8:52 AM (EDT)
Disclaimer: They're not mine, I don't own them, but I like to take them out and borrow them every so often. With that in mind, please, please don't sue me.
This is the first chapter in a longer story that I plan to write bout a nuclear attack on America. I know this is a VERY depressing subject, but I see a very good, very human story here. Let me know what you think.
The vans were being positioned at their designated spots in cities across America. The vans were ordinary. They would not stand out. There were five vans. Each van had a driver who had been given a mission. The driver of the van in Los Angeles parked near down town easily enough. He had found a parking garage. The driver in New York had a harder time finding a place to park downtown. Thankfully, though, he had been given false diplomatic credentials. The credentials allowed him to park virtually anywhere without being towed. The drivers of the vans in Seattle and Detroit had virtually no trouble parking. In fact, the driver in Seattle, had time for coffee after parking. Then there was the fifth and final van.... the one that was supposed to be in D.C.
The driver of the D.C. van was having a really bad morning. Due to some kind of power surge, the alarm on the clock in his Arlington home had not gone off when it was supposed to. The driver woke up nearly two hours late, and got onto the highway in the middle of the morning rush hour. The cars were bumper to bumper as he nervously tried to weave his way through traffic. He needed to be downtown by 9:00. As far as he knew, he was the only man with a mission on this fateful morning. He didn't want to screw up. Damn this D.C. traffic!
********************************************************************************
8:57 AM (EDT)
Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman left the West Wing of the White House with his assistant Donna Moss in tow.
"Donna, what time is it?"
"It's 8:57, Josh. Forget about making it on time."
The two boarded an official White House staff car. At once, it began to move. Josh was to meet with Senate Democratic leaders at 9:00. As usual, he was running late. As the car sped toward "The Hill," Josh ignored the notes he had prepared for the meeting and stared out the car window.
"Donna, should I jog more?"
"What are you talking about, Josh?"
"Do you think I should jog more than I do?" Josh asked, looking at joggers along the Mall.
"What you're really asking is if I think you're getting fat," Donna replied.
"Donn.... never mind. Do you have the outlines that I asked you to make co ....."
Suddenly, the sky turned bright red. Josh and Donna felt the shock wave just seconds before they heard the sound. The windows in the car shattered, raining glass down around them. Josh pulled Donna down to the floorboard. The car, as being grabbed and tossed by a giant, was thrown. Josh and Donna tumbled about the car's back seat. The battered vehicle came to a violent rest, slamming against something that Josh could not see.
"Donna?" Josh called as he tried to move his neck. He couldn't see her.
" Donna?" he yelled this time. The noise outside was deafeningly loud that he could barely hear himself. His head hurt so badly. His entire face felt wet. He wanted to find Donna, see if she was OK. He had an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, though. He tried to move again, but his head lolled sideways, and everything went black.
********************************************************************************
The White House Oval Office 8:58 AM (EDT)
"How can you write with that thing, Charlie?"
Charlie Young looked up from the notes he had been taking during the president's phone call to the governor of Nebraska.
"Excuse me, Mr. President?"
"That pen you have. It's a cheep drug store ballpoint. It's the kind that they sell in packs of ten for fifty cents. Buy a fountain pen, boy!"
"Mr. President, I respect you, I admire you, I even voted for you. Despite that, sir, I won't use a fountain pen ever again. That one you gave me a few months ago leaked all over my favorite shirt. The shirt's ruined now."
The president disappeared into his private study. "I have one in here," he yelled back at Charlie. He reappeared back into the room with a fountain pen.
"Charlie," he said, "I've had this pen for over twenty years. It has never, ever, in all my years of writing, leaked even once. I want you to have it on the condition that you let me personally throw that crappy ballpoint away for you."
As he handed Charlie the pen, the president glanced out of the huge windows behind his desk.
"Wha...?"
The windows around the Oval Office started to shatter. They were bulletproof, but they were not made to withstand what was happening today.
"Charlie, get down!" The president said, pulling his young aide to the floor with him. Alarm klaxons began to sound all over the White House and it's grounds. Instantly, Secret Service agents rushed into the Oval Office from almost every available door. Special Agent Ron Butterfield helped the president to his feet. A swarm of agents surrounded Jeb Bartlet and began to rush him from the office.
"Mr. President, are you OK?" Butterfield asked his charge. Behind the president and his detail, two agents nearly dragged Charlie down the hallway.
