Without Summer Chapter Two (Re-Write)
See Prologue for Disclaimers and Chapter Warnings.
See Chapter One for previous chapter.
Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
The attack had been multi-armed and its reach spread across the country; D.C., New York City, Chicago, San Antonio, and Los Angeles were among the list of cities destroyed in the attack that most survivors named Judgment Day or J-Day. The loss of infrastructure equaled a loss in leadership especially with the damage to the seat of government. The US military experienced a drastic thinning of its ranks as soldiers went AWOL to aid family and friends in their home states. Without protection from the government, commanders of para military groups such as state or city police became generals of their own armies made up of fellow officers and volunteers.
The initial impact and radiation were not the only things to worry about after J-Day. Due to the yield of the weapons used, an EMP effect occurred. Everything networked to the electrical grid went down; essentially fried, including nearly all circuit based technology. There were still computers and cell phones but they did not work. There was no Internet. Nor was there any power from the wall outlets, food or clean running water. Plagues broke out. They evacuated the cities...
-The Years Without Summer: A History by Unknown
Four months after J-Day:
There was darkness always; a perpetual dusk from which the sun never rose or set, there were only degrees of umbra. It was late May or maybe early June. It was hard to tell with never knowing when one day ended and another began. Andy had not seen the sun in months. The grass was knee height but it lay withering in ever browning clumps where it rose through sidewalk cracks. The trees were losing their foliage in the unexpected onslaught of cooler temperatures. Most of the people left in the city, kept off the streets most of the time, only going out to forage for supplies. It felt as if the city was in the grasp of an early, non-ending winter.
Andy took full advantage of the shadowed and near abandoned streets as she scavenged among the dilapidated architecture. She made her way steadily down Sixth Avenue moving closer to 22nd Street. She searched as she went. The looted, abandoned buildings and smashed storefronts lay empty of any items useful for keep or trade.
An hour later found Andy moving back to the apartment. She had found in domicile off 29th Street, closer to the destroyed Financial District than she had ever gone since J-Day. A small stash of soup cans, a carton of cigarettes that she would never consider smoking, two cotton, knit blankets and three cans of cola that she would have with her soup later were her find. Adjusting the edges of her mismatched, ill-fitting clothing closer to her, Andy deftly brought the full backpack of found supplies over her shoulders to begin the trek back to the apartment.
The apartment that Andy was heading to was not her own. Her apartment on Broom and Ludlow was too close to the Financial District to survive the blast waves from impact. The whole Lower East Side was awash with radiation by the time her bus had made its way across the Triborough Bridge from La Guardia Airport. Andy had gotten off the M60 bus and hearing of the attack had put Andy in a state of shock. Andy had made her way to Miranda's Upper East Side townhouse upon learning that the hardest hit area was the Financial District. Unless she wanted to go back to the airport, she did not have anywhere else to go. Andy had found the townhouse ransacked and its occupants gone.
Andy had stayed in Miranda's home as long as she could; waiting for the editor's return. She gathered a first aid kit and two of the twins' backpacks full of supplies. She was sure that the older woman and her daughters would walk into the house at any moment and give her that look that said she was an idiot for having worried. Andy had imagined the course of the conversation: Of course, I was working, not that it should matter to you since you left me in Paris. Miranda would have said, But since you are here, stop wasting time and get me my coffee, center of the sun hot.
From the top window, she could see people moving north several with serious looking burns and wounds. Once the evacuations began in earnest, it was no longer safe to hide in the townhouse. One of the passing refugees broke the front door and then a group looted the home for supplies. Luckily, they never found the safe room in Miranda's closet where Andy hid. Once that wave had passed, Andy had moved. Instead of moving further away from lower Manhattan, however, she moved closer going against the tide of evacuees.
Making that choice, Andy found several people who had holed up in the buildings near the edges. Some were too scared to leave all that was familiar. For Andy, staying was not about not leaving what was familiar, but finding those that had been lost. Those less altruistic and more opportunistic in nature chose to stay to take advantage of the weak and the desperate. The police departments were not the only organizations to form an army from the void left on J-Day. Mercenary gangs roamed the broken city like packs of rabid wolves.
Andy had gone to the nearest library after she left Miranda's place. Surprisingly, it and its contents had remained mostly intact. It was a godsend, a temporary haven in the chaos. In a world without the intranet, books were the most advanced form of information technology.
For about two weeks, she read anything that looked like it would have useful information. She kept the most informative ones in a neat pile by her gear. Andy grabbed city and county road maps as well as maps of the sewer system after studying one book on urban survival. She read anything she came across that mentioned nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction. She read about the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine and cried for twenty minutes at the pure delusion that people had been under. If some lunatic somewhere wanted to destroy the world, would he even care that he was going down in flames as well? Obviously not.
