Author's Note: This is a dark story. In RL we have Putin and Obama on opposite sides of a confrontation in Ukraine and I don't have high hopes of either of them having the common sense not to antagonize each other. It is ironic that after all the work that Carter, Gorbachev and Reagan put into the SALT arms talks to reduce nuclear arms, we are on the verge of armed conflict that could easily go nuclear if cooler heads do not prevail. In a nuclear war, everyone loses - there are no happy endings. In 45 1/2 years on this planet, this is probably the worst situation I have seen so far, especially when two hotheads have their fingers on the nuclear trigger. In this story as we are seeing in real life; there are no happy endings. If the nuclear button is pushed, humanity will eventually suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs.
Mt. Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, 25 weeks Post-Apocalypse, Tunnel 8
Sarah Mackenzie glared at Hambly, her brown eyes devoid of any warmth as Hambly stood in front of her; his teeth clenched.
"What do you mean? He was innocent?" Hambly growled, his heart clenching in his chest.
Mac snorted in derision. The pathetic fool didn't realize that she had done the group a favor in singling out Simone and planning his downfall. If she hadn't, the Privileged would have looked further into the group's dealings because of Simone's inability to keep his mouth shut. Perhaps his continued survival would have resulted in their entire group's resultant exposure. Surely the idiot realized the long-term benefits of removing a loudmouth like Simone. "Surely you don't think I'm going to reveal the perpetrator, do you?" She stared at him with cold eyes piercing him to the core. "I'd be a fool if I were to do that and I can assure you that I'm no fool."
Hambly eyed Mac with no small amount of malice as his thoughts churned through his head like the devastation of an F5 tornado. She set him up to take the fall? Did she have something to do with pissing off the Privileged? Who set up that Zhou kid to take a hit like that? He knew Mackenzie was on his side but his suspicions warred with his ability to reconcile the new information he had received from his cohort.
Mac didn't say a word as she saw him come to terms with the information he had been given and was coldly making her own assessments about him. If he became a detriment to her plans; then all bets were off.
Hambly was making his own assessments. She was a former Marine (there was no USMC anymore) and he gauged that her mental stability had gone off-kilter when the bombs went off. Evidently he wasn't as good a bluffer as he thought because the next second later, he was up against a wall with a K-Bar against his throat; the edge of it scraped perilously close to his carotid artery.
"Don't even think about notifying any of the Privileged about anything we've discussed. I can make you disappear in a manner that can make it look like an accident." She hissed pressing the edge of her combat knife into his neck and the warm sting made Hambly well aware that she had broken skin. He wondered just what he had gotten himself into.
Mt. Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, 25 weeks Post-Apocalypse, Shelter Medical Facility
"Danny isn't going to wake up. Animal". Harm said looking at the still comatose Danny Zhou. Harm knew the longer Danny stayed in a coma, there could only be two outcomes: one; he would revive and regain consciousness or two; Danny would continue to remain in a coma, unconscious of his surroundings, whereupon a decision would have to be made. Did one continue to hope against hope that the young man would regain his awareness of the world around him or let him pass on into the void to free up the life-support equipment for someone who had a fighting chance.
Animal took a deep breath. He hadn't known the young, injured Navy man for very long. But there was a sense of loss and a deep burgeoning anger that roiled deep inside him. Whoever helped Simone was going to pay; and pay with their lives. Animal looked at Harm and what Harm could see in Animal's eyes scared him. Harm could see the stiffening of Animal's posture; the clenched fists and tightly gritted jaw; the glint of deep-seated rage in his body and knew that whoever was responsible for opposing them was in deep trouble. He figured that it was lucky Simone had suffered a quick execution by exposure or the man would be in serious risk of being dismembered limb from limb. He barely heard Animal snarl under his breath "Those who oppose us will pay..." as his blood chilled. Animal's voice sounded inhuman, almost the growl of an enraged beast.
"We can't break the code..." Harm ventured, hoping that what he said didn't light Animal's fuse off.
