Chapter Four

Chapter Four

     Olive felt sleepy and disoriented. It was dark and she couldn’t move. Something very strange happened and she couldn’t figure out what. Was she dreaming? It sure felt real.

     She heard a  dog was barking in the distance. Was it in the distance? If she was waking up she wanted to sleep in. She knew she wasn’t in bed. She wasn’t surrounded by blankets nor was it warm or cozy. Everything around her was hard or felt sharp.

     “Hello?” she heard a man yelling.

     “Jason?” she managed to say.

    She heard bricks being dragged across the ground. Olive remembered that she was having waffles with her mother and siblings. She began to see light coming in from a crack. Fear gripped her body as she realized that she was listening to a search team dig her out.

     She didn’t know where her mom was. She didn’t know where her brothers and sister were. They were all inside the house before whatever it was happened. She couldn’t figure out what happened.

     A dog began to sniff at the entrance of where the light was coming through. A man said, “It’s alright.” The man hollered at someone else, “I think we found someone!” She could hear more bricks being shuffled around.

     Olive began to weep. Did anyone else in the house survive? What catastrophe did they survive? More light entered and she could see men removing the debris.

     “You’re going to be okay,” one of them said.

     “We need to get you out of here first,” another man said.

     “Quickly, fellas!” someone in the background shouted.

     They pulled her out of the rubble carefully. They brought her over to a gurney and laid her on it. As they laid her on her back she noticed that the neighborhood was a catastrophe. There were a few people looking through the rubble for survivors.

     “What happened?” asked Olive. “Where are my brothers and sister? My mom? You have to keep on looking.”

     The man pulled a blanket over her, “Everything is going to be okay. We will find your family. We have to get you out of here. There is a medical facility we are taking you to outside of town.”

     “Why not here? There is a hospital down the road! What happened?” Olive felt uneasy about being carted off to wherever by strange men.

     The man looked sad, “We were bombed. All of the buildings here were wiped out. The hospital isn’t standing anymore. There is a high amount of radiation and we need to get as far away as we can.”

     “I’m going to die,” Olive began to cry again.

     “No, you’re not darling,” he said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

     They lifted her gurney and began walking away from the pile of rubble she once called home. They walked for what seemed an eternity. They stopped at a checkpoint and another group of men went into the neighborhood to search for survivors.

     They placed Olive and another person into the back of the pickup truck. Her rescuers sat in the back of the truck with them. The truck was started and they sped off to their destination.

     Olive wondered what would happen next. She shivered from the cold. One of the men placed another blanket on her. She was in pain and was unsure if they could do anything about it.

     “I’m not feeling too well,” one of the men said.

     The other man sitting across from him shook his head telling him not to say anything else. As if it made a difference. Disaster had already struck. It was a matter of time before she felt the effects of the radiation. For all she knew she was already affected, but all she could feel was pain in her legs.

     She began to wonder about her grandparents up in the mountains. Did anything happen to them? She began to feel angry. Who would do such a thing on a family holiday? Who would do this to the children and elderly?

     The truck finally stopped. People gathered around the truck and helped everyone out of the back. Olive saw a field full of white tents.

     “What time is it?” she asked. She saw that it was already starting to get dark.

     A nurse looked at her through a mask, “It’s six.” The nurse waved for someone to come over.

     “Where am I?” asked Olive.

     “You’re in a safe place,” the nurse tried to make Olive comfortable. She placed a pillow under her head and adjusted the blankets. “You made it to the medical refuge. We’ll take good care of you.”

     Olive heard planes fly by. She felt fear grip her body again. Were those planes going to drop more bombs? Another nurse arrived and pointed toward a tent.

     The nurse had a syringe and a small glass bottle, “Take her to where the injured are. Have them check for broken bones.”

     She injected the clear liquid into Olive’s arm. Before Olive could object she felt a strange sensation in the back of her mouth and her eyelids grew heavy. She felt like her body went into a warp drive in outer space. The pain in her legs went away.