Someone had set a fire in the library one day while she had been out. She thought that it was probably one of the other refugees. Andy knew that there had been a chance that some might discover the 'fun'damentals of reading but she never expected that she would lose her shelter. She came back from searching one of the nearby buildings for missed supplies to find the entire upper level of the four-story building engulfed in flames. Andy ran into the library for her supplies though later, she would acknowledge the risk as overly foolish.
Someone had looted her supplies while she was gone. They had rummaged through her the backpack and the food and water it carried taken. Andy did not have time to curse her stupidity. She was just glad that she had decided to carry a second pack with the first aid kit and extra water with her when she went out to forage. Hurriedly acutely aware of the fire and the smoke filling the halls, she had grabbed the bag and stuffed a few books that she hoped would be useful in its now empty compartment. Anything she could not carry out, however, went up in flames with the building.
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A chill wind gusted down the street pushing forgotten garbage towards her. Andy skirted the edge of a pile of rubble blocking the sidewalk pulling her hat lower on her brow and her scarf up higher over her nose. The detritus, littered with concrete bricks, twisted re-bar and books spread out along the street. Andy stepped up to the broken storefront window of what used was a bookstore. Its merchandise spilled from its gaping wound like blood.
The bookstore had once had a classic red brick façade. Andy could still see the peeling cream paint around the frame that once held the front window. The upper stories of the building were mostly gone as if a giant wrecking ball had crashed through it. The lower level, however, appeared mostly intact and Andy knew from experience that it was sound.
Strategic foot placement allowed her to climb up the small hill of debris and into the lower level of the building. From there, Andy made her towards the back of the darkened store. She went down the shadowed hallway and through the still functioning swinging door. A sign that said "Employees Only" hung above the doorway. A knock on a series of knocks on a solid-looking cupboard door allowed Andy entry to the hidden staircase that led to the secreted basement safe room.
When Andy had come upon the bookstore, she discovered that it was not empty. A man and his two sons lived there. Juan Mendoza had fallen through an unstable floor and had suffered a bad leg break, one day while out looking for food and supplies. The bone had punctured the leg muscle but luckily, it had not damaged the femoral artery.
Andy had happened across him and helped him get home. Juan had allowed her to stay with them in thanks. One day turned into two and soon it was a constant thing. Andy and sometimes the oldest boy JC foraged for supplies when needed and the group tried to stay unnoticed.
"Hey, Juan," Andy greeted shouldering through the slight opening that presented itself to her after a pause. Andy began sliding off the heavily laden backpack with Richie's help as Juan closed the door. "Any trouble while I was out?" She removed her hat and jacket before pulling at the scarf around her neck. Richie was already going through her bag, sorting the items into two piles: keep or trade.
"No. Well a little but -" He paused in his report as he bolted the door and angled a solid chair back beneath the doorknob. Andy froze at hearing his hesitation before continuing to remove her outer-ware and helping Richie put the cans on a higher shelf in the pantry.
"Your dad's alright?" She asked, moving through the doorway to check on the older man who was fighting off a serious fever. Andy had helped Juan attempt to set the leg but with rudimentary first aid skills and limited medication, Juan had developed an infection. She found him deep in slumber. The room was thick with the cloying scent of sickness. Andy started to go over to check his bandages. "We might have to reset his leg. I found a book on it yesterday."
"Yeah. Okay," JC answered her distractedly, "Come on and let him sleep." He pulled her gently away from the edge of the doorway, a hint of worry in his voice, "Andy? Someone was in the building earlier." At her startled look, he continued in a rush, "We heard them. They were talking loud and tossing things around."
"Did they find the trapdoor? Did they find the stairs?" The implications of discovery caused Andy's mind to race. They could not stay. Even if it were just normal looters and not one of the mercenary gangs searching the store for supplies, the risk was just too high to stay there.
"No," Juan affirmed. "No they didn't. At least I do not think they did. They just scared Richie with their thumping around." He reached out to ruffle his little brother's hair. Richie ducked under the hand that went to ruffle his short dark hair. Andy pulled the eleven year old to her side to cut short the fight that she knew was going to start.
"Alright guys." She spoke over their protestations, "That's enough." She sent Richie off to read or draw while she pulled Juan aside. "We can't stay here anymore. They'll be back and we don't know what they'll do."
"Where will we go?"
"I don't know. It's getting dangerous to stay here." She looked at him considering, "It might be time to get out of the city."
Andy watched his face cloud, "Dad will never leave the store. This was Mom's place."
"JC your mom is gone." She gently put her hand on his shoulder and urged him to listen to reason. "You have to go on living... for her. And I don't know if we can do that here."
"What about that woman you're always looking for?" JC asked stubbornly. He searched for the name he had heard Andy mention often to his dad, "You know...Miranda?"
Andy bit her lip, frustrated at his turn around. Yes, what about Miranda? "I have to believe that she's alright," Andy said, listening to her own advice. Surely, Miranda would want even her to go on living. Andy finally said determined, "There's nothing here anymore. There’s nothing here for any of us."
TBC...CHAPTER THREE