"What code." Animal whirled on him, his face contorted in barely contained anger. "The code between fighting men died in the inferno of nuclear hellfire!" He slammed a fist against the wall with a resounding ring of metal that left a slight indentation in the metal structure. It stung with the pain of skinned knuckles.
Harm looked at him for a long moment. "What about the code of survivors? The first tenet is to help each other survive. You're one of the most stable individuals I know. If you lose your humanity, what chance have I? What chance has Lia or Meg or Jen?" He raised his hand palm up to Animal in a gesture of pleading. "We need each other to survive."
Animal closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another...and another and the tenseness left the room; Danny, unconscious and unaware of the war that had just taken place in Animal's soul, still lay in the hospital bed, the monitor denoting the lack of brain activity.
Harm took a deep calming breath; his hands shaking. He had almost thought Animal would go off his rocker and go after the remaining occupants of the shelter in a blind homicidal rage. The war had done a lot of psychological damage to all of them and Tom's policies weren't helping matters much at all. It appeared as though Tom Boone was running this place like his own little fiefdom and that was actually starting to piss Harm off a little. Whatever Boone wanted he got. And the fact that the sanctity of marriage was not respected was causing more than a little bit of jealousy amongst the shelter occupants. Even though the institution of marriage was a social construct, (according to John Boswell in the context of of historical evidence of same-sex unions), it was still an important part of human makeup. On the dispassionate flip-side, it was argued by the doctors in the shelter that pairing off was not a natural human evolutionary pattern - it was a code enforced by a now destroyed Church on the basis of another social construct - the idea of morality which ultimately lent credence to Boone's assertion that marriage was a dead institution. These deep thoughts were giving Harm a headache as he watched Animal work himself back to some semblance of sanity. What the hell was this world becoming?
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Cheyenne Mountain, CO, NORAD Command, 25 Weeks Post-Apocalypse
The general staff supporting General Stafford advocated leaving Mt. Storm alone. If they didn't want to join with the North American Coalition of Allied States then that was their choice to make.
Former RCAF LGEN Parenteau was of the opinion that free will should be a factor in decisions made by allies to join NACAS. "Canada and the USA are no more. What we do with the North American Coalition of Allied States is dependent on whether we have willing states freely accepting our overtures of cooperation in return for alliance in a mutually beneficial manner."
GEN Horner replied casually "Mt. Storm having a base of operations would have helped immensely. All we are is a tunnel underground with a complex of a few dozen buildings in a hollowed out cave. Mt. Storm is the crucial linchpin in making NACAS work because we need a strong base of operations. I don't know to what extent they developed the complex but from intelligence reports, Boone hardened the site using fifteen percent of military budget allowed for black projects." Horner turned to his aide who whispered something to him and then stated in a tone that brooked no dissent. "Latest intelligence indicates that 1.5B was used to place large scale environmentally sealed sliding blast doors on a section of mountain facing a large flat valley. Those sliding doors when open would have plenty of space with clearance wide enough to admit a flying aircraft."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" GEN Stafford asked Horner as his face paled measurably.
The general nodded. "They, like the Chinese, have moved air operations inside the mountain to keep it safe from nuclear attack and the flip side is that they can attack others with impunity."
Stafford stated calmly but no less urgently, "Aircraft, B83 tactical/strategic nuclear weapons: this puts a whole new spin on things." He looked over at the members of the staff in the meeting-room. "Mt. Storm's facility and assets make it a potent threat if they decide to go rogue. As I see it there is only two options. Entice it to join NACAS or take it over by military force."
Mt. Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, Tom Boone's Office, 26 weeks Post-Apocalypse,
The Communications Radio Tech notified Boone as soon as he heard the ominous transmissions between Cheyenne Mountain and Crow Rock. "It looks as though they want Mount Storm facility, sir." Boone nodded at the unwelcome information. In this post apocalyptic world one didn't trust anyone and his viewpoint had borne fruit. The gall of Stafford to all but render a join us or die edict pissed Tom Boone off to no end. It wasn't that Mt. Storm needed Cheyenne Mountain, it was because Cheyenne Mountain wanted to exert their power base over the entire world. And how better to do that than with air power. It appeared that Cheyenne Mountain wanted outright capitulation rather than a coalition and with things so divided in the shelter at Mt. Storm, Boone contemplated silently while the Comms tech waited for him to reply, there was absolutely no way of making a cohesive defense unless he could band all of them together.