"What the hell's going on?" Bartlet asked.
"C'mon, sir," Butterfield yelled while trying to move the president along.
The group rushed down a flight of stairs to the basement level of the building. At an intersection of one hallway, Charlie was directed left by his two protectors. Bartlet was directed right. Toward the Situation Room.
The president stood in the Situation Room under the protective gaze of several Secret Service agents. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a red light blinking on one of the phones in the middle of the table. It wasn't just a phone; it was THE phone. His hand visibly shook as he grabbed the receiver.
"This is the president," he managed to choke into the mouthpiece.
"Sir, this is Major General Raymond DiClerico. I'm the senior watch officer at NORAD. We've just registered five nuclear explosions across the United States.
"What? Are you sure?"
"We're double checking now, but yes, sir, there appears to have been a series of explosions in the last several minutes. One of them, near Washington, D.C."
"ICBMs?" The president asked.
"It doesn't appear to have been an ICBM attack, sir," General DiClerico said.
"NORAD didn't track any incoming ballistic missiles. We don't know how it happened, sir, but there appears to have been some kind of nuclear attack on America. There were two explosions on the Eastern Seaboard, one in Michigan, and two on the West Coast."
********************************************************************************
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 9:07 AM (EDT)
Josh Lyman opened his eyes. He felt like he had been beaten to a bloody pulp. His entire body ached. The worst part though was his head. He felt like he had the worst hangover of all time. He hadn't felt this bad after he had been shot. He was still disoriented, but from what he could see, the car he was in had come to a stop on it's left side. His body was half on the floorboard, half on the seat. Despite all of the noise earlier, it was strangely quiet outside. Then he realized that there was something heavy pushed against his back. Suddenly, he remembered.
"Donna?"
Josh lifted himself up on his elbows and turned around. Donna was on the floorboard wedged between the front and back seats. Her hair was matted to her head with blood. Her legs were twisted in a grotesque way. At first Josh was sure she was dead, and let out a sob of despair. He noticed her shallow breathing. She was alive. Thank God!
"What about the driver?" he thought.
The thought finally occurred to Josh that the driver probably needed help as well. With some effort, he managed to crawl up to the front of the vehicle. It was there that he saw the most horrible site he had ever witnessed. The driver was hanging halfway out of the broken front windshield. The driver's face was missing. All that was left of it was a bloody mass. Josh was so shocked he began to scream. Then, a wave of nausea hit him and he began to retch.
"Where are the ambulances?" he wondered.
He looked at his watch to see what time it was, but the face was shattered. He crawled back into the back to check on Donna again. She was still unconscious, but breathing. Why the hell wasn't anyone there to help them yet? He crawled out the shattered back window. If help wouldn't come, he'd find help. Donna needed a doctor, and he probably did too.
The scene on the street was yet another horrifying shock to Joshua Lyman. He had been under the impression that their car had been involved in some kind of terrible accident. However, standing on the street, he could see that something much worse had happened. There was debris and overturned vehicles everywhere. The city was strangely quiet. There seemed to be no activity anywhere. Then he saw the bodies. Everywhere he looked, bodies littered Pennsylvania Avenue. The joggers along the Mall were either gone or lying on the ground unmoving. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the Washington Monument was a lot shorter than it once was.
"Shit, it collapsed," he finally realized.
"Buddy, are you OK?"
The voice startled Josh. He turned when the hand fell onto his shoulder.
"Are ya' OK? The man asked again. He looked like an ordinary businessman to Josh. But he was covered in something. Dust? Plaster? Besides that and a few cuts, though, the man looked to be fine.
"I'm fine, I think," Josh said, finally. "My friend, though. My friend in that car over there needs help." Josh indicated the car that he had come from.
"Yeah, a lot of us need help," the man replied. The man pointed to his left leg, and Josh saw a large shard of what looked like glass sticking out of it.
"I was in my office, when the windows blew out. I don't know how I lived, but this piece of glass slashed right through my leg. I didn't realize it until I started walking. It hurts like hell, but I'm afraid to pull it out. Do you have any idea what the hell happened out here?"
"No," Josh said. "Maybe a some kind of bomb or som..." the man was pointing at something. Josh followed the man's finger until he saw what he what the guy was gesturing at. They stared skyward as the remnants of a mushroom cloud slowly drifted in the air.
