Thursday, October 24
Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center
Northern Virginia
The 2008 Democratic primary campaign advertisement had been deemed one of the best in modern history. The scene, ominous, if not creepy, began in the middle of the night. It was 3:00 a.m. Sleeping children. A ringing telephone. The undertone of a matter of grave importance in the narrator’s voice. It was a who-do-you-want-in-charge, Cold War-esque display asking voters whom they trusted to lead the country during a world crisis when that phone rang in the middle of the night.
Every president had their three-in-the-morning phone call moment. This was President Carter Helton’s. Ironically, just after 3:00 a.m.
He was awakened by his chief of staff, and he hurriedly dressed in a pair of Penn State University sweats. There was no time for decorum, as nuclear weapons had been launched once again.
North Korea had been relatively quiet throughout the exchange of ballistic missiles in South Asia. In the past twenty-four hours, that had changed. During the DPRK’s 13th Party Congress, Kim did a lot of chest-puffing. Apparently, he was prepared to follow through on his threats.
Most analysts believed if a second Korean war broke out with the use of nuclear weapons, it would be deadly, producing millions of deaths just in the South Korean capital of Seoul. However, if North Korea deployed their nuclear arsenal toward Japan as well, countless more millions would die.
Following the war handbook developed by Russia, the North Koreans had amassed troops and accompanying military assets on the border with South Korea in a show of force. Many thought they were feigning an invasion in an attempt to gain concessions at the UN bargaining table.
Then, mere minutes ago, they fired two nuclear-tipped ICBMs into South Korea. The first was successfully destroyed by the U.S. Aegis ballistic missile defense system located in Japan. The second warhead struck the heart of Seoul, vaporizing a million South Koreans instantly.
Seconds after the Aegis missiles were fired from Japanese soil, Kim turned his sights on Tokyo. He immediately declared war on Japan and initiated the launch sequence. Within minutes, three ICBMs were launched from missile silos on the east coast of North Korea toward Japan.
Tokyo’s population of nine million plus lived in one of the highest density cities in the world. Two of the three ICBMs found their marks, devastating the city, including the famed Imperial Palace. Once again, the Aegis defense system worked, but with only marginal success.
Kim wasn’t through yet. He saw the use of the U.S. built and maintained Aegis system being deployed against his nuclear arsenal as being tantamount to Washington declaring war on Pyongyang. He chose to ignore the defensive nature of the Aegis deployment.
He fired four ICBMs across the Pacific toward the West Coast of the United States and one toward Hawaii in rapid succession. Their estimated time of arrival was half past the hour of three in the morning. They were followed by a second wave of three more ICBMs that followed a different path over the Arctic Circle toward East Coast targets.
The U.S. missile defense system was a global network with twenty-four-hour surveillance by land, sea, and space-based sensors, all of which were constantly looking for signs of anything amiss in North Korea. Regional missile interceptors were deployed in Japan, South Korea, Guam and on U.S. Navy ships, while military bases in Alaska and California were equipped to intercept missiles headed toward the United States.
When North Korea launched their missiles, U.S. satellites detected them almost instantaneously through infrared signals. In less than a minute, the satellites raised the alarm, and the command-and-control center at Schriever Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colorado, sprang into action.
Minutes later, President Helton entered the operations center at Mount Weather. Thus far all decisions made in the defense of South Korea and Japan had been made by pre-established protocols and programmed responses. The same was true of the U.S. intercepts of the incoming ICBMs.
The command center at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado immediately got involved. They directed the radars in the region to track the multiple missiles as they climbed toward outer space. During that five-to-seven-minute period of time, the radar systems gathered data, like trajectory, velocity and altitude, to send back to the command center. Complex computer analysis was applied so the military could identify what type of missile was launched and whether it could reach the U.S.
During this boost phase was the ideal time to intercept a missile, but the current defense system wasn’t equipped to do so yet.
