Free The Nuclear Catastrophe (a fiction novel of survival) by Barbara C. Griffin Billig, Bett Pohnka

to accept the report verbatim, were disinclined to follow the advice to vacate their homes and businesses in a headlong rush to safety. After all, how would they ever become re-united with spouses, who were away on their jobs, or with other relatives? And what would happen to a house or business that had been left by the owners? Past experience had proven that a weekend was sufficient opportunity for burglars to denude a place of its contents. No, the people of this town weren ’ t about to forsake their worldly possessions in a mad flight toward some obscure safety. In the average mind, if this emergency wasn ’ t war then there couldn ’ t be very much danger. Certainly nothing to get too upset about this early in the morning.
    Safety at this point meant different things to different people, but very few believed it meant driving as far south as you could go with no destination.
    Ever since Flo walked off mumbling about getting her boy Rickey from school, Paula had been considering the same idea. She was lifting the garage door by hand, in preparation for driving to the school when she saw her daughter running down the sidewalk.
    “ Mother! Mother! ” screamed the child.
    Paula waited until the child drew near. “ Kim, what are you doing here? Have they let you out of school? ”
    The child ’ s blond hair was a mess of tangles, an observation which momentarily irritated the mother. “ What ’ s happened to you? You look like you didn ’ t even comb that mop this morning, ” admonished Paula, her own hair neatly coiffed.
    “ There was a duck-and-cover drill at school and we had to crawl under our desks, ” answered the girl in short gasps. “ Mother, did you hear about it? The poison? Miss Carr was acting so funny in class, Mother. ”
    “ Slow down, Kimberly! ”
    “ But Miss Carr was really weird! After the sirens stopped she told us that some terrible thing had let a lot of poison into the air and we ’ re breathing it now. ” Her lips started quivering as she spoke. “ Mother, is it true? ”
    “ Kim, have you seen your brother? Do you know if he was let out? ” asked Paula worriedly.
    “ Is it, Mother? Is it true? ” The girl was starting to cry with big, colorless tears rolling down her cheeks.
    Paula grabbed the child by her thin shoulders and roughly shook her. “ I don ’ t know what ’ s going on! As soon as Jerry gets home we ’ re all going to sit right in that house until your daddy comes in. He ’ ll know what ’ s happening. Now, did you see Jerry anywhere around the grounds? ”
    Paula heard her son yelling as he came bounding across the street. A sophisticated ninth grader, he was enthusiastic over the unexpected freedom.
    “ Hey, Ma, our teacher said he didn ’ t know when we ’ d be having school again. Great, huh, Kim? ” Seeing his sister ’ s red eyes and hearing her sniffles suddenly sapped some of the boy ’ s fervor.
    “ Hush, Jerry. I don ’ t want to hear another word from you until Frank gets home from work, ” Paula commanded.
    Now that her brood was together, she herded them inside the house. Pushing the two children toward a sofa she ordered them down as she sat across from them. The mother rarely lost patience with her children. In fact she usually took great delight in hearing her handsome, young son sound off. But not today. It was one of those days when everything seemed to be going wrong. Paula let her thoughts wander—maybe she should have stayed in bed that morning. Nothing had gone right, not since she had scorched Frank ’ s shirt collar ironing it before breakfast and he had been late leaving for work. Sighing, she looked over at the shattered window, and tried to think where they ’ d get the money to replace it. Slumped down, she brooded that the day had overtaken her.
    Within the quarter hour the door burst open with a giant heave and Frank Waring stood in the middle of the room. His sudden appearance was a shock to the wife and