The Long Way Home

By: Vincent Papasso

1

In the year 2024, the world was ravaged by nuclear fire. The world feared this since 1945, but it came to a head in 2011. That was when tensions between North Korea and the US heightened. Also at the time the European countries were in the process of war for oil. We don't know who launched first, but we know that after only ten minutes the Nuclear War was over and the fallout began. After 26 years the survivors came out of the vaults made for the War. They only had the harsh of the wasteland to greet and comfort them. They saw nothing left, only the ruins of buildings and the skeletons of those who never made it to the vaults. Soon after the surfacing, they began to rebuild the nearby cities the best they could. The remaining radiation covered the surface and was the only thing they fought at first. The people who didn't die in the fire survived as mutants, they had burned or rotten skin and would hunt like animals. After the first attacks, the survivors communicated with each other and moved to the metro tunnels. They decided that the surface was unsafe and that they would have to stay underground until either side dies.

I was born in this mess and soon I would go to see the surface but not by my choice. My father told me about the world before the war. It was filled with angry people who wanted more than they could take. He says that they were so desperate for power, control, resources, and dominance; that they tried to destroy the competition and ended up destroying themselves. I wandered into a security room that had tapes from before the blast. I turned one on and saw the people of that time walk around throwing their garbage on the floor and trying to fit into subway cars. Each film showed me the way people commuted each day. The room also had tapes of other things like old TV shows and movies that the employees watched when their shift was over. The last few tapes were labeled as "evidence". The videos showed a person being killed by another person and then the police coming in and arresting the killer. I told my father about this and he told me "Son, there are still people like that out there, but I know that you will be a better person than them." My father was always the opportunist of the group of people we had here. He would always try to lighten the mood of the tunnel.

One day our tunnel was attacked by the mutants, the children were taken away and brought to the shelter on the other side of the tunnel system. I stayed behind and took up my father's gun and helped defend our home. We fought a losing battle and we were overrun. I looked for my father so we could evacuate, but he was killed by a mutant. I cried in rage and shot the mutant. I ran to him and the last words he spoke were "Son, get away and find your mother. Go to the East Metro….." He died in my arms. I looked away and ran with the rest of the survivors, holding on to my father's pocket watch.

2

When we finally stopped running I looked for the entrance to the bunker the civilians were sent to. It was broken open and the people lay in a position I dare not talk about. I asked one of the men, Gage, "Well what do we do now?" He looked back at me and said, "I don't know, maybe head to the surface." Other people looked at him as if he were crazy. I looked at him with shock; he suggested we go to the place where the mutants run free. I said, "No, we should go to the East Metro on the other side of the tunnels." The group nodded their heads and followed me. We all checked our gear in hopes someone had ammo. I had two clips left for my pistol and Gage had eight shells for his shotgun. Everyone else only had melee weapons or no weapons at all. I felt that we would not make the journey without anything worth trading so I told everyone that we needed to get anything very valuable. No one wanted to give anything up, so I told them, "Ok then, go find it among the dead." It was harsh, but it needed to be done. Gage and I stayed outside with a woman named Sam, to guard the entrance. The group came out with four rings, two watches, and a bottle of vodka. I took the vodka for anytime I felt like getting hammered. We soon left the bunker and marched to the East Metro.

The Metro had guards at the entrance and shot at us screaming, "Go away we can't accept any more of you refugees!" I screamed back, "We need to get in we have things some people will want!" I held out my hand and showed the rings and watches. The guard came out, took a ring and the vodka, and let us in the Metro. The place was crowded and the people were scattered all over the place. My father's pocket watch had a small note inside of it that said, "Butchery, 1098345". I looked around until I saw the butchery. When I went inside it was empty, save for a few rats that scurried away to the dark corners. There was a safe on the wall, I used the code to open it and saw inside it had four spare clips and a note. "Find Skunk and he will take you home." It wasn't in my father's handwriting so I assumed it was someone else who wrote it, but who?

I asked around for "Skunk" but he was nowhere to be found. When I tried to leave with my group they held us back saying that we would need to be better equipped to get out. At this point I split the jewelry up among the group and we all parted ways, except for Gage. He stayed with me to help find Skunk and my mother. We decide to do small jobs for money around the metro.

After 5 years we finally made enough money to afford the equipment necessary to go to the surface. It was around that time that I found Skunk. He informed me that the Metro we needed to get to was blocked off underground so we would go to the surface and reach it from there. I grabbed a map and we met Skunk at the surface elevator in the engine room. We took the elevator up and put on our gas masks. The report from the engine room said that there was a gas leak and it was highly toxic from mixing with the radiation in the air. We saw mutants waiting for us after we got out of the gas leak. We fought them off but Gage was wounded, slashed in the waist by a mutant. I grabbed him and carried him to the nearest vehicle while Skunk covered us. I got him in the back seat and got in the front. I opened the glove compartment and found the keys. Skunk got in the passenger side and asked, "You know how to drive one of these things?" I replied "No, but I can learn." By some miracle the car started and we drove off looking for the Metro my mother lived in, Grand Central Station.

