Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own. (17 page)

“Lead the way,” David said, shouldering his M-16 and patting Doron on the back.

“Liu, can you and Jorge set up a perimeter until we get back?” David asked.

“Yes. We will be fine, but be back no later than two hours from now, before sunset,” Liu said.

David nodded, and checked his watch. Liu had cleverly been logging the time of sunrise and sunset each day, and recording the compass heading to set up camp at night which would face the sunrise.

Doron kicked up a fallout cloud racing through the streets. He reached an area shielded from direct blast by an elevated railroad track. Three beat up pickup trucks were parked in the garage next to the trailer office. The top of the garage was higher than the railroad embankment, and was blown away, but everything underneath was stable. The trailer office was twisted and tilted sideways.

Doron smelled multiple dead bodies rotting nearby. He was becoming adept at estimating distance and decomposition
time. He marveled at human adaptability now that detecting fresh bodies was a survival skill to avoid ambushes.

“These trucks will not have chips and will run even after any EMP”, Doron said. He immediately went to the Ford pickup truck, pulled out his knife, and within thirty seconds it cranked up.

“Once a repo man, always a repo man,” Doron laughed. The truck had less than a quarter tank so David started siphoning the gas from the other two trucks.

“Let’s load my motorcycle up on the bed,” Doron suggested. Zeke washed the dirt off the windshield, and then looked underneath for a spare tire and a tire wrench. They took a large piece of sheet metal and made it a ramp and walked the motorcycle up the truck bed, then Zeke slid the metal in upright next to the motorcycle.

“Doron, we are the scouts. We can turn around quickly and are less visible. Do not go anywhere we don’t clear first, you are a large target,” David explained.

“Keep your guns handy. Zeke, lets slide that sheet metal behind Doron to block a sniper headshot,” David suggested.

“We need to get another can of gas,” Doron said. They had to look around before they found another truck and were able to siphon out ten gallons into two plastic containers.

Doron slowly accelerated. He adjusted the rear mirror, and tried all the radio stations but got only static. He pressed in the unmarked cassette. Blue Oyster Cult’s “
Don’t Fear the Reaper
,” blared. Doron cranked the volume up, tapping the steering wheel.

Doron began to panic when he saw how easy it was to follow his truck tracks on the road back to the overpass. This fallout ash was like greasy, sticky, snow that never melted. He wondered if that was because the fallout had human fat residue. That was probably never simulated in all the nuke tests. Moving during, or after rain would be ideal, like walking along the seashore and having the tide erase your footprints.

Doron enjoyed driving the truck. It was old, it was
slow, and it was much smaller than new pickups. He didn’t know the year, but it didn’t have seatbelts.

Jorge and Ashley were both on point at the top of the overpass, and waved at the bright red pickup. Zeke and Doron circled the truck.

Zeke suddenly stopped and motioned to David. There were two more dead greens just past the semis, each with a single head shot.

Doron stopped and checked out the battleground. He realized Karen had hit them with a head shot, in the dark, with no scope,
when she was taking fire
. Karen had killed four greens, running at night, before she was shot twice. Doron now knew that they would have been overrun by the first wave of greens, except for Karen.

“David these are all head shots by Karen in a firefight,” Doron said.

“That’s very hard to do when taking return fire,” Zeke said.

“It’s hard to do at a shooting range, with no one shooting back,” David said.

Doron walked around the debris, crouched from Karen’s firing position, then pointed to David and Zeke.

“Karen would not have been shot in the leg if she was firing from behind debris. She had
attacked
the greens, alone, in the dark, to cut them off from reaching us,” Doron said.

When they returned to camp, Karen was still asleep. Now she had a raging fever. The shoulder seemed ok, but the leg was turning red.

“She got up for a few minutes, mixed some salt and white sugar into about half a gallon of water and drank every drop. Then she took several of acetaminophen tablets , and ibuprofen. She told me she thought you could take both at the same time from the bird flu medical manuals. She said her leg hurt bad, then went back to sleep,” Liu reported.

“We are going to have to check her leg,” said Doron. “It could be infected.”

