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

  He was growing weaker as he answered, “Luck.. it was luck. Or no, maybe a miracle....I was blown between two retaining walls. They protected me.”

  “But you’ve returned to me and that’s all that matters,” Sara said, reaching out to him, wanting to touch him.

  “Sara, for your own welfare, and the baby’s, you’ll have to leave here, get out of this. For me, it’s....there’s not much chance.”

  “I’m not leaving, Ben. I’m staying with you,” she said, almost crying. Should she rely on his judgment as she had in the past? Was tomorrow soon enough to get him to a hospital? His eyes closed, a signal that the talk was ended.

  Getting up quietly, Sara left the room and began to search for the first-aid supplies. She was able to collect only a pitifully small stock—several band aids, numerous cotton balls from her cosmetics table, and a nearly empty bottle of alcohol. There wasn’t enough even to afford minimal dressing of Ben’s wounds, nevertheless she returned to him and gently began bathing the raw cuts with the alcohol. He didn’t flinch, even as the astringent met the open flesh—a sure sign that he’d been overcome with utter fatigue, perhaps shock.

  To Sara, Ben seemed on the brink of death, stretched as he was along the length of the bed, his normally tanned skin angry and red. The terrible fear she’d had of losing him, and the idea that his presence now was only a brief reprieve, weighed like a stone on her. And it was only this very morning that she had complained about getting something meaningful from those meetings with her sorority. How dense of her. The meaning to her life was this man on the bed.

  Outside, night had fallen over the land. Inside, the flickering of the one small candle lent an eerie glow to the sickroom. Sara blew out its soft light and sat there in the darkness. Fighting away her tears, she whispered, “God may separate us, Ben, but I shall never.”

  She could hear the thrashing of his body. His restless, tormented sleep was a reflection of the horror and pain of the previous day. Unable to bear the whimpers that rose from her husband, Sara leaned over and tenderly laid her hand across his brow. It was feverishly hot.

  She awakened him as she placed a cool wet towel over his forehead. There was no ice, but the coolness of the moisture caressed him, sapping the heat from his body. Soon he was calmer. The towel quickly dried, and Sara was replenishing the moisture from the basin when she heard his retching begin.

  There was nothing in his stomach to mix with the juice he’d swallowed earlier, but the retching continued—long after the last bit of fluid came up. The convulsions racked his body, each spasm taking its toll in energy. He was growing more feeble. Between regurgitations Sara poured more water down his throat. She knew the vomiting had to be controlled. This must be the earliest symptom of the radiation poisoning; he’d need all his energy to combat the later symptoms that would arise. As time dragged slowly on, the vomiting subsided and Ben’s fever began to drop.

  His condition soon became critical in the other extreme. As the fever disappeared, Ben’s normal body temperature also began to drop, until shortly he was radiating more heat than his body could safely lose. He started to shiver. The rigors coursed along his trunk, his limbs; even his head began to quiver. His skin became cold and clammy.

  Sara hastily covered him with blankets, yet his shuddering became even more uncontrolled. She piled on more blankets but the violence of his shaking seemed to increase, again, as the blankets weighed on his lacerated flesh.

  Desperate, she whipped the thick layers away from his body and stretched herself alongside him, pressing close to warm him. Then she spread coverlets over the two of them. They stayed, entwined, until the first streaks of dawn crept into the room.

  During the long night, Sara had stayed awake, a living barometer recording the changes that were occurring within her husband. As he had grown warmer, she had moved away, allowing the coolness of the air to soothe him. When he’d become too cool, she had snuggled in closer, sharing the heat of her body with him. He had unaccountably lived through the night. Would he make it through another?

  At some point during this time Sara’s fears and apprehensions had become determination. For once she, Sara Harrington, had full responsibility for another person. She felt that responsibility acutely. Ben’s condition would guide her through these next days. His life—or his death—would in all probability depend on her actions.

  “Ben,” she whispered, “we’ve got to get you to the car.”

  He seemed to comprehend for he stirred in a movement of rising. There was no registration of the pain that accosted him— his defense system had blocked the sense receptors of his nerves. He was in shock.

  Supporting the greater portion of his weight, Sara moved him off the bed, out of the room, and toward the door. The gardener’s corpse, white in death, lay sprawled in the foyer, the side of its temple a mass of dried blood. She led them carefully around it.

  Ordinarily the drive to the nearest hospital took at least fifteen minutes. Today it was much less. There were no traffic lights to observe, no traffic, in fact. There were no pedestrians attempting the crosswalks. The thoroughfare was empty of human life. Sara was mystified at the absence of people. Had they all evacuated? Had she been in the proximity of the freeways, she’d have seen the evacuees’ vehicles inching forward at a snail’s pace, bumper to bumper as the occupants’ tempers grew shorter with the snarl of traffic. Everyone with a means of traveling and gasoline had already left.

  Sara steered the car into the emergency entrance of the hospital. There were no personnel in sight. No ambulances, no sign of life. The facility looked as dead as the corpse in her foyer.

