The Nuclear Catastrophe (a fiction novel of survival) Read online

  A last glance around, and he moved past the conference room into the business office. Hesitating for a mere second to scan the office, he stooped to the huge gray safe. It was a new security device, recently installed, and with a flick of the lever the safe was open. Brushing aside the coins, he removed the bills and stuffed them into a money bag. Dropping the bag into his pocket, he turned and walked out the door.

  In the rear-view mirror of his car, the squat, sprawling plant seemed a deserted, forsaken structure. He wondered when people would again darken its portals

  Sixteen years Cecil had given to Calmar Chemical and in those years he’d worked himself from a laboratory chemist doing dilutions to a minor executive position. And today it was over. His decision had been hastily formed but Cecil knew that once his mind was made up he wouldn’t change it. On some future day this plant would be operating again, but it wouldn’t be for quite some time, and it would never include Cecil Yeager’s services. He wasn’t unhappy to be leaving Calmar, wishing only that it had been for a different reason. With his course of action now firmly fixed in his mind, Cecil made the journey from Calmar to his townhouse. Traffic was a nightmare. Everyone seemed to be in their cars.

  Damn, he wished he hadn’t bought the place. As soon as he quit making payments it would be repossessed. He cast the thought aside as he rushed into the bedroom. There was only one thing he’d take, but the reflection in the mirror stopped him in his tracks. He’d never been a man to smile easily and catching a view of himself, the heavy, bushy eyebrows knitted in concentration, the thin lips a gash in his lower face, he halted momentarily. He stared at the somber, serious reflection of himself. For an instant he tried relaxing the muscles that had pulled the crows feet into deep trenches. But it didn’t work. They had been there forever, the lines. They were permanent fixtures to the side of each of his eyes, firmly ingrained in the flesh of his face. He grabbed some clothes and his cash that he had stashed and rushed out the door, back to his car.

  An hour and twenty minutes had elapsed since the explosion at White Water. How quickly had the news spread? As he accelerated onto the freeway ramp traffic was congested moving south away from Whitewater and only dribbles of northbound vehicles were on the freeway. The morning had turned hot and stuffy and it was uncomfortably warm in the car but Cecil elected the heat in favor of drawing in more air from the outside.

  Nature was inflicting a cruel joke on Californians this morning. The temperature inversion was becoming a crucial barrier to dispersion of the fallout. Under ordinary weather conditions, offshore winds would be whipping the heavily-laden air higher in the sky and carrying it eastward, over the less populated desert regions. Or, under more unusual conditions, a good strong Santa Ana wind coming in from the deserts would blow the foul air over the Pacific. But neither of these wind systems was present this morning. There were only the meager puffs that occasionally circulated under the heavier layer of air. If this inversion persisted for more than a day or so, Cecil knew, there could be thousands of casualties from radiation exposure.

  Cecil had always had a fear of flying. Even during the war he’d had to steel himself against this unreasonable fear and literally force himself onto the planes. And Dramamine and mild sedatives did nothing to quell the churning in his stomach and the tightness in his chest. Still, this was the moment to throw caution to the wind....wind? He grimaced at having formed the word in his mind. He needed to get away from here—out of the radiation—as soon as possible. Ahead lay the landing strip, looking dull in the gray haze.

  The money sack formed a bulge in his jacket pocket and he reached down and patted it, secure with the thought that for enough money one could buy anything. He drove up to the one person in sight.

  “Yes sir?” the man in dirty coveralls asked. “What can I do for you?”

  “A plane,” Cecil replied. “I want to charter a plane.”

  “When do you...?” began the attendant.

  “Right now. I want one right now,” said Cecil in a rush of words as he alighted from the car.

  “Well, now, I don’t know. My other pilot is out and I can’t leave the place,” answered the man. “There’s no way....”

  Cecil snorted testily, “You run a charter service, don’t you? Can you fly?”

  “Well sure, but mister, we’re a shoestring outfit.’’