“What do we do if it’s infected?” asked David.

“Don’t know,” said Doron. Haven’t read that chapter yet. I am only qualified as a medic for injuries in the first three chapters,” he deadpanned.

No one said anything, the joke withered. David looked devastated, and turned away. Zeke patted his back.

It was quiet as they prepared to move out. Zeke motioned for Doron to help him carefully carry Karen into the truck bed on top of one wool blanket folded over. Ashley leaned against the cab, sitting on top of a backpack in the truck bed next to Karen. Doron drove.

Zeke, David and Liu fanned out in front of the truck on the motorcycles.

_______

Zeke noticed some of his hair was falling out. He was nauseous most mornings, and just before meals. Sometimes he didn’t feel like eating, but he tried to hide that, especially from David. But he no longer had headaches.

He now wore a hat all the time. He didn’t want to talk about his hair or the radiation. Ashley had asked about his eyebrows, but he had told her they were singed around the campfire.

They were all losing weight, and when you could be shot at any time by a green, people tended to focus on their own problems.

Nothing could be done about his radiation exposure, and he did feel stronger each day. His hair seemed to grow back, or maybe just quit falling out. He just hoped for the best.

36.

David heard Karen’s raspy voice, and watched Liu hurry to her tent. She helped Karen walk to the fire.

Jorge handed Karen a half filled cup of some of the rice with chicken liquid broth, as she leaned back against the overpass.

David was shaken at Karen’s appearance. She looked far worse, much more fragile, than he had remembered even this morning. Her skin was deathly pale, she was gaunt. Already thin, she could not afford the weight she had lost. Her pulse was rapid, and she strained to breathe. She was running a constant high fever, and shook even with the wool blanket covering her shoulders.

Doron had told him she had a bad infection in the lower thigh. The shoulder seemed fine, but the thigh wound was putrid, and had stained a greenish yellow pus seeping through all the bandages. They didn’t have any medicine. Even if they did they wouldn’t know what to do.

No one said anything as Liu patiently waited for each spoonful to cool before feeding it to Karen. Everyone just stared into the fire.

“This is good,” Karen said hoarsely, holding the soup. Her hands trembled, spilling the broth down her chin and over her blanket.

Liu grabbed the cup, and gently wiped off her face. She then spooned some into Karen’s mouth.

David wiped his eyes, his voice cracking “I have got to check the perimeter,” he said, hurriedly leaving.

David knew Karen was dying.

Each day Karen deteriorated a little more. David thought Karen knew she was dying,
everyone
knew she was dying, but no one said anything.

David was angry, burning with rage against an enemy
he couldn’t fight. He was not sleeping. He was tossing and turning every night before guard duty.

Several times each night David would look for some excuse to walk by her tent to be sure he could still hear Karen breathing.

37.

Today they found Liu’s family. After three days of searching, it was confirmed. David and Zeke quickly removed the debris from the sidewalk, stacking it on either side. Doron thought this was all silly, but he helped Ashley sweep the sidewalk clean.

Doron watched Liu spray painted her parents’ names on the sidewalk, with a Christian Cross. She maintained her composure until she started to write Kim-ly, her little sister’s name.

“When I would leave the house to jog, Kim-ly would hide, then chase after me on her tricycle,” Liu explained.

Liu wiped away her tears, and spray painted a final goodbye. She recorded that she had survived, in case her parents were still alive. But their cars were all here, smashed under the rubble, and she knew.

Each day they would go to one of their former homes and assure themselves that the charred debris is what used to be their home. They called the short ceremonies, “sidewalks”. For some reason, no one ever seemed to believe
their
family was dead until they checked the rubble.

Doron was stoic when they found the remains of his home, and confirmed all his parent’s smashed up cars were there. David and Zeke were clearing off the sidewalk, when Doron motioned for them to stop.

“No need for a sidewalk. They were here, now they are gone. I don’t believe in God, or life after death. Neither did my parents, so that’s it. We can just skip it,” Doron said.

Zeke shrugged, and stopped.