Normally, the officers at the command center would consult with U.S. Northern Command, Northcom, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, where a round-the-clock watch officer would be responsible for approving an interceptor launch. If there was time, they might notify the secretary of defense in Washington, too.
However, under the circumstances, all hands were on deck, and the president himself was included in the discussions. It was agreed. Launch orders were approved and sent to Fort Greely and Vandenberg Air Force Base, both of which were best positioned to intercept.
It had been ten minutes since the North Korean missile launches were first detected. America’s ground-based interceptors, or GBIs, were the only weapons capable of destroying an ICBM. Until that early morning on the seventh day of the global nuclear war, they’d only been tested against such a missile once—with success.
The U.S. only had thirty-six GBIs—four in California and thirty-two in Alaska. The secretary of defense recommended they launch two-to-three GBIs per incoming missile to improve the odds of success during an attack. That stockpile reduced the American defenses, and those advising the president cautioned U.S. defenses could theoretically be overpowered if North Korea were to fire multiple missiles after these first two barrages.
The president immediately ordered a counterstrike. While they acted to defend American soil, he surmised, they should shut down Kim’s ability to hit them twice. The launch sequence was initiated, and seven powerful ICBMs were launched from their missile silos in the Northern Rockies toward North Korea.
At this point, the North Korean warheads were three-quarters of the way through their thirty-minute journey to the U.S. The military’s success in defending against the multiple ICBMs was equated with hitting a bullet with another bullet. It had been done in simulations.
Against a single incoming ICBM.
In their simulations, never had the nation’s nuclear defenses fought off multiple incoming missile threats at once.
“Ten minutes to first strike,” a computer-generated voice announced through the operation center speakers mounted overhead.
There was nothing else for them to do. The launches, both defensive and offensive, had been effectuated. Now a president, and those in control of America’s military might, waited.
While warning alarms and sirens were activated from sea to shining sea.
Thursday, October 24
Driftwood Key
Mike wasn’t able to sleep. He and Jessica had worked well into the evening, assisting Monroe County sheriff’s deputies as they directed traffic in and out of the Florida Keys. At one point, in Key Largo, two drunk drivers ran into one another, triggering an all-out brawl where Atlantic Boulevard intersected with U.S. 1. It was a notoriously busy intersection where several streets came together, as well as multiple pedestrian crosswalks.
The two drunken men broke out in a fistfight. This triggered their inebriated girlfriends to join the fray. Soon other motorists, perturbed at the delay, tried to force their way past the wrecked cars in the center of the intersection. Push came to shove, literally, as bumpers were used to clear a path through. This resulted in more anger. When one of the motorists pulled a handgun and began to fire into the air, ostensibly to bring order to the mayhem, panic ensued.
The gunfire caused drivers to seek safety. They drove over curbs to race into parking lots. Some chose the median as the four-lane highway through Key Largo split. The median of the divided highway was soon filled with cars racing down the sidewalk, through parking lots of businesses, and over native plant material.
When order was finally restored, a fender bender between drunks resulted in four pedestrians being sent to the hospital, another half dozen with superficial wounds, and multiple accidents.
However, it was not news of the Key Largo madness that upset Mike the most. It was the fact he’d lost all assistance from the FDLE, and the detectives were turned into traffic cops, including himself.
That evening, as the drinks flowed, Mike and Jessica had vowed to call out sick the next day. During their entire career with the MCSO, neither had contracted the so-called blue flu, an act of defiance by law enforcement officers under the pretext of being ill. In this case, they simply wanted to catch a killer.
Hank raised a legitimate question. He’d asked, “In the scheme of things, wouldn’t it be better to protect the living rather than worry about the dead?”
Mike disagreed with his brother and was blunt in his response. “There’ll be more dead if we don’t catch this guy.”
The long evening stretched into the early morning hours of the next day. The group finally called it a night, with Hank going to bed first. Jessica was sound asleep as Mike stared at the ceiling, fuming over the day’s events and contemplating the ramifications of bucking his superiors.
