Radioactive and The Decay Dystopian Super Boxset- A Dirty Bomb and Nuclear Blast Prepper Tale of Survival (3 page)

“I repeat; bombs have been detonated in the downtown San Diego area. We haven’t confirmed how large the blast was, or what was specifically targeted, but we do have confirmed reports of a large blast happening in downtown San Diego.”

Jim threw the pack and grocery supplies in the truck bed. Coyle ran around the other side and jumped into the passenger’s seat. Jim reversed out of the parking spot, narrowly missing a man heading for his car. A pair of fighter jets blasted right above them towards the coast. The roar of the engines was deafening. They were flying so low the jet wash shook the truck.

Tigs meowed loudly under all of the duress. Jim’s truck squealed in acceleration out on the highway. In the distance, he heard the blast of bombs. A glance in his rearview mirror revealed smoke rising from the crumbling structures of downtown San Diego.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” Coyle repeated the phrase as he glanced back at the jets racing off into the distance. Many of the cars along the opposite side of the highway had come to a complete stop on the side of the road, with their passengers getting out and watching more jets flying through the air towards the coast.

Coyle finally spun back around in his seat with his eyes wide. He looked over at Jim, who wasn’t glancing in the rearview mirror at all. “Jim, those were fighter jets. Fucking fighter jets!”

Jim was passing most of the cars on his left and right, not bothering to stay in one lane, weaving in and out of traffic to put more distance behind them. Coyle punched Jim in the arm.

“Are you listening to me?” Coyle asked.

A caravan of about ten squad cars sped down the opposite side of the highway with their lights blaring and the sirens raging through the wind. They blew past the rest of the traffic like they were standing still.

“Holy shit,” Coyle whispered.
 

At the pace they were driving, Jim believed they would arrive in Phoenix in five hours. Coyle sat motionless with his eyes staring straight ahead. Jim opened up Tigs’ cage and she gladly exited. She bounced onto Coyle’s lap, purring quietly as she circled him. In no time, she curled up into a ball and closed her eyes.

Jim knew there was a Naval Air facility in El Centro on their way out of California to Phoenix and wondered if he should avoid it. It could be a potential roadblock for anyone heading east. Since he wasn’t familiar with the back roads the further east he went, he decided to stick to his gut and stay along the interstate. Traffic was moving fluidly for now.

After a few hours of driving, the sun was setting low in the west behind them and the gas tank was hovering just above a quarter of a tank. They were about two hours from Phoenix and thirty minutes away from the Naval Air facility. Coyle was passed out in the passenger seat along with Tigs, and Jim thought it would be a good idea to find a gas station to fill up before they got there. Just in case.

Jim pulled into a small exit town with a few stores and a rundown motel. The desert atmosphere made the town feel more barren than it actually was. It was dusk now and Jim flicked his headlights on. A Chevron sign glowed in the sky down the road. Jim shook Coyle’s shoulder.

“Ugh, what?” Coyle said.

Tigs jumped on top of her crate and rubbed her head on Jim’s shoulder. He gave her a scratch and tried to keep Coyle awake. “We needed to stop and get gas. Thought you could use a bathroom break. That is, unless you’re still empty from peeing yourself earlier.”

With his eyes still closed, Coyle flipped him the bird and then dropped his hand onto his own lap. He was so tired that even the exertion of insulting Jim seemed to wear him out.

The truck pulled into the two-pump, carless Chevron and Jim got out. He unscrewed the gas cap and put the pump in. He swiped his card and banged on the truck’s hood, jolting Coyle awake again.

“Fill it up. Want anything from inside?” Jim asked.

Coyle closed his eyes and waved him off.

An elderly lady sat behind the counter reading a recent issue of
US Weekly
. She looked up from her article at the sound of the chime when Jim entered. He headed for the restroom signs. The door was locked with a sign that said, “See front counter for key.”

Jim headed back to the front counter, and a man in a ski mask bust through the door with a double-barrel pump action shotgun. He pointed it at Jim, then at the old lady.

“Get on the ground! Get on the ground now or I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

The old lady slid off her stool and onto the floor. Jim held his hands in the air and dropped to his knees. He looked through the front door and saw another man in a ski mask pinning Coyle on the ground. Tigs roamed around aimlessly in the truck.

Jim’s chin pressed hard against the floor from the pressure of the robber’s twelve gauge digging into the back of his skull.

“That your friend out there with your truck?” the robber asked.

