After the End of the World

Author's note:

I hadn't planned on writing a sequel to The End of the World, but I got a lot of heartfelt comments and email requests that I not leave things the way they were at the end of that story. Frankly, I felt the same way, so I got to playing around with some ideas. Eventually I developed an outline of something I thought might work, but as I actually wrote it, the story came together in a way that made it, for me, one of the most satisfying tales I've written, in any genre. I hope you like it as well.

Due to where this story necessarily starts, there isn't a whole lot of sex early on, but there's plenty of it later.

While I've done just enough exposition that you could read this piece as a stand-alone, reading even the first paragraph would taint the first story for you if you decided to read it later. I wholeheartedly recommend that you start with The End of the World if you haven't already read it.

As a disclaimer, any political, social or religious views in this story are those of the characters and their circumstances, and don't necessarily reflect those of the author.

As always, your comments are highly coveted.

MB

*****

I don't know how long I've been on the cold, hard floor in the pitch black, but it feels like my entire body has assumed the rather chilly room temperature. After shedding more tears than I would have thought possible, my eyes are now dry and burning.

The dust has mostly settled, but I can feel that a lot of it is deep in my lungs. I can no longer fight it, and a coughing fit hijacks control of me. For the next few minutes my body convulses painfully as it attempts to cough up a lung. Mercifully, just as I'm sure it's about to succeed, it gives up for now. I'm thoroughly exhausted, and it feels like I must have cracked some ribs, but I somehow continue to breathe.

As little as I like it, I have to conclude that, at least for the moment, I'm still alive. I suppose it's something of a miracle, but frankly, I'd rather be dead. It's not right that I still breathe. Not while millions of people outside these walls are dying today, with maybe billions more to be claimed in the days, weeks and months ahead, victims of a nuclear holocaust that the vast majority of us hadn't seen coming. Dammit, the Cold War had been over for almost thirty years! Why did we have to go and do this?

The brutal Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, once said, "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic." But even with the tens of millions that he'd had brutally murdered, he was a piker compared to whomever it was that triggered this obscenity. I discover a kernel of truth in his words, though, as I find myself mourning my own losses.

My house, my barn, my garden and my stupid chickens, all of the things I'd worked so hard for and surrounded myself with, have been incinerated. Far worse, the corpse of my cherished sister lies on the scorched ground above me, less than a hundred feet away, her somewhat less cherished boyfriend right next to her, both victims of the same fate.

God help me, though, even the loss of the last member of my own family pales in comparison to the death of my beloved, his body crushed and buried not twelve inches from where I lie right now, on the other side of a thick steel blast door.

Romantics might say that we'd lived and loved a lifetime in those few hours that we'd finally been together. It had been half a decade since our careful dance around each other in high school, followed by a nonsensical estrangement over a simple misunderstanding. Then today, when we'd been lured together inside these walls and forced to confront and resolve the issues between us, we'd realized how silly we'd been. And after that, we'd burned like a white-hot flame.

Still, those romantics would be wrong. We'd only had a mere taste of that love of a lifetime. We'd both known that as good as it was, (and it had been good), it would only get better. But that lifetime has been torn from us.

As the slow, creeping chill sinks further into me, I consider death by hypothermia. I suppose it's as good a death as any, and a whole hell of a lot less painful than what has been on tap for so many today. I was near the man I loved when he died, and now I'll die next to him.

That's probably better than I deserve. If I hadn't raced out of the bunker when I knew there was no chance for Crystal and Braylin, Greg and I could have sealed ourselves inside and ridden this out together. We could have at least died in each other's arms in this bunker which, though it hasn't actually collapsed, was obviously under-designed for the magnitude of this catastrophe.

Instead, he'd been forced to drag me back into the bunker, fighting him the whole way. Then he'd felt honor bound to go back out and push the door closed when the handle to pull it closed had come off in his hands. A handle which I'd known wasn't up to the job, yet hadn't bothered to replace. I should have been the one out there, crushed by the blast and then tons of earth and rock when the tunnel collapsed.

