Tim Washburn - The Day After Oblivion

Tanner pushes up out of the seat. “Yeah, I understand.” He wipes the tears from his cheeks. “Can I take the wheel for a while?”

Brad stands and wraps his arms around Tanner. “I’d love for you to take the wheel, son.”

Owatonna, Minnesota

Traveling via a truck is better than walking, but it’s still slow as McDowell carefully maneuvers around dead automobiles without jostling those in the back. He pulls the truck over to the shoulder to work his way around a jam. As far as towns go, Owatonna isn’t very large. They pass a collection of stores that pop up in many small communities—a local drug store, a True Value hardware store, and a local coffee shop, along with the requisite number of churches. With most of the state’s population centered around the cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Rochester, and Duluth, the towns along I-35 are spaced miles apart with nothing but farmland and lakes between them.

They make their way through Owatonna, and McDowell pulls the truck over to allow those in back a chance to stretch their legs. He steps out of the cab, slings the shotgun over his shoulder, and walks around to stretch his own legs, his eyes constantly scanning for threats. They continue to pass people walking along the highway and many have tried to flag them down. McDowell never taps the brakes. He steps off the highway and heads into the tall grass before unzipping to drain his bladder. Across a barbwire fence, a field of dried cornstalks rustles in the breeze. And that’s when it hits him—the immensity of the problems they’ll face in the future. Not only is food in short supply now, the prospects for any improvement are grim and the unharvested cornfield is a cold reminder. He zips up and returns to the truck, disheartened.

Once everyone has had a chance to answer the call of nature, they load back into the truck. Lauren is now riding shotgun, and at some point she and Melissa are going to have to learn how to drive a stick shift or all the driving’s going to be on McDowell’s shoulders. He glances at the gas gauge and shifts into first, steering down the center of the highway. He looks over at Lauren. “How much do you know about the aftereffects of a nuclear war?”

“Not as much as I wish I knew now. I did read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s pretty grim.”

“I made it about halfway through the novel and put it down. I grew up at a time when we practiced bomb drills in school. Like the desks were going to offer any resistance to a nuclear attack. The teachers should have just told us to bend over and kiss our ass good-bye.”

Lauren smiles. “So that was it, huh? Crawl under the desks?”

“Yes, and all the rooms were surrounded by glass, not these school bunkers they build nowadays. We wouldn’t have had a chance.” McDowell slows to steer around a semi. “I did a two-year stint at Global Strike Command. We ran every imaginable scenario. If our missiles cleared their silos, and Russia’s did the same, the number of dead might be north of three billion from the initial attack.”

Lauren pauses to let the numbers sink in. “And after the attack?”

McDowell glances at Lauren. “Not good. The results of one scenario predicted that half of the remaining population would die in the first year.”

“Half?” Lauren asks, her eyes going wide.

“Yes. And another half won’t survive the second year. What was the world population before this mess started?”

“Somewhere in the neighborhood of seven billion.” Lauren pauses to do the math in her head. “Oh my God, that means that as many as six billion people will be dead by year two. Is that really possible?”

“We won’t ever know for sure, but a variety of scenarios we ran predicted similar results.”

Lauren turns to stare out the side window. After several moments of silence, she turns to look at McDowell. “Why did it happen, Stan?”

“Don’t know. Could have been a simple mistake that started everything, or maybe someone hacked a system they weren’t supposed to hack.”

“I thought all of those networks were secure.”

“Nothing is secure. If something is operated by a computer, it’s vulnerable whether connected to the Internet or not. Secure networks do not exist.”

“I read something about the Chinese and Russians being on our power grids,” Lauren says.

“They are, or were, but we infiltrated their systems, too. No one is innocent in any of this.”

Lauren reaches forward and cranks the passenger window down a smidge. “How do we survive?”

“We take it day by day and do the best we can. There’ll be a bunch of people die off over the next month or two from radiation poisoning. Sad, but it means fewer mouths to feed.”

Lauren turns to stare at him. “That’s rather cold, isn’t it?”

McDowell shrugs. “There’s absolutely nothing that can be done to help them now.”

She turns to stare out the side window for the next mile. Eventually, she turns back to McDowell. “I haven’t seen many birds or other wildlife. You’d think this place would be littered with deer.”

“Most of them are probably dead from radiation poisoning, either by direct exposure or by eating contaminated food. Hopefully, a few pockets of wildlife survived, but it could take years to repopulate. And that’s if someone doesn’t kill any that are left. If that happens, we’ll either have to find a way to fish the oceans or face extermination.”

A tear leaks out of the corner of Lauren’s eye. “If the prognosis is really that grim, what are we doing?”

“The only thing we can do. Surviving.”

Memphis

Zane is working overtime to keep the pain at bay. He and Alyx switched positions and Alyx is now behind the wheel as they cruise back through town in search of medical supplies. The going slows as they near the downtown area. Ahead, three lanes of abandoned cars are waiting for a stoplight that won’t be functioning again anytime soon. Alyx detours down a neighborhood street to avoid the clogged intersection. Even a week ago the neighborhood would have been considered seedy, and it’s even more so today. Several of the homes have been torched, and Zane stops counting dead bodies after six.

“Can we get out of this neighborhood, please?” Zane asks.

“I’m trying.”

“Where the hell are we going, anyway?”

“There’s a complex of hospitals near the interstate. Thought we’d check it out.” At the next intersection, Alyx turns onto a main thoroughfare that cuts through a dilapidated commercial area. They pass a rickety strip mall featuring a massage parlor, a nail care salon, a used furniture store, and a piercing and tattoo place.

“Too bad they’re not open,” Zane says, pointing toward a piercing shop. “I was thinking about getting my nipples pierced.”

“You’ve already had something pierced today. I think that’s enough fun.”

Zane grimaces at the mention of his leg. “Party pooper.”

Alyx switches hands on the wheel and reaches over to take his hand. “How’s the pain?”

“Tolerable. I’m more worried about an infection. And the nightmares to come.”

“Nightmares?”

“Yep. A dog bit me when I was seven. A Doberman. Wasn’t a terrible bite, just my hand, but, jeez, did I have some nightmares. I’d wake up in a sweat thinking a dog was chasing me. That’s why I nearly pissed my pants when I heard that pit bull growl. But his biting days are over.” Zane cracks the window open. “It makes me wonder what happens when all of these stray dogs get a taste for humans? Think we’ll become a delicacy?”