Meteor (11 page)

“I take it you must be the doctor,” Troy said.

“Lab coat gave me away, didn’t it? I’m Doctor Rutherford,” he said.

“Troy’s the name.”

“We have been living here since the crisis began. At first it was just me and a few of the staff members, but as time went on, we have had more people turn up at the hospital. We took on as many as we thought we could reasonably help,” Doctor Rutherford explained.

“Then, after we had taken on about twenty or so of the sick and wounded, we were attacked by a roving gang. They killed about eight people and diminished our supplies greatly. Now, we probably only have enough oxygen to last another month or so, then I’m not sure what we’ll do,” the doctor said as he got out a pill bottle and examined it.

“Here you go, that’s omoxicillin. Make sure that the person takes all of the pills and doesn’t miss a dose. It should prevent any infection from spreading.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Troy said. “The last time that we ventured outside, we had some very unfortunate encounters with some opportunists.”

“The town is full of them. The rumor is that a group of unsavory types have banded together just outside of town. There’s lots of bikers amongst them. They go out on raiding parties in the surrounding area. They try and scoop up whatever supplies they can find and they kill indiscriminately. When they raided the hospital, they took half of our water and several of our canned goods. They also kidnapped two women and killed eight of the men. We always have our weapons at the ready now because we know they will come back.”

“There seems to be very little human decency left in the world,” Troy said.

“We must hold onto whatever shreds of humanity are left.”

Troy followed the doctor out of the medical supply room. Once they were back in the waiting area, a large man in camo gear was standing there with his weapon aimed at Troy.

“It’s fine, Harvey, he’s just here for some antibiotics,” the doctor said, trying to get him to lower his weapon.

“I go to the crapper for just a few minutes and look what you do. You let an outsider in.” Harvey walked over to where Troy was standing.

“Please, I don’t want any trouble. My son has been shot by the same people that probably caused all of the trouble that you had. He will likely die of infection if I don’t get this medicine to him.”

Harvey did not take his weapon down from where he had it pointed. “We need all the medicine we have for our own people.”

“It’s just some antibiotics, Harvey. We have plenty more where that came from,” Doctor Rutherford said.

“You guys voted to have me put in charge, did you not?” Harvey asked.

“We did, but I’m telling you this is a decent man. I can tell it.”

“What’s to stop him from telling other people that we are holed up here. He could have been sent by that gang outside of town.”

“Come on, it’s clear that he’s not one of them,” Doctor Rutherford said.

“Where did you come from, cowboy?” Harvey asked him in a cold voice.

“Just outside of town, on the south side,” Troy answered. Troy looked to his immediate left and realized that there was a window there. If this man didn’t see reason, he could try and jump through it. He readied himself.

“I’m sorry doc, but we can’t take any chances. You turn over that weapon of yours and give me any supplies that you are carrying. Boys, I want you to go outside and see who’s with him.”

Immediately, Troy thought of Cordelia, and without any further hesitation, he jumped right through the window to his left as Harvey tried to fire a shot at him.

Luckily for Troy, the shot missed, but he was cut badly in several places once he got to his feet. He could hear the voices of the men inside as they began to exit the hospital. Troy limped around to the front of the building just as the men began to open fire at him. He ducked down and hurried inside the car.

“Drive away as quickly as you can, Cordelia!” he yelled. She stomped on the gas as Harvey and his men began to fire at the Camaro. They managed to shoot out the back windshield, but did not hit either Troy nor Cordelia.

Harvey and one of the other men jumped into a Chevy pick up and came after them. Cordelia didn’t realize it, but she was headed off in the wrong direction, towards the north.

As she drove, her attention was diverted for a moment by something strange that she saw far off in the distance. It looked as if it were several men dressed in full-body suits far off in the distance. She thought they might be military or government personnel that could help them, so she turned off the main road in their direction.

“Where are you going?” Troy asked her, as he attempted to stop the bleeding form his many cuts that covered the upper part of his body.

“There’s some government people up ahead. They might be able to help us,” Cordelia said.

“No sweetie, we cannot trust anyone. Head for home.”

“But Dad, you need help now. Look at how you’re bleeding!” she said urgently.

Just as soon as she said this, the car grinded to a halt. The car had run out of gas, much to their dismay.

“Come on, help me out. We have no choice but to go it on foot!” Troy said, as Cordelia got out of the car.

The Chevy pick up was pulling up just behind them as Cordelia helped her bleeding father out of the car and into the woods. Far off in a clearing, Cordelia saw the strange men in the body suits again. They were moving away from them. The wind was really howling all around them, and with it the dust and debris was kicked up into the air again.