  “I’ll pay you—pay you well. All I want is to get away from here.” In his eagerness Cecil was pressing the man. He wondered if his approach was becoming suspicious to the other.

  The appearance of another man interrupted the conversation. He gestured to the pilot to come over. It was minutes before the pilot returned to Cecil. Wiping his hands on a greasy cloth, he seemed to appraise the chemist closely.

  In his anxiety to be gone, Cecil exhibited a nervous fidget as he shifted from one foot to the other and glanced, once, back over his shoulder. Physically, he was not unprepossessing with his coarse brown hair and stocky build. An intense man, Cecil’s alert dark eyes stared at the pilot as he awaited the man’s decision.

  “Sorry, I can’t do anything for you,” said the pilot.

  “Wait,” protested Cecil. “I said I’d pay you—more money than you’d earn in a dozen flights.” He glanced out toward the runway at the shiny small plane.

  “You from near Los Angeles?” asked the man suspiciously. “I just got told about what happened.” He looked up at the sky as though expecting visible evidences of the disaster.

  Reluctant to admit to his reason for haste, but knowing that the pilot now understood, Cecil admitted, “Yes. I was pretty near when White Water had the explosion. The freeways are going to be jammed soon with people trying to escape. I want to beat the rush.”

  The pilot nodded and switched his gaze to the horizon. “It’s going to be bad, they say.” Returning to Cecil, he remarked, “Look bud, out there is a twin engine Comanche, fueled up and ready to go. But when it leaves this strip it’s going to have me and my family aboard.”

  “You’ll have room for an extra passenger?” asked Cecil hopefully.

  Shaking his head, the pilot began moving away. “Man, I won’t even be able to get all my family in that cabin. You’re out of luck.”

  Cecil stepped in closer and grabbed the pilot’s shoulder. “Listen, you won’t make this much money again on a single flight. I’ll triple what you think a trip to Mexico is worth.”

  Without looking at him, the man answered, “Sorry....you don’t have that much money.” Noticing the chemist’s car, he said, “Drive out. That’s what everybody else will have to do.”

  It became apparent, as the man started rapidly walking away, that his answer was final. As he got into the car, Cecil thought of the gun that he had. He could force the man to fly him out. With the muzzle of that pistol in his ribs, the pilot would have to do it. But what if the guy got obstinate? There’s no telling what he’d do at five thousand feet. “Hey!”

  The pilot hesitated and turned back. “Yeah?”

  Cecil had his arm through the window of the car, his fingers gripped around the handle of the gun as it rested on the seat.

  The pilot was waiting, but Cecil couldn’t bring himself to raise the weapon into sight. Realizing the uselessness of further arguing, he let the gun drop and the pilot continued on to his truck. In a few seconds the vehicle was kicking gravel against the bed as it raced past Cecil and out toward the highway.

  Sitting dejectedly in the car, Cecil began mentally, researching other avenues of escape open to him. Every additional minute of exposure to the radiation would do excessive damage to his tissues, and yet, the quickest escape route was now obviously closed to him, he knew. By-passing the freeway and driving the county roads would take him forever to get away from the area, and deciding that he knew what to expect by going due east, he elected to go in another direction. The trip was approximately a hundred and forty miles by freeway, but that route was out. The freeway would be packed. He’d have to travel backroads even if it would p
robably double the distance. With decisiveness, he headed the car south.

  Chapter Four

  San Mirado’s main street was coming to life. Local coffee shops had unlatched their doors for the early morning trade. The post office and department of motor vehicles had opened at eight, but excluding these and several service stations, no other shops were prepared for daily business as yet; a typical pace of the downtown of a suburban, bedroom community.

  Downtown was no more active than the surrounding subdivision. However, there suburban housewives had seen their husbands off to work and their children on their way to school. With the day stretching before her, Paula Waring had called across the fence and invited Flo Winton over for coffee. It was a not unusual practice that the two shared—spending some time in the morning over a breakfast roll while they traded gossip. For Paula the kaffeklatsch frequently was the highlight of her day.

