Dark Sky

04 - A New World

Chapter Four

The neighbourhood had been completely devastated. Very little was left standing and the entire area was just littered in mountains of rubble that was once people's homes. Fires raged on almost anything combustible and the smell in the air was sickening.

Joe looked at the spot where his own house had been standing only a few hours ago. All that was left was a tangled mess. Only the back wall was left partially standing, the rest a pile of broken bricks and cement. They didn't even look like the bricks from his house. Everything looked as though it had been hit by a tornado and blown around.

A destroyed car lay burning where his living room used to be and Joe didn't recognise it as any he had ever seen from his street. What ever had happened had hit with immense force and destroyed everything.

It was obvious that this was some kind of nuclear attack. Joe did not know of anything else that would cause this kind of destruction at the speed that it did and was amazed he was still alive at all. Deciding to do his laundry at that moment had kept him alive.

Looking around he wondered if anyone else had survived. He couldn't be the only one, could he?

Standing in the debris of his neighbours house where he had emerged from the rubble, he scanned around the area. Perhaps his neighbour was trapped and awaiting rescue and he was his only chance.

"Mr Reynolds!" Joe called out as he moved through the smouldering ruin.

He didn't have to search for very long before he found a sign that he shouldn't continue his search. Just visible under a large section of fallen brick work was the very distinctive shape of a human hand. That was where the resemblance ended. The hand was burned down to bone, no visible flesh left at all.

Joe turned away placing a hand over his mouth trying to repulse the urge to throw up. The severity of his situation had not really hit him until this moment. Being trapped in his basement as it had flooded, seeing the neighbourhood completely destroyed had not really sunk in. Until that moment. Seeing that hand, the hand of Mr Reynolds burned to the bone. Now he knew this was all real, the world he knew was gone...

Joe had been sitting in the rubble of his home for an hour or so, with his head in his hands. His mind was active with all kinds of thoughts. None of them constructive.

He hadn't seen anyone alive the whole time he had been sat there and he had thought on several occasions that he may have been the only survivor. But that was crazy thoughts. He knew the loss of life was going to be catastrophic but he knew if he had survived the odds were there were others. If there were others then maybe he should try to find them, maybe someone would know why this had happened. But where did he have to start looking? Everything had been flattened as far as the eye could see.

The sky was beginning to get darker now and Joe knew it would be night time soon. He decided that he wouldn't leave the area until the morning as he figured it would be safer then. He looked around and as the sky got darker the orange glows of still burning fires got brighter, lighting up the night.

He got to thinking again. Which way would be the best way to go? Where had the bomb gone off? He didn't want to go in the direction of that. There was radiation to think about.

Radiation.

Joes heart skipped a beat at the thought. Radiation was bad and it wasn't confined to ground zero. It was airborne and could effect areas on a larger scale than the blast radius and he was well within that range. Fallout could be raining down on him as he sat there and he wouldn't even know it. He could already be dead!

He had read about this before and knew it would all depend on where ground zero was and in which direction the wind would take the fallout. As long as he was up wind from the bomb he may be ok. A very big maybe.

He wondered how big this attack had been. Had it been one or two bombs or many? Was it just the UK and the USA that had been hit? Or was it a global event?

It didn't bear thinking about. If it was the whole world the number of dead would be in the billions, how do you recover from that? It wasn't like a natural disaster where people recovered. He had seen and read enough about nuclear apocalypse to know that there would be little or no recovery. Billions dead now, and survivors would be dying from the effects for years to come. The human race may have been shoved straight back to the Stone Age, the modern era well and truly over.

Joe sat himself against the only wall of his house that was still partially standing and laid his head back. Taking in a big breath he let his hands fall down beside him as he shut his eyes for a moment. Other than the sound of some fires burning, the night was quiet. There was a distinct lack of human sound. No traffic noise no nothing. The world sounded dead and it was eerie.

He felt something under his hand, something plastic and intact. He grabbed the object and picked it up to inspect it. A bottle of water. Even with all the destruction this one bottle of water had remained intact and carried another grim message to Joe.

Surviving the initial blast was not going to be enough. He realised that finding bottles like this were going to become an important part of everyday life from here on in. With out them no one would survive and soon they were going to be in short supply.

He removed the top and took a mouthful of the precious fluid and swallowed appreciatively. He then replaced the cap. This bottle had to last until he found the next one. He figured it would be easy to start with but as time passed he knew it would get more difficult. Water from the tap was a thing of the past now.

He laid his head back against the brickwork again and closed his eyes once more. This time in spite of all the madness going on around him, he managed to doze off. Drifting into a light but substantial sleep, the kind where you are out but can still hear the environment around you.

The world remained quiet and Joe didn't open his eyes until it began to get light again. His neck hurt now from the position he had slept in. His shins and back were sore too. He felt in a bad shape but compared to the many dead he was not.

He sat for a long time just staring at the sky which had only barely lightened up. It was a while before he realised it was as bright as it was gonna get. The darkness wasn't cloud either but tonnes of dust and debris that had been kicked up into the atmosphere by the explosions. It was cold now too. Colder than it should be for this time of year considering the suns rays had only been blocked for a half a day.

Joe only had the clothes he was wearing now, which amounted to trousers and a white summer shirt. He knew it was going to get colder very soon if the sun remained blocked for any length of time. He knew it was time to move. Before he searched for other survivors he had to find food and water. And some better clothes.

He decided as he walked away from the remains of his home that the best place to start would probably be the town centre and so he began in the direction of where that place used to stand.