Tim Washburn - The Day After Oblivion

Moscow

AKlaxon sounds throughout the Kremlin yet Alexandra Vasilieva is in no hurry to leave her desk. Someone on the president’s staff, usually one of the deputy chiefs, runs an emergency drill every couple of months, but they end up being time wasters and that’s one thing Alexandra doesn’t have. An administrative assistant to the president, she’s hours behind on a video presentation that’s due by the end of the day.

“Aren’t you coming?” her friend and coworker, Darya Ivanova, asks.

Alexandra glances up from her computer screen. “I don’t have time. Do me a favor and call my cell if there’s an actual fire.”

The two chuckle at the absurdity of the drills that no one in the building takes seriously.

Darya puts two fingers to her lips and tilts her head. “You sure? We could steal a smoke break.”

Alexandra pauses, thinking, and changes her mind. She stands and slings her purse over her shoulder. “Screw it. Five minutes is not going to make much of a difference.”

The large room is portioned into cubicles and the two women fall in at the end of the line as they and their coworkers exit into the hall. The corridor is streaming with people, but, like always, no one is in a hurry. Darya elbows Alexandra in the ribs, nodding toward a tall, attractive man joining the mass of people at the top of the stairs. “If you’re not going to bed Evgeni, I will,” Darya whispers to her friend. Short and somewhat chubby, Darya is not particularly picky when it comes to hooking up with coworkers, both male and female. Experimentation , she calls it.

“Hands off. We have another date scheduled for this weekend,” Alexandra whispers back. Twenty-four, she ended a four-year relationship several months ago and has been slow to rejoin the dating scene. Tall and slim with a mane of dark hair, she and Evgeni have been out several times, but haven’t yet been intimate. Alexandra hopes that changes this weekend.

Alexandra and Darya follow the crowd down the stairs to the first level. That’s when Alexandra notices an immediate difference from all the previous drills. Heavily armed guards are manning the doors while other soldiers are directing people to the stairs to the lower levels. “What do you think’s going on?” Alexandra whispers to Darya.

Darya shrugs. “Who knows? But I really need a cigarette.”

Alexandra scowls. “Think there’s been some type of terrorist attack?”

Darya shrugs again. “They’re not going to tell us anything. They never do.”

They follow the procession down the stairs to the basement. The odor of stewing cabbage drifts from the cafeteria down the hall as another group of soldiers directs them to another set of stairs.

“Shit,” Darya says, “They’re putting us in the bunker. I’ve got to have a cigarette before we go in.”

“You can’t smoke in the building,” Alexandra says.

“Watch me.” Darya digs through her purse, pulls out a cigarette, and lights up. She gets in one puff before a soldier approaches, pulls the cigarette from her mouth, and grinds it out beneath her boot. Darya glares at the soldier, who smiles and pivots away, on to her next task.

“I told you,” Alexandra says. The line to the stairs grinds to a halt and Alexandra and Darya are left standing in a wide corridor that runs the length of the building. Both jump when a loud crash reverberates through the structure. A millisecond later, there’s another jarring crash and then another. Alexandra’s first thought is it’s an earthquake as the hallway fills with dust and debris. People begin screaming and running in every direction as Alexandra grabs Darya and pulls her under a doorframe to an office—Earthquake 101 for a girl who grew up in a seismically active area. Alexandra leans out, peering through the haze to see if a section of the upper floors have collapsed. But what she sees instead is an oblong object piercing the ceiling in an area two floors below the president’s office. There is no lettering on the device, but she can see a portion of a flag painted on the surface. One she knows well from working on projects regarding the United States. It’s the last thing Alexandra sees before the weapon detonates.

Manhattan

Sean Smith glances at his watch and winces. The damn trains are running late again. Riding the number 2 train from his apartment near Columbia University, Smith’s still three stops away from his destination in the Financial District. And he has only fifteen minutes to make a meeting he’s worked six months to get. A meeting that could be life-changing for him and his fiancée. The man he’s meeting, a venture capitalist, has a mild interest in a start-up Smith founded two years ago. After months of pestering, the man relented and agreed to a face-to-face to allow Smith an opportunity to lay out his grand plan. That plan is on the laptop in his bag—a nicely designed PowerPoint presentation that’s concise and thoroughly researched. Smith glances at his watch again and stands, moving closer to the door for a rapid escape.

After two stops, the subway finally pulls into the Wall Street station. Smith taps his foot, waiting for the doors to open as people pile up around him. Beyond the glass, another mass of humanity is waiting to board. The doors part and Smith steps out, shouldering his way through the crowd. If he can reach the surface quickly, the man’s office is only a block away. He hurries to the escalator and edges past the standers, lunging up the steps. Glancing up, his heart stutters when he sees a clearly panicked crowd surging inside. His first thought is it’s another terrorist attack and here he is only blocks away from where the original twin towers stood. He’s still too far away to see outside so maybe there’s hope it’s only a random shooter and the cops will quickly eliminate the threat. But then his mind stops and backs up. Are we so used to these random shootings that they’re now mundane? He quickly builds a mental wall. Now is not the time to debate that point.

As he gets closer to the exit, he sees a good number of people weeping, some kneeling in prayer. Okay, so maybe not a random shooter, he thinks. Then his mind drifts to the images of a truck plowing through people at a parade. Not likely, he reasons, on the jam-packed streets of New York. But something definitely has these people spooked. Smith finally reaches solid ground and hurries toward the exit, plowing through the onrush of people like a salmon swimming upstream. There’s a sound of shattering glass and the crowd in front of him balloons as people push their way inside through the demolished doors. Smith works his way toward the outer edges of the swelling mass, circling back to the exit.

Dripping sweat, his perfectly pressed suit in ruins, Smith bulls his way outside and stands to catch his breath in the center of the street. He looks up, and all thoughts of his meeting, his start-up, and his future evaporate. His mind turns instead to his fiancée as he watches a mushroom cloud expand over the city. Pulling out his iPhone, he unlocks the screen and pulls up a picture of the woman he’ll never marry. He’s staring at her image when a nuclear warhead detonates in the skies above Wall Street.

Weatherford

Other than a few quick trips back to the house for food or quick jaunts outside to heed the call of nature, Gage and Holly have been holed up in the tornado shelter behind the house for the past week. With Holly in her eighth month of pregnancy, Gage makes all the trips to the house, trying to limit Holly’s radiation exposure. The power to the house went out just before Armageddon arrived, and they’ve heard no news and have no idea how widespread the devastation is. For days on end, the skyline to the east has glowed red—a result of the pounding Tinker Air Force Base took. Gage counted at least eight earth-shaking explosions the day it all started.