  They were sitting across the dinette table sipping the hot brew when the quaking began. Coffee sloshed out of the cups as the two women stared at each other, both firmly gripping the edge of the table top. The shaking movements ended within seconds. In San Mirado it had been felt as a relatively mild tremor.

  “Whew,” Flo laughed nervously. “For a moment there I thought this was going to be the big one.”

  Paula was more annoyed than concerned over the tremor. Getting to her feet she straightened a picture that had been knocked askew and then tore off paper towels to swab up the spilled coffee.

  “Damn. Wouldn’t you know it.” Paula stopped her mopping motions and pointed. “Look at the end of the coffee-cake.” There was a large soggy spot in the pastry. Coffee had spilled onto the plate and soaked in. “And I just bought that yesterday! Frank thinks I made it,” she added as an afterthought.

  Flo nodded knowingly as she cut off the wet end and found a clean plate for the rest of the pastry. Once everything seemed in place again Paula poured them a fresh batch of coffee and they took their seats. Except for a tinge of nerves, nothing had altered the outlook for the morning. Paula sliced the crusty pastry and was shoving it toward Flo as the second vibration hit the house, cracking a large window in the dinette.

  “Now what the heck was that?” snapped Paula. It was not that either woman was frightened by this most recent event. Rather, Paula was irritated that damage was done. She jumped from her chair and went to inspect the shattered window behind her.

  “Those fighter jets from the air station, I’ll bet,” Flo replied. “I knew that one of these times those booms would break some windows. Mine always rattle and shake when those things are up there on training flights.” Flo sounded confident of the cause of the breakage.

  Paula was inclined to agree, but the cost of replacing the windows was foremost in her mind. “I think the military ought to have to pay for this.”

  “Well, I don’t know... “replied her bosom friend.

  “Oh, come on, Flo! If their planes cause a sonic boom that breaks my windows, it’s their fault. And they should have to replace what is damaged!”

  “You’ve got insurance, haven’t you? Just collect on that.”

  Paula considered the suggestion briefly. “I’m not sure something like this is covered. Frankly, I don’t think it is, Flo. But even if it were, my rates would go sky-high if I tried collecting on every little thing that happens.”

  Paula stood, pondering the cracked glass as Flo got up and moved to her side. Reaching down, Paula removed a sliver of the broken window from the sill, just as a loud, extremely piercing siren began somewhere in the small town.

  “What in the world?” she demanded, dropping the fragment and clasping both hands over her ears. She looked at Flo in bewilderment. In her four years in San Mirado she’d never heard anything like it. The shrill noises continued without let-up.

  Flo finally grabbed up the telephone. “I’m calling the police to see what’s going on.”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of a drill,” ventured Paula.

  “For what? We’ve never had drills for anything before.” She dialed several times before giving up. “Damnit, it's dead. Where's my cell phone?”

  Both moved rapidly to the front of the house. The street running past the house now had a handful of neighbors standing in it, confusion on their faces as they attempted to talk above the piercing sound. At last the noise ended and Paula and Flo stepped outside to join them.

  “Does anyone know what’s going on around here?” asked Flo. She had gotten no signal on her cell phone. The internet connection seemed to be down, too.

  The best information seemed to have something to do with a dusty looking cloud that had speedily formed in the northwest.

  Someone suggested, “There’s not much up that way—that electric power plant, maybe.”

  Speculations on the cause of the strange, glass-shattering noise and the dirty cloud passed freely among the women. Receiving no answers to their question, they finally began to disband and drift back indoors.

  Paula and Flo, however, were still leaning against a parked car, engaged in talking, when a van turned onto their street.

