CHAPTER 8 - CHILDREN OF THE ATOM

The ringing was what brought him back. He forgot he had ears up until then. Everything came rushing back, like when something wakes you up right before you’re about to fall asleep. He could feel the scrapes and cuts all over his body, and the warm concrete on his cheek. Atticus opened his eyes and saw the mushroom cloud out in the distant south. It looked like downtown Manhattan got hit, more importantly, upon further investigation he wasn’t even in the city.

One thing he knew about New York City from the few times he’s been there is that there’s no avoiding the sky-peircing buildings, unless your head is stuck in the dirt in Central Park. Atticus got to his feet. He was in a neighborhood, a plain American suburban nightmare. Housewives with their faces falling off came rushing at him. Atticus went for his gun, but his holster was empty. Despite his pounding headache, Atticus made himself run away. He turned the corner, and the coast was clear for the time being.

He continued running up the street, as zombies collided at the crossroads behind him. He was making too much noise. If he kept this up a horde would brew together. Atticus needed to lose them soon or else he would not be able to safely barricade himself in time for fallout. And the clock was ticking; he had about five more minutes left to get inside. He stood under a traffic light and looked down both roads. One way led to a train station, and the other way led up a hill. Without any knowledge or context of his current location he had to make a snap decision based off what he could see and deduce from quick assessments of his surroundings.

Atticus wanted to go to the train station. His instinct told him the train station. But something stopped him; something lied to him under the guise of needing to find his crashed ship. Atticus surveyed the sky around him for smoke. He could not make out the the difference between the smoke from the burning wreckage of his War Bird and the smoke from the burning towns. Atticus had to get inside. He looked up the hill at the crest before the gray sky. A boy with long blonde hair peeking out of his baseball cap waved and yelled out to him. Atticus ran closer.

“OVER HERE!” the boy was saying, over and over again, “THIS WAY!”

His feet reacted before the rest of him, almost tripping himself in the process. Atticus ran back up the street to get to the top of the hill when the approaching zombies cut him off.

“Damn!”

He turned down an adjacent alleyway. Something just out of sight, tucked into the shadow, waited for him. It could have been a bum if it was any other ordinary day, but not today, today it went for his flesh. Atticus fell back with his hands on the zombie's shoulders. He slipped on its loose flesh, unable to keep it out of biting range. Atticus instinctively put his forearm before him and the zombie. It slipped right into the ghoul’s mouth.

The teeth of the monster were unable to pierce Atticus’ flesh because of the undershirt’s tear-proof fabric. He kicked it off him and scrambled to get back up. Wait! There’s no time. He argued with himself. They were still coming for him. Atticus swiped a busted pipe from under a dumpster. He plunged the pipe into the zombie's gut. It was not fazed.

Atticus kicked the pipe through and through, tossing the undead bum to the ground. The noise from Atticus bashing the brains of the bum in with the pipe attracted the rest of the horde down the alleyway. To the captain's avail he hopped a fence ending the alleyway. Once he jumped enough fences, ditching the undead, he caught up with the blonde kid at the top of the hill.

“Hey kid! Where are you going!?”

The kid did not answer until he brought him to a man who was waiting behind the wheel of a pick-up truck.

“We’re going to a shelter, mister. A bomb shelter, it’s my dad’s, okay?”

“Simon that’s enough!” yelled the guy as they got into the truck.

“Wait, I have friends. Please.”

“We’ve got her too.” The boy smiled as he showed Atticus a girl who was already in the back of the pick-up truck. Atticus had a look for himself, and the kid was right, it was Rebecca. Once he grabbed her hand she opened her eyes. “Atticus!”

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Are you?”

“Where’s Samuel?”

“I don’t know. No one has seen him. But we have to go. It might be our only chance at surviving.” Atticus put the blanket on her tighter and turned around. He tapped on the window and slid it open.