Just as he was about to doze off, both of their cell phones began to vibrate and emit an alert. The buzz and tone had the same sound as those used for Amber alerts and catastrophic weather warnings. Unlike the Amber and weather alerts, cell phone users cannot mute, silence, or turn off the presidential alert, as it was called. The message was meant to include critical lifesaving information, such as a nuclear attack.
It was 3:17 a.m. The continuous rhythmic tone shook Jessica awake and prompted Mike to jump out of bed in search of his phone. Then the computer-generated voice made the announcement.
“Attention. Attention. This is the National Warning Center. Emergency.
This is an Attack Warning. Repeat. This is an Attack Warning.”
At that moment, across America and its territories, FEMA interrupted radio and television broadcasts. The FAA sent alerts to all airborne pilots and air traffic control centers. NOAA interrupted its weather radio network. The Coast Guard broadcast nuclear war warnings to all mariners at sea in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico.
IPAWS, the acronym for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, combined the Emergency Alert System used for decades with the new addition, the Wireless Emergency Alerts System. It was functioning on all cylinders.
Nine minutes after the nuclear ICBMs were launched from North Korea toward the U.S., the warnings were activated. It was estimated the incoming nukes would strike their West Coast targets within twenty-two minutes. The East Coast had two minutes beyond that.
“What did it say?” asked Jessica, who was still groggy from the drinks and the limited sleep.
“It said the shit just hit the fan,” replied Mike as he searched for the light switch. The couple was staying in a guest room upstairs that they hadn’t used in a while. It was located at the end of the hall on the opposite side of the house where Hank’s master bedroom was located.
With the lights on, he scrambled to get his clothes on. He was desperate to get downstairs and turn on the television. Jessica stayed in bed with the sheet pulled up over her chest. She tried to read the alert on her phone with just one eye open.
Mike raced out of their room to wake up Hank. Just as he reached his door, Hank flung it open, half-dressed.
“You got it, too?” Hank asked his brother.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think it’s real or a false alarm like before?”
“I’m about to find out,” Mike responded. Barefoot, he hustled down the wide, sweeping staircase leading to the foyer of the main house. He rushed into the bar, turned on the lights, and skipped looking for the remote. He reached up to turn on the television, which had been on CNN for days during the drama. The screen confirmed his greatest fear.
“God help us.”
The voice was Phoebe’s. She stood in the opening with Sonny and Jimmy. Hank and Jessica arrived behind them. All of their eyes were transfixed on the television. Their mouths were agape but couldn’t speak a word.
Thursday, October 24
Falls Church, Virginia
Peter had stayed up for hours drinking the last beers in his refrigerator and eating two frozen CPK pizzas. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been depressed and wasn’t sure if that was what he was going through now. He scoured online news sources and monitored social media for any indication of what might be happening on the Korean Peninsula. His mind constantly wandered to Jenna. He missed having her to text with, or even for their occasional sleepovers. Moreover, he worried for her safety when he should’ve been worried about his own.
Mentally exhausted and just a little drunk, he went to bed, leaving the muted television on with BBC International playing. His cell phone had fallen between the seat cushions of his couch. The lights were on. All out of character for the man who normally kept his condo neat. Tonight, he simply wasn’t interested in being responsible.
Peter bypassed the usual stages of sleep and went directly into REM sleep characterized by rapid eye movement and dreaming. Physiologically, REM was very different from stages one through four of the sleep processes. Muscles become atonic, meaning without movement. Breathing became erratic, and the body’s heart rate increased dramatically.
During REM, dreams became more vivid and were often remembered upon awakening. External stimuli, such as sounds and movements, were sometimes disregarded by the brain despite the fact they were real. Oftentimes, it was difficult to differentiate between the visions of the dream and the actual sounds surrounding the sleeper.