“Help, help us!” Cordelia cried out to the men off in the distance, but they had already moved out of sight and didn’t seem to be able to hear what she was saying. The men in the pick up entered the woods and began to talk amongst themselves.

“Come on, they went this way,” Harvey said as the two men in the pick up followed behind him. Cordelia and Troy were hunkered down in a thick patch of blackberries trying to lie as still as possible. Harvey and his men walked passed them and further off into the woods. Finally, their voices were barely heard far off in the distance.

“Come on,” Troy urged his daughter as they emerged from their hiding spots. Just as Cordelia was about to leave the patch of blackberry bushes, her eyes were drawn to something shiny and metallic that was sitting there in the brambles. She put it in her pocket and then ran to catch up with her father who was still bleeding quite badly.

They got into the Chevy pick up which the men had left idling, and Troy threw it into gear. Just as they sped off, the two men emerged from the woods, realizing that their vehicle had been taken.

“Goddamnit Carl, why the hell did you leave it running?” Harvey said in frustration.

Cordelia took a deep breath as the two men soon faded from sight in the rear view mirror.

“That was far too close, but we did manage to get the antibiotics,” Troy said.

Cordelia took some tissue and dabbed it on the many cuts that her father’s body was covered with. Then she put her hand in her pocket to see if the strange metallic object was still there. She was pleased to see that it was.

Once they made it back to the bunker, Troy parked the truck back behind the bunker again to make sure that it could not be seen from the road. From that point on, supply runs would have to be made somewhere else. There was obviously too much danger awaiting them in Dickson. Once inside, Mary began to fret over her husband.

“What in the world happened to you?” she asked him, as she went and got out the first aid kit.

“We ran into a little trouble at the hospital,” he said. “The doctor there was friendly, but there were others there that pulled a gun on me. I saw an opportunity and I busted through a window just to my left. It was the only way I could escape,” Troy explained. “I did manage to get this though.” He produced the bottle of antibiotics from his jean pocket.

“That’s terrific!” Mary examined the bottle. “Let me get you patched up and then we will get Brandon to begin taking these.”

“How is Brandon doing?” Troy asked her.

“He’s upstairs sleeping. He has a pretty high fever and I gave him more ibuprofen to help. I’m glad you got back with this when you did or I fear he might not have made it.”

Mary began to put antiseptic on Troy’s many cuts and scrapes. Luckily, most of them were shallow, although one or two cuts on his left arm were pretty deep and still bleeding. She wrapped these in gauze and taped them up.

Upstairs, Brandon lay snoring on his bed. Cordelia walked upstairs and found Hannah watching over him as he slept.

“Hey,” she said quietly, startling Hannah.

“Oh, you scared me,” she said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“How did the trip to the hospital go?” she asked Cordelia.

“It went fine, until more assholes tried to pull a gun on dad. He had to bust through a glass window to get away from them. Then, we got into a high-speed car chase until the car ran out of gas. Then we had to hide out in the woods after some of the guys from the hospital chased us.”

“My god, are there any decent people left in the world anymore?”

“I don’t know,” Cordelia said, “but I saw something really strange when we were out in the woods. We were on some kind of hill, and I could see a group of people off in the distance dressed in full-body suits. I don’t know who they were, but they looked like government officials or maybe military personnel. I called out to them, but they couldn’t hear me. Anyway, I also found this.” Cordelia got out the small metal object that was in her pocket.

“Whoa, what in the world is that?” Hannah asked her.

“I have no idea, but I’ll bet those people in the body suits left it behind. It looks like something from another world.” Cordelia held the object in the palm of her hand. It was round and silver, but very lightweight. It seemed to be covered with some kind of metal, but nothing that either of the girls had seen anywhere before. It had a crease down the middle as if one might be able to unfold it and open it, but the girls did not try and do so.

“I wonder what it does?” Cordelia said.

“You had probably better show your father. It might be some kind of weapon or something.”

“Yeah, I really don’t want to mess with it,” she said.

The two girls went downstairs. Mary was still dressing Troy’s many cuts.

“Dad, I found something when we were out there hiding in the woods,” Cordelia said.

“What?” he asked her.

She opened her palm to reveal the strange object.

“What in the world?” he said as he turned it over and looked at it closely.

“What do you think it is, dad?” Cordelia asked him.

“I have no idea, but we had better put it away and not mess with it. If it’s dangerous, we don’t want to accidentally set it off or something.” Troy placed the object inside the drawer of the desk that he had put in the corner of the living room.

