Amy Brashear - The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction

“We will be at the Academy Awards,” he said. “Our names will be read.”

“Yeah,” Freddy said. “In the ‘in memoriam’ part of the show. They’ll put our pictures and our profession.”

I hoped that they wouldn’t use my Jostens school picture.

It was quiet. Most were passed out. The director and Dylan were going over final scene shots like this movie was going to get an ending. I sat by myself on a cot writing a letter to my future self. Mrs. Martin brought it up in the meeting when I got suspended—the second time in the last couple of weeks. She thought it would be therapeutic to put down all my feelings about what I thought would be the forthcoming apocalypse, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. Now seemed like as good a time as any.

“Laura, you awake?” Terrence asked.

“Yes,” I said above a whisper.

He stepped over legs and buckets and fell onto the cot next to me. “Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing my head. He didn’t give me this headache, but it still throbbed just the same.

“What do you think it will be like?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, out there?”

I shrugged. “But studies have said and then movies have shown that—”

“We don’t know, is what you’re saying,” he said, interrupting me.

“Yeah.”

“But it will probably be hell.”

“Yeah, hell.”

We sat there for a while in silence by candlelight. Then he grabbed my hand and squeezed.

“You know our parents are probably dead,” he said.

“I know.”

“We are probably the only family we have left.”

I squeezed his hand. “You’ll always be my brother.”

“And you’re my nerd of a sister.”

I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. We’d need our sleep. We had no idea what was waiting for us on the outside of this fallout shelter.

“Terrence, I don’t want to die,” I said finally.

“Me either.”

We didn’t want to go outside, but we didn’t want to stay in here.

They said cockroaches were the only thing that would survive. That didn’t give us much hope. Staying put in here, even if it smelled like shit and vomit and urine, meant safety. We didn’t know if safety would be guaranteed if we went outside.

“In the first issue of Teenage Mutant we meet Destiny with powers so great from a nuclear bomb that she can do anything. We could be like her. We were all touched by radiation. But to fulfill our potential, we need to leave this fallout shelter,” I said.

“Are you trying to rah-rah us up about opening the vault door?” Astrid asked.

“Well, I was trying. Is it working?”

“No.”

“I can quote another,” I said, thinking.

“Stop. I’m embarrassed for you,” she said.

“Did you just quote a comic book?” Terrence asked.

“Yes, I did,” I said. “Mine—one of the best superheroes ever.”

We gathered what we wanted to take with us. My Nuke Me tote bag was full of first aid supplies, food, and other necessary items.

“We might have to hoof it to find civilization,” I said.

“Find civilization?” Terrence asked. “You’re making this sound like some stupid science fiction plot to some bad movie.”

“Wait—hoof?” Astrid asked.

“Walk,” Max defined for her.

“Why didn’t you just say that?”

“It’s a saying,” I said.

“Again, your American idioms,” she said, shaking her head.

“We don’t know what’s outside. It could be fine or—” Tyson said.

“It’s fine,” the director said.

“But the radio said—” I started to say, but was cut off by the director going on a tirade about the government and propaganda.

“It was touch-and-go through the first two periods, but I knew that everything would be okay when Mike Eruzione scored his famous third-period goal to put the Americans ahead. Do you believe in miracles?” Rodney asked.

“Hockey?” Freddy asked.

“It was the Olympics—against the Russians. USA… USA… USA!”

We chanted “USA” like some insane glorified patriotic crazy person. But it helped. Did we believe in miracles? Yes, of course we did. Everything could have been fine outside. Everything could have been normal outside. Like some crazy adventure. A Hollywood joke.

“It doesn’t matter—we’ve got to go,” the bus driver said.

“What he said. I’ve got to find a bathroom with privacy.”

“Privacy.” Max sounded it out for Astrid the proper American way. Like all Americans do with tact and understanding. (That was sarcasm.)

“Let’s get the hell outta Dodge,” Dylan said.

Terrence, with the help of Rodney, grabbed the handle on the vault door and waited until it was time. We had a moment planned. Dylan turned on the camera and filmed our exit. The director stood behind him, giving direction. One of the last scenes for the movie that might never be.

Tyson stuffed the tape that he chose for the moment the vault door opened into the tape player.

“And action!”

At the moment the vault door opened, the director pressed play. The volume was turned to full blast, and “We Are the Champions” [77] Queen, News of the World , Elektra, 1977. echoed throughout the hall.

We stepped outside the fallout shelter.

Astrid walked out first. Freddy helped Owen; he was Owen’s eyes. Rodney, Terrence, Max, and I followed behind. The bus driver and Tyson were in the rear, but the director was the last one to leave. He didn’t want to be in the shot. It was our moment. The eleven of us. What started as a novella about four people turned into a story about eleven. Eleven different people all on a journey of destruction. That sounds cheesy and sappy, and for that I am sorry.

It was quiet. The air smelled of burning flesh and, surprisingly, burnt popcorn. But once we got upstairs and to the front door, we saw we weren’t alone. There had been an invasion—by the United States Air Force.

We stopped on the stairs that led to the charred ground where the flagpole once stood. A man in a protective suit, including gloves and a gas mask, was raising an American flag. Dylan was filming it all, including the helicopters that flew in the sky. A perfect backdrop. The director patted Dylan on the back, probably thanking him for thinking of the perfect visual ending to this horrific story.

The men, probably soldiers, carried guns, and they were pointed at us. The soldiers were also wearing protective gear. But we kept walking toward them. We were dirty. We smelled. We probably didn’t look like human beings.

Rodney was walking with a limp and leaning over in pain. He was moaning. He had been for a while. Stomach problems. We all had them.

“Shit,” I heard a soldier yell.

“Copy,” yelled another before he shot Rodney twice in the head. “Confirmed kill.”

Rodney fell to the ground.

“What the hell?” someone yelled, and we ran toward Rodney. We could have been shot too, for all we knew.

The soldier who shot Rodney was getting screamed at by a superior officer. The soldier had yelled “shit,” not “shoot,” like the soldier had thought he heard. The word zombie was thrown around. We didn’t look human—but we were still alive. We weren’t the walking dead. But Rodney was dead.