Peter’s dream was an odd combination of his past interactions with Jenna and a nightmarish apocalyptic movie that was part Walking Dead, part Thirteen Days, the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis featuring Kevin Costner.
In his dream, he’d placed himself in the bunker with the president, visualizing the decision-making process in real time. He heard the warning signals being emitted from the myriad of computer stations in the control room filled with snappily dressed military leaders. Then his dreamy state rushed outside the safe confines of the bunker, where it witnessed a fireball followed by a mushroom cloud.
The imagery of a nuclear detonation blinded him in his sleep, causing him to roll over to bury his face in the pillow. Then, as quickly as the cloud expanded into the atmosphere, human figures appeared to walk out of the fire. They were charred and still smoldering. Skin had peeled away from their bones while muscles and organs melted before his eyes.
And there were the screams. Ghostly. Eerie. Painful. Souls in agony as they begged for help. Not help for their wounds. They sought someone to put them out of their misery.
What didn’t fit into his fitful dreams were the incessant beeping sounds accompanied by an electronic, monotone voice. The wails of the dead or dying contradicted the repetition of the computer-generated monster filling his head.
Frustrated by his inability to reconcile the intrusion of the outside voice with the nightmarish scene he was visualizing in his mind, Peter opened his eyes and shot up in bed. He blinked twice in order to focus on the cheap LED clock on his nightstand. It was 3:27 a.m. He took a deep breath and listened.
The voice was muffled, as if someone was sitting on the head of the person speaking. His mind raced. Or was the voice being smothered by a pillow in an attempt to silence the warning?
Peter jumped out of bed naked, disregarding the open curtains in his first-floor bedroom that he’d failed to close when he’d passed out earlier. He rushed into his living room. The BBC International broadcast had been replaced with the IPAWS warning chyron.
He rustled through the couch and found his cell phone. Peter was fully awake now, standing in his living room unclothed and completely lucid. He noticed the time of the first text alert. He checked the time on his iPhone, which was most accurate. It had been eleven minutes.
“Dammit!” he yelled loud enough to wake his adjoining neighbors if they hadn’t been awakened already. Shadows of people milling about in the hallway forced Peter to remember he was naked. He raced back to the bedroom and quickly put on a fresh set of clothes.
As he dressed, he tried to remember how long it took the IPAWS system to activate after an ICBM missile launch had been identified. How many minutes did it take to identify the launch? Who did it? Russia? China? North Korea? From where? Land-based or submarines right off our coast somewhere?
Peter gave up and rushed to the closet. He grabbed his black backpack and the tactical sling-style pack that contained his handgun, ammo, and several other items. Within two minutes, he’d filled his backpack with clothing, and he dashed out the door, leaving the lights on and the television playing. There was no time for that. In fact, he wasn’t sure if there was time to escape the number one nuclear target in America, the White House, less than ten miles away.
Peter bulled his way through confused neighbors. He’d never gotten to know them, and now was not the time to introduce himself. He hurdled the shrubs lining the sidewalk outside his building and rushed between parked cars until he reached his Ford Mustang Mach 1. In that moment, he found himself thanking God for the four-hundred-eighty horsepower the car provided him to escape what was coming.
He never slowed down to think about what he was doing. He was frenzied, intent on going as far west as possible. Hiding in a bathtub, or under a desk in a school room, or in the basement of an office building was not going to protect him from the massive firestorm generated by a direct hit on the nation’s capital.
Ten miles away wasn’t enough for Peter. With the gas pedal mashed to the floor, he raced west on South Washington Street, periodically passing slower vehicles by using the wrong side of the road. He risked his life by driving in excess of one hundred miles an hour as he blew past Target and into the suburbs of Falls Church.
Every radio station, both local and on satellite, was repeating the IPAWS warnings. He reached the Capital Beltway Outer Loop and took the north ramp, hoping to get on Interstate 66 for a faster getaway.