"So they're advocating taking us over by force if we're unwilling to come to the negotiating table." Boone snorted. "That's a quick one-eighty from letting us come to terms with our situation. Do they really think a threat of military force is going to make me come crawling on bended knee like a dog to heel?"
"Sir, they seem to be...excuse the expression, talking out their ass. The Navy and Air Force have joint facilities at Colorado Springs airport which was targeted with a 5MT Chinese nuke. So was Fort Carson. They will be risking their own lives and contaminating their troops to try and take us over." The tech said.
Boone knew that to concede his shelter would subject his people to the whims of the Air Force commanding general; Stafford, his name was, and Boone was not too enamored of the good general. Stafford was a ruthless son-of-a-bitch as far as Boone was concerned and it would take hell freezing over for Tom Boone to capitulate to giving up Mt. Storm.
"Call in Nakamura and Rabb." Tom said as he pigeonholed the comms tech with an unflinching stare. "I want them to know what's going on." He stated as he made sure the comm tech knew exactly how crucial the summons was that he was couriering to those being summoned.
"Yes, sir." The tech replied as he realized this was a dismissal.
Fifteen minutes later, Rabb and Nakamura were standing in front of him. Looking over at Nakamura, Boone notified him quietly. "What I have to say goes no further than this office. The information that I have been informed of by Communications has the ability to destabilize the cohesiveness of this installation and if this information gets out, we could end up in anarchy. The only stabilizing influence in this shelter is the assumption by the shelter occupants that we have matters well in hand." He paused for a long moment to let that information sink in as Harm and Animal looked quizzically at each other. When Boone felt he had let the information percolate enough, he continued, "Comms was monitoring radio communications and found that a rather aggressive communique was sent from Cheyenne Mountain Complex to Crow Rock. The subject of said communique was our shelter." Again another pause to let that information sink in. When Boone felt that was fully understood, he then dropped the bombshell. "Crow Rock and Cheyenne Mountain Complex: they're colluding to take our shelter over."
Animal and Harm stared at Boone in shock. This was just what they needed with the anarchists in the shelter causing problems. They looked at each other knowing that it would take a miracle to ensure cohesiveness of purpose in the defense of their shelter with the two factions they had currently. If they were to defend this shelter against those who would seek to take their shelter from them; they needed to find those responsible for causing dissent and weed them out of the population. In that regard, they would have to be ruthless.
And in the next instance; Tom Boone verified exactly what Animal and Harm thought. "I want all dissent quashed. Anybody who fosters dissent against the rules will be found guilty of treason against the shelter survivors and executed by exposure."
Mt Storm Emergency Facility; Somewhere in the Blue Mountains.
Mt. Storm was not a democracy. The rules were imposed by one person and enforced by a clique of the leader's chosen few. Those who opposed his rule were branded as outcasts and regarded suspiciously by the few who were in his favor. Those not in his favor felt ill-done by no matter how gentle the hand and rebelled against any form of yoke despite beneficial bounty to the well-being of the shelter community.
Most who rebelled felt that their grievances were justified and that rationalization was the firebrand to their cause. Whether it was lack of the food they liked due to the impossibility of growing said food in the conditions they found themselves in or the fact that the food source was a source of renewable food supply and was therefore off-limits; there were those who found the constraints unjust and fought it at every turn.
