, “I want him. Where is he?”

Then it clicked. It was Ryan Junior. Pauline must have taken him in.

“Hi Ryan,” Axel said, breathing heavily. “Were you with Pauline?”

Ryan Junior nodded. “Where’s my daddy?”

Axel said, “I’m sorry son, your dad is… not here right now.” Axel couldn’t tell him the truth. He might run away again.

Axel handed his water bottle to the boy.

“You took the phone from them, didn’t you?” Axel asked. “You took the phone from Zach.”

Ryan Junior shook his head. Then he took a drink from the canteen.

“Then how did you know to run away from the stadium?” Axel asked.

Ryan Junior shrugged.

It was the only explanation. Ryan Junior was a difficult boy, always stealing things, always complaining. He must have taken the phone away from Zach when they arrived at the stadium. He must have heard Axel warning them to not go inside. Ironically he was the only one who heeded the warning.

Probably because he was the only one who heard the warning.

A thrust of anger surfaced in Axel. To think the actions of some self-indulgent child resulted in his family not getting his warning. It was almost too much to bear. He stared at the boy, simmering with rage.

The boy was oblivious to Axel’s anger.

Axel sometimes wondered how Pauline could put up with having the boy around. Ryan Junior wasn’t the same as Ryan, that’s for sure. But Pauline always reminded him of the sacrifice Ryan had made for him, for all of them.

The boy took another drink.

“Leave some for me, please,” Axel said. He was feeling dehydrated after vomiting.

Ryan Junior drank again, finished the canteen, and then dropped it on the ground. “Sorry,” he said.