Peter glanced at the clock and performed the mental calculations. It had been about thirty-one minutes since the launch of any missiles. Whether from North Korea or the Yasny Launch Base in Dombarovsky in western Russia, Washington, DC, would be hit within five minutes.
He wheeled the Mach 1 through traffic and along the shoulder of the beltway to enter I-66. He used the five westbound lanes and the tight emergency lane against the concrete median to get as far away as possible from the capital.
Suddenly, the sky lit up in his rearview mirror. Peter resisted the urge to get a better look. He knew what it was. He gripped the steering wheel and pressed forward, driving as fast as he could without looking back.
And then, suddenly, without warning, the two-year-old Ford Mustang Mach 1 died.
Thursday, October 24
Near Sacramento, California
By the time the weary travelers had reached the Eisenhower Highway, the traffic was at a standstill due to an accident at Blue Canyon some forty miles away. The hotels around the Auburn exit were packed, with many people sleeping in their cars. It was half an hour before midnight when Owen said they needed to decide if they were gonna pitch a tent or keep going. They opted to stop and set up camp.
They backtracked several miles on Highway 49, known as the Golden Chain Highway, so named to honor the 49ers, waves of immigrants and easterners who flocked to Northern California in search of gold in the mid-nineteenth century.
They pulled off into a parking lot adjacent to a walking trail built alongside the North Fork of the American River. The rocky cliffs overlooking the dark blue water would be an idyllic site to wake up to the next morning to continue their trip to Lake Tahoe.
The expert campers had retrieved only the gear necessary to set up their family tent and the extreme-cold-weather sleeping bags to snuggle into for the night. While Owen and Lacey speculated about the exodus of people and where they were going, most likely Reno or Salt Lake City, Tucker spent some time on his cell phone.
He was struggling to get a cell signal. If he held the phone a certain way, one bar would appear. When it did, he scoured the web for news. It was more of the same, so it didn’t hold his interest. The long day was making him drowsy, and he was about to power down his phone when he decided to conduct one more search.
During their trial run, both he and his mom had vowed to always know where the nearest fallout shelter was located for so long as this crisis was hanging over them. His first search, fallout shelters near me, yielded no results.
He lost the cell signal again and put the phone away for the night. But the issue nagged at him. He tried to search a different way. He recalled his dad telling him about the elementary school near the Dumbarton Bridge. Tucker searched for schools near his location, and the first result was Placer High just a few miles away. He navigated to the school’s website and began clicking on all the available links. Then he found what he was looking for, sort of.
The Placer High website touted a number of apps that were suggested to make student life better. One was the STOPit app that allowed students to anonymously report situations like bullying or sexual assaults. They also suggested the same disaster app relied upon by millions of Californians, only to be fooled by a false alarm. On that page, he found what he was looking for. The recognizable graphic comprised of three yellow triangles on a black circle.
With his eyes drooping from exhaustion, Tucker navigated to his Google Earth app and clicked on the little yellow man, as he called the Pegman found on Google map applications. He dragged and dropped Pegman onto the street in front of the school. He rotated the school into view and slowly moved down the streets to study the fronts of the various buildings. He came to Agard Street in front of the basketball gym, and he barely saw it. The fallout shelter sign was attached to the white stucco and tucked behind a large overgrown bush. It had faded from the sun hitting it from the west in the past, but it was definitely there.
Satisfied with his efforts, he powered down the phone and fell asleep.
Until seventeen minutes after midnight.
All three of their cell phones were jolted out of sleep mode simultaneously. Their initial reaction was different from most Americans from coast to coast that sounded like this:
“What’s that?”
“Did somebody set the alarm?”
“Is that damn disaster app malfunctioning again?”
“Do you think we should check it out?”
“I’m going back to sleep. Let me know what you find out, will ya?”
Lacey and her family had heeded the warnings given to them by her brother. She was able to trust Peter’s judgment, and they immediately sprang into action.
