Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

     Olive woke up in the living room on the couch. Jason was at the fireplace building a fire. She got up and wrapped her blanket around her shoulders. She sat in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace.

     “What time is it?” she asked.

     He shrugged, “Time to leave this hell hole. I feel like I’ve been camping for months.”

     “We really do not have anywhere else to go,” said Olive.

     “Well, do not have a choice,” he dusted off his hands after lighting the fire. “No thanks to this disaster we are running low on supplies. We can’t go hunting since the wildlife also suffered. The water is not safe and we are running out of water to drink.”

     “I’m not sure if we will face the same crisis if we go,” she stated. “The people who were brought to the hospital are dying left and right.”

     “Kind of like your friend?” Jason asked.

     “How do we know that he didn’t leave?” she asked.

     “How do we know that he didn’t die?” Jason placed a kettle on the stove, “The rescue team is supposed to be taking us out of here once they fix the trucks.”

     “I thought that we were staying here,” muttered Olive.

     “We can’t, dummy,” he said. “I’m sure that we have family waiting for us somewhere.”

     Jason dumped a few scoops of coffee into the kettle. She looked at the television wondering if anything else was happening. As she stared at the blank screen she missed not knowing what was going on.

     “Is there a radio that we can listen to?” she asked.

     “Maybe,” he said. “We tried listening to it, but there was nothing on the air.”

     Mother entered the living room and kissed them on their forehead. She went into the kitchen and returned with coffee mugs. She looked out the window at the rescue workers below the hill.

     “Have you been out there yet?” Olive asked.

     “No,” said Jason. “I haven’t heard any trucks start either.”

     Mom sat down and Jason handed them each a hot mug. Olive sipped her coffee and went to the window. She almost dropped her mug.

     “Oh my God,” Olive muttered.

     The entire town was in ruins. There were hardly any trees left standing. Any tree that still stood was charred from the fire. Most of the houses were charred, skeletal structures.

     Olive looked at them, “How did you survive?”

     “On a prayer,” Jason muttered from his mug.

     “We got really lucky,” mom said. “We were lucky considering that a majority of the community was blinded.”

     “Is that what happened to grandma and grandpa?” asked Olive.

     “The blast was big enough to be seen from over here,” said Jason. “It was probably seen for miles.”

     “I wonder who was all hit by this,” said Olive.

     “Hopefully, not too many places,” said Jason. “It doesn’t sound like the bomb was as far as the East. We should head that way.”

     “Actually,” Olive started and they looked at her with terror in their eyes. She almost stopped, “They dropped a bomb on the East coast.”

     Jason put his mug down, “Wait, what? How do you know this?”

     “I saw it on tv,” Olive said hesitantly.

     “Wait, you watched the news?” mom was nearly falling out of her seat. “What did they say? What is going on?”

     “They confirmed that North Korea dropped a nuclear bomb on California and Washington DC,” she answered. “The reporters tried to report from ground zero, but the radiation killed them. So, there wasn’t very much that they could say. That’s how I found out about the avalanche over here.”

     “Did they say if we were striking them back?” asked Jason. “Did anything happen to the president?”

     “I’m not sure,” she said. “I wanted to come home and find you guys.”

     “I’m going to wake mom and dad up,” mom stood. “We are packing what we can and leaving. Jason, go to the rescue team and see where they are at with the trucks. See what you can do to help them.”