  The vehicle, equipped with a mobile communication system, was issuing instructions as to evacuation procedure. The message was more puzzling then informative; but then, the vehicle and its hastily delivered bulletin had been the small city’s initial effort at warning its citizens. The driver had been pushed into the cab with orders to drive up and down the streets of San Mirado while the public official at his side shouted out the news.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Paula.

  They strained their ears to understand before the unit had driven out of hearing range.

  “Something about evacuate southward on the freeway.”

  “Why? Why?” Paula asked as she stepped into the street to view the unit.

  “Shush—I’m trying to hear,” said Flo.

  Watching the rear end of the truck turning the corner, she remarked, “Something about White Water exploding.”

  “White Water? What’s that?” asked Paula.

  “The power plant up the coast.”

  “Oh. Oh well, then the current’s just going to be off,” said Paula with a note of relief in her voice.

  “I guess so,” Flo said, frowning.

  “Why evacuate, though? That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Paula remarked. “Do you suppose it’s a prank—you know, kids are always doing dumb things. Maybe it’s just someone trying to scare us.”

  “But the sirens, Paula—why were they being sounded?”

  Paula shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea. I’ve never heard anything except the periodic test sirens before. Do you think it's a test? But I can tell you one thing—I’m sure not going to leave my belongings here and take off down the road. Frank would be mad as hell when he gets home tonight if he finds me and the kids gone.”

  “Aren’t you going to go get them at school? I mean, just in case there’s something to this?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not until I know more about this, anyway.”

  “Well, I am,” Flo said. “It may be a hoax, but if it’s not, I want to have my boy with me.”

  San Mirado public schools consisted of kindergarten through twelfth grades. The students attended campuses at three different locations within the community. High school classes began a little earlier in the day than the intermediate grades. Kindergarten began on the latest hour—at nine o’clock, to allow ample time for mothers to drop their tykes off after husband and older children had gone their way.

  At Intermediate School the doors had been shut against the outside. Virtually every modern school plant built within the recent past had been structured for maximum utilization of the mild southern California weather. No long dark corridors extended the lengths of two-story brick prisons. Instead, the individual classrooms, identified by their varying colors of red, blue, green, or yellow doors opened directly onto the compound, and into open air.

  Miss Althea Carr’s seventh grade class stud
ents were in their seats. The tardy bell had rung promptly at 8:30 a.m. Like obedient children, they had saluted the flag in a sing-song voice, then politely waited for Miss Carr to call the roll. Attendance was very good. But then it was still early in the semester.

  Being a stern disciplinarian made the teacher one of the less popular ones on the campus. The children respected Miss Carr, and slightly feared her. Some openly admired her, but she definitely was not the campus favorite. She never dilly-dallied, but got right into the lessons and stayed with them until her daily objectives were reached. She was impossible to be led astray from the subject under discussion by slyly contrived questions or flattering remarks. For all her lack of popularity among her young charges, she nonetheless managed to propel most of her pupils far beyond their usual levels of achievement.

  Her concern at this particular moment was with a young man in the last seat in the back. He seemed to spend more energy kicking the chair of the girl in front than he did saying the pledge. Her continuing dread was this rebellious child who refused to say the pledge. He’d put his hand over his heart but wouldn’t make any sign of mouthing the words. His was a bad example for the others to see and she knew she’d have to handle this subtly, lest others get the same idea.

  The tremor rocked the room with a brief spasmodic quiver. San Mirado sat a respectable distance from the maze of fault zones, and the quake hardly moved the sandstone on which Intermediate rested. Actually the trembling had ceased before the principal had had the chance to ring the bell that signaled an earthquake.

  “Well, class, it seems that we won’t be having to duck and cover just now.” Miss Carr smiled pleasantly to the children as they sat down. “Kim, would you mind collecting the homework papers, please?”

  Moans and groans greeted this announcement. Althea smiled to herself while maintaining an outwardly stern expression. Other teachers sometimes forgot to gather the assignments, but not she. The ones who’d chosen to watch television the previous night instead of doing their work would be caught again.