A loud banging interrupts my mourning. Like the sound of a gong being struck by a giant mallet, it echoes through the shelter. The hatch! I stumble to my feet and sprint over to the ladder. Aunt Pam and Uncle Keith. It has to be them. I peer up the ladder through my puffy eyes and realize I haven't got a way to let them in. My eyes dart around the area until I see the large red button from last night. Impulsively, the palm of my hand smashes against it. The hatch pops open and sunlight pours down through the opening. I swiftly begin to climb upward, hoping my family had come to save me. As I near the top, the warm sunlight suddenly dissipates. I look up to the mouth of the hatch, and see a large, horrifying human figure towering above it, before keeling over and hurtling toward me. In less than a second, I'm struck, crushed, and pinned against the impenetrable cement floor. My ribs give an audible crack, and I wail in agony. My sight goes fuzzy; I can't make out who is heaped on top of me.
A loud groan comes from the being as it picks itself up, straddling my torso. It reaches out and grips my shoulders, pulling me upward to face it, before shaking me violently. Desperately, I grab at my knife and fumble it out of its sheath. I pull my arm back and muster as much strength as possible, before thrusting the eight-inch blade directly into its chest. Its grip releases, and it slumps over onto the cement next to me. I roll over towards it, wincing and holding my ribs as I force myself to my knees. My vision begins to clear and I can make out the puddle of blood forming underneath of the body.
In a few moments I can see correctly, and realize this person wasn't at all horrifying, but only wearing a gas mask and ragged clothes. So why had they attacked me? I reach to pull my knife from their chest, and once again find myself groaning and doubled over. My fingers run across my ribs, trying to determine the damage done. Twice on my right side my fingers go over a depression in my torso, where the rib had apparently been broken. With no way of treating it, I grit my teeth and reach to my knife once more. My hands are covered in blood, along with the majority of my clothes.
I remove the blade with a sickening slicing sound and manage onto my feet. Once standing, I behold the corpse of whomever I had killed. My hand extends downward towards it, and I can't help myself. I grab the front of the mask and pull it back over the forehead, revealing another radiation-poisoned face. A crippling realization pierces my heart: I hadn't been wrong when I thought it to be a member of my family.
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#31
Short StoryWhat would happen if a regular teenage girl found herself caught in the aftermath of a nuclear strike? Sam is about to find out. When Sam is forced to relocate for safety, all she knows is she needs to get herself and her younger sister undergroun...