Such was the added grievances of one former Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Marine Corps. The rules and regulations that she had served under for many years had evaporated in the blink of an eye with the coming of what they all now referred to as The Apocalypse. Such was the psychological trauma that was inflicted on these survivors that many were barely managing to cope and some were mentally fragmenting. She wanted satisfaction whether it was by ridding the world of those she felt turned their backs against her; by ironically being of stronger moral character than she was when the world was intact; by colluding with the extremists in planning to rid the world of one Thomas Boone, former United States Navy Rear Admiral (upper half) because in her mind no tyrant had the right to life let alone the mantle of leadership and above all she felt that the Privileged were able to sacrifice one stinking cow just so that people would be able to have some meat. She wanted a goddamned hamburger and she couldn't just walk out and go get one from a Beltway Burgers now, could she?
Could they manage to overthrow the tyrannical yoke of the Privileged and their stranglehold on the food supply? Not with the Privileged living in the Armory. Anybody who wanted to rebel against the Privileged would have to do so with improvised weapons against actual firearms which the Privileged kept to themselves. And that was sheer suicide.
So how would they fight Boone and the Privileged? That was a problem Sarah Mackenzie intended to figure out.
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Cheyenne Mountain, CO, NORAD Command, 26 Weeks Post-Apocalypse
Beth Hawkes sat in the mess building inside Cheyenne Mountain Complex in a corner by herself, a week after the fateful meeting held by Gen. Stafford and Gen. Horner where they decided that they were eventually going to take over Mount Storm to utilize its resources. The splitting of Vaults into factions to set up a new political structure was going to send the world to hell in a hand basket yet again. Because the old prejudices were still there. Each Vault wanted power. And this Vault's leadership was prepared to gain it by coercive means. At this point, Beth didn't want to talk to anyone. She had a feeling that Harm had survived and that he was in the bunker that Stafford had so casually inferred that he would target. She knew that Cheyenne Mountain Complex staff numbered in the thousands and would overwhelm the staff at Mount Storm. She had absolutely no idea why Mt. Storm needed to be attacked. Wouldn't it just be better to leave them alone if they had no interest in joining the North American Coalition of Allied States? Why cause a war if one didn't have to? But unfortunately, logic didn't matter in politics; only the power struggle between nation-states.
And not for the last time did she wish that she was at Mount Storm with those she knew rather than being a nameless face in the vast cavern that was Cheyenne Mountain Complex.
Mt. Storm Emergency Facility, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, 26 weeks Post-Apocalypse,
"It's not a situation that is going to resolve itself." Boone stated. "I'm going to have our comm-tech monitor the airwaves and see if there's any more intel that we can figure out as to which way Crow Rock and Cheyenne Mountain are leaning in terms of leaving us alone. If not; we may be at war." He watched the two's reactions. He hoped that it wouldn't come down to it; but if he had to repel an invasion force he would drop one of his specials and it would be dialled up at city destroying yield. If it was an invasion force he didn't want to leave any stragglers. Any survivors from the attacking force would be a danger to the shelter and the rest of their occupants. Boone surprised himself with the depth of savagery the measures he would take to ensure the security of his shelter occupants.
"War?" Harm asked rather stupidly, Boone thought. "You mean we'd attack and kill occupants of other shelters."
Boone leveled a cold stare at him. "I'm not looking for war. Harm. But by God, if those bastards from Cheyenne Mountain try anything, they'll wish they hadn't,".
"I don't think we should make an overt move..." Animal commented, "...unless they make an overt move of their own. No sense in wasting weapons that we need to repel an even greater invasion force. By the way, Tom. What do we have in the way of people knowledgeable in reloading cartridges and bullet-making; because we need to be able to reload our weapons and make new bullets that we can chamber into what weapons we have?"
"Already thought of..." Boone replied dismissively. "We thought of the eventuality of running out of ammunition and stocked a full cartridge reloading station in the armory as well as bullet molds for all the different calibres of weapons, the shelter stocks. Get Galindez to tutor all of you living in the armory to go over bullet-making procedures." He ordered, looking at the both of them. "All of you need to be proficient in cartridge making as well as firing caps." He looked pensive for a long moment. "If this war between shelters goes down, I want to keep it conventional for as long as possible and we can't run out of ammo."
