Jacqueline Druga - What Tomorrow Brings

Finally, he sipped and coughed half of it out. Swiping his hand across his mouth, Mark closed his eyes and groaned. “I thought we’d get there. I did. I’m sorry I did this to you.”

“No, no. I want to be here.”

Mark dropped his hand to the road. “I just…”

“What?”

His fingers made a scraping sound and he lifted his hand. “What’s this?” He lifted his hand showing the gray substance on his finger tips. “Why is there ash?” He squinted his eyes then moved his leg back and forth. “There’s ash everywhere.”

Regis was getting ready to answer, then he heard it first, the sound of a motor, he looked left to right, then saw a truck coming down the highway.

It took everything Regis had to stand, but he did and waved out his arms.

An older woman drove the pickup truck, and she slowed down. The back of the truck was filled with wood.

The window wound down. “I haven’t seen anyone on this road in days. You headed to Four Lakes?” she asked.

“No,” Regis said. “Spokane. We need a ride.”

She stared at him for a moment and shook her head. “I can take you as far as Four Lakes.”

“That’s still ten miles out,” Regis said weakly. “Please, my brother needs to get to his son. We came all this way from Colorado.”

“I can’t take you to Spokane,” she said. “I really can’t.”

“Why?”

She hesitated then said. “Get in.”

Regis grabbed the door and lowered his head. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” After opening the door, he hurried to get Mark. Though still sick, he felt energized.

The last leg of the journey wasn’t going to be so hard after all. They would be there soon.

They made it.

It was a few days shy of two weeks since the bombs had fallen. Though traces of radiation still lingered in the air, Deana moved people from the basement to the floors of the hospital. Not many of the floors, just enough to clear the overflow.

She didn’t have a choice. There were so many sick and injured they covered the entire area outside. Along with respiratory ailments, cholera had spread.

How did she get to that point?

Macy looked horrible, she had dropped weight, battled minor radiation sickness and just didn’t look well. She started volunteering just so she could be near Terrence. His mother and Mylena rarely left his bedside.

Deana needed Macy’s help, but wanted her to leave. For her safety and health, as well as June and Mylena’s.

Terrence was the first person they moved to an upper floor.

During the week that he was there, they pumped him with antibiotics, gave him blood and did all that they could.

Terrence was knocking at Death’s door, but apparently death wasn’t ready to let him in. One doctor gave him a fifty-fifty percent chance of survival, and if Terrence maintained his course he was going to beat it.

He had a long road ahead of him. He’d be weak and ill for awhile, but he stood a chance of living. In fact, they believed he was going to survive.

“Take a break,” Deana told Macy. “Walk with me.”

Macy wiped the sweat from her brow and accepted the hand sanitizer offered by Deana. “Something wrong?”

“No, not at all. You need a break.”

“I like to keep going. Plus the stories are fascinating. There’s a man in there….” Macy spoke as she walked. “That saw D.C.… Said it’s rubble, but you can still make out the capitol dome and part of the Washington monument.”

This caused Deana to pause. “You said the dome and Hiroshima came to my mind.”

“Mine, too.” Macy stepped though the doors and outside. “Even this is bad.”

Deana looked around, she didn’t do that much. It was clear that even twelve miles from the bomb, the area was hit with a hard blast wave. Most windows were shattered, some buildings toppled from the damage. Everything was dusty and dirty.

They walked across the grounds, passing people who had set up camp.

“At least the fires stopped burning,” Deana said.

“This world will never be the same. What are we supposed to do?”

“Honestly.” Deana faced her. “I think that after things calm down, after a lot of the death has passed, we all should head west.”

“West? Why west?” Macy asked.

“Because I think most damage is on the coast and north of here. It’s a guess. My father once gave me a map that showed the best places to be it the event of an all out nuclear war.”

Macy laughed sarcastically. “Really, is there such a place?”

“Okay, well, areas least likely to be hit. I think we should head that way. I’m sure there are places that aren’t destroyed. In fact, that map is at my place and that is the reason I called you out here.”

“You want me to get the map?”

Deana shook her head. “No. I want you to take Mylena and June and leave the hospital. Go to my place. You’ll need to take my car, it’s in the garage. It might be tough to navigate until you leave the area, but I’m sure, if this area is still standing, my place is fine.”

“Someone could be in there.”

“Yeah, there may be and it might be looted. If it’s not, it’s the best place for you to be with the kids. Not here. Every day it gets worse. Every day you are here you stand a chance of catching something that isn’t curable right now under these circumstances.”

“Cholera?”

“Yes. It’s getting bad. So go. I have Terrence and I will keep an eye out for him. I’m sure Mr. Leonard has my housing plan locked down tight. He knows you so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I don’t want to leave if Terrence could die.”

“I can’t say for sure he won’t, but I can say for sure, he wants you to put Mylena first. Get her out. Stay…” Deana blinked twice at the odd sound of loud motors. Rumbling motors of diesel engines. She hadn’t heard any ‘car’ sounds in days. She turned her head when she heard air brakes.

“Oh, wow.” Macy stepped forward pointing to the street. “Military trucks. Big, ones, too.”

Deana peered out to the eight vehicles pulling up and stopping by the hospital grounds. Large trucks with canvas covering. “It’s the military alright. Unfortunately…” she looked at Macy. “It’s not our military.”

Her name was Catherine and she offered to take Regis and Mark to Spokane. Just before they arrived, just before they could see for themselves, she told them, “Spokane is gone.”

Mark’s head bounced with the movement of the truck, he was barely conscious and unaware of anything that was being said.

“How?” Regis asked. “We heard it was spared.”

“The bomb landed a few miles north of Spokane, most of it was just blasted away. It came in the middle of the night. There was no warning. Most people never knew it happened. I wanted to let you know. I can turn around.”

“No,” Regis said, holding his brother close. “We need to find his home.”

“It’s going to be hard. There are very few landmarks left.”

“Is the highway still good?”

“For the most part.”

“Then we’ll try. She lived on this end of the city, maybe their area was spared.”

Maybe their area was spared.

That was wishful thinking.

Catherine was wrong, there were some landmarks that survived. A part of a sign, skeleton remains of a brick building. The entire residential area was flattened, as if a tornado swept through or an earthquake. Cars were rolled on their sides and tossed about.

Catherine was able to make her way down the exit, the street was covered with debris.

“See that yellow sign?” Regis pointed to it. “That’s the muffler place. If you can get us close, Mark’s house was three down from there.”