She found her phone and read the alert aloud. It was the same one that had wrestled her dad and uncle out of bed three time zones away, as well as Peter, who was the closest of the family to a high-profile target.
Tucker was the first to speak. “What do we do, Dad?”
Owen thought for a moment before responding, “Okay, guys. Let’s stay calm and think this through. We’re over a hundred miles away from San Francisco. I’m pretty sure that’s beyond the blast radius.”
“What if they miss?” asked Lacey. Then she clarified. “What if this is real and whoever fired the missile overshot their target?”
Owen climbed out of his sleeping bags and rested on his knees. He went to the Yahoo! News home page to see if any form of announcement had been made.
“I guess that’s possible, but I don’t think it’s—”
“There’s a fallout shelter down the street,” Tucker blurted out. “It’s a high school. We kinda passed it when we drove back here. I swear it’s only a few miles.”
“Owen, let’s go there,” Lacey pleaded. “Just to be safe.”
Owen glanced at his watch. Remarkably, it had been several minutes. “Come on. Gather everything up and shove it in the truck.”
“I’ve got room in the backseat,” Tucker offered as he slipped out of his sleeping bag and unzipped the tent door.
Lacey began to hand him their sleeping bags and inflatable pillows through the opening. Within a minute, the three of them had cleared out the tent, and Tucker was running up the hill to the truck.
The ballistic missile warning continued. Inside the Expedition, Owen drove quickly along the winding mountainous road, being cognizant of the trailer he was towing. Lacey frantically searched the radio for information that didn’t consist of the monotonous, repeated warning.
Tucker leaned forward and rested his arms on his parents’ seats. He held his phone so he could follow their progress on the Google Map app.
“Turn left at the stoplight by that bicycle store over there,” he began, pointing toward the intersection. “That’s Lewis Street. Then take a right when the street ends.”
In less than a minute, Owen had steered the truck onto Orange Street. After driving several blocks through a residential neighborhood, they began to see brake lights ahead.
“Everybody else had the same idea,” said Owen calmly. “Same thing happened at Patterson Elementary the other day. There wasn’t a fallout shelter anyway.”
“There’s one here, Dad. I saw the sign on the map. I swear.”
“Park the truck, Owen,” suggested Lacey.
“What?”
“We’re running out of time,” replied Lacey in a much firmer tone. “Park the truck. We have to beat all of these people in the door.”
Thursday, October 24
Near Sacramento, California
“Follow me!” shouted Tucker as he dashed between slow-moving cars headed toward the front of the high school. He crossed Orange Street and raced across Finley Street, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to confirm his parents were keeping up. When he reached a short flight of steps leading to a sidewalk to the left of the school’s main building, he waited for his parents. He caught his breath and looked around at the traffic.
Everyone was waiting in line to turn left toward the auditorium as if they were dropping their kids off for a basketball game. Follow the leader, Tucker thought to himself. Like sheep walking off a cliff.
“Where to?” Owen asked.
“Let’s see if there’s a back way,” replied Tucker. “Come on!”
He led them down the side of the one-story administration building until they reached a courtyard filled with benches and trees. Tucker used his recollection of the high school’s layout on the map to wind his way through several classroom buildings until he arrived at the two-story, white stucco auditorium.
“There are people gathered around the front of the building,” observed Lacey, pointing toward the front of the gymnasium on Agard Street.
Owen started running that way when Tucker called his name.
“Dad, wait! I’ve got a hunch.” Like father, like son.
Owen stopped, and Tucker ran down the back of the gym, trying all the door handles. He reached the middle of the building and found one door ajar, propped open by a gray metal wastebasket.
“Here!” He waved his arm like a third-base coach imploring his runner to head for home plate.
His parents quickly joined him, and seconds later the trio was inside the hallways. Shouts and crying could be heard echoing through the mostly empty building.
“Spread out,” instructed Owen. “Tucker and I will take each end of this corridor. Lacey, you head through the gym to the front. Try to text, or meet back here once you find the entrance to the shelter.”