Karen was in the back of the truck, leaning against the cab. She tried to yell, but took a can of soup and banged it against the side of the truck to get David’s attention.

David ran over. Zeke and Doron turned to listen.

“You spray paint his parents’ names on the sidewalk if
Doron doesn’t. Tell him it’s for
our
sake,” Karen said. Doron strained to hear her raspy voice.

“He may not care about this now, but he will later,” she finished. David nodded and walked back.

“Doron, do you mind if we just do a sidewalk? It just makes everyone feel better,” David asked.

“Why?” Doron asked, truly perplexed. He had heard every raspy word from Karen. “You never met my parents.”

“Just, because,” said David softly. “It won’t take long,” he promised.

Doron shrugged, and David and Zeke quickly cleared the sidewalk. Ashley and Liu swept it off.

“How do I spell your parent’s names?” David asked.

Doron just motioned for the spray can, and sprayed his Mom and Dad’s name. Then he grabbed the blue spray can and painted a triangle, then another inverted triangle over it, making a Star of David. Doron sprayed something in Hebrew.

Doron stared at the sidewalk.

“You know, the only time we ever went to Synagogue was when my Grandfather visited us.”

“My Grandfather didn’t have a lot of money, but on one visit from New York, he prepaid all the money for me to go to Hebrew school here. My Dad never forgot it. Grandfather told him on the way to the airport. He said they could either take me to school, or let me sit at home, it was nonrefundable. He said he had nothing in life he wanted to spend money on more than for me to go to Hebrew school.”

“My parents took me every single day. I still remember,” Doron finished. “Mom helped me with flash cards.”

David asked if Doron wanted them to do anything else. Doron just turned, grabbed David’s arm, and softly said “Thank you.”

It
was
good to have a sidewalk, Doron thought.

He didn’t know why.

Diary of Liu Nguyen

My family’s sidewalk was today
.

My head knew they were dead, but my heart had to know
.

I am glad we had a sidewalk for my family
.

Even Doron felt better after his parent’s sidewalk. He wrote something in Hebrew, I wondered what it meant but none of us asked
.

Karen is dying. Every day she gets worse. I see it
.

No one talks about her condition. She is my best friend
.

The sidewalks were her idea. The idea was brilliant, they bring peace
.

Ironic, because the next sidewalk may be for her
.

38.

Doron saw David turn his motorcycle headlights on and off twice, the signal to stop. Doron did a bootlegger U-turn at the last minute upwind, so the truck stopped where the trailing fallout dust would not hit them.

Everyone gathered around the back of the pickup truck. Karen was sitting in the truck bed against the back of the cab, covered with wool army blankets. Zeke climbed up on top of the cab with an M16 slung over his shoulder, as David handed him the binoculars. Zeke began to scan the perimeter, half circle front, while Jorge did the same on the tailgate for the rear.

“Karen is in bad shape,” David said.

Well, so much for beating around the bush, Doron thought. But this was overdue, Doron realized. David’s eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed shaky, on edge. His hands were trembling and his speech was slurred. Karen seemed lethargic, certainly not alarmed.

“Doron and Ashley have read all the books we found from the medical library about treating infection,” David said.

Doron hesitated.

“Spill it out, Karen has a right to know,” David snapped.

“Karen’s symptoms are getting worse. The infection is spreading,” Doron said, looking away from Karen.

“Is Karen going to
die
if we do not stop the infection?” David asked sharply.

Everyone was stunned. This was the question they had all considered for days, but no one asked. Everyone suddenly tried
not
to look at Karen. Doron noticed everyone that is,
except David
, who stared right at her.

“Yes,” Karen said, as forcefully as she could. Liu looked at the dirt, spilling her water cup as her hand trembled. Doron just looked away, Zeke cried, wiped his eyes and
focused on his binoculars. Ashley looked dazed, uncomprehending. Jorge stared at David, then got back on duty.

“Karen is not the first person to ever get infected from a gunshot to the thigh,” David said.

“And Karen is not the first person to get an infection from a gunshot wound, when no one had modern drugs,” he continued.