     Olive woke up in a cot. She stared at the white walls of the tent. She was surrounded by people lying in cots. Nurses were roaming from one patient to the next.

     Olive wasn't sure how long she was there. She was there long enough to see that the staff had shrunk and she saw so many new people that she could not remember any of their names. The cots always had someone new in them.

     A doctor stopped next to her, “How are you feeling today?”

     “I keep feeling sick,” Olive felt queasy just thinking about it. “I’m tired of being here. What if these other patients are making me sick?”

     “You have been here for a couple of weeks,” he said.

     “So?” Olive sat up. “How many of your nurses died from caring for us? I can’t tell you how many new faces I have seen.”

     “They are working in other areas,” he said.

     “You mean other tents,” she said. “I can hear people from other tents getting sick. The stench is killing me. How much longer do I have to stay? Where is my family?”

     “You won’t get any better from being upset,” he told her.

     A nurse arrived and tapped him on the shoulder. She whispered in his ear and pointed. He nodded his head.

     “We will talk again later,” he said sternly.

     Olive nodded and lay back down. The doctor and nurse hurried out of the tent. Olive sat back up again and found her crutches next to her bed. She pulled herself out of bed and started to hobble across the tent.

     What kind of tent was she dropped off at? Was it into where people had these kinds of ailments? Everyone around her was sick. Even the nurses were rushing off sick. She saw a nurse who treated her lying in a cot.

     Olive felt dizzy and stopped. She looked at the nurse lying in the cot. Other people around her had strange welts on their skin.

     “What are you doing up?” the nurse asked her.

     “I’m tired of it here. I’m leaving,” Olive told her.

     The nurse managed a smile, “Where are you going to go?”

     “I’m going home,” she said.

     The nurse looked toward another group of nurses. She waved at them. One of the men from the group looked at her. He saw Olive and looked shocked. He quickly approached them.

     “What are you doing?” he asked Olive in a hushed voice.

     The nurse swept his hand, “Dan, please, can you do me a favor?”

     “She might die,” he whispered. “Anna, the chance of survival has lowered.”

     “Do we really know that?” Anna asked him. “We are all dying anyway. Can you please take her to the cafeteria?”

     Dan cleared his throat, “Everyone else will get radiation sickness.”

     “It has already spread,” she said. “Everyone who has been close to ground zero has it. For all we know it’s already in the cafeteria and beyond. Everyone looks sick. You have spots on your skin.”

     Dan hid his hands in the pockets of his blazer, “People will freak if they see me bring her in there.”

     “Can you at least be a good Samaritan and bring her there?” she asked him. “If she dies at least she had a decent meal. They finally fixed the power in some places. She needs to see the news. She needs to understand why she can’t go home right now.”

     “Why? What’s going on?” asked Olive.

     Dan fidgeted and looked at the ground, “Our country was nuked on the west and east coast.”

     Dan gently reached out to Olive. She backed away from his reach. He motioned for her to follow him. They exited the tent outside where it was cold.

     They walked by a few tents. The ground was muddy and wet. She could hear people coughing and crying. She felt like she was in a Civil War film. This was all too real and she began to feel scared.

     They reached a large tent with doors. Dan led her inside. The sound of plates and silverware hushed when they saw Olive enter. A lady rushed from the kitchen and stopped them.

     “You really should not be here,” she whispered and led them into the back of the kitchen.

     “What’s for breakfast?” asked Dan.

     The lady sighed with irritation, “We are having pancakes and fruit.”

     “As long as it is not waffles,” Olive muttered. They looked at her. “It was the last thing that mom made before…”

     The lady touched her shoulders and led her to a small table, “Alright, it’s going to be a moment. I can bring some coffee. Do you drink coffee?” Olive nodded and sat down. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

     Dan stopped her for a moment, “Is there a TV you can bring here?”

     The lady nodded, “I’ll be back with a small one. Have you eaten?”

     Dan shook his head, “No, I’m not hungry.”

     The lady sighed and shook her head, “I’ll be right back.”