But that had been the kind of man Greg was. Strong, kind, intelligent, ridiculously handsome, and willing to give of himself. He'd always been the only man I'd ever wanted, and he'd turned out to be a lover the likes of which I'd never imagined. Then he'd sacrificed his life for me, even knowing the certain and violent death that awaited him.

"Why did you do that, Gregory Edwards?" My cry feels dead in this space, and the effort sends me into another fit of excruciating coughing, but just saying the words aloud finally brings me to a realization; Greg's sacrifice will be meaningless if I just give up and die. To honor what he did for me, I have to at least try.

With a sheer act of will, I stagger to my feet, almost surprised that I'm able to stand, but I guess the heavy blow from the blast door when it was slammed closed by a multi-megaton nuclear blast has probably only left me bruised.

Through my gritty eye slits, I realize that it's not totally dark in the bunker after all. Every ten seconds or so, there's a quick flash from the green LED of the carbon monoxide detector. I know it's mounted to the wall just outside the door to the utility room. Like it or not, it's beckoning me in that direction.

Brushing my hand along the cold steel of the blast door, then the rougher, warmer, painted drywall, I make my way to the utility room. Stepping in, I reach for the flashlight which should be on the shelf next to the door, but it's not there. Considering how badly the bunker has been shaken, I'm not in the least surprised. I carefully get to my knees and begin to feel around. There are any number of unexpected and unidentified objects on the floor now, but I keep at it until I feel a familiar grooved aluminum cylinder.

When I switch it on, I gaze upon chaos. When my father had furnished this military-constructed shell of a bunker, he'd felt he'd fastened things down pretty well, but it obviously hadn't been good enough. The deep shelves of spares and other equipment had been outfitted with tall lips on the fronts to keep things from sliding off, but the shelves themselves have collapsed, spewing their contents everywhere.

The generator has moved a little from its usual location, but its power cord, propane line and exhaust connections are still attached, and may have kept it from marching further across the floor. Thankfully, the monstrous propane tank appears not to have shifted in its sturdy mounts, and the shelf holding the inverter looks to be untouched.

The battery shelves that I installed more recently have done okay, though a couple of batteries have managed to break free of their straps. They're hanging by their thick wires and one of those connections has come off, which alone would be enough to knock out the power. And power is going to be absolutely necessary if I'm going to survive for more than a day or two. It's time to get to work, and this is where I'm going to start.

Three hours later, I've got electricity. The first thing I do is try the radios. Though Greg had disconnected their antennas to protect them from electromagnetic pulse radiation, they're still dead. Perhaps the EMP had been strong enough that anything even near the ends of the antennas has been fried. (The fact that my laptop, sitting on the floor next to one of the antennas, is stone cold dead lends credence to this theory.) But even if the radios were still operative, they'd probably be unusable, seeing as how the antennas up on the bluff have certainly been rendered into little chunks of metallic confetti.

The ancient terminal that Crystal and Braylin had used to pull their little April Fool's Day prank, (duping Greg and me into thinking that World War III was starting, when in fact it wasn't scheduled to happen until later that afternoon), fires right up once I hook up the underground cable connecting it to some unnamed facility on the base. Unfortunately, either the cable is broken, or there's no one left at the base to answer my typed calls for help.

So I guess it's time to settle in for the long term, and that calls for doing some cleanup. At least the dust isn't terribly radioactive. I've dug out the Geiger counter and checked. That makes sense because the real radiation hazard is when the fallout arrives sometime later. I'll still check every few days, but with as good as my bunker's filtering systems are, I don't expect the levels down here to rise much above background.

But good God almighty, it's going to take me forever to get all this dust cleaned up.

*****

I make it to the toilet this time, so no cleanup will be necessary, but the truth is now unavoidable. After six weeks in the bunker and my first missed period ever, and now puking after breakfast for the third day in a row, it's certain. I'm carrying Greg's child.

Up until now I've been acting as if I have all the time in the world. I mean, what else can I do? I've got enough food, water and power to keep me alive for six years if I ration everything tightly (and I have), but my pregnancy changes everything.

