Tim Washburn - The Day After Oblivion

Alyx digs in her pocket and extracts the keys. “Yes.”

“Put the boxes in the back. When you get the truck started, back out and straighten it up. I’ll climb in the back and you hit the gas. Sound like a plan?”

Alyx and Sarah answer in the affirmative. “Okay, Sarah, unlock the top two locks.”

Sarah clicks the two top locks open and squats down for the bottom lock. Zane moves forward, places the shotgun to his shoulder, and sights down the barrel and cocks the hammers. “Okay, Sarah.”

Sarah moves fast and the door swings open. Zane limps outside, the shotgun braced tight, his head on a swivel. He takes a quick glance around, turns back to his starting point, and makes a slower scan. His internal threat meter isn’t pinging, but he doesn’t rush his visual sweep. He lifts a hand and waves the women forward. They burst out of the door and hurry for the truck, their arms laden with supplies. They quickly place the boxes into the bed of the truck and climb into the cab.

Zane catches a flash of color in his peripheral vision. He whips around, his finger easing down on the trigger. It’s a young girl, no older than ten, standing at the corner of the building. Zane lifts the gun toward the sky and expels a shaky breath. He offers the girl a small wave and hurries over to the truck, his heart hammering. He puts a foot on the bumper, climbs into the truck bed, and holds on to the tailgate as Alyx hits the gas. As they zoom past, the little girl waves, having no idea she was a millisecond away from being killed.

Weatherford

Gage is wondering why everything is always much harder than you ever thought it would be. What should have been a thirty-minute job is now stretching into the third hour. Trying to retrofit the old analog pressure gauge onto the turbine’s sophisticated braking system is like trying to put a distributor on a new Cadillac. And Henry’s continued probing of the electronics revealed they have more work to do.

Gage wipes his hands with a rag. “Henry, any chance a person could recover from radiation poisoning?”

Henry puts down his tools and turns to look at his son-in-law. “I don’t know a whole lot about the topic, but it all depends on the absorbed dose of radiation the person receives.”

“How do you know what the radiation dose was?”

Henry closes the lid on his toolbox and sits. “You’d need to have a Geiger counter or a dosimeter at the time of the exposure to know for sure. If those aren’t available, exposure levels are usually determined by patient symptoms after the event.”

“Which are?” Gage asks.

“Keep in mind, I’m far from an expert, but I’ve read a few articles on the subject. Initial symptoms would include nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and at higher doses a severe headache, fever, and probably some cognitive impairment.”

“And there’s no treatment?”

Henry sighs. “Not in the most severe cases, say, over 800 rad or 8 Gy, I think the new unit of measure is called. At those levels the mortality rate is one hundred percent.”

Gage takes a seat on a piece of equipment. “How quickly would a person die at those radiation levels?”

“Gage, I’m not a physician or an expert. I assume we’re talking about your father?”

Gage nods.

Henry reaches for a water bottle and takes a sip, delaying. “Gosh, I don’t know enough to even venture a guess, Gage.”

“But not long, right?”

Henry takes another sip of water. “Probably not. Days, maybe a week or so.”

Gage nods again. “’Bout what I figured. I just don’t want him to suffer.”

Henry pushes to his feet and puts a hand on Gage’s shoulder. “Being in a coma is not such a bad thing at this point, Gage.” Henry steps over to the computer cabinet and resumes his work.

Gage stands and eases over to the side of the nacelle, looking out over the landscape. He inhales a deep breath, releases it, and sucks in another, holding this one a little longer before blowing it out. Feeling helpless is something new for Gage. Used to working his way through problems, the concerns about the health of Holly and the baby, and the sadness of his father’s condition are weighing heavy on his mind. And there’s not a damn thing he can do about any of it.

Gage returns to the turbine’s braking system and grabs a wrench from his toolbox. Working is about the only thing he can do to keep his mind off his worries. After a short break for lunch, Gage and Henry work through the rest of the afternoon. Finally, Gage puts the finishing touches on his retrofit, but they won’t know for sure it’s going to work until they free the turbine. As a matter of fact, there’re a lot of things they’re not going to know until the turbine begins turning. And that’s still a day or two away, at best. Gage tosses the wrench into his toolbox and wipes his hands on a rag. The work helped to cloud his mind, muddying his thoughts and feelings. But now that the work is done for the day, the helpless feelings are trying to burrow back into his brain.

Henry steps back from the computer cabinet and looks at the sky. “Susan will probably be here shortly. Are you about finished?”

“Yep. Done about all I can do, until we unleash this beast. You?”

“I’ve got more work to do. Hopefully I can finish up here by midday tomorrow then start on the step-up transformer.”

“How long’s that going to take?”

“Don’t know. Hopefully not long.”

The two tidy up their workspaces and Gage cranks the doors closed before both begin the long climb down.

Off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia

Now past the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the going is easier for the EmmaSophia . And the smell is better, too, now that they’re past a majority of the dead bodies. Off to the west, Norfolk and Virginia Beach are nothing but craters with wildfires still raging all along the coastline. Tanner is still at the wheel and Brad is trying his hand at fishing again. He’s switched tactics, now trolling his artificial lure behind the boat. Brad’s learned his lesson from earlier and keeps a close eye on the surrounding water. The mainsail is unfurled and the boat is moving at a leisurely pace.

The Dixons aren’t the only ones out fishing. Boats of all types are out on the water, their lines cast out to sea. With no grocery stores, and most of the land animals succumbing to radiation poisoning, life appears to have retreated back to the early days when dinner came from the sea. Brad and Tanner’s food stores are in pretty good shape, but won’t stay that way for long. They have less than fifty gallons of fresh water left in the tank, and it’s a constant worry that gnaws at Brad. He has berated himself more than once for not shelling out the five grand to purchase a reverse osmosis water system. With that they wouldn’t have to worry about their freshwater supplies. But who would have thought two weeks ago that freshwater would be a scarce resource? Certainly not Brad. He’s hoping that all of the marinas along the Outer Banks haven’t been plundered, and they might stumble upon one of the water systems. With his credit cards now worthless, he’d need to come up with something to barter with. Or steal it.

Brad stands and stretches, his fishing lure trailing behind the boat. He’d love to be able to anchor close to shore and swim to land, just so he and Tanner could stretch their legs. He picks up the binoculars and scans the shoreline a mile away. The Outer Banks begin north of the Virginia–North Carolina line and stretch south for miles. A narrow strip of land, the area is separated from the mainland by variously named bays and sounds and this water buffer spared the area from the wildfires that scoured the mainland. Brad continues scanning with the binoculars. The coast is jammed tight as teeth with people, some with tents, but far more are surviving under, or around, hastily cobbled-together shelters.