“PICK UP THE PACE, WE GOT ABOUT TWO MINUTES TIL FALLOUT RADIATION!”

The truck took the corner on two wheels and Atticus compensated with a lean; standing strong and checking all the streets they passed for Doctor Chase.

“Maybe Samuel has the guns too,” he thought out loud.

“I have the guns.” Rebecca said casually.

“You what?” Atticus turned around.

“I grabbed both guns while you were fighting and tucked them down my pants so you wouldn’t find them.” She explained, “When you strapped me in I thought I was going to get blown in half.”

She took the blanket off and pulled her shirt up. The cold steel pressed upon her boney hips. Atticus pulled his Desert Eagle out of her waistband, cocked, and loaded it. Rebecca wasn’t expecting him to do that so abruptly. When he took the gun he pulled up his elastic undershirt and tucked it into the middle of his waistband instead of his holster.

Rebecca caught a glimpse of his bare chest and subsequent six-pack abs. Of course, he was ripped. Active duty Atticus probably worked out every day at Camp Musclehead. She covered herself back up with the blanket and hoped he didn’t see her lingering on his slightly hairy (but not in a gross way) chiseled body. Christ, her husband was dead, well, kind of, and it was the end of the world. And didn’t she hate this guy like yesterday? Rebecca kicked herself. Get it together. Did she really have time for this? With the blanket now up to her nose she looked up.

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“You can hold onto the doctor’s gun until he gets back,” he said confidently, and then covered the Desert Eagle with his tan dirt-worn army-issued elastic undershirt.

They arrived at the abandoned building. It looked like an apartment building. The boy and (what turned out to be) his uncle led them down the walkway and stairs to the basement shelter. Sure enough, there was the yellow and black fallout stencil spray painted on the wall. When they got to the lead-metal door it was closed, but visibly unlocked. The uncle tried to push it in when an alarm went off.

“GOD DAMMIT, ED!” yelled a guy from inside.

“Sorry Clark,” the uncle apologized to his brother.

The door opened and Simon brought Atticus and Rebecca in to meet everyone.

“Luther’s gonna be pissed…”

“This is my Uncle Ed and my Uncle Clark,” Simon proceeded, “Guys this is Captain Atticus Ross and Doctor Rebecca Pratt.” Simon bowed and ran inside. Rebecca must have told them their names. Pretty quick for a kid who couldn’t have been older than eight or nine.

“Ed, what are you doing? Luther won’t let more in.”

“He said it himself, the place can hold up to thirty people, we’re not even twenty. This is a doctor and a soldier!”

“It doesn’t matter now, come on!” Clark led Ed farther in, along with Atticus and Rebecca.

Simon was hugging his father. He was a tall, stout-chested man with short blonde hair. Right away, Atticus could tell he intimidated his brothers and the rest of the family merely with his presence. His name wasLuther, and he was king and ruler of his family as the oldest brother, and the owner of the bomb shelter. Once he was told about Atticus and Rebecca he greeted them with open arms.

“There is still one more!” Rebecca shouted at him in a dire rebound of subtly.

“We still have loved ones out there as well.”

“So, you will wait before you seal the door?”

“The door can always be unlocked if need be,” Luther reassured them, “But in exactly, and that is exactly, not approximately, in precisely one minute and twenty-seven seconds I will close the doors permanently.”

“What!?”

“OR ELSE WE COULD ALL BE CONTAMINATED AND DIE!” His temper trampled everything in the room.

Atticus took Rebecca, avoiding confrontation, and any potential blame, as they scurried away while they continued to argue behind them. They met the other people in the shelter.

There was Clark’s wife Brook, and their twenty year old daughter Nora. There was also their family friend Walter who was waiting for his father and son. He was pacing back and forth as Brook tried to calm him down.

“They should have been here by now. That crazy bastard is going to seal the doors on them. I just know it.”

“No, he isn’t,” Brook reassured him, “They’ll be okay. They’ll make it in time.”