“Yeah.” Jim wasn’t sure if it was the cold tile, or the fact that he’d never had a gun this close to his head before that caused him to shake. The man in the ski mask laughed and headed back over to the counter. He tossed an empty bag at the old woman on the floor.

“Put the money in the bag, bitch,” the robber said.

Jim lifted his head up and watched the old woman shove money into the sack. He knew exactly what they were planning to do. They would take the money from the store, Jim’s truck would be the getaway vehicle, and all of their supplies and transportation would vanish. He had to find a way to get the man close enough and lower his weapon for him to have a chance of engaging him.

“Where do you plan on going?” Jim asked.

“What the hell did you just ask me?” the robber responded.

The robber stormed over, and the barrel of the gun was right on Jim’s forehead with the man’s finger on the trigger.

“What’s your destination? You can’t be heading back to San Diego. It’s a warzone over there,” Jim said.

“What’s it to you?”

“I just wanted to make sure you and your boyfriend had a nice place to run off into the sunset, that’s all.”

The robber pressed the barrel of the gun into Jim’s head even harder. “You stupid motherfucker, you should have kept that little comment to yourself.” He flipped the barrel of the gun around to smack Jim in the face but took too long in his reactive moments. Jim moved swiftly off the ground, leapt to his feet, and barreled into the man at full force.

Jim and the robber flew backwards onto the ground. They wrestled, awkwardly grunting and pulling at each other. Both of them struggled for the weapon. Jim took a nasty right cross on the chin but was able to get leverage on the robber. Jim got the robber in an arm bar and increased the pressure he was putting on him.

The robber flailed helplessly. He kicked and tried to hit Jim from his position but couldn’t reach him. Jim gave one last squeeze and POP! The robber let out a scream, clutching his shoulder.

A shotgun blast sent Jim in the aisle for cover. He pulled out his pistol and crept around the corner of a chip rack. Jim saw the other ski-masked man on the ground at the store’s entrance with blood pouring from his chest. The old lady had a twelve gauge crooked under her arm.

Coyle came running in with his hands duct-taped behind him and surveyed the scene. The woman aimed the shotgun at Coyle. He took a step sideways, hiding behind the wall next to the door. “I’m with him,” Coyle said, motioning over to Jim.

Jim ran over to the other guy and patted him down. He pulled out another pistol, extra ammo, and the duct tape he’d used on Coyle. He ripped a piece of tape off the roll and wrapped the other robber’s wrists. The robber screamed again when Jim pulled the arm with the dislocated shoulder around his back. Once he was done, Jim did the same to his feet. He glanced back up to the old lady. “Think you can take it from here?”

“My son’s in the Navy. He was stationed in San Diego. I haven’t heard from him. Is it as bad as they say out there?”

Jim hesitated for a moment. The hardened look the woman had a few moments before softened with the worrying eyes of a mother.

“I was at the base when it happened. It was bad, but nothing our boys can’t handle.” It was all he could tell her without going into too much detail and having to lie.

The old woman dialed the police and said the gas was on the house. Jim and Coyle jumped in the truck and continued their trek east. It took Tigs a little while to calm down and it took Coyle even longer. Jim himself was still a little wired.

“Can you believe that shit? Bombs are going off around the country and these assholes are trying to kill us,” Coyle said.

After putting distance between themselves and the gas station, signs for the Naval Air facility came into view. The rush of jets and helicopters taking off filled the night air. They looked up through the windshield to see where they were but they couldn’t find them in the dark sky.

Then, off in the distance, Jim saw what he feared he would run into. Tanks and barricades lined the interstate, and military personnel bottlenecked the oncoming traffic in both directions.

Jim told Coyle to put Tigs back into her cage. Cars honked and their drivers struggled to merge into the single lane. Soldiers patrolled the line of cars and helicopters with spotlights hovered above them. The cloudy night sky shielded the moon from view, and the military had set up large work lights to allow for better visibility. Jim could see that they were half a mile from the barricade and at the rate that traffic was moving, it could be a while before they got past it.

A group of four soldiers were scanning the cars before they passed through the barricade. They were five cars up from Jim and Coyle at a green Mazda Protégé four-door sedan. It had a single male passenger. The soldier at the driver’s window was speaking to him, and Jim could see the passenger’s head bob up and down enthusiastically through the back window. The soldier nodded and motioned for his crew to move on.

The car behind Jim started to lay on the horn. Jim glanced in his rearview mirror and put his hands up in exasperation.

“Where does this asshole want me to go?” Jim asked.

