Dust (28 page)

Burke snickered. “You probably drove the man insane with those hourly, boring fuckin’ radio announcements. He was glad to get rid of you.”

Craig gave Burke a look of being so offended.

Tanner lifted his hand slightly, “Can I ask? What’s a Jo-Pack?”

Craig answered, “Jo made this list of items we should have in our car in case we aren’t home when it happens. Survival stuff.”

“I had mine.” Nicky added. “Well, the little Jo-pack she gave me for Christmas.”

Tanner chuckled. “Jo, you gave survivor packs out for Christmas.”

I shrugged. “I thought they were neat.”

Nicky continued, ‘they were a gift of life … literally. Some water, some food, aspirins. I kept mine in my desk drawer. I was typing a letter to the Governor when Sandy, my supervisor, came flying out of her office. We were the only two in that day. She was yelling, ‘put the radio on!’. I did. Sandy was crying, but for the oddest reason, I was calm. Really calm. I knew we had to get below. Our office was in a house, so there was a basement. I remember gathering things—crackers, water, chips—and just throwing them down the stairs. All the while, I was arguing with Sandy to help me. Finally, I knew we had to get down there so I grabbed her, pulled her with me. We had just made it. The bombs hit. I flew to the corner where the workbench was, but Sandy she just ... she just ran. Ran straight for the steps. I screamed her name, but she went above. It was like ‘The Wizard of Oz’, the entire house just lifted off. I can still see …” Nicky closed her eyes. “Everything flew over my head. Cars. People. Houses. Trees. I thought I was a goner and was waiting for the force of it to suck me right up. It didn’t.”

“How did you survive?” Tanner asked. “What did you do?”

Nicky smiled at me before answering. “I remember what Jo said about a safety time frame before the fallout and radiation would hit. So as fast as I could, I put all kinds stuff on and around that workbench, made it like an igloo. I grabbed the food, and water, and just crawled inside and prayed.”

“For how long?” Tanner questioned further. “How long until you came out?”

Nicky shook her head. “I don’t know. I lost track of time.”

Craig answered, “Twelve days. Twelve days exactly.”

Tanner whistled. “Wow. That’s pretty impressive.”

Matty huffed out slightly in irritation. “Great. Just great. Now my story will suck.”

Laughing I hugged Matty. “No, it won’t. Tell it.”

“No.” Matty shook her head. “Then you guys will tell me it’s good, just to be nice. I knew I should have told mine after Dan. I’ll wait until after Rod’s, his might be boring.”

Rod sounded like Joan Crawford when he gasped out an airy ‘well’. In all honesty, I knew he wasn’t offended at my daughter’s comment. It was just his way to compete with Dan for drama queen.

We paused before continuing, it was time to cut the cake. No ‘Happy Birthday’ was sung to Molly, which was fine because I knew the female persuasion of our shelter occupants weren’t too thrilled about having a blowup doll as a toy for a child. We passed out the ‘real’ forks with the cake, while Rod told his story.

“We were lucky. If that’s what you want to call it.” Rod said. “Unlike most of America, we got our warning before they announced it on the news,” he turned to Tanner in an explanatory mode. “I used to monitor alarms for a home and business security company.” He shrugged. “Something happened to the signal. I was there, staring at the screen when Barry Cole came racing in the back room, yelling, ‘Everyone, we have to go. We have to get out. We just got reports that we are under nuclear attack—or something like that. How he explained it is a blur, but I remember him saying over and over, ‘we have to go.’” Rod chuckled. “Go where? Where in the world were we gonna go? The building was small and constructed into a hillside. My back room had no windows and was a concrete room. No one would listen to me. They fled. Me, I turned on the radio and ran my ass around that building, grabbing what food I could and liquid. I figured how far away could I get before the bombs came?
 
Probably could have made it to Jo’s. But always remembered her saying, take cover first. I did. I scooted all my stuff under the back counter, blocked myself in with the lounge sofa and prayed. I thought I was going to be stuck under that counter … like Nicky was. But fortunately, mostly of the building stayed intact. Burke and Craig had to slightly unearth me, but I was fine. Mostly likely because I was stoned … but fine.” Rod glanced at Matty. “Is that boring enough for you, Princess?”

“Yes,” Matty answered. “But my story will sound boring after his …” She pointed to Tanner. “He was on a sub.”

I quickly turned to Tanner. “You were on a sub? How would Matty know?”

Tanner smiled gently at my daughter. “We talk.” He winked. “And yeah, I was on a sub. Actually I had just left the Faulkner Islands ten hours before it all started. So, rest assured, the United States government didn’t hide it, we didn’t know it was coming until the bombs were in the air. Things could have been worse that first day. We couldn’t stop the bombs already planted on our soil, but we managed to intercept about thirty percent of the SLBM and ICBM’s that sailed in. You guys probably didn’t even think of this, but Europe got nailed pretty bad. Probably because a lot of useful Mid Eastern nuclear weapons couldn’t make it to American soil, so they landed where they could. I’ll tell ya’ …” He sighed out a heavy breath. “I never felt so helpless in all my life. Trapped. Useless.” His fork trailed across his cake. “I just listened with a knot in my stomach as they rattled off the first cities hit. I swear those first twelve cities are embedded in my mind.” Almost as if he weren’t even thinking, like a child reciting his times tables, Tanner rattled off, “Houston, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Miami, Tulsa …” He stopped. After a quick glance at me, he swallowed and shook his head. “It’s … it’s not important. We were given directives, we followed, and then we were ordered home. To what was left of home.”

