The Summer the World Ended (36 page)

“I thought you couldn’t stand it down here?” He paused.

She wrapped her arms around him. “It’s better than being dead.”

“I promise you, if it shows even three times a normal background reading, I’ll stop.”

Riley backed into the storeroom again, crouching against the shelf. Dad grabbed the Geiger counter and approached the armored front door. He made another pass around it with the sensor before lifting the lock and swinging it down to free the wheel.

She whined. “Don’t let the nuke in.”

“We’re good.” Dad set the Geiger counter on the floor between his boots and grabbed the wheel, let out a weak grunt, and shoved. The metal ring spun up to a blur, drawing bars out of the top and bottom. Dad took a knee and held the wand up to the gap as he pushed the door outward. Still, the ticking sounds remained calm and slow.

Riley leaned her weight forward onto her hands, whining at him as he crept into the outer room. “Dad…”

“Stay there,” he said.

Geiger counter held high, he slipped out of sight.

Riley crawled two feet into the room, reaching at the door. “Dad, no. You said two weeks after the light went out, but it’s only been a day.”

“Hmm. Interesting.” His voice echoed in the other room.

No!
She leapt up and ran to the doorway. Dad was halfway up the ladder, holding the wand over his head.

“Dad.”

“Get inside.”

The harsh command shocked her to a halt. She crept backwards, taking tiny steps, until she bumped against the support post. Vibration from the ventilation fan ran through it, rattling her teeth. She covered her face with her hands, trembling.

Minutes later, Dad swept in, pulling the thick door closed behind him. He walked past her, paying no attention to her shaking. “Well, my face didn’t melt off.”

“Dad!” She looked back and forth between him and the door three times, and ran over to him.

He dragged his backpack to the table, put it on a chair, and sifted through it. “I’m going to do a wider sweep outside. No rads by the hatch.”

“No.” She whimpered, putting a hand on his back. “No.”

“You are without a doubt a teenaged girl.” He chuckled. “Beg like hell for something and as soon as you get it, you don’t want it anymore.”

“But, Dad.” She pulled and pawed at him. “We don’t know what’s up there.”

“Correct.” He zoomed off to the storeroom, yelling once he’d gone out of sight. “Exactly why I need to recon. I couldn’t find any radiation at all topside. I’m going to do a wider sweep, check the house, the truck… maybe we can expand our range.” He put a gentle hand on each cheek, cradling her head. “You don’t want to spend the rest of your life down here, do you?”

“No.” Riley swooned on her legs and stumbled back until she fell seated on the cot.
The Last Outpost
replayed in her mind. Broken fences, scorched farm equipment, crazed farmers with glowing red eyes and scythes―a father and daughter trying to survive the apocalypse.

This is a dream. I played that stupid game, and it got in my head.

She slapped herself across the face. “Wake up.”

Blinking spots danced through her vision.

“Riley Dawn McCullough, wake up!” She hit herself again, seeing stars.

“Riley?” Dad poked his head out of the storeroom. “What on Earth?”

“Up, up, up, up!” She slapped herself in time with each word, falling over sideways into a sobbing ball.

She wasn’t waking up. The bunker remained.

Warmth circled her eyes, a part of her wanting to give in and wail like a little girl, but all she managed to do was send a vacant stare across the room. Her cheek tingled. Dad rushed over, touching a fingertip to the spot, proving it tender.

“Oh, Riley… You’ve gotta hold it together.” He scooped her up and hugged her tight. “I wish this was a dream. I do. I wish the bombs never dropped. I wish your mother wasn’t killed. I wish I never left.”

“Don’t leave. You won’t come back.” She gripped his arm with both hands. “I don’t wanna be an orphan.”

“Two days ago, you were ready to kick down the door and go outside.”

“So?” She pouted. “Doesn’t mean I’m right.”

“Look… we can’t stay underground forever. This is a great shelter, but the less we need to consume our resources, the longer we’ll be healthy. I owe it to you to check outside. I swear on my life that if anything looks dangerous, I’ll come right back.”

“Nooooo,” she whisper-whined.

“Do you trust me?” He ran a hand over her head.

“Yeah.” She sniffled.

“Okay. I’ll just check the immediate area. Any whiff of radiation, and I’ll rush back. I should’ve gotten a reading of some kind in the shaft, but I didn’t. That’s the only reason I’m going to risk this.”

She didn’t like it, but if she objected, she’d make a liar out of herself for saying she trusted him. Clinging tight and whimpering didn’t count as lying. He held her for a few minutes more and gestured at the mini-stove.

“About time for lunch. I’ll wait till after.”

“SpaghettiOs,” said Riley. “Can we have SpaghettiOs?”

“Okay.”

Slumped on the bed, Riley couldn’t take her eyes off him as he went to the storeroom to get cans and heated them on the hot plate. A short while later, he carried two steaming bowls to the table, and put one next to the Beretta.

She moved to her usual seat while he pulled the chair from the radio table over. Spoon after spoon of canned pasta went into her mouth. Riley barely bothered to chew before swallowing. In the game, the father and daughter survived countless times because they weren’t alone. The programmers took great pains to set up situations where teamwork was mandatory. Fortunately, in the single-player mode, the AI was competent.

Video games don’t exist anymore. All the programmers are gone.

