A Broken World (Book 3): Fractured Memories by Lauck Andrew

Author:Lauck, Andrew [Lauck, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Zombies
Published: 2020-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

Douglas had made sure to pack a Geiger counter in each vehicle, which spoke highly of his forward thinking. As we drove past the state sign for California, Jessica kept a close eye on the reading, the bright red numbers constantly changing. I’ve heard a lot of sounds that escalate my blood pressure, like explosions and gunfire, but I nearly had a heart attack every time the clicking of the counter spiked. Douglas quickly assured us over the radio that we were still under acceptable levels of radiation, especially since we were inside the vehicle and wearing hazmat suits.

I had only ever seen California in movies and postcards, but it was strange, if not unnerving, to drive along the empty highways and pass through silent cities. I watched out the passenger window, the desolate remnants of the once-bustling cities looking like the haunting grounds of a Travel Channel documentary. We were still on the edge of the blast, though, because there were still buildings standing.

“How close can we get to the center of the explosion before our suits are useless?” Jessica asked over the radio.

“There’s a decent buffer zone where, as long as we stay inside and our suits are intact, we’re fine. If we get too close, the radiation levels will eat through the suits. I’d say, based on what I was able to read before we left, that we can at least enter the city and remain safe, but we’d have to immediately go underground if we wanted to go any further in.”

“Fantastic,” I breathed.

“On the plus side,” he continued, “we won’t need to get any closer anyway. Anyone caught in the immediate blast would have been vaporized instantly.” I glanced at Jessica, who shared a similar look of concern. We’d have to work on Douglas’ social cues, at least over the radio.

We kept moving, being told that stopping for any length of time would also increase the radiation levels. I tried not to think about the thousands of people that had once filled these streets less than five years ago, people that had either been vaporized, as Douglas had said, or suffered from extreme radiation poisoning until death, a truly awful way to go.

The further into the state we got, the more ash covered the ground until, eventually, the streets were lined with it. Thick sheets of grey powder stretched over the pavement, across highways, and throughout the empty spaces where forestry or structures used to be, whether from the air following the nuclear meltdown or evidence of the countless victims. I briefly wondered how many of those victims had been infected, wishing my imagined number were lower, but they were lost well before the reactor blew.

“We must be getting close,” Douglas chimed in over the radio, noting the Geiger counter reading going up. We had been driving for a few hours, but any indication of where we were was gone. Signs were missing, so Gabriel had just followed an arbitrary direction for the last hour.

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