Animal and Harm shrugged their shoulders hiding their personal thoughts on Boone's comments. It seemed that they would have to suppress the revolt with due prejudice. Unfortunately that would lessen the numbers of defenders for the shelter and cause them to resort to using their special weapons even sooner, Harm thought. But what else could they do? They couldn't risk weapons in the hands of those who would destabilize the shaky stability that the Mt. Storm shelter had. No matter which way Harm pondered the conundrum, there wasn't an adequate solution. It all boiled down to whether they were in accord with the idea of doing whatever it took for survival even if it came down to killing fellow human beings. The only way they would be able to repel an invasion from Cheyenne Mountain would be to launch an aircraft to drop a B83 tactical nuke with the yield dialed up to 1.2MT to make sure there were no survivors from the attacking forces.
As if he had read their minds, Boone looked at them then spoke "and just in case one of the guys we train decides he can't drop...we have the scientists designing a remote trigger fail safe to detonate the bomb from a secondary location." Harm and Animal looked appalled. Boone's lips curled in a smirk. They'd come around to his way of thinking. Safety of the survivors at Mt. Storm was at stake.
Harm and Animal looked over at Boone. He had changed and it didn't seem as though it was for the better. The steeliness of his eyes; the determined set of his jaw showed someone not afraid to do whatever it took to defend his realm of influence. He was like a missile headed towards a target, Harm thought; but did Boone also remember that a missile generally blew itself up at the target. It was a self-defeating prospect? Harm realized that you couldn't maintain an iron-fisted grip over subordinates or rebellion would ensue. You could run down the roll-call of history to find tyrants who had been deposed from their self-indulgent thrones.
USS Birmingham SSBN-588, McMurdo Station, Antarctica, 26 weeks Post-Apocalypse
Captain Van Buren could hear the howling of the wind as the snowstorm pounded the hull of the USS Birmingham. The snowstorm had blown in rapidly and almost trapped a group of Russian and American sailors on an excursion to gather more foodstuffs from the Station buildings. The visibility had dropped to zero and it was only Captain Semyanov's foresight in making a rope chained from the subs to The Mcmurdo Station buildings that allowed the sailors to find their way back. Even then they came back half-frozen. The snowstorm had been howling for almost a week now with no sign of abating. He knew that the pole was pointed away from the sun and with the amount of radioactive soot still in the atmosphere, the earth had cooled several degrees. Right now their greenhouse project was working due to adequate supplies of fuel but the first crops were at least a month away from harvest. The food stores on both ships were rationed to feed the men. This polar winter extended by the nuclear fallout thrown into the atmosphere would make growing anything an onerous task.
The Russian and American crews' stores had rapidly dwindled since they had linked up at McMurdo Station and there would be no replenishment flights from the mainland. Tanker bases had been targeted in the first nuclear strike. Considering how thorough the annihilation had been, Van Buren had to presume there were no survivors at the tanker bases. Airborne fuel refuelling was a necessity to fly long distances and the unfortunate fact that had slowly sunk in was that they were so far away from any pockets of survivors that they might as well have been on another planet. They would have to utilize their nuclear power sparingly as the fuel rods may have had a lifetime of 15 years before needing to be replaced but utilizing the electrical power generated by the onboard nuclear reactors for anything other than heating the greenhouses and heating their shelter was a luxury the Antarctic Survivors couldn't afford if they wanted to survive the hostile frozen wasteland they had to call home. And if the radiation reached any further south, their oasis would turn into a trap. A knock on the hatch of the captain's quarters interrupted his further musings. "Enter!" He called out sharply.
"Sir. The comms officer just notified me that they have heard some low-band communications coming from the direction of what used to be the central United States. The transmission is being decoded to determine who sent the transmission and to whom. Sir." CDR Turner stated as he stepped into the quarters.
"Very well, Sturgis." Van Buren replied. "Make sure that I get a copy of what is transcribed and I will make the final decision on whether we contact or not."
"Aye, sir!" CDR Turner braced, excused himself from Capt. Van Buren's quarters to relay the captain's orders to the comms officer.