Jim glanced back up at the group of soldiers ahead again. They were three cars up. His knuckles turned white from gripping the steering wheel. He knew that if they searched the car, they would get detained for the possession of firearms. They’d be looking for any excuse to pull someone over. The soldiers were now two cars ahead of them.

“If they ask you if we’re armed, tell them no,” Jim said.

“You think the old lady told the police about us?” Coyle asked.

“Maybe, but they’re probably throwing anyone with firearms in detainment. I’d like to stay out of any military installations for a while.”

“Why? You act like you’ve had some bad experiences on military bases before.”

The car behind them laid on his horn again for a solid five seconds. Coyle slid the back window of the truck open and mustered the most powerful middle finger he could into the air.

Jim noticed Coyle’s bloody jumpsuit on the passenger floorboard. He elbowed Coyle in the ribs. “Hide that.”

The lead soldier was at the hood of Jim’s truck making his way to his window. Coyle fumbled with the jumpsuit in his hands. He crammed the dirty piece of clothing under the seat out of sight just before Jim rolled down his window. “Good evening, Sir. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Are you boys coming from San Diego?”

“Yes, we are.”

There was another soldier on the other side of the vehicle staring at Coyle, who left his window up. The other two were shining the lights at the ends of their rifles into the truck bed. The only thing back there was the food.

The soldier shined his light behind Jim’s seat and saw the long duffle bag along with his backpack. “Do you have any weapons on you, sir?”

“No.”

“It looks like you’ve got a rifle bag in there.”

“We’re on our way to Phoenix to visit my sister and stay there ‘till this thing gets sorted out. Why is the road blocked?”

The soldier pulled his radio up. “We’ll need the canine unit out here.”

The guy behind them laid on the horn again with a few short bursts. He leaned out his window. “Hey, what’s the hold up?”

The lead soldier motioned to his partner. “Take care of that, will you?”

He nodded and walked over to the car. “Sir, I’m gonna need you to calm down and remain in your vehicle.”
 

The man was getting upset. “We’re trying to get through here, what’s going on?”

The soldier kept his rifle in his hands and again told him to remain calm and stay in his vehicle. The man finally pulled himself back through the window inside the car.

Jim saw the canine unit heading towards him about ten cars ahead of them. Coyle had beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead. The closer the dogs moved to the truck, the more restless Tigs became.

The dogs passed the green Mazda ahead, and they stopped abruptly and started barking at the car. The soldier handling him had to pull him back. The dog kept running towards the trunk. The lead soldier around Jim’s truck moved towards the canine’s barks.

A soldier had his rifle aimed at the driver of the Mazda and the man had his hands up in the air. The Mazda was surrounded now, with the soldiers pointing their rifles at the car and the dog going insane. Jim could hear shouts of, “What’s in the trunk? What’s in the trunk?”

The man in the driver seat kept screaming, “I don’t know! I don’t know! I haven’t done anything.”

Jim glanced in the rearview mirror and saw some cars trying to turn around, but with all of them being funneled into one lane, there was too much congestion for them to move anywhere.

The soldiers pulled the man out of the car and slammed him on the ground. They cuffed his arms behind his hands and pushed his face into the asphalt. One of the soldiers slowly approached the back of the truck. He kept his rifle up. He motioned for the soldier over by the driver’s door to pop the hatch.

A click signaled the trunk’s lock popping open. The soldier reached out his gloved hand just above the California license plate and slowly lifted it up. There were four packs of C-4 explosives lining the insides of the trunk.

The soldier took off at a sprint, waving his arms for everyone to get back. A few of the people in their cars got out and ran while others threw their cars in reverse. The Cadillac in front of Jim peeled out backwards and slammed right into his truck grill. The hood folded upwards and bits of glass from the smashed headlights scattered on the pavement.

The airbags went off, and Tigs’ cage rolled onto the floorboard. Jim’s head flew back onto the headrest and Coyle’s arm flew back and hit the rear window with a loud crack.

A woman jumped out of her car and ran screaming past them, right into the chaos of the traffic behind them. A van slammed into her, and blood sprayed a parked car’s windshield. Car horns were honked in between the shouts of, “BOMB! BOMB! BOMB!”

Jim glanced over to the median, which had a wall four feet high. Getting over that thing was their best chance. Jim unbuckled his seatbelt and did the same for Coyle, who was still clutching his left arm. “Grab what you can and follow me.”

Jim grabbed Tigs’ cage, the duffel bag, and his pack. The shouts from soldiers trying to organize the chaos ended with gunfire being sprayed into the air.

