Out of the Ashes

The United States fared well in the nuclear aspect of missiles landing on her soil. Most of the enemy missiles did not make it through our penetration screens. But several did. Washington D.C. took the first hit, turning the residents into dust. Several more cities met the same fate.

Nuclear warfare had progressed considerably during the decade just past. Almost all the missiles, of the nuclear type, that landed in America were of the so-called “clean” type. That is to say there was not much deadly fallout associated with them. But most of the missiles landing on American soil carried bacterial-type warheads that killed everything within a certain number of miles—depending on the prevailing winds. This was accomplished in a short time, then the deadly bacteria died.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Omaha, Boston, Philadelphia, Memphis, and some fifty other cities went under during the strike. The first strike. Some of them were reduced to smoking, dangerous ash, most to the state in which their citizens staggered about, dying on their feet of the plague or of Tabun-produced death. New York City no longer existed. The famous lady with her welcoming torch of freedom was now and would forever be only a memory.

The island of Cuba still floated, but most of her people, including the naval contingent and marines at Gitmo, were reduced to very small piles of dust.

Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa—gone.

Subs roamed the oceans of the world: Chinese, Russian, American, Australian, English—to name a few. Now, with the war plug pulled, and none of them knowing if there was to be a home base for their return, they all did their thing in proper style, thank you.

Melbourne, Sidney, and Brisbane were gone. Mexico City exploded and died in a raging hail of nuclear fire. Lisbon, Rome, and the monuments to justice and truth and philosophy in Athens were no more. Also destroyed were Karachi, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Rangoon, Bangkok, Hanoi, and Uncle Ho's city, better known as Saigon. No real reason for those cities to explode, but what good are spoils if there is no victor?

Europe blew apart: London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Brussels, and more. The major cities of Russia erupted under the impact of Chinese and American missiles. Troops clashed and fought and died because it is the nature of troops to do just that. To follow orders.

Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rio, Santiago, the Canal Zone. Why not? The pilots and the skippers who ordered the pushing of buttons had no place to return.

There were many cities around the globe who came through unscathed—this time around. The first wave of missiles killed only about three-quarters of a billion people.

But governments—all governments—no matter how noble they might proclaim themselves to be, are vindictive.

And the doomsday tapes were silently rolling.

Ben did not know how long he was out; how long he had been lying on the floor of his den, but it was full dark when he awoke. He looked at his hands: they were swollen grotesquely. He could not open one eye, and putting his hands to his face, he felt a mass of welts and swollen flesh. He tried to crawl to the bathroom where he kept his Benadryl—he was allergic to any kind of wasp or bee sting—but strength left him and he collapsed back to the floor.

In his dreams, his nightmares, he thought he was back in Nam. And as the sweat rolled from his body, he refought every battle a dozen times, screaming out occasionally.

It was dawn when he awakened, pulled himself to his feet, and staggered into the bathroom. There, he took several Benadryl tablets and thought of driving into town to the hospital. But he knew he'd never make it.

The phone. He stumbled to the phone to call his doctor. In the semidarkness of the den, his foot caught in a rocker and he fell to the floor, banging his head. Spinning colors became blackness as he fell tumbling into the darkness of unconsciousness.

The Air Force had lost nearly seventy-five percent of its planes and more than half its men. The Marine Corps was almost totally wiped out. The Army was reduced by more than sixty percent, and the Navy cut by more than fifty percent, with almost no ships or planes left.

The government of the United States, for all practical purposes, had ceased to exist. Weather Mountain had taken a hit dead on. Travee was dead.

Twenty-four hours after the first wave of bombings, many citizens of America still did not really know what had happened to them. They did not know what to do or where to go. They wandered about in a daze. This was America, they thought, and things like this just don't happen in America. Do they? Didn't Big Brother promise to take care of us? What happened?