Deana was on a crash course for nuclear survival.
There was so much to be done. The three hundred bed hospital was nearly filled and not only did they have to move patients to the lower floors and away from windows, she wanted to make the basement area a triage and critical care area.
As soon as she arrived, she initiated the emergency readiness plan. Three hours wasn’t a lot of time, but it was more time than most hospitals would receive.
It was all on a wing and a prayer that they would be far enough away from any blast zones.
Everyone dallied at first, until the news confirmed what Deana was saying.
At that point, many people left.
Workers abandoned posts and opted to find their families. Patients who were well enough to walk, raced from the hospital.
She didn’t have time to argue or convince them to stay. Deana just kept working.
When the time was at hand and the final emergency signal rang out, remaining patients crowded the corridors, doors were sealed, and Deana was in the basement trying to get the triage center ready.
They were far from prepared when the bombs fell.
The ground trembled, even in the basement she could hear the shattering of glass and people screaming. She absorbed the reality of what happened for only a few minutes and then she continued working along with a handful of triage staff that stayed behind.
In the first hour nobody came.
Then after a few hours, people poured in. They were panicked, crying and hurt. Many covered in fall out. No matter how organized she tried to be, Deana lost control. She hated to do it, but those who had been outside since the explosion were placed in a separate area of the basement. She knew those people, no matter how minor their injuries, weren’t going to make it due to their exposure.
The injuries were minor at first. Broken bones and bruises. Deana placed a doctor on glass removal. So many survivors arrived with shards of glass impaling eighty percent of their bodies.
Then came the burns of all various degrees.
Blistering burns where clothing had burned off, and then there were those carried in by family members who were beyond help.
Too close to D.C. they were far enough away to live, but near enough to be flashed burned. Flesh was blackened and charred. It was like nothing Deana had ever seen.
She knew she had to ration medicine, bandages, everything. Despite how the hospital boasted they were ready for a catastrophe… they weren’t.
When she had a second, Deana snuck off to the small hall before the boiler room. She sat on the floor and caught her breath.
If she didn’t take a break, she wouldn’t be able to get one. Her adrenaline would only keep her going so long.
However, those quick moments of solace were done. She brought her bottle of water to her lips, took a small sip, swished it around her mouth and slowly swallowed. She vowed to make that bottle last as long as she could.
Deana placed the bottle in her pocket and headed back to the trenches.
Back to the burns, the blood, the frightened masses. However, Deana knew it had only been several hours and although what she was dealing with seemed bad, it was only the beginning. Things weren’t going to get better, unfortunately, they would only get worse.
A lot worse.
EIGHTEEN – Being Personal
Harland was awake before the seven hour reading mark. He lifted the tin coffee pot from the hot plate, swished it around and poured the remainder in his cup before heading into the office.
He asked Kit how she was feeling.
“I’m still sick,” she replied, sitting at the small kitchen table. “I’m afraid to eat anything and I’m dizzy. Are you sure I don’t have radiation sickness?”
“Okay, you were sick really fast. If you had radiation sickness, for you to get sick that fast you received a lethal dose. About this time, you wouldn’t be able to stop throwing up. And, well, if you’re exposed so is Abe. He’s not sick.”
“He’s bigger.”
“That’s true, but he’d be sick by now. You don’t have radiation sickness, you have a head injury. I see you are doing some reading.” He pointed down to the book he had given Abe.
“I kind of borrowed it from Abe. He saw your entire collection of Walking Dead and started from issue one.”
“It’s good to know he’s at least educating himself in one type of apocalypse. Try to rest today. Okay?”
“Um… Harland, we’re in a bunker. What would I be doing to overexert myself?” Kit asked sarcastically.
“Well, you might find yourself wanting to organize one of the closets. Don’t be fooled I’m high tech. I have an exercise bike back there that is rigged to vent the shelter in case of generator loss. You might be peddling for a while.”
“I may need to do that, organize the closets. Not today.” Kit held up her hand. “I promise.”
“Good. I’ll let you know what the readout is.” Harland walked into the office.
A few hours earlier, Kit wouldn’t have known, or understood if the readout numbers were good, bad or normal. However page twelve of the book started talking about radiation and she gathered knowledge. She always had an idea of what it was, how bad it was and the time frame to stay safe, but the numbers… were foreign to her.
Reading was easy, because it educated her and didn’t wear her down. With the exception of her head, reading didn’t bother her at all. It didn’t help the fact that it was all surreal to her. She was far from seeing anything. She didn’t know if the sky was dark, red, orange…. She only saw four walls.
Kit also cheated and flipped through the pages looking at the diagrams and pictures. She would go back and read more, the pictures gave her a visual. She got a good idea of blast damage and how much the fireball would incinerate, and how much damage blast winds would do. She thought about the people in the cities. The ones that survived the blast, but had no knowledge of what they faced. Like in Hiroshima, how many of them would wander the street clueless that their walking around outside caused their death sentence.
This led Kit to think about her family. She felt lost because she didn’t know Zeke’s fate. She firmly believed that Abe spoke to Regis, and that helped, because Regis would find Zeke and Mark. Her gut feeling wasn’t optimistic about Mark. Something told her things were off and maybe, Mark didn’t make it. She was confident though, that had any of them survived the crash, they were surviving the aftermath.
Her mother, daughter and sister were a different story.
Deana lived just out of Washington D.C.… She was definitely in a target zone. Knowing her sister, she was probably already at work when things happened. Hopefully the hospital was far enough away from a blast area. Deana was smart, she possessed great common sense. However, for as harsh and mean as she came across, Kit knew her sister would roll up her sleeves, dangerous or not, and help out those that were hurt, or dying.
She would be a first responder in a disaster.
Her mother and Jillie were a different story. She was positive they were out of blast range, but the bombs came in the middle of the night. Were they asleep? Were they woken by it? Jillie was staying with her mother and that was a good thing, because Kit was positive Jillie had no knowledge about nuclear weapons. It wasn’t dinner table discussion. Her mother on the other hand, educated about weapons or not, was a survivor and would instinctively know what to do.
Kit would be toast if left up to her own resources, there was so much in the book she didn’t know, then again, there were things she did and stuff her father told her that she placed in the file at the back of her mind.