by Gene Cowan
They had never seriously entertained the possibility of what had happened. Oh, of course there was the occasional conversation about the futility of trying to escape, the laughing and joking of humorous tales told about death and destruction… somehow they wished they could forget those times, and yet, the memories flooded back as if in accusation for their callousness.
Steve and Chris stood on the top of the mountain, wondering if indeed anyone was still alive in the world- parents, friends, brothers. The landscape appeared unchanged from just the weekend before when, in anticipation of the possibility of parties, they had begun the clean-up of the mountain retreat. They returned this weekend, destined never to leave again because of the inhumanity of man. There would not now be parties, no girls, no beer. The world had changed suddenly and immeasurably, and yet, they could not find evidence of change as they stared out across the panoramic view of the rolling hills of Virginia.
Mere miles away, deep within another mountain, sat, they assumed, the President of the United States. What he was thinking at this moment was anybody's guess, as they had heard nothing from any official of the government. Was there still a government? They returned to the driveway and once again turned on the car radio, tuned to a Conelrad frequency. There was nothing on the air. They still had no knowledge of what had been going on around the world.
They only knew what they had seen with their own eyes.
Saturday morning, 10am. Already sweating with the labor of clearing the underbrush, Chris and Steve sat for a moment in a clear spot on the driveway. Wondering out loud what the plans were for lunch, Steve suddenly cried out: The sun had suddenly become intensely unbearable… the sky to the east glowed a bright yellow-orange, and dulled to a firey orange-red. Unthinking, Chris ran down the driveway, frightened yet intensely curious. Steve called after him, and raced to stop him before he reached the road. He grabbed Chris's arm and spun him around, and he suddenly realized what had happened. He glared at him, unbelieving, as if he was responsible. They stood in silence, unable to form words of either surprise or bewilderment.
Chris was knocked to the ground by a shock wave of such force that the rotting steps of the cabin broke in half.
The sound of a low-flying jet woke Chris from a fitful, dreamless sleep. He couldn't gauge how long he had been asleep, or even when he had dozed off. All he could remember was the color of the sky, the silence that followed for hours, sitting and staring, silently, at each other and at the wispy, dirty clouds that hung in the air over the mountains to the east.
He got up off the couch and looked around. Steve had obviously made it to the bunk beds in the back room before exhaustion claimed him. He wanted desperately to wake him, but instead fell back onto the couch. For the first time, he was frightened. Was the worst over? What exactly was going on? And he thought about radiation. Why hadn't he thought of that before? It had been over twelve hours since the event and they could have been showered with fallout by now… he burrowed deeper into the cushions and began to cry, too scared to think of who might see this unmanly display.
“ ‘Sup?” said Steve, wandering sleepily into the living room. “You're letting the fire go out.” He crossed to the Franklin stove and moved the logs, stirring up the embers to a bright red then blowing on them. He played with the fire a few moments, Chris was sure that he was giving him time to compose himself to respond.
“Sorry… I was a little preoccupied,” he said, wiping his eyes on his dirty sweatshirt.
“Have you heard anything on the radio?” Steve turned and headed for the door.
“No!” Chris blocked his way. “Don't go out there!”
“What's your problem? Are you alright?” Steve hesitated, his hand on the knob.
“I don't know. Are you? Are either of us? I just-” Chris sat down on the arm of the couch. He couldn't think of what to say. He couldn't even visualize what it was that he wanted to communicate. He fell off the arm of the couch and slumped into the seat.
“How do we know there's no radiation out there? What about fallout?” Chris asked.
“First of all, if we're in a radiation zone, this cabin is not going to protect us. It's just a rotting box made of plywood. As for fallout, I don't think the wind is blowing in our direction.” Steve walked to the window. “Look. The leaves are blowing in the direction of Washington, roughly due east from here. That means that the fallout is probably being blown towards Maryland and the ocean.”
“Both of whom won't even notice,” Chris remarked, trying to break the tension. It didn't work.
“You can stay here. I'm just going to go to the car, it's only a couple feet away.”
“Well, close the door when you get in it.” Chris said.
“Chris, you have a convertible. I doubt that it will help to close the door.”
Steve gave him that mischievous grin that always reassured him. Why, he had no idea. Somehow, he made Chris feel that he knew what he was talking about. He also had a way of goading him into doing things that he knew he would regret.
“Alright, wait for me.” Chris gathered his wits and followed Steve to the car.
The sky was a deep Carolina blue and wisps of clouds drifted toward the east with calm rapidity; a day that would have been perfect yesterday but was an ironic reminder today. They climbed into the car and Chris turned on the radio.
“Nothing.”
“They only broadcast a minute or so every once in a while. Put on the Seek function,” Steve suggested. Chris pressed the knob and the radio began scanning the dial for any signal to lock onto. They couldn't tell how long it would be before it found something.
“Why in the hell are you always so calm and collected?” Chris was extremely irritated at Steve's composure, especially when he was upset at something. He never seemed to worry about anything as long as Chris had known him, or, if he did, he did a good job of hiding it from the world. “Doesn't anything ever bother you?”
“Yes. I just don't continually tell everyone I meet about everything that has ever bothered me.”
“But you don't tell anyone. You always act like your whole world is completely under control all the time.”
“It is.”
“Bullshit. You know it and I know it.”
“Listen, none of that matters now. Don't you understand what's happened? How I deal with things that bother me is not important anymore. How we both survive is. We've both got to face the fact that we may be among a handful of survivors. And until we are certain of that fact, we're the only survivors. Like it or not, it's you and me.”
