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If Country A launches an atomic bomb at Country B, and Country B counters with an atomic bomb, and Country C inadvertently sets off an atomic bomb at Country D, and Country E becomes collateral damage, what are the chances that citizens of the world realize that the leaders of the world are doing this war scare for propaganda purposes?
Chapter Forty-Three
Freddy found the potassium iodide tablets tucked in the back of a drawer while we were looking for toilet paper. Let’s just not talk about the bathroom situation. They didn’t mention the bathroom situation smell in the FEMA pamphlet. Thankfully, whoever remodeled this place had the decency to put up a shower curtain, and not one of those clear ones but one of those decorative ones, so we couldn’t see the person do their business, though the sounds were on another level. Radiation didn’t stop bodily functions. In fact, it kind of made them worse, especially when we started adding blood to the equation. So we were happy when Freddy found the potassium iodide bottle.
Unlike the scene in the movie where I died—Helen sacrificed her life for Hank to live—I wasn’t going to make the mistake like Helen did. I was taking the pill.
“Everyone needs to take one,” Freddy said, frowning. “Sadly, there are only nine pills for ten people. Someone will have to sacrifice their life for ours.”
“Dude,” Rodney said, “are you serious?”
We looked at one another and then at the bottle in Freddy’s hand. He shook the pill bottle at us and smiled.
“Should we take a vote?” Astrid asked.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“I say we let the crippled…” Astrid said, her voice trailing off while looking at Owen.
We all turned to him.
“Even though I can’t see, I can feel all your eyes on me. Am I right?” he asked.
“No,” we said in unison, lying.
“Liars,” he said, crossing his arms.
Someone found a banana and tossed it at Terrence. It was dark, so I couldn’t tell who.
“Okay, that’s racist, and hell, no,” Terrence said.
“Bananas have potassium,” someone said, disguising their voice. “That’s not racist.”
Terrence peeled the banana and ate it. “Oh, that’s racist, but I still want my damn pill.”
“Since you all obviously want a pill, maybe we should—”
“Hell, no, no games, nothing,” Max said, walking up and snatching the pill bottle out of Freddy’s hand. He shook the bottle. It was full. “You are a bastard. A bastard that is most definitely going to hell.”
“Dude, it’s a joke,” Freddy said, laughing.
Terrence grabbed the bottle out of Max’s hand and started handing out pills. When he got to Freddy, even though they were friends, he considered not giving him one, but he did because it was the right thing to do.
Potassium iodide side effects include: stomach or gastrointestinal problems, rashes, inflammation of the salivary glands.
We all had the side effects.
Also to note: there were no plans for what to do with the buckets after they were full.
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• nausea and vomiting
• diarrhea
• headache
• fever
• dizziness and disorientation
• weakness, fatigue
• hair loss
• sloughing off of skin
• mouth ulcers
• infections
• low blood pressure
• skin burns
• dehydration
• bleeding from nose, mouth, gums, and/or rectum
Chapter Forty-Four
We were digging through drawers and found some supplies that made us question our teachers’ extracurricular activities. The condoms were a bit worrisome.
“What if we need to repopulate the earth?” Tyson asked.
“We won’t need these, then,” I said.
“But we might.”
“Dude, did you pay attention in biology? You. Don’t. Wear. Condoms. If. You. Want. To. Make. A. Baby.”
“Classy,” Astrid said, nodding.
I went back to digging in the drawers. Battery-powered radios. But we tried and kept trying to get a signal.
It had only been one day in here, and we were bleeding from orifices that we hadn’t thought could bleed, and the boys were still thinking with their penises.
Ugh.
“Oh, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,” Max said over and over again, pulling out a heavy green metal box. It had a handle and knobs and switches.
“Just say ‘shit,’ boy,” Dylan said, curling up on his cot with a blanket. He had just spent a lot of time on the bucket.
“Okay, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, better?”
“Much.”
“That’s a Geiger counter,” I said.
“That’s, like, from the old movies. That’s not real,” Astrid said.
“It’s real.”
“Like this?” she said, waving her arms about.
“If it goes off, then yes, it’s real,” I said.
“Turn it on,” she said. “Turn it on.”
Max didn’t want to be the one who confirmed our worst nightmare. None of us did. I think we enjoyed the little oblivion that we were living in at the moment. Dylan finally gave up, threw his hands in the air, and told us to shut the hell up. He grabbed the Geiger counter, which had been put on the floor. He flicked the switch, and it buzzed. There was no denying it. Radiation. He moved around the room, placing the Geiger counter in front of each of us, and then himself. We were all radioactive. He turned it off.
For a while no one said a word. What was there to say? Our worst fears were realized. Whatever had happened out there had emitted radiation. And we’d gotten a high dose of it.
It was a leap from radiation poisoning to X-Men. But it was made. At least Rodney was optimistic.
Dead parents. Check.
A dose of radiation. Check.
Like the greats (Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the Flash, Firestorm), we have our tragic backstory.
“We’re the children of the atom,” Rodney said, tearing a Razorback basketball T-shirt in half to cover his face from the fallout that he was convinced he was breathing in.
“No. I think that’s our children,” I said, picking at the dead skin on my thumb.
“This isn’t fucking X-Men,” Terrence said, slamming his empty water jug on the ground.
“Well, fuuuuuuck!” Rodney said.
“Fuck is right,” Freddy said, grabbing a chunk of hair that had fallen from his head and stuffing it deep in his back pocket. “Was this supposed to happen?” he asked.
“Maybe they’re messing with us. Maybe this is just good makeup,” Astrid said, taking out her lipstick from her now brown-pink jeans.
“Damn,” Freddy said, sticking his right index finger into a sore on Astrid’s right cheek. “I can touch bone.”
“Don’t touch me!”
“Kitty is good but not that good.” Freddy wiped his finger on his pant leg.
“But we were on the mountain, and we didn’t get the seventy-five-dollar treatment,” I said.