“You’d do just fine without me.” Slayne meant it. One of the things that had impressed him when he first met Carpenter was the man’s attention to detail.
Nothing, no matter how trivial, escaped him. Even on subjects he knew little about, he intuitively asked questions that brought out the most pertinent information.
“Don’t even joke about a thing like that.”
“Quiet now. I’m going out. I’ll contact you when I have something to report.”
Slayne pushed the door all the way open and strode outside. A gust buffeted him. The sky was strange, gray instead of blue with periodic flashes of light. It lent a preternatural twilight to everything. All else appeared normal. Kneeling, he ran his gloved fingers through the grass but found no dust from fallout.
The Geiger chirped when Slayne turned it on. He adjusted it for maximum gain and began his sweeps, keeping a close eye on the meter. He went all the way to the moat. The readings were only slightly higher than normal, interrupted here and there by a random spike from a hot particle brought in by the wind.
Slayne climbed the steps over the moat to the rampart on the west wall. Woodland stretched for as far as the eye could see.
Undisturbed, pristine, serene.
Looking at it, one would never guess that a month ago the world had been in the grip of all-out war. He was about to climb back down when he gave a start and faced the woods. He tapped his helmet to be sure his pickup was working properly. It was.
There was no sound. The wind had died, and the woods were utterly silent.
Slayne boosted the volume to max. Still nothing, save an eerie, somber stillness. It was if he were listening to a dead world. An earth stripped of life and left empty.
Again Slayne went to descend. But at the edge of his faceplate he caught a movement on a low rise to the southeast. A dark silhouette was framed against the gray sky. All Slayne could tell was that the figure had two legs.
He raised his left arm and waved, but the figure didn’t wave back. It just stood there a bit longer, then melted into the trees.
His helmet crackled.
“Damn it, Patrick. How long are you going to keep me waiting?
Are you all right? Is it safe or not?” “Bring the kiddies and have a picnic.”
Be serious.
1 am.
Carpenter wasn’t satisfied. Each bunker had two hazmat suits, and over the next several days, teams went over every square yard of the thirty-acre compound. The air was tested. The water in the moat was tested. The soil was tested. Finally Carpenter had to admit the obvious.
“It’s safe enough. But I’m still uneasy. We’ll let small groups go out for a few hours at a time.”
“Guards need to be posted on the walls,” Slayne said. “I’ll break open the armory and pass out weapons to the men I choose.”
“Actually,” Carpenter said, “I have an idea along those lines.
Let’s see. It’s Wednesday. On Sunday we’ll have the first official gathering of our Family and I’ll detail my plans.”
“You never have told me why you keep calling us that.”
“On Sunday, Patrick. On Sunday.”
Everyone was excited at the prospect of going outside.
Anxious, too, since no one knew what to expect. They accepted that it was safe—but for how long? Doomsday had occurred.
Even though they had hoped to survive, the fact that they had was no small miracle, and for some, it was difficult to wrap their minds around.
Diana Trevor wasn’t surprised by their reaction. It was a common enough psychological phenomenon. Survivors of disasters were often bewildered and emotionally numb. She cautioned Carpenter to take things slow and give his charges time to adjust to their new reality.
It didn’t help that nearly everyone had been bombarded with the media’s dire predictions. Fallacies had been paraded as fact and accepted by the public at large.
Carpenter addressed the issue. An intercom system linked the bunkers, and it was his habit to speak a few words of encouragement before retiring. This night his subject was the aftermath of the war.
“Let’s take a look at some of the claims that were made. First, that everyone on the planet would die. Realistic projections were that the war would kill 20 percent of the human race in the first few days. Another forty to fifty percent would die from radiation poisoning, starvation, violence, what have you. That still leaves billions. Yes, you heard that right. Billions.
“Another claim was that lethal radiation would blanket the earth for centuries. But our compound only received a small amount, and many other areas received as little or none at all. In other words, whole regions are as habitable now as they were before the bombs were dropped.
“It was claimed that no crops would grow and that all vegetation would wither and die. But the grass and the trees here are fine, and are undoubtedly fine elsewhere. Think of the Amazon, or the taiga of Russia and northern Canada. Think of the vast tracts of the United States where there were no military targets. Other than fallout, they are untouched, and will go on as they have been for countless ages.
“The point of all this is to soothe your fears. Yes, we must take precautions. Yes, we must be on our guard when we are outside the walls. We can’t drink or eat anything unless we know it is safe. But overall, all things considered, we are doing fine.”
The next morning Patrick Slayne needed two men to help him make a quick walk-through of the compound. He chose Soren Anderson and Alf Richardson.
Richardson wasn’t an official member of the group but when he heard Slayne ask Anderson, he eagerly volunteered to come along.
“I’m tired of being cooped up. I want to feel the sun on my face and breathe real air again.”
Slayne conducted them to the armory. He chose an MP5 fitted with a shoulder strap. It was compact and held a 30-round magazine. For a sidearm he