Brandon woke up from his nap and came downstairs. As he sat down on the couch his mother brushed back the hair from his eyes.

“How are you feeling, dear?” she asked him. She put her hand up to his forehead. He was blazing hot.

“Not too good,” he said.

“Here, you need to start taking these right away.” She handed him a glass of water and one of the antibiotics. He immediately took it and then lay back down on the couch.

“I really hope you don’t have to venture out again anytime soon,” Mary said as she went back over to her husband and dressed the last of his cuts.

“Me too. We should have enough food and water to last us a couple more months now, so I don’t think we will have to,” he said with a sigh of relief. “It’s the oxygen that I’m concerned about now.”

“How much more do you think we have left?” she asked him apprehensively.

“Maybe enough for two more months, tops. Well before that, we will have to obtain more of it.”

“Oh no, you’re not thinking of returning to that hospital again, are you?”

“Well, I already know that they are running low on their supply, so I doubt that they will have enough left to do us any good. Besides, if we return there it will be like returning to a shoot out at the OK Corral. Next time, we try a different town,” he said.

Early the next morning as the family sat down to breakfast, an obnoxious, repetitive jingling sound filled the bunker. Troy looked up in confusion. It did not sound like the intruder alarm. That one was a loud, jarring buzz. This was an incessant bell-like sound, similar to a telephone someone refuses to answer.

“What the hell is that noise,” said Cordelia, wrinkling her nose and jamming fingers into both her ears.

Fear settled in the pit of her stomach as she realized what was making that sound. A flashing light caught her eye, shining through the gaps in the desk drawer. The metallic disc she had dislodged from the blackberry bush was lighting up rhythmically as it sounded what was evidently an alarm. She hoped to God it was not about to detonate and maim her entire family. She wished she had left the thing where it lay in the tangle of brambles. Mary walked over and opened the desk drawer, plucking out the little jingling object.

“Mom! No!” Cordelia yelled.

Mary jumped slightly, startled by her daughter. In her shock, the disc slid from her fingers back onto the kitchen floor where its two halves split open and the dissonant jingling stopped. Cordelia wanted to feel relief but was still extremely on edge and continued to eye the device with distrust. Mary took a step back just as a calm, female voice began to speak from the object.

“Carbon Monoxide levels approaching 19 ppm, safe. Radiation approaching hazardous levels, mild risk. Repeat, Carbon Monoxide levels approaching 19 ppm, safe…”

Troy and Mary exchanged a bewildered glance and Cordelia jumped up from her chair.

“I had no idea what it was or what it would do, honest,” she said.

“It’s okay, honey. But please tell me before you bring anything into the shelter. That could have been dangerous. It might have been a weapon we’d never seen before. The world is very strange right now, you know that. Just be careful,” Troy said as he walked over to examine the object in question.

After repeating itself three times, the device fell silent and now looked like simply an innocuous piece of discarded metal. Even so, Troy hesitated to pick it up. As his hand reached toward it, its halves slid smoothly back together and clicked shut. Troy held the circle between his thumb and forefinger and examined it from every angle, tilting his head this way and that.

“Um, am I the only one who paid attention to what that thing just said? Carbon monoxide and radiation? Those are both bad news,” Brandon said from his seat at the dinner table. Hannah shot him a nervous look and nodded.

“I heard it. It said we’re at mild risk, whatever that means. I thought this place was uncontaminated, like air-tight. Did I bring something in with me when you took me in? Oh, God, if I did…” Hannah’s voice trailed off and she looked at the floor.

Troy spoke up first. “No, Hannah, it’s nothing you did. Don’t worry.”

He laid the device now in the palm of his hand and jostled it about a bit, still not entirely trusting it to not explode in his face. Nothing happened so he brought it into the kitchen and placed it carefully on the edge of a wall shelf. Nothing else interrupted breakfast.

Later that evening, Hannah and Cordelia sat on the bed talking like old friends. In quarters as close as the bunker their friendship felt like a gift to Cordelia. It gave her someone to talk to besides her irritating brother, and another female presence besides her mom was nice.

“I just miss him so much. I swear, I somehow knew when we came in here that I was never going to see him again. I was so mad at my dad the day we locked ourselves up in here,” Cordelia said.

Hannah was lying crossways on the bed, her long lean legs stretched out and half dangling off the edge. Brandon, lying on the opposite bed and listening to his headphones at a reasonable volume for once, tried to not stare too obviously. He allowed himself a glance every now and then, trying to be casual. Like Hannah just happened to be in his line of sight. He was beginning to think he was not gay at all as he glanced between the beautiful Hannah and the heavily photoshopped faces of The Backstreet Boys on his wall.