As the hatch closed, Van Buren sighed deeply. They were warriors, not gardeners. How were they to make an Eden out of such an inhospitable land? They had limited supplies and the stocks of food and seeds wouldn't last forever unless they were able to recover the seeds from the plants that grew and that cut down on the number of food that they could harvest if they had to continually replenish seed-stock. He wondered if they would have a string of luck that would help them because survival was a matter of luck in this environment they were in. Looking at the small painting of Admiral Arleigh Burke, Capt Van Buren muttered caustically, unheard by other ears. "What we didn't calculate upon was that those instruments of destruction would be wielded by idiots in high office."
"For in this modern world, the instruments of warfare are not solely for waging war. Far more importantly, they are the means for controlling peace. Naval officers must therefore understand not only how to fight a war, but how to use the tremendous power which they operate to sustain a world of liberty and justice, without unleashing the powerful instruments of destruction and chaos that they have at their command." ~ Admiral Arleigh Burke.
Ballistic Missile Submarine October Revolution; McMurdo Station, 22 weeks Post-Apocalypse.
Captain Semyanov listened to the wind howling past the sail of the October Revolution. It was a dangerous wind. One that could freeze exposed skin inside of four minutes exposure. If he had the skin of a Yakut, Semyanov thought as another chill blast buffeted the sail. The Yakuts were a Mongol tribe that lived in Siberia, a pagan tribe that did not believe in Marxism or Russian Orthodoxy, but their own shamanistic traditions. When Captain Third Rank Michil Oyunsky was in his cups, he would mutter about the Uliuiu Cherkechekh which roughly translated from Yakut was The Valley of Death. He was referring to a spot on the Upper Viliuy River where unknown spikes in background radiation caused lethal injury to inhabitants of the area. Semyanov had decided that the Antarctica was yet another Uliuiu Cherkechekh; one that they would all have to struggle to survive and they would survive it with the help of those agriculturally minded. The crew of the October Revolution had mostly come from farming communities back home, even more so than those from the Birmingham.
But both crews would be relying on the farming skills of those Russian farming boys. How ironic after being trained for many years to kill one another that they were in a position where they had to rely upon each other for survival.
Crow Rock, Blue Mountain Ridge, Pennsylvania, 26 weeks Post-Apocalypse
It had been a long twenty-six weeks since the bombs fell. Edward Sheffield, former United States Secretary of the Navy gazed down the long hallway that led to the entrance they had come in through so many months ago. Whether it was his mind's way of coping with the fact that politicians such as he were stupid enough to have pushed the button to cause the end of human civilization as they knew it. Shaking his head after a last long stare at the hallway he made his way to the communal eating area.
When he had sat down, the shelter head, General Alexander Moreland, sat down beside him, his convivial expression setting off warning bells in Sheffield's head. General Moreland was a West Point grad, the same class as General Isaac Carruthers who was supposed to take over command of Mt. Storm before Thomas Boone staged a coup and refused to allow entry to Carruthers. Right now the convoy carrying Carruthers and his retinue of politicos were blasted out melted hulks, their charred remains less than a half click away from Crow Rock when the bombs fell.
"We got a communique from Cheyenne Mountain." Was Moreland's opening comment. He leaned forward so that the SecNav could see him whether he wanted to or not.
"...and..."
Moreland almost looked beside himself with smug joy. "Stafford wants to attack Mt. Storm. He knows what's in that vault and he wants it for himself. If he can't have it he's going to make sure no-one gets a hold of it. He plans to turn the place into an irradiated hulk if Boone won't give it up. I've chosen to ally with Stafford."
Sheffield's insides clenched. "Are you nuts?" He finally exclaimed loud enough to cause several others at nearby tables to stare at them. "That place was built to be a fortress. You wouldn't be able to take it out with the Tsar Bomba - the one they originally designed let alone the ones the Soviets detonated. There has to be a way of negotiating a settlement."