Disclaimer: They're not mine, I don't own them, but I like to take them out and borrow them every so often. With that in mind, please, please don't sue me.
This is the first chapter in a longer story that I plan to write bout a nuclear attack on America. I know this is a VERY depressing subject, but I see a very good, very human story here. Let me know what you think.
The vans were being positioned at their designated spots in cities across America. The vans were ordinary. They would not stand out. There were five vans. Each van had a driver who had been given a mission. The driver of the van in Los Angeles parked near down town easily enough. He had found a parking garage. The driver in New York had a harder time finding a place to park downtown. Thankfully, though, he had been given false diplomatic credentials. The credentials allowed him to park virtually anywhere without being towed. The drivers of the vans in Seattle and Detroit had virtually no trouble parking. In fact, the driver in Seattle, had time for coffee after parking. Then there was the fifth and final van.... the one that was supposed to be in D.C.
The driver of the D.C. van was having a really bad morning. Due to some kind of power surge, the alarm on the clock in his Arlington home had not gone off when it was supposed to. The driver woke up nearly two hours late, and got onto the highway in the middle of the morning rush hour. The cars were bumper to bumper as he nervously tried to weave his way through traffic. He needed to be downtown by 9:00. As far as he knew, he was the only man with a mission on this fateful morning. He didn't want to screw up. Damn this D.C. traffic!
********************************************************************************
8:57 AM (EDT)
Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman left the West Wing of the White House with his assistant Donna Moss in tow.
"Donna, what time is it?"
"It's 8:57, Josh. Forget about making it on time."
The two boarded an official White House staff car. At once, it began to move. Josh was to meet with Senate Democratic leaders at 9:00. As usual, he was running late. As the car sped toward "The Hill," Josh ignored the notes he had prepared for the meeting and stared out the car window.
"Donna, should I jog more?"
"What are you talking about, Josh?"
"Do you think I should jog more than I do?" Josh asked, looking at joggers along the Mall.
"What you're really asking is if I think you're getting fat," Donna replied.
"Donn.... never mind. Do you have the outlines that I asked you to make co ....."
Suddenly, the sky turned bright red. Josh and Donna felt the shock wave just seconds before they heard the sound. The windows in the car shattered, raining glass down around them. Josh pulled Donna down to the floorboard. The car, as being grabbed and tossed by a giant, was thrown. Josh and Donna tumbled about the car's back seat. The battered vehicle came to a violent rest, slamming against something that Josh could not see.
"Donna?" Josh called as he tried to move his neck. He couldn't see her.
" Donna?" he yelled this time. The noise outside was deafeningly loud that he could barely hear himself. His head hurt so badly. His entire face felt wet. He wanted to find Donna, see if she was OK. He had an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, though. He tried to move again, but his head lolled sideways, and everything went black.
********************************************************************************
The White House Oval Office 8:58 AM (EDT)
"How can you write with that thing, Charlie?"
Charlie Young looked up from the notes he had been taking during the president's phone call to the governor of Nebraska.
"Excuse me, Mr. President?"
"That pen you have. It's a cheep drug store ballpoint. It's the kind that they sell in packs of ten for fifty cents. Buy a fountain pen, boy!"
"Mr. President, I respect you, I admire you, I even voted for you. Despite that, sir, I won't use a fountain pen ever again. That one you gave me a few months ago leaked all over my favorite shirt. The shirt's ruined now."
The president disappeared into his private study. "I have one in here," he yelled back at Charlie. He reappeared back into the room with a fountain pen.
"Charlie," he said, "I've had this pen for over twenty years. It has never, ever, in all my years of writing, leaked even once. I want you to have it on the condition that you let me personally throw that crappy ballpoint away for you."
As he handed Charlie the pen, the president glanced out of the huge windows behind his desk.
"Wha...?"
The windows around the Oval Office started to shatter. They were bulletproof, but they were not made to withstand what was happening today.
"Charlie, get down!" The president said, pulling his young aide to the floor with him. Alarm klaxons began to sound all over the White House and it's grounds. Instantly, Secret Service agents rushed into the Oval Office from almost every available door. Special Agent Ron Butterfield helped the president to his feet. A swarm of agents surrounded Jeb Bartlet and began to rush him from the office.
"Mr. President, are you OK?" Butterfield asked his charge. Behind the president and his detail, two agents nearly dragged Charlie down the hallway.
