S Ison - Russian Doomsday

James Kilian dropped his pipe on the desk as air fled his lungs. On the live satellite feed that watched the East Coast of the United States, three separate, enormous synchronized explosions blossomed.

“Fuck me,” he breathed.

He looked at the phone, still held in his hand. The call had died.

He sat back in his chair, his body going limp. A sob rose in his chest. It wouldn’t do for Her Majesty’s MI6 agent to cry, but the sting of tears behind his dark brown eyes begged for release.

POSEIDON.

There was no doubt. Nothing else could cause that kind of devastation.

In that split second, the world had changed forever, a paradigm shift in power, a true watershed moment if ever there were one.

In other offices, others were watching too, and he could guess at their reactions as they got a frontline seat to the complete extinction of the United States. A few moments later, the screen split into thirds, the new feed showing an explosion over the ground in the region over Texas.

It was then that he let the tears fall. To hell with that bloody stiff upper lip crap. He wept. Millions were dying as he watched on, helpless. All the airplanes, the people, their families, everything and everyone, was destroyed along both coasts. He’d seen the briefings on the damage just one POSEIDON torpedo could do. He’d counted seven. Nothing and no one could survive that kind of destruction.

His phone rang and he picked it up, wiping his face on his arm and sniffing hard as he did so. He listened to the voice on the other end. “Yes sir, I just saw. Yes, I saw it all. Very good sir, I’ll be right there.”

James hung up. All the agents were being called in. It would seem they could be the next target. It was time to get ready. He hoped it wasn’t, but after seeing that amount of devastation, he knew Russia had the upper hand.

Joy Flannery stood in front of her truck, weeping. Sayer had the hood up. He was a great mechanic, and if he couldn’t get this thing started, no one else could.

The goats in the back of the truck were bleating, Joy knew they could feel the tension in the air. Small tremors continued to reverberate from the ground through her body. Or perhaps it was her own fear.

Could the EMP have been so powerful as to obliterate even their old Ford? They had only their bugout bags, and one hundred twenty miles stood between them and Pike’s cabin, and all their supplies. Panic begin to eat around the midbrain, the hypothalamus. It was the most ancient part of her brain, where the flight or fight responses originate from. Her response was to run in blind panic.

She took deep breaths. She wasn’t alone. Sayer was with her and he was an expert prepper. The EMP had just hit, so no one really knew what was going on yet. Many might have a clue, but she was hoping they wouldn’t, giving them the time they needed to get where they needed to go. POSEIDON had been deployed. It had happened, and if Pike hadn’t brought it to their attention, they’d perhaps not be as well prepared as they were. But that depended on them getting to the cabin.

Sayer slammed the hood of the old truck. He looked at Joy, and Joy’s world crumbled. She could see from his eyes that it wasn’t good news.

“I think that was the most powerful EMP that could be detonated,” he said softly. “I think it fried everything. Every vehicle, no matter its age.”

“Do you think there’s radiation? Should we start taking our potassium iodide?” she asked, trying to get her voice under control.

“Yeah, we should,” Sayer said as he walked over to her and put his large strong hands on her shoulders. He looked down into her eyes. “We’re going to have to walk to Pike’s cabin. You get the potassium iodide tablets and some water, I’m going to the barn to see if I can rig up some kind of cart that we can push or pull. We can attach the goats and let them walk along.

“Breathe, honey. We’re fine. We just have to do a little walking. We’re armed. Anyone gets in our way, I’ll end them. Count on it. Now, let’s get what we can. Go get the tablets, then look around the kitchen for anything we can eat on the road. Easy things to cook. Bring a couple pots and pans and all that kind of stuff.” He bent and kissed her soundly, then hugged her hard.

Joy watched him turn to the barn. She felt a little better. She’d not even thought about using a cart, her brain had been so frozen. She pulled the bugout pack out of the truck and dug around. She found bottled water and the tablets. They would take them every day for two weeks to prevent radiation absorption.

She shook her head. She still couldn’t believe Russia had really bombed the United States. What was it like at the coasts? Ten minutes had passed since the explosion they’d seen, so the coasts were probably exploding now. Or maybe they hadn’t done that. Just sent out the EMP. If they’d bombed the coasts, there might be a tsunami of irradiated water. If they’d used the one hundred megaton bombs and more than one on each coast, then only the central continental United States was left.

Orlov was to have come the following week. Now Joy suspected that had been a false plan to lure the U.S. government into a false sense of security. As far as she knew, anyone who was anyone in the U.S. government were all in Washington, D.C. That meant that their government had been obliterated. Joy was certain D.C. would have been one of the prime targets.

Going into the kitchen, she began opening cupboards and pulling out items to take. She found paper plates, baked beans, tuna, chicken, canned fruits and some fresh vegetables and fruit. She found a box in the recycle pile and loaded it up with the canned foods. She also threw in a can opener, several knives, plastic cutlery, aluminum foil and some paper towel. She walked out of the house and put it by the dead truck.

She looked up when she saw Sayer pushing a large cart. It was low, about seven inches off the ground, but had a flatbed surrounded by a wooden fence to hold hay or grain. The cart could be pulled or pushed. Joy could feel the air coming back, her brain beginning to function once more without the numbing effects of fear.

“What can I do to help, Sayer?” she asked, walking toward him with a potassium iodide tablet. She handed him the water and he took the tablet.

Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he smiled down to her. “We will have to reorganize. We can take most, but let’s make the load lighter. Go and get some of the heavy-duty garbage bags and repack our clothes. If you can get more food like you got there, that would be good. Also, maybe, toilet paper, and more water bottles if we have them. “

Joy nodded and turned to go back into the house. She’d clear out whatever she could get, and then they could start packing the cart up. It took several trips, but twenty minutes later she had gathered everything she thought they’d need, from bedding to toiletries to food and water. She smiled to herself. If they could keep their food and water, she thought they should be able to make it safely to the cabin.

Together they packed the cart. As they worked, Sayer spoke. “I suggest we dirty ourselves up. I’m going to find some cardboard and we can write on it, Will Work for Food . That way we’ll blend in. People will assume we have no food, so hopefully we won’t be a target.”

Joy walked over to him and hugged him hard, burying her face in his broad chest. She felt his strong arms go around her, and knew they’d be okay. If they could get to the cabin.

She smiled up at him. “That’s why I love you so much. You’re a brilliant man.” She grinned her gap-toothed grin and turned,