Moreland narrowed his eyes at Sheffield for a long moment where Sheffield felt as though Moreland was taking a long measurement of him then stated "Stafford gave them a chance to join him." as if a demand to join them was a rational request which should be heeded. "They refused." He stated bluntly then rendered his verdict. "They had their chance; now they will be destroyed." Sheffield thought that all Moreland needed to cap off his image of being a sycophantic megalomaniac would have been the evil laughter. Getting up from the table Moreland gave Sheffield a long sizing up stare. "Don't make the same mistake. Sheffield." He warned the SecNav, "You know as you Navy boys like saying: Loose lips sink ships..." Smirking, Moreland walked away.
Sheffield sighed heavily as he eyed his untouched plate, all of a sudden not feeling hungry.
Mt. Storm Emergency Facility Maternity Ward, Somewhere in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, 26 weeks Post-Apocalypse,
Lia glared daggers at Animal. If there was something light and lethal, Animal was sure Lia would have brained him with it. "YOU did THIS to me!" She nearly screamed at him. "I look like the Goodyear Blimp! Goddamn you! Tosh!" Then she whirled on the doctor asking abruptly. "WHERE IS TOM BOONE?!" Her tone indignantly shrill.
"Why?" the doctor asked risking life and limb for asking a question for which the answer, what seemed to Lia, was blatantly obvious.
"BECAUSE I WANT TO RIP HIS GODDAMNED BALLS OFF AND FEED IT TO HIM PERSONALLY!" Yes, it was definitely a scream this time as Animal winced resisting the urge to cup himself because that would just make him a convenient target for her rage. He wondered if it was too late to change his mind about being in the birthing room when she went into labor.
Freedom Bunker, Somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains, 26 weeks Post-Apocalypse
Saul was skin and bones; he was only conscious a few times a day and every time he breathed in there was a chilling rattle on the inhale. They all knew he was going to die. Even though his exposure to the radiation had been minimal less than 100 rads, something with his body's reaction to radiation kept him from recovery.
The vote hadn't gone Billy Joe's way. They had opted to remain in the shelter for a while longer. He looked over at Rachel.
"Saul's not gonna recover." Rachel said suppressing a sob.
"So what do you suggest?" Billy Joe asked.
"I don't know. Billy Joe. I don't know. I see him gettin' weaker and weaker and I wanna do somethin' for him but he's jus' gonna die in the end." Rachel broke down clinging to Billy Joe. At that moment, Billy Joe came up with a plan. He'd wait for the rest of his shelter-mates to go to sleep then he'd take Saul out of the shelter and away.
The rest of the shelter occupants had turned in for the night and an ominous silence settled over the shelter as if in recognition to what Billy Joe was about to do. He had waited until the shelter had quieted into slumber; a steady even breathing from all the bunks. He quietly buckled his Colt .45 in its holster onto his belt. Then turned to Saul silently begging forgiveness for what he was about to do. Swiftly picking Saul up, surprised at how light he was, he moved silently towards the entrance. Only a brief metallic click that sounded inordinately loud marked his and Saul's exit from the shelter. The darkness of the overcast sky had darkened the bundle in his arms to a barely discernible shape. He knew that he needed to walk at least two miles to where he would lay Saul down.
The walk with Saul barely a weight on his arms took almost three hours. It brought them to a cliff overlooking the river. He stopped debating whether it would be easier to pick the other option; a swift plunge off the cliff into a rapidly flowing river which would carry Saul's body upon impact away down to a location no human would ever walk again.
Then he heard a brief whisper. "...don't...drop...me..." He looked down to the sick man in his arms to see Saul's gaze meeting his; his eyes inordinately clear. He coughed, a watery cough. "I never...liked heights..." Saul whispered. "I know..." He said briefly, so softly Billy Joe wondered if he actually heard correctly. "Bi-lly...Joe. Think about...the rest..." He fell silent for a long moment and lay still long enough that Billy Joe thought he may have passed. But a weak cough told him differently. "I know..." He said his voice barely audible. But his eyes turned towards the Colt that Billy Joe carried on his hip. "I don't...wanna..." Saul said haltingly, his voice barely hiding the pain of his failing organs inflicted on his body. "I'm dyin'." He said. "Don't...want...it...long..." Billy Joe put Saul down beside a tree and propped him up so he could see the brown river and the expanse of desolation beyond. Saul looked at him, nodding weakly in thanks. His voice barely a whisper, he said "do it..."
