Chapter 6 - Surprise

“We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear the birds of prey, and let it keep one shape, till custom make it their perch, and not their terror.”

William Shakespeare† 1564-1616

Ted was looking at the owl through the binoculars when the flash of light exploded out of the south burning his eyes. He dropped the glasses in pain and turned towards Ruth. The living room lit up. Ruth turned her head away from the window and fell to the ground. As Ted fell to the ground with his wife, the windows shattered.

Chester put his pipe down and folded the paper to get to the next section. Klaus took another drink of coffee and stared at the morning papers headline, “ELIGIBILITY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY SET AT 75”. A bright light enveloped the restaurant.
Klaus saw the expression of horror on Chester’s face and asked, “What was that?”, as he turned to see for himself.

Chester dropped to the ground expecting a shock wave to hit saying, “Hit the deck Klaus.”
A shock wave rocked the building with resounding thunder. A second wave hit moments later. All the restaurant patrons were lined up at the north window staring in awe at the mushroom cloud that enveloped the morning sky.

The elevator began to shake just as thunder, louder than any sound Anita could imagine, deafened her. Rudy was thrown against Mrs. Stenson knocking her to the floor. Fear welled up in Anita. Rudy and Mrs. Stenson bounced off the opposite wall and rebounded in her direction. Anita side stepped their fall to her feet. She was fortunate to be holding the hand rail when the shock hit. Calm decended. Anita bent over to help Mrs. Stenson up. Blood ran down her face. Trudy was crushed under Rudy’s comatose body. Just as Mrs. Stenson reached for Trudy’s hand, another shock wave hit. Anita lurched forward hitting her head on the other side of the elevator. A loud snapping sound was accompanied by the sound of a piano wire snapping, and darkness. Rudy, Anita, and Mrs. Stenson were piled against one side of the elevator. The dark quiet calm was accented by a slim beam of light reaching in through the elevator door. Anita was the first to rise, her head and shoulder in severe pain. She leaned on the rail and inched her way up to standing on the canted floor. Rudy began to moan. Anita heard screams from above.

“Mrs. Stenson. Rudy. Are you all right?”

Rudy drawled out a pained, “Yeah, just great. What the hell happened? Where are the lights?”

Anita leaned over where she thought Mrs. Stenson would be and felt around with her hands. She felt the warm slick feeling of blood on the floor. Her hand slid forward into Mrs. Stenson’s face. Anita felt for a pulse on the neck. Nothing.

“Oh my god. Mrs. Stenson’s dead.”

Rudy said, “I’m afraid, Anita.”

“Me too.” And lower to herself, “Me too.”

“We need to get out of here. The door is a little ajar. Do you think you can wedge it open?”

“I can try.” Rudy stuck his foot against one wall of the elevator and pulled on the door. It gave a couple of feet. They were half way down onto the first floor.

“Good job. Try the outside door.”

Rudy put his foot against the outside door and pushed. It gave only a couple of inches.

“I need help on this one.”

Anita got on the other side of the door from Rudy and pulled. The door gave another couple of feet letting a grey light in from the outside. Screams came down from above. Glass was lying on the floor everywhere. Anita looked over at Mrs. Stenson. Her neck and arm were broken. She lay misshapen in a pool of blood on the elevator floor next to Trudy.

Rudy held Anita’s arms as she slid off the elevator floor to the lobby of the apartments. A cold breeze blew across her legs. Rudy hopped down to the floor behind Anita. She was staring at the mushroom cloud that filled her view through the broken lobby glass. Rudy crumpled to the floor on his knees crying.

Naomi was thrown against the stove as the force of the blast ripped through her house. All the windows were blown out instantly. The back door was ripped off its hinges and thrown against the opposite wall. Naomi threw the scalding hot chocolate over her right shoulder and fell to the ground. Fear for her children seized her heart with unbearable anguish. Harold saw the flash out of the corner of his eye and turned to face it. The heat flash instantly burned the exposed skin of his face and blinded him. The blast of the wind threw his standing body against the house and into the living room. Elise was sitting on top of Robert trying to stuff snow into the hood of his jacket when the shock wave knocked her off her brother and onto Paul who was making a snow man. Snow blew with such fury that the children were buried in a drift within seconds of the blast. The roof was torn off the house and thrown on top of their car which was parked 30 feet in front of the house.

Barbara and Cedric were enveloped in the fire ball within a tenth of a second after the detonation. They didn’t know they were vaporized or even that an explosion occurred. A half mile of Chicago was enveloped in fire. Any home with two miles of ground zero was completely destroyed. No house or building was left standing. Every house within three miles of ground zero was destroyed beyond livability. After the second shock wave was sucked towards ground zero, people began to make a tentative evaluation of their surroundings. A fire raged around the silent center of Chicago. Broken gas mains were burning all over the city. Houses as far away as 20 miles suffered broken windows.

The lucky people outside the deadly three-mile limit looked out of their broken home and office windows onto a scene never before experienced in America. In front of them was the horror of nuclear war. It was 9:15 on a cold bright Saturday morning January 1.



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