Can I realistically deliver my own baby, then feed and care for it until he or she is five years old? I have some basic medicines as long as neither of us gets too sick, but I'm not set up for a kid. Hell, I don't even have diapers. And, oh yeah, with two of us in here, the food will only last three years, not six. Not much of a life for an innocent child.

So what do I do? The only way out of the bunker is sealed up tight, and even if I could get out, the surface has got to be glowing with radioactive particles. I don't have a radiation suit, so even if I could scratch my way through these concrete and steel walls and dig my way to the surface, I'd die horribly, even if I had somewhere to go. Which I don't.

This is going to take some thought.

*****

The pain is somehow even worse now, and the contractions have come every five minutes for way too long.

Something's wrong.

It's been thirty-eight weeks since Greg and I decided to jump the gun and start working on kids before we'd even set a date for what we'd thought was our inevitable wedding. For the last thirty-two weeks, I've been moving heaven and earth (in the latter case, literally) to be as ready as I can be. I've read everything in my survival library on midwifery, pediatrics and childcare. I've built a crib, sewn baby clothes and thick cloth diapers, and even put together a travel bag for us in the unlikely event that we ever get out of here.

I've got lots of towels and water next to me and I've even fired up the hot water heater for the first time since I showered with Greg. I've laid out every medical instrument and supply that could conceivably be helpful in the delivery of my baby, which, in reading about the signs, I'm sure will be a girl. If we survive this, I'm going to name her Crystal, for my sister.

For the last seven months, I've typed a message into the terminal every morning and evening in the vague hope that it might actually be working and catch someone home. From experience, I know that a returned text will beep loud enough to wake the dead, but so far, I've heard only silence.

My contractions started early yesterday morning. Everything seemed to be going normally as far as I could tell, but now, twenty-eight hours later, even though the contractions have continued, all progress has stopped. From the indications listed in the books, I think my baby is in breech position. If that doesn't change, we're going to die a lot sooner than I'd envisioned.

I've already tried the Webster Technique and a couple of the other things listed in the book to turn my baby, to no apparent effect. Those tend to work best before the thirty-seventh week and we're past that now. The only other way I can see to save us is a cesarean section.

According to the chapter about that procedure in one of my books, "self-inflicted" caesarian sections are usually deadly to both mother and child. As of the time the book was printed, there had been five documented cases of women (usually insane in one way or another) performing successful C-sections on themselves, but all of those had been followed by prompt and professional trauma care. That's not going to be possible in my case.

So basically, little Crystal and I are fucked. I can handle that for myself. I should have died nine months ago. But Crystal? She hasn't even taken her first breath yet. She was trusting her mother to take good care of her, but I've failed her miserably.

In a last, certifiably hopeless attempt at survival, I stand up and waddle to the terminal. Yesterday's message is still there, and of course there's still no response. I'd have heard it if there had been. With nothing better left to do, I begin to type in the all-caps style that is all the terminal will allow.

HELP. I AM IN LABOR AND MY BABY IS BREECH. I AM ALL ALONE.

The urge to call out has now been satisfied and the only thing left is to keep pushing until I die. I might as well be as comfortable as I'm ever likely going to get while I'm at it, so I sit myself down on the worn leather couch where Greg and I talked through our conflict so long ago. It's as good a place as any for his fiancée and unborn daughter to decompose.

When the next contraction hits, I push, because my body makes me do it. It's probably going to be about as successful as every attempt before. She's stuck, and she's not going anywhere.

When the beep comes, I jerk so hard that I nearly feel the pain over the agony of my contraction. I can see the terminal from where I'm lying, and there's new text on it. It'll have to wait a minute though.

When I finally stagger to my feet, I'm noticeably weaker even than when I sat down, but I manage to make it to the terminal and collapse into the chair in front of the screen. Even my eyes hurt, but I can still read the new message.

I AM PART OF A SURVEY AND SHUTDOWN CREW. WHERE ARE YOU.

Part of me knows I'm hallucinating this, but I decide to play along. I look at the sheet taped to the wall above the terminal. Like I don't have all of that stuff memorized anyway.