Walter settled down when he saw Atticus and Rebecca. Something about them made him gather his frantic anxieties. He cooled off and met everyone along with Brook and the rest of the kids.

The final seconds Luther counted down for everyone to hear. Walter pushed his fingers through his hair as he watched Luther seal the door after zero. His family was still nowhere to be found. Everyone’s cellphones were dead after the blast, along with almost everything else electronic.

Through the window of the door, Walter could see the dust from the tires rising. The clouds were all around them and dropping quickly, soaked in gamma radiation, toxic to human flesh. The car crashed through the apartment building, into the walls, as they jumped out and ran down to the door.

“It’s Frank and Wheeler!”

Walter was devastated. What were the odds?

“They have Mr. Summers and Walter’s boy!”

“And some other guy with glasses!” Clark yelled out from the door.

“That has to be him!” Rebecca grabbed Atticus’ arm.

He didn’t want to crush her hopes, so he smiled. But he also didn’t want her to get her hopes up. Atticus knew what kind of guy Luther was, he was the kind that never goes back on his word and would do anything to keep his son safe; including letting other people die. He was not opening that door for anyone. Atticus didn’t have to be trained in combat and war strategy to know what would happen next.

Walter got in Luther’s face. It took both Clark and Ed intervening to hold him back. Luther got free and punched Walter across the face. This launched all three of them back. Before Walter could fall with Clakr and Ed, Luther snatched him by the throat, lifted him up off the floor, and threw him back down on his ass.

Clark and Ed both went at Luther for resorting to violence so quickly. While Walter jumped up dashed for the door.

“Oh, shit.” Atticus said.

“What do we do?” asked Rebecca.

“No!” Luther yelled desperately, helplessly as Walter figured it out.

He put all of his weight into it and leveraged the door lever up, over and then releasing down into the unlock slot. The massive professional, prepper master level fallout shelter front door unsealed and opened. After that, everyone knew Luther would kill Walter.

Even Atticus joined in to restrain Luther as Walter pushed the heavy door open and let them in. The old man and the boy rushed by hugging Walter. Frank and Wheeler carried the guy with the glasses in and the three brothers closed the door and together lifted the lever back into the lock slot, resealing. Luther, again taking everyone by surprised, showed no more aggression. Instead, he grabbed Simon and ran into the shower room to scrub themselves clean of fallout radiation.

“YOU JUST KILLED US!” He yelled as he ran away. “YOU JUST KILLED US ALL!”

Frank and Wheeler carried the guy past Rebecca, and she cried out in joy. It was Doctor Chase. Samuel in the flesh, he had a gushing blow to the head and was unconscious, but other than that, he seemed to be okay. Atticus ran over to Rebecca who already started to examine him.

“Was he awake at all?” she asked

“When we first found him.”

“Crazy bastard wouldn’t let go of his seat,” Wheeler grinned.

“He was still in his seat?” Rebecca never would have thought.

“Looked like some sort of alien space ship if you ask me.” Frank theorized.

Rebecca shook her head up and down and pretended she had no idea what he was talking about. She looked over at Atticus who was wrapping Samuel’s head. She learned two things about Atticus right then and there. He didn’t know how to properly wrap a head wound and what he looked like when he smiled. Rebecca knew it might only be slightly due to the relief of seeing Samuel alive, but it was mostly likely due to the crash site of his ship being located. When Atticus saw Rebecca smirking back at him it faded from his face and he glanced at the room with the front door, then at the showerroom with Luther and Simon in it and finally back at her, now with the serious look residing over him.

His message made clear. This place was no safe haven. It was a powderkeg waiting to go off. What they wandered into here was not something they could fix, and potentially too unstable to try to influence. If they stayed in this shelter they would not escape fallout, nuclear or otherwise.

The ever-changing new world of the apocalypse presented Atticus, Rebecca, and Samuel with yet another unexpected challenge, the maze of a hostile sanctuary.