“Wait.” Burke interrupted. “You’re a marine. Were there other marines on board?”

Tanner nodded.

“Then it was a security force.” Burke said. “You had nukes. Did you guys fire them?”

Reluctantly, Tanner answered, “Yes. Once the antagonists were discovered, we were ordered to turn our sub, take position and … fire. We released our entire bay. Thirty-two warheads. But that was mild compared to what France and Russia unleashed. Retaliation was major. Unfortunately, we were not wise to China’s involvement until it was too late.”

Davy spoke up in question, “Is there anything left? Any world left?”

“Oh, yeah.” Tanner nodded. “Davy, life prevails. It finds a way. We’re here, right? What’s that tell you?”

“But what about the rest of the world. Do you know?” Davy asked.

“I can take a pretty good educated guess from my military standpoint,” Tanner replied. “I believe the other countries are rising above the ashes too. Well . . .OK. Maybe not all. In the future there will be a history textbook that reads: There once was a place called the Mid East.”

A ‘low feel’ and hush took over the room. The crackling fire added an eerie effect as if we were all sitting around a campfire telling ghost tales.

“Sorry.” Tanner apologized then exhaled. ”Now, I would love to hear Matty’s story. Please.”

“Oh, me too.” Rod said perky. “Trust me, me too. Tell it, Matty.”

“It’s dumb.” Matty shook her head.

“Well it can’t be dumber than the sub story, now can it?” Rod raised an eyebrow. “Tell it.”

“Fine.” Matty seemed nervous. Her fingers played with the cake crumbs as she spoke, lifting then mashing the crumbs together. “Math class,” she said. “I was on my fourth problem. Then the fire alarm went off. I thought it was cool, because I didn’t want to do math. Just as Ms. Busey was getting us lined up, Mr. Shep spoke over the speaker and said not to take us outside, but straight to the basement. OK, I’m not dumb. I hear my mom. So when he said basement I knew it was one of two things. Bombs or a tornado. Either way, we could be stuck down there and I knew it. So when we were all heading to the basement, I snuck from line to go to my locker. My survival pack was there. I thought for sure no one would notice.” Matty fluttered her lips. “Boy was I wrong. Mr. Shep saw me. All those kids and he saw me. He yelled and started chasing me.”

I couldn’t believe it. Matty was speaking about that day. How I had tried to get her to open up, but she wouldn’t. She stopped speaking, but I wanted to hear more. “What did you do?” I asked.

“Ran,” she answered. “I ran and screamed. I was almost at my locker when he got me. He said I had to go to the basement, but I told him I had to get something from my locker. He picked me up and started to carry me. Well … I fought. I kicked, screamed, wiggled. He kept saying, ‘Matty Collins, stop this.’ Finally, I bit him.”

A cough of surprise came from me without control. “You … bit Mr. Shep?” I questioned.

“Yep.” She nodded. “He dropped me, I ran, got to my locker and got my stuff. He chased me again, but it was too late. I had my pack. But that wasn’t all. Almost all the kids were downstairs and as we were going to the basement, guess what? Ms. Busey came running out. Mr. Shep said for her to stop. She was crying, ‘I got to get out. I got to get out.’ He told her one time to come back, then just said, ‘fuck her’ and took me downstairs.”

The second cough of shock came from me when my daughter swore as if she had been doing it her entire life. “Anything else?”

“No.” She shrugged. “That’s it. We got bombed.”

For some reason, I suspected my daughter had seen some sort of vile tragedy that spewed her into a silent shocked world after the bombs. That perhaps a vast array of death and destruction played before her youthful eyes. Something caused her to stop speaking, in my mind; it couldn’t just be the bombs. But it was. The bombs didn’t destroy her country; they destroyed her spirit as well. However, I started to see an inkling of that spirit creeping back and that made me happy. I pulled Matty closer to me, kissed her and whispered that I was proud and I liked her story best. Matty immediately turned her body into me to snuggle.

“More please.” Simon lifted his plate. “Good cake, Burke.” He smiled. “More?”

“Simon …” Burke seemed at a loss. “There is no more. I’m sorry buddy.”

“Wait.” Tanner called out. “Here, Simon. You want mine? I didn’t eat it.”

“Yes.” Simon, in a rush and holding Molly by the hair, leaped over Davy’s legs. He fumbled his doll, but managed to grab that plate. “Thanks, Tanner Niles.”

“You’re welcome Simon Reed.”

Someone huffed. Barely heard, laced with disgust, but they huffed. I had my guess on who had done so. At first I believed I was the only one who caught it, until I saw that Tanner, lifted his eyes, at the same time as me and to the same person.

Tammy.

To me it was an obvious attempt by Tanner to draw attention to her.

“Tammy,” he said anomalously cheerful. “How about you? Where were you?”

Tammy responded with a shake of her head while she balanced her plate on her knees, and poked her fork around her uneaten cake.

 
“Come on, Tammy, share.” I beckoned in the same happy way.

“Why?” Tammy asked with an edge. “Didn’t your ego get boosted enough, Jo? I think we all heard enough stories about how you gave the survival tips and packs that helped everyone survive.”

“Where is this coming from?” I questioned with sincerity. “What are you …”

“Please.” Tammy scoffed. “Spare us.”

“Am I missing something?” I asked. “I know you’re sick …”

“You don’t know.” She snapped.

“Fine.” I raised a surrendering hand. “Fine. But I wish you wouldn’t talk like that to me in front of my kids.”

Tammy chuckled.

I locked into a stare with her.