"What the hell's going on?" Bartlet asked.
"C'mon, sir," Butterfield yelled while trying to move the president along.
The group rushed down a flight of stairs to the basement level of the building. At an intersection of one hallway, Charlie was directed left by his two protectors. Bartlet was directed right. Toward the Situation Room.
The president stood in the Situation Room under the protective gaze of several Secret Service agents. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a red light blinking on one of the phones in the middle of the table. It wasn't just a phone; it was THE phone. His hand visibly shook as he grabbed the receiver.
"This is the president," he managed to choke into the mouthpiece.
"Sir, this is Major General Raymond DiClerico. I'm the senior watch officer at NORAD. We've just registered five nuclear explosions across the United States.
"What? Are you sure?"
"We're double checking now, but yes, sir, there appears to have been a series of explosions in the last several minutes. One of them, near Washington, D.C."
"ICBMs?" The president asked.
"It doesn't appear to have been an ICBM attack, sir," General DiClerico said.
"NORAD didn't track any incoming ballistic missiles. We don't know how it happened, sir, but there appears to have been some kind of nuclear attack on America. There were two explosions on the Eastern Seaboard, one in Michigan, and two on the West Coast."
********************************************************************************
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 9:07 AM (EDT)
Josh Lyman opened his eyes. He felt like he had been beaten to a bloody pulp. His entire body ached. The worst part though was his head. He felt like he had the worst hangover of all time. He hadn't felt this bad after he had been shot. He was still disoriented, but from what he could see, the car he was in had come to a stop on it's left side. His body was half on the floorboard, half on the seat. Despite all of the noise earlier, it was strangely quiet outside. Then he realized that there was something heavy pushed against his back. Suddenly, he remembered.
"Donna?"
Josh lifted himself up on his elbows and turned around. Donna was on the floorboard wedged between the front and back seats. Her hair was matted to her head with blood. Her legs were twisted in a grotesque way. At first Josh was sure she was dead, and let out a sob of despair. He noticed her shallow breathing. She was alive. Thank God!
"What about the driver?" he thought.
The thought finally occurred to Josh that the driver probably needed help as well. With some effort, he managed to crawl up to the front of the vehicle. It was there that he saw the most horrible site he had ever witnessed. The driver was hanging halfway out of the broken front windshield. The driver's face was missing. All that was left of it was a bloody mass. Josh was so shocked he began to scream. Then, a wave of nausea hit him and he began to retch.
"Where are the ambulances?" he wondered.
He looked at his watch to see what time it was, but the face was shattered. He crawled back into the back to check on Donna again. She was still unconscious, but breathing. Why the hell wasn't anyone there to help them yet? He crawled out the shattered back window. If help wouldn't come, he'd find help. Donna needed a doctor, and he probably did too.
The scene on the street was yet another horrifying shock to Joshua Lyman. He had been under the impression that their car had been involved in some kind of terrible accident. However, standing on the street, he could see that something much worse had happened. There was debris and overturned vehicles everywhere. The city was strangely quiet. There seemed to be no activity anywhere. Then he saw the bodies. Everywhere he looked, bodies littered Pennsylvania Avenue. The joggers along the Mall were either gone or lying on the ground unmoving. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the Washington Monument was a lot shorter than it once was.
"Shit, it collapsed," he finally realized.
"Buddy, are you OK?"
The voice startled Josh. He turned when the hand fell onto his shoulder.
"Are ya' OK? The man asked again. He looked like an ordinary businessman to Josh. But he was covered in something. Dust? Plaster? Besides that and a few cuts, though, the man looked to be fine.
"I'm fine, I think," Josh said, finally. "My friend, though. My friend in that car over there needs help." Josh indicated the car that he had come from.
"Yeah, a lot of us need help," the man replied. The man pointed to his left leg, and Josh saw a large shard of what looked like glass sticking out of it.
"I was in my office, when the windows blew out. I don't know how I lived, but this piece of glass slashed right through my leg. I didn't realize it until I started walking. It hurts like hell, but I'm afraid to pull it out. Do you have any idea what the hell happened out here?"
"No," Josh said. "Maybe a some kind of bomb or som..." the man was pointing at something. Josh followed the man's finger until he saw what he what the guy was gesturing at. They stared skyward as the remnants of a mushroom cloud slowly drifted in the air.