  Quelling the thought that even the medical personnel had evacuated, Sara jumped from her car and ran to the double doors at the emergency entrance. Her shove against them was met with resistance; the doors were locked. Clenching her fists, she pounded on them, calling out in a loud voice. For a moment it seemed there really was no one inside, then abruptly a face appeared through the tiny window to stare at her.

  “What do you want?” inquired the mouth.

  “Help!” she yelled back. “My husband needs help. Open the door!”

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked the face.

  What difference did it make, Sara was thinking. “He was at White Water yesterday morning during the explosion. He is terribly sick and needs medical attention!”

  “I’m sorry, lady, but we’re locked up.”

  She screamed back, “Locked up? Are you insane? A hospital doesn’t just shut its door like a shoe store! Open this door!”

  “Look, lady, I said we’re closed,” said the voice coldly.

  “You can’t be! This is a hospital! You have to accept someone who’s injured.”

  “We can’t take your husband,” the man stated. “He’s contaminated with radioactive materials and we’re not admitting any radiation victims.”

  Sara glared wildly through the tiny window at him. “You’re crazy! My husband desperately needs medical aid! He has broken bones and oh, God, just unlock the door, won’t you?”

  On the other side of the pane the expression softened. “Lady, I’m really sorry, but you see, we don’t have a decontamination chamber here. If we admitted your husband he would pollute everyone who went near him, as well as the hospital facility. We just can’t allow that to happen. We have patients to care for in here.”

  “But what about him?” she pleaded. “He needs attention, too.”

  A visible shrug lifted the shoulders across from her.

  “Where can I go? Isn’t there some place that has been designated to care for such victims?” begged the distraught woman.

  “Not that I know of.”

  It was unbelievable, this lack of concern, this inability of a medical facility to accept Ben for treatment. “Do you mean that there is no hospital plan to handle this kind of emergency?”

  Seemingly disinterested in the discussion, the man answered, “No,” and walked off.

  The man ha
d left and would not return to her repeated pounding on the door. Angry and disheartened, Sara went back to the car. Ben lay folded uncomfortably on the rear seat, a series of moans issuing from him. His brow was hot to the touch. The fever, a ravage on his body, had returned, resulting in what to her seemed an unconscious delirium. Infuriated with the reception she had received, she started the motor and threw the car in gear.

  It was after much searching that Sara finally pulled into the emergency entrance of a second clinic, this one a private institution. Her efforts there produced the same results. The personnel shared an adamant refusal to admit new patients, all of whom would by now have suffered exposure to radiation. The excuse was identical to the earlier one—no decontamination chamber, and risk of contaminating personnel and patients.

  It appeared that if the policy of no admittance was uniform, Ben would likely be refused treatment at any medical center. Fraught with anger, her hands shaking almost beyond control, and on legs weak from hunger and fatigue, Sara slowly got back into the driver’s seat.

  Feeling nearly crushed by her burden, Sara’s eyes wandered absently over the dashboard. “Gas!” she exclaimed. “My God, not that too!” The tank was nearly empty of fuel; but where would she find gasoline today? Station after station had been closed as she had driven through the lonely streets. Businesses were obviously tightly shut against the panicky residents. She stared intently at the gauge. No more priceless fuel could be wasted in random driving. She had to find help for Ben soon; or, if she were to continue her frantic search for help—gas.

  With stronger determination, Sara started the vehicle forward. In the back of her mind was the location of another hospital, maybe the right one this time. Her thoughts were a flurry of clearly defined ideas, all focusing on plans—plans of how she could force treatment for Ben once she got to this next hospital. She’d lie, she decided. Instead of saying that Ben was hurt in the White Water explosion, she’d tell the attendants that he’d been in an automobile wreck. Then they’d admit him for treatment. Or would they? The radiation was really the problem, wasn’t it? All right, then she’d say that he was the brother of the governor. No hospital administrator would want to turn away a relative of the governor of this state. But, if that didn’t work....Well, then, she’d take a rock and smash through the windows.

  Lost in her thoughts, as she maneuvered the vehicle along the street, Sara suddenly recalled the name of the hospital—Beckman General. “Yes, that’s it, Beckman—it’s near the freeway. Please, please let the gasoline hold out.”

  Activity from far ahead caught her eye. A huge, familiar sign declared the site to be a service station—and one with people, she observed, peering into the distance. It must have had a back up generator to power the pumps. Her heart rate quickened. Was she to be so fortunate, she wondered, as she increased speed. Whipping the car into the filling lane, she braked it to a halt beside a pump. A beefy, hairy man stood at one of the pumps filling a container. In the service bay, nearly hidden from view, were two other men. Suddenly hopeful, she rolled down her window. Then horror overcame her. The service bay was now a violent, bloody example of the inhumanity of man.

  A heavy hammer slashed through the air and collided with the side of one man’s head, splattering the service bay with blood. Sara, catching only a glimpse of the activity, jerked her eyes away. She felt like retching.

  There was not time to be sick, however. The gas thief had his container filled and now focused his attention on Sara. He was near enough that his breath stank and it was his offensive odor that made her first aware of his pudgy hand reaching in to her. Instinctively, she jammed the accelerator to the floorboard. As the car lunged forward, the man’s grip on her shoulder was broken and she saw him grasp at the handle where he held onto the door for a second before being torn loose.