Billy Joe barely held back a choked sob as he drew his Colt .45 from his holster, jacked back the slide to chamber a round, and took aim at Saul's head. "I'm sorry..." The snapping report of the Colt firing echoed from the cliff, startling Billy Joe, as the .45ACP bullet exited the barrel of his semi-automatic at 830fps and travelled in less than a millisecond to impact with Saul's head putting a hole right in the right side of his head just underneath his earlobe and exiting out the other side in a grisly spray of brain matter and skull fragments. The point of impact severed his spinal cord at the base of Saul's skull and the momentum of the bullet exiting his skull impelled the body in that direction. What was left slumped over in a shapeless heap like a sack of flour; the neurons that fired instantly shut off.
Billy Joe slumped to the ground, his feet unable to support his weight as the full realization of what he had had to do hit him. He couldn't move for a long moment as the emotions swirled through him. Whether it was guilt at having to do this, he didn't know, but Billy Joe was a changed man.
Location that used to be the Pentagon, 26 weeks Post-Apocalypse
A flattened charred plain marked the spot where America's top military brass had worked planning America's next military campaigns and hypothetical conflicts as well as planning the technological direction of US forces. The central courtyard was the epicenter of a Dong Feng DF2 warhead detonation which hurled a twenty mile in diameter fireball which immolated everything nearby. Debris were hurled at near Category 5 hurricane speeds and millions were obliterated from existence in a split-second of temperatures exceeding the surface of the sun.
Twenty-five weeks into the new existence of a post-holocaust North America; scattered amongst the debris one could see (if anyone was still around to witness) dessicated remains of rodents lying sprawled amidst what remained of debris. They had dropped where their remains now lay, their bodies riddled with organ destroying radiation suffering with painful sickness which had only one eventuality: death.
The clouds, boiled away by nuclear blasts, had returned covering the planet in a thick almost impermeable shield dropping the temperature almost twenty full degrees causing a return to an average mean temperature closer to that of the ice ages. They were loaded with radiation and rained hot (radioactive) rain despite the fact that rainfall had decreased seventy-five percent. And the rain pushed the radiation count back above the lethal range.
There were no instruments left to be able to measure the extent of ozone layer depletion. But any survivors (if any had survived the intense radioactivity) were suffering blast related injuries and eventual organ failure from burns suffered by UV radiation from the brief periods that the sun was able to peek through the clouds. The earth had been scoured by winds seeped in radioactive particles with half-lives measuring in the thousands of years; a death sentence to any being that was forced to make an existence on the surface of the planet. Heavy clouds laden with radioactive moisture and frozen by the cold dumped freezing lethal snow on the ground in parts of North America that dropped below freezing. Touching this snow would leave radiation burns to the skin as well as killing by numbing cold.
Into this dreadful tableau staggered an unlikely survivor, covered in blood that seeped from a wound to the side of the head, coughing from lung damage from the radioactive dust inhaled, half crazed with starvation, on his last bits of strength. The horrific caricature of a human survivor, his lungs filled with fluid, sank to his knees, his strength giving out at the very last along with incipient organ failure, uttered a faint moan, unheard by any but his own fading hearing as black closed around the edges of his vision, finally pitching face first into the debris to never move again. His chest rose and fell once and stilled forever. Over the following weeks his body would lay desiccating in the elements, as stripped away as the bones on the rodents that lay near him. The wind that swirled over the scant remnants of the destroyed Pentagon building, left unburnt by the intense heat and fire of the detonation, endlessly distributed and redistributed the snow-covered debris around building up cold white breakwaters around the larger debris piles.
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