Dark Sky

17 - A Town Divided

Chapter Seventeen

The wooden hammer made contact with the table loudly as Floyd attempted to gain the attention of the congregation.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" He addressed the crowd through his rough greying stubble. "It's time to bring this meeting to order."

One by one people began to fall silent and turn their attentions to the late middle aged man standing at the end of the long table they were all seated around.

Floyd gazed around at the haunted faces before him. The twenty one survivors of his village. All of whom had lost everything in the last few days. Possessions, homes and loved ones.

There had been some fifty or so survivors after the bombs went off, but out of a population of over three hundred this village had suffered badly. In only a few days another thirty souls had perished from the effects of the nuclear fire.

Some of the people that were left sitting around this table didn't look too good either and Floyd was sure more would be lost in the coming days. In fact, radiation poisoning would probably get them all in the end.

"It has become obvious that staying here and hoping for rescue is futile," he began his speech to the room. "No rescue is coming."

There were a few murmurs from around the table as people began adding their own comments to each other before a man towards the front of the table made eye contact with Floyd.

"It's only been 3 days," he protested, "that's no time for the authorities to organise rescues."

Floyd squinted through his murky grey eyes as he tried to focus on Carlton. His eyes felt tired from the lack of sleep and although he strained Carlton's face never became clear.

"This crisis is not limited to our area Carlton." Floyd began. "This is a countrywide disaster. To mount a rescue operation on that scale would be damn near impossible."

"Well someone must be doing something!" Carlton's voice was raised. "They can't just leave everyone to rot!"

Floyd knew that just like most people in this room, Carlton was scared. He was the only member of his family that had survived and like everyone around him, the last few days had been very traumatic.

"Take a look around this table." Floyd instructed the group. "We are all that's left from this one village. Twenty one of us."

More mumbles and chatter erupted around the room before falling silent once more.

"That's only a seven percent survival rate." Floyd told them grimly. "By them odds there may not be enough people left to mount any rescue at all."

The room filled with chatter again as the group discussed Floyd's statistics amongst themselves, some realising the overall gravity of the countries situation. Others refused to believe the numbers.

"You don't know that for sure," Carlton suddenly piped up over the chatter, "yeah it's seven percent survival here, but perhaps we were hit worse than others."

Floyd smiled at the young mans ignorance, "Our village is badly damaged Carlton. But this was nuclear, a lot of places will have been flattened. Total devastation, zero percent survival."

People appeared to be chatting louder and louder with each frightening reality that was pointed out. Floyd didn't like scaring these people, they had been through enough already, but the truth needed to be heard.

"It has been said in the past that ninety eight percent of the population would die in or after a full on nuclear holocaust."

Floyd needed to get past the statistics. They were just numbers and didn't really put anything into perspective or help their cause.