  In a flash her vision captured the continuing saga in the service bay. One man was on his knees with a fountain of blood squirting from the side of his neck; the other, towering over him, held the hammer. The blood had splattered on the pavement and mingled with the dark spots of grease. Nearby was the final sickness—a hose gushing gasoline from its nozzle. The liquid that was important enough to kill for was pouring into the gutter.

  As she sped off into the dismal morning, she was overwhelmed by a feeling of having barely escaped with her life—and Ben’s.

  Looking back to check on him, then at the gas gauge, she decided to take a chance—they’d have to be able to make it to Beckman Medical Center before the gasoline gave out. She headed in that direction.

  Beckman General—Sara’s final hope for Ben’s aid—was very close to the freeway and not more than ten miles from the power plant. The presence of other patients was evident at once as she drove in at the hospital. Although no one seemed to be entering or leaving the building, there were people outside, and that, to her, meant the facility was accepting patients.

  The tires dragged on the asphalt as Sara slammed on the brakes. Ben had not ridden comfortably during their hectic search, but maybe at last he would receive the treatment he deserved.

  “Over here!” screamed Sara, her eyes searching for someone in a white coat. “Will you please help me get him inside?” she yelled to those waiting.

  No one answered her plea. They sat as if nothing had been heard, as though she didn’t exist. She had never before been so completely ignored.

  “Oh please! Help us! Please!” she begged.

  They seemed not to hear. Could they be deaf? Leaving the car she ran into their midst. “Won’t you...?” and then she stopped.

  More than a dozen men and women littered the ground. A small form, a child, lay dead not far away. These were the people who had been caught unaware by the nuclear blast. They’d been traveling the freeway at the time, and they were the few who’d escaped immediate death.

  Sara recoiled in horror. The direction in which they had been bound was clearly obvious to her. Those traveling south had the right sides of their faces cruelly burned. Those going north had the left sides burned. Whichever side was nearest the plant was the side that had sustained the damage. Flaps of skin had sloughed off and the swollen, reddish tissues were suppurating and smelled badly. Yellowish, pus-like discharges had become encrusted. The odor was nauseating.

  They had wandered in from the point of impact. Most must have been waiting since around noon of the day before, Sara reasoned. For relatives or friends concerned enough to attempt locating these people it would have been an impossible chore. Radio broadcasts had warned residents against all freeway travel from the extreme north to the south of the San Mirado area. The verbal cordon effectively prevented persons from going into the area, and it largely prohibited attempting rescue of displaced persons already there.

  Local agencies had failed to mobilize units to assist those stranded, and since there were no means for direct communication with homes and families, the whereabouts of these people, and other victims of the disaster, would remain unknown until many days later.

  A middle-aged woman apart from the group sat staring vacantly into space. Regaining her composure from the initial shock at the sight of these people, Sara decided that she must speak to this woman. She walked around the others to where the woman sat, and leaning over, she softly asked, “Hasn’t anything been done for you?”

  The woman laboriously drew her eyes around to look at Sara. “Food and water,” she murmured. “They give us food and water.”

  “Hospital personnel?”

  She nodded weakly.

  “But there hasn’t been a doctor to see you?” asked Sara.

  “They told us yesterday that one would be here soon.”

  Sara winced in imagined pain as she saw the festering burn that had spread like some enormous cold sore across the woman’s face and into her mouth. The woman parted her swollen lips as though to speak once more, but Sara laid her hand gently on the woman and shook her head. “No, please. Don’t talk anymore....it must be so painful.” For the pr
esent Sara was inexplicably ashamed... ashamed at being so healthy while these poor souls were in such misery. And she couldn’t help them either.

  Overhead, the morning sun was just beginning to warm the land. And somewhere lost among those rays of light was the invisible radiation that Sara had begun to absorb into her body. Defeated and exhausted, Sara now realized that her plans to insure Ben’s treatment were nothing but wanderings of a fanciful mind.

  She returned to her husband.

  There was no point in joining this wretched group. They would wait forever, taking their doles of food and water like so many lepers—which they probably were in the eyes of the Beckman staff.

  Chapter Seven

  Beckman General Hospital, designed to serve not only the adjoining neighboring communities but also the outlying unincorporated area in the vicinity of White Water, was in its third year of operation.

  In its brief history it had become known as one of the finer new medical facilities. Aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it was as well planned and richly furnished as any patient could wish. Internally, it was a staffer’s delight, its various departments laid out with conspicuous detail for best utilization. Operating rooms were kept at a constant temperature, never varying below 72° nor above 76° F. Treatment and examination rooms received their minimum of four air changes every hour. The most technically modern equipment was available to the highly-skilled personnel.

  With respect to the large area it served and the demands of its patients, Beckman General had implemented one of the most efficient, responsive, and systematic emergency health care departments to be found in a local hospital. It maintained continuous, twenty-four hour emergency service; any injured or ill person who presented himself at Beckman would receive a reliable appraisal of the extent of his injury or illness and the proper advice and treatment.