They took off in their separate directions in search of the stairwell leading below the gymnasium floor. Once again, Tucker’s instincts paid off. He reached the end of the hallway and found a door marked concessions. He opened it slightly to listen.
Hurried voices shouting instructions could be heard from the other end of the space filled with refrigeration equipment and sales counters. He moved closer to the ruckus and found people pushing and shoving toward the rear of the concession’s storage area.
He turned and rushed back into the rear corridor that ran the length of the building. His parents stood in the dimly lit hall, looking in his direction.
“I found it! Hurry! There are a lot of people trying to get in.”
The family was off and running again. They followed Tucker into the concession area, and then they merged with the crowd, who continued to shove their way toward a single door entrance.
The three of them held hands and then locked arms to prevent being separated by the crowd attempting to force their way inside.
“What’s taking so long?” asked Owen, who glanced at his watch. It had only been sixteen minutes since the alarm was sounded.
They were being shoved from behind, but they managed to keep their balance. Babies were crying, as were their mothers. Somebody in the rear screamed women and children first. The McDowells silently disagreed as they kept their place in line.
When they finally reached the doorway, a man dressed in the green-and-gold school colors with Placer emblazoned across the sweatshirt flanked the door along with a uniformed police officer.
Owen arrived at the door first.
“ID!” the officer shouted.
“What?” asked Owen, who was genuinely confused as to what the purpose of presenting identification was.
“ID, sir! We need to confirm you’re a resident. Let’s go.”
Owen started to reach for his wallet, and then Lacey grabbed his arm.
“We were afraid and ran out the door. We don’t have it.” She presumed, rightfully so, that they would try to turn back someone from outside their community.
“Where do you live?” the Placer coach asked.
“Over on Finley,” replied Tucker.
His observance of his surroundings and quick thinking paid off. They were waved through, and the next group of refugees was interrogated.
Once inside, they descended two flights of concrete stairs to the bottom of the structure. Fluorescent lights flickered, causing all three of them to squint to avoid the strobe effect. They followed another group through a single thick steel door into a large room that was illuminated with more fluorescent lighting.
It was dank and smelled musty. There appeared to be little or no ventilation, causing the trio to gasp for air slightly. The excited occupants, all of whom were chatting nervously, exacerbated the problem.
“Let’s ease away from the door,” suggested Owen.
They grasped each other by the hand and moved through the crowd toward the concrete wall. Slowly, they made their way to the back of the space until they reached a series of corrugated roll-up doors locked closed with padlocks.
“That’s it!” someone shouted.
“No more!” yelled another.
The shouts of those safely in the bunker began to explode in unison. Owen glanced at his watch. He understood why. The nuke could strike at any moment.
“Let us in!” a woman demanded from outside the protective bunker.
“There’s just four of us!” argued another.
“I’m a single,” shouted one woman as if she were waiting in line at a Disneyland ride.
“You can’t leave us out here!” begged a woman through her sobs.
The cries for help and admittance rose to a crescendo outside the shelter. Inside, the voices were equally loud as people demanded they close the door. Eventually, the insiders won out, and the metallic sound of the nuclear-hardened blast door closing and locking shut was heard.
This final act of separating the refugees from the horrors possibly awaiting those on the outside instantly brought a hush throughout the shelter.
Everyone held their breath as they waited. They strained to listen. Some studied their watches and whispered to their loved ones. Parents tried in vain to calm their crying children. Others could be heard openly praying. Some simply closed their eyes, held hands with the person closest to them, and waited for the nightmare to be over.
They didn’t have to wait long. Three minutes later, the ground shook as if a seismic wave from an earthquake had swept over them. Decades of brittle concrete and dust fell from the ceiling, coating the occupants in the grayish-white debris.
Screams filled the air as everyone found God in that moment. For those who hadn’t, that all changed when the power suddenly went out, thrusting them into pitch-black darkness.