The radio stopped scanning and locked into static. There was no broadcast of any kind on the air.
“Is there a can opener here?” called Steve from the kitchen.
“Look in that plastic thing that all the silverware is in,” Chris said, upstairs in the loft. He took another nail out of the box and hammered it into the plywood that made up the floor of the loft.
“I can't find it,” called Steve.
“Hang on,” muttered Chris, and he set the nails aside. He hung his legs over the side, feeling for the top bunk of the beds he had climbed up. His legs swung back and forth, and he couldn't seem to find the security of something solid underneath them… Chris slipped, falling to the floor, and the last thing he remembered was a throbbing in his head.
“Hey, wake up,” said Steve. “I made dinner, and you're going to eat it whether you like it or not.”
“Ugh.”
“What?” Steve doled out the Chef Boyardeé Ravioli which Chris was sure had been in the cabin since ages past.
“Ouch. My head hurts. What happened?”
“You've been out for about an hour. I'd be pretty embarrassed if I were you, you only fell about 7 feet.” He handed me a fork.
“Thanks a lot. Did you do this?” Chris pointed to the bandage around his head.
Steve nodded. “There's some first aid supplies in the bathroom cabinet. You've got a cut on your forehead. There's not enough Bactine to keep it from getting infected, so try to keep your head away from the dirt, OK? You've probably got a concussion, and that may be why you were out so long. Either that, or you're really tired out.”
“Thanks. Gee, I feel like I owe you my life.”
“Please, it was only a little cut.” Steve took his plate outside and sat on the top step. Chris felt like he should say something, to let him know how much he appreciated Steve's help. He couldn't. Chris hoped that he knew. He went outside.
“Have you noticed something?”
“What?”
“The electricity is still on. I hear the refrigerator kicking in.”
“Yea, I noticed that too. The lights are working, but we've already got one burned out bulb, and there's no telling how long the power will stay on. I don't want to be grim, but it all depends on whether or not someone is still around to run the generator plants.”
“Another thought…” Chris said. “If they are around, I don't think they're going to be worrying about keeping the plants running.”
“Good point,” replied Steve. “But, meanwhile we've got a short respite where we can collect enough wood for the fire and fix up the cabin to be more livable. And there's the baseboard heaters, too. We should go in right now and turn those on to warm up the place, it'll be chilly tonight.”
Chris looked at Steve, and he looked at Chris.
“After we eat,” he said.
They spent the night exploring the cabin. It amazed Chris that there was such a bounty of supplies hidden away, stuff that, as a kid, Chris had left behind after visits during the summers past. There were canned goods, although the discovery of a can of Peach Hi-C was not particularly exciting. Steve found two kerosene lamps which Chris's father had always thought were lost, and they set them aside for the time they knew would come soon, when the electricity was lost. Chris's favorite discovery was the ancient kitchen matches that could be lit by striking on anything. He had a great time striking them on the zipper on his pants, fascinated.
“What are you doing?” demanded Steve, looking down on the kitchen from the loft, which Chris had yet to return to since his accident. “You're wasting those matches, we're going to need those!”
Chris sheepishly put the matches back on the shelf. Steve gave him a look that, were he not so embarrassed, would have prompted him to ask Steve to step outside. He turned and went on with his exploration of the cabin.
Chris woke up the next morning not remembering going to sleep. He fell out of the bottom bunk and stood up at the window, noticing that the world not only didn't look any worse for the wear, it actually looked a little better- the sky was more blue, the trees more green, the squirrels more energetic and apparently just as insane. It had been two days, and it still felt like a simple bivouac. There was no evidence of what had happened. Could Steve and I have been wrong? he thought. Maybe that flash was not what we suspected after all… He walked outside and sat on the landing.
The sun reached through the few wispy clouds and illuminated the trees, which swayed with the high breezes from the west. Unconsciously, he tried to gauge the direction and speed of the wind. It was still blowing any radiation away from them. Unless, he thought to myself, there is radiation coming from the west as well. He couldn't think of any places to the west of them that were close enough to be dangerous, there was only West Virginia and Ohio, he didn't think Illinois was close enough to cause any problems with fallout. Chris briefly wondered if his grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins in Illinois were still there, if they were alright. Those thoughts drifted even farther west, to California and his aunt there. Would San Francisco be a target? Was Annandale still there? What about Reston? Oakton? Springfield? The thoughts zipped past his mind's eye at a blindingly fast pace; he saw the faces of people he knew, loved, had crushes on, or even hated. He thought of the people who had always beat him up in high school, and in the same thought, of the people who had been his friends. He wondered if any of them were still alive, and if so, where?
Chris shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He got up and wandered into the woods, picking up wood for the fire. His head was swirling around, he felt almost as if he was drunk. He stopped a moment, trying to let the strange feeling dissapate, wondering if it was another migraine coming on.
He fell face forward into the leaves and undergrowth.
Steve awoke to the sound of a woodpecker, busily knocking his way through the outer wall of the cabin. He silently climbed up to the loft, and hammered on the wall, scaring the bird away. Feeling energetic, he jumped down from the loft to the living room floor, and looked around for Chris. Not finding him in the cabin, he strayed outside. His friend was nowhere to be found. “He probably decided to be useful and get some wood,” muttered Steve to nobody in particular. He went back upstairs and left a note, then set off up the hill in back of the cabin, picking up hefty pieces of wood as he went.