The commanding officer rushed out of the security post and headed over to the barricade.

“Sergeant, what do we have?” he asked.

The young sergeant had a clean, tanned face and piercing blue eyes that were watery with fear, but his voice masked what he was feeling.

“Sir, we have a car bomb in the line. We’re evacuating the surrounding area, but it’s chaos out there.”

One of the soldiers was examining the contents of the trunk, looking for the trigger. He was in his bomb gear and his hands finally stumbled upon a small black box with wires running into it. He flipped the box over and there read a timer with five seconds left, quickly ticking away.

In the time it took for him to realize what was going to happen, the bomb went off, sending the soldier flying backwards. Jim and Coyle dashed over the top of the concrete barriers and ducked their heads under their arms in their laps. Shrapnel, fire, and smoke flew over the top of the barrier, raining down on them.

Jim glanced up over the edge of the barrier after the blast and saw a crater the size of the sedan in the middle of the road. He looked over at his truck, which was flipped upside down on the pavement.

When they approached the front of the barricade, there was fire, smoke, and debris littered on the interstate. Most of the people that had survived and abandoned their vehicles had been corralled into the security station in the middle of the grass median. The survivors huddled in blankets and sipped coffee and water. Soot and fear smeared their faces.

A solider came up and handed the two of them water. Jim chugged down half of it and used the rest to wipe the sweat and dirt off of his face and hands.

Coyle kept wincing at his arm. Jim pulled Coyle with him and asked a soldier where the first aid tent was. When they found it, Jim flagged down one of the nurses.

“Excuse me, can you take a look at my friend?”

The nurse had wavy red hair with a porcelain doll complexion. Coyle thought he’d take the opportunity to let her know about his heroics earlier in the day. “Yeah, I was at the base when it happened. Sure, it was frightening, but when you have nerves of steel, it doesn’t really faze you that much. I saved like four people, you know. I’m gonna get a medal for it.”

The nurse nodded politely, then rolled her eyes when she turned to help another patient. Coyle slapped Jim on the arm. “I think she likes me.”

“No, she just thinks you have head trauma.”

“Ha. Ha.”

Coyle ended up just having a sprain and was getting it wrapped up when a soldier with two MP escorts walked into the tent. The soldier motioned over to Jim and Coyle.

“Is this them?” the soldier asked.

The nurse nodded.

“Come with me.” the soldier said.

Coyle started up saying that he was only joking about saving those lives and the medal was a figure of speech, but the two of them were rushed out by the MP escorts towards the CO’s quarters. There was a giant map of the southwest region, with squares and circles dotting Southern California and Arizona. The CO motioned for them to sit and introduced himself.

“My name is Captain Jay Haggard with the El Centro Naval Aviation facility. I am the commanding officer of this operation. I understand you two were at the San Diego Naval Base when the attacks happened?”
              “Yes, Captain, we were,” Jim replied.

Jim slowly turned his head to Coyle. Coyle looked straight ahead in attempt to avoid the stare.

Captain Haggard paced back and forth, walking around the map. He approached his desk and leaned back against it with Jim and Coyle right in front of him. “If you two have anything you’d like to share with me, I’d be very appreciative.”

Coyle looked at Jim, then to Haggard, then back to Jim, then back to Haggard. If no one spoke soon, he looked like his head was going to start spinning like the girl from
The Exorcist
.

“Captain, we know just as much as you do. The base was attacked and then we heard about the blasts in New York, D.C., Los Angeles, and we got out of there,” Jim said.

“You know, one of my lieutenants recognized you when you walked into the medical unit. I didn’t think the famous Jim Farr would be all the way out here, but when your friend started blabbing about his heroics to our nurse, I thought it might be you,” said Haggard.

Coyle stepped in between Jim and Captain Haggard and raised his index finger. “And you wouldn’t happen to know if she said anything about me, would you?”

The two of them glanced back over to Coyle at the same time. Coyle let the awkward pause linger before he lowered his finger and waved it off. “I can find out later.”

Haggard attempted to egg Jim on. “With your intelligence background and the close relationship I’m told you have with Captain Streak, I’m surprised you don’t have your own theory.”

“It was well planned. With the multiple attacks across the country, whoever did this had been getting ready for a very long time. They knew exactly what to do and how to do it. But that’s not what scares me the most.”

Haggard raised his eyebrows. “And what
does
scare you the most?”

Jim paused as he looked straight into Haggard’s eyes and said, “That whoever did this seriously believes that they can win.”