I AM IN A PRIVATE BUNKER 1340 YARDS EAST SOUTH EAST OF SILO 5340. THE BUNKER IS RIGHT UP AGAINST THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE BLUFF. THE MAIN ENTRANCE HAS COLLAPSED, BUT I HAVE DUG A NARROW TUNNEL TO WITHIN A FOOT OF THE SURFACE. THERE IS A BROOMSTICK POKING UP OUT OF THE DIRT THERE. LANA EDWARDS.

I use Greg's last name because I've thought of myself as his widow for the last nine months. He'd proposed and I'd gleefully accepted. We'd both considered the license and ceremony a mere formality. One that we were going to take care of ASAP, but still a formality. I was his, and he was mine. For life. I consider that married, and I'm sure he would have too.

I press the button to send my message. This is starting to seem pretty real for a hallucination. It seems even more so when the terminal beeps and another message appears. I suddenly realize that no, I'm not imagining this.

WE ARE IN THAT SILO. WE WILL BE THERE AS SOON AS WE CAN. CAIDEN MICHAELS.

So now we've been introduced. And if this is for real, Crystal and I might have an outside chance. That is, if they can find me. And if a full-grown man can get down a tunnel (in a radiation suit no less) that's sized for me. And if it's not too late. And if a "survey and shutdown" kind of guy knows how to perform a C-section.

We're probably going to die anyway, but at least someone knows about us.

"Hey, you with me?"

I realize that I'm on the hard floor of the Comm room. I must have collapsed and fallen from the chair. There's a man in a dirty Van Halen T-shirt kneeling over me. He's got a short, scraggly beard and greasy hair. I'm sure I look a fright myself. That might really bug me if I wasn't so sure I was about to die anyway.

"It's nice to see a face," I mumble.

He smiles. It's a friendly sort of smile on a friendly sort of face. "I'm Caiden. Let's get you back to where all of your supplies are." I feel arms under me and then I'm being carried into the Rec room, where I'd laid out everything for the birth. He puts me down on the thin mattress I'd placed in the middle of the room.

"Okay," he says. "Let's see what we're looking at here."

Well, that should be easy. All I'm wearing is a fleece hoodie and pink athletic shoes. He slides the hoodie up and over my baby bulge.

"How many weeks along are you?"

"Thirty-eight."

"Has your water broken?"

"Not yet. Is that bad?"

"Not in this case. Turning a baby is much easier this way."

"Good."

He begins to palpate my drum-tight belly. "That's a cute freckle you've got there, by the way."

I don't have enough energy left in my body to blush, but Caiden's eyes are twinkling. It makes me smile as well. "You're only the second man to see it."

"Considering where it is, I can see why." I don't otherwise have freckles, but this one is rather large. At least he thinks it's cute.

"Have you ever turned a baby before?"

"I've got some EMT training, and I've spent time recently studying the external cephalic version."

"The what?"

"It's a procedure used to turn a baby."

"But you haven't actually done it?"

"No, but I had the chance to practice with a model used to train for it. Don't worry, we're going to get you through this."

If he's lying, he doesn't have to worry about anyone calling him on it. He's got a nice bedside manner at least.

Caiden finishes his quick exam. "Yeah, I think you're right," he murmurs. "He's breech."

"She."

He lifts an eyebrow at me. "And you know this how?"

"Don't know, but I'm sure all the same. Her name's Crystal." Not that it's medically relevant, but I'd like someone to know that in case she lives and I die.

"Crystal. That's a pretty name. Mine's going to be either Jason or Amelia."

"You're having a baby too?"

He stops and lifts his T-shirt, revealing a very flat belly with just the hint of a tattoo showing above his pants on his left hip. He's very lean, bordering on emaciated. "Hmm, not me, I guess." He grins at me and drops his shirt back into place. "My wife Kara is in labor down in Tampa as we speak. It's going to be our first. And it's why I've been learning everything I could find about labor and delivery."

"You're going to miss the birth of your own baby?"

"Yeah. Like you, Kara is a couple weeks early."

"You should be on your way there."