His fever had broken sometimes around seven and he felt much better. A deep furrow ran for about two inches across his arm but the skin around it looked healthy and no other signs of infection were evident. He hoped for the millionth time that they survived this disaster. But this time he hoped so hard because he wanted the joy of saying, “I survived the apocalypse
and
a gunshot.” Brandon had no clear idea to whom he would tell this tale, since his friends were few and far between and now likely even dead, but it made him smile nonetheless.

“Have you ever seen a person die right in front of you?” Cordelia asked Hannah.

“Just my dad,” she answered softly. One tear fell from each eye before she took a deep breath and met Cordelia’s stare.

“Right, I’m stupid. I forgot he got shot. I’m really sorry you had to see that. It’s awful. I watched Henry’s skin actually melt off his body. He looked like he was on fire.”

Hannah nodded in sympathy. Before being brought to the bunker, she and her dad had seen their share of those melted candle horror-show bodies. Mostly people she had not known, but the few acquaintances they had encountered haunted her memories. She was impressed with how well Cordelia handled Henry’s death but knew that beneath the surface this girl was truly in pain. She sat up and gave Cordelia a brief but genuine hug. Cordelia wiped away the tears pooled beneath her eyes and smiled gratefully at Hannah.

“Thanks.”

Just then, at exactly nine pm, the ringing sound began again. Cordelia stopped talking and took off down the stairs, Hannah and Brandon on her heels. Everyone in the bunker converged on the small kitchen shelf where Troy had left the silver disc. Five sets of eyes barely blinked as they watched the crack in the disc’s face slide apart and begin to speak again.

“Carbon Monoxide levels approaching 25 ppm, mild risk. Radiation approaching hazardous levels, mild risk. Repeat, Carbon Monoxide levels approaching 25 ppm, mild risk…,”

“Wait, that’s different than it was before. Earlier she said Carbon Monoxide levels were safe. It’s scanning the bunker and keeping track of the air quality.” Troy looked at his watch. “It must automatically do a scan every twelve hours. It was nine this morning when it did its last report.”

Troy got lost in thought for a moment, thinking of reasons why the air filtration system might not be working properly. It was possible that there was just too much debris to filter and that it had become clogged. He and Brandon would have to venture outside to find the problem.

Luckily the rain that fell on the scorched earth now was almost acid-free. Some toxins still remained but it was now possible to walk outside without the flesh dissolving from your bones. At least that’s what the news report told them.

After the initial shock of being spoken to by a tiny metal object, the family had settled in front of the TV last night. Despite the collapse of civilization as it was once known, the media machine kept chugging along. News reporters were beginning to venture back out into the field and for the most part, the news anchors had maintained their sense of propriety and calm. Their hair even still looked amazing.

As for the radiation, Troy was at a loss but felt worry gnawing at him as he looked helplessly around at his little family. He had even less of an idea what to do about the bands of rioters and looters that still roamed the streets and threatened the town’s security.

The device shut off and the bunker was quiet.

***

“Go find me a long, thick branch, please son,” Troy said as he removed the cover of the air return on the outside of the filtration system. Brandon did as he was told, enjoying being in the open air.

The morning air was still cold, and little ice crystals clung to the pine needles above his head but with no true sunlight to illuminate them they just sat like unpolished silver, dull and damp. Brandon grabbed a low-hanging branch and pulled on it to test its strength. Loose pellets of ice rained over his head and to the ground as he did this and he was reminded of winters past. He wondered if they would ever have seasons again like before.

Holding onto one end of the branch, he began sawing with his other hand until it broke free from the trunk. Stripping needles and pine cones as he walked, he delivered the branch to his dad.

Troy wrapped a spare shirt he had brought with him for this purpose around the tree branch after hefting it in his hands to test the strength - like father, like son. He gently poked the branch inside the air intake tube of the filtration system and swabbed out the inside with his makeshift scrubber. This was a delicate process as the inside of the tube consisted of filters made of thin, mesh material and Troy could not risk puncturing one of those filters.

Even though the air outside was becoming less toxic by the day, a grey sheet of debris still blotted out the sun, letting through only a weak, half-light over the world’s surface.

On the news last night some brave soul had stood outside and piloted a drone through that ominous cloud. At one point the camera only showed darkness. The center of the smog cloud held only darkness.

So Troy kept swabbing and prayed to a God he didn’t believe in to spare his family the horrors that were still likely to come.