She put a hand on the Beretta. “I wanna go with you.”

“Nope.”

“Dad. I don’t wanna be alone.”

“Nope.” He fanned his lunch to cool it off a little. “Not risking anything happening to you.”

“Please?”

“I need you to do something important while I’m gone. Someone’s gotta stay on the radio.”

She pouted. “But…”

“If Colonel Bering decides to pick the few hours I’m wandering around out there to ask if we still need a ride to civilization, I don’t want to miss it.”

“Awright.”

“Not to mention if there are any other survivors, you should keep broadcasting.”

Riley couldn’t help but feel like she’d never see him again. After he finished his bowl, he packed four MREs in the backpack with four thirty-round magazines for the AR15. She idled the spoon around the half-inch of orange goop at the bottom of her bowl as he sat on the cot to put on socks and boots. Dad shrugged the backpack over his shoulders and went to the gun safe in the southwest corner.

“05-18-02,” said Dad. “In case you need to get in here.”

“My birthday,” she muttered.

“Maybe someday you’ll believe I never stopped loving you… or your mother.”

If you love me, you won’t go outside.
“I do. It’s just a bad combination.”

“You don’t like your birthday?”

“Mr. West in computer class said family birthdays and pet names are the first things hackers try.”

“Well… if some deranged wastelander manages to A, find this bunker, B, survive to get into it, and C, figure out what my daughter’s birthday is… they can have the guns.”

Dad hefted the AR15, inspected it, and loaded a fifth magazine. Riley didn’t even jump when the bolt slammed forward. He slung it over his shoulder, picked up the Geiger counter, and walked up to the table. When he looked down at her, his face held no emotion.

“Riley―”

“Don’t.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“If you say ‘I love you’ or ‘goodbye,’ it’s gonna feel like you’re not gonna come back.”

Dad stood still for a few seconds with the same blank face. “See you in a few hours.”

“That’s better.”

She gazed down at her pale feet peeking out from under the crumpled, black pant legs, not looking up as the dull tromp of his boots on the concrete floor grew faint. The
thud
of the armored door closing made her twitch. At the scraping, metallic sound of the wheel turning, she cried silent tears.

Goodbye, Dad.

After she could no longer hear him climbing the ladder, she plodded to the radio chair. Unlike the one at the table, it had cloth cushions, which held Dad’s scent. She curled up and put on the headset, which flooded her ears with a soft hiss.

“Attention survivors. My name is Riley McCullough. If anyone can hear me, you’re not alone. I’m transmitting from New Mexico, near the town of Las Cerezas. Attention any survivors.”

She traced a finger back and forth over the front of the olive drab radio. Overall, it had the profile of a stereo rack component. At the center, a numeric pad resembled a calculator with a few extra buttons: ‘freq,’ ‘erf ofst,’ ‘time,’ and ‘batt call.’ The tiny LCD screen above the keypad was blank. She recognized an empty coaxial cable port at the top left corner next to the word ‘ant.’ Below it, sat a circular blue socket with five bronze studs in a star arrangement labeled RXMT. Two similar ports on the right bore the labels AUD/FILL and AUD/DATA. The rest of the space was full of seven knobs surrounded by incomprehensible white lettering. Terrified to touch anything but the transmit button Dad showed her, she pressed it again.

“Attention anyone who survived the bombs. Any survivors, please respond.”

Riley shifted in the seat so she could see the front door. Her stare roamed around the bunker, the bunker in which she was now alone. She gasped with panic and flung the headset off. Squealing, she ran to the table and grabbed the Beretta in a two-handed grip, clutching it to her chest as though it were her most prized possession. Once her breathing calmed, she crept back to the chair. After putting the headset on again, she curled up facing the other direction―at the door―and kept the pistol aimed between her knees.

Every fifteen minutes, she spoke into the radio. Riley clung to the pistol, and the hope that if she obeyed her father’s instructions, he’d come home safe.

ay Eleven.

Consciousness swept over Riley’s mind. Her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself still in Dad’s chair. The Beretta dangled in her right hand, at the precipice of clattering to the floor. She gasped and tightened her grip around it, sitting upright at the realization she’d fallen asleep on radio watch.

“Dad?” She looked around. “Dad?”

Silence.

After a few minutes, she stood and stretched away the discomfort of sleeping in a fetal position. Her brain tried to get terrified and pissed off at the same time, winding up nowhere. She held the gun in both hands, pointed at the ceiling, barrel close to her cheek, and crossed the room. At the storage area door, she paused like every cop she’d ever seen on TV and whipped around to aim at the empty space.

I’m alone.

Worry faded to sadness. The wall clock showed the time at 10:42 a.m., Sunday, 07/24/16.
Dad’s been gone all night. He was only supposed to be a few hours.
She slouched.
I knew it.
Riley felt too sad to cry, and too sick to eat. She plucked at the waist of the fatigue pants until they fell around her ankles and availed herself of the toilet. For a long time after she no longer needed to sit on the bowl, she remained, occasionally pointing the gun at the door. There was no point in getting up. There was no point to doing anything. Why bother spamming the radio?
I’m the only one left on the planet. If anyone else survived, they probably speak Russian or Chinese or Korean
or subhuman wasteland babble
and won’t answer me anyway
. There was no one else left.