3

The road was crowded with bodies and cars that were destroyed in the nuclear blast. I looked over to Gage and Skunk; there was blood all over the back seat. I asked, "Do we have any medical supplies for this?" Skunk shook his head, and pointed to a building that was still standing and had a red cross on it. It was a hospital, so I figured there had to be supplies there. We got out of the car and moved into the building, my rifle aimed at anything that came near us. Skunk carried Gage into the building and looked for a med kit. He saw one but it was ripped open and there was nothing left. I improvised and took a stapler, tape, and some cloth. I took off his jacket and his shirt and saw two slashes on his chest. The cut was bleeding and he was starting to lose consciousness, I woke him up and told him, "Look this is going to hurt a lot, but it will hold until we make it tothe metro." I got the cloth and pushed on the wound stopping the bleeding. Skunk took the stapler and stapled the wound shut with four staples. Each one made Gage scream in pain and the expression on his face was painful to look at. I tried to reassure him and made sure he didn't faint or fall asleep. My father told me that if a person was bleeding and fainted they may die. After we got him stable and he was resting we took shelter in the building and waited until the morning to move again.

We got up and moved back to the car, only to find it out of gas and the tires slashed. "Great, this is just great. What now?" Skunk said in anger. I told him, "Look we could walk to the nearest Metro and go from there. Do you know of any here?" "No, but there is a sewer where people may still be hanging around." I nodded in agreement and picked up the wounded Gage. When we found the sewer we climbed in, it smelled like thirty year old sewage. There was no life in the sewer, until we found a group of wanderers. They took us to the community gate, and I saw a graffiti sign that read, "Grand Central". I smiled and hurried into the small metro entrance.

When we first walked in a group of would be doctors took Gage and Skunk. They told me that they would take care of them. I went to the local bar to wait for Skunk, since he wasn't to badly hurt. Gage was in critical condition, but the Metro had scavenged things from the nearby hospital and made a real small medical clinic with the best medical device they had. The machine allowed them to save Gage's life and fix his wounds; it did leave nasty scars though. When I saw him fully recuperated he was laughing, he laughed at the fact that we even made it here and that he survived. He was a little pissed that we used a stapler to seal the wound. He let the grudge go and said we should find my mother.

I asked Skunk, "Ok we're here, where is my mother?" He replied with a low voice, "She isn't here; she was a doctor when I left and when I asked the nurses, they said she left with a group to go and find her family. So she went back to your old metro, and was either killed or taken by the mutants." I was devastated and sat down looking at my group. I thought o myself what are we going to do now that we wasted a trip here to only find we have to go back. Another person came up to us and asked, "Hey are you looking for Rosemary Underwood?" Skunk said, "Yes, this is her son." He pointed at me and I stood up. The woman said, "Good, my name is Lucy and I know where she went." I said back, "She went looking for her family, me and my dad." "No she went looking for her brother, in Washington DC."

4

Washington DC, it was the last place anyone wanted to be. It was reported that the people there were all killed in the initial mutant attacks. I couldn't figure out what my mother would be doing there, but at this point I didn't care. "Ok so we are all going to DC?" I asked. Everyone said that they would Lucy only had one request, "Can we find my sister, Sam?" "Sam? Gage wasn't Sam in our group after the metro was attacked?" I asked. He replied, "Yeah, she was there with us while we were trying to get money to travel here." "Ok, but do you have any idea where to find her?" I asked. She replied, "She came here two years ago, asking me if I wanted to go to Michigan. She said that the Army Remnants were using the city as an invasion outpost. They were going to take back the East Coast via three major areas: New York, the South, and lastly DC. These would be good choke points to take back the coast." I thought about it and she was right, if the army took that strategy then they could take back this coast. I, however had more important things on my mind, like "Why did my mother go to mutant infested DC." I told her ok, we got more supplies and met up with Skunk. He got us another transport to get to DC. I told him we were going to Michigan first and we were finding her sister.

When we began our long drive towards Michigan we were intercepted halfway by a Blackhawk Helicopter. The pilot saw us and landed the chopper in front of us. "Get out of the vehicle, now!" a soldier screamed at us. "Ok buddy take it easy." I said back. He aimed his rifle at me and pointed us into the chopper, while they attached a cable to the car and we took off to an army base. When we arrived Lucy asked for her sister, to whom the officer replied, "She went missing three days ago, and we haven't gotten the time to look for her with the invasion about to happen." Lucy was enraged by the fact they ignored her sister to focus on an invasion which needed troops like her. She grabbed him and threw him against the wall and said, "Well, you better start looking for him you son of a…" "Easy Lucy, we might need is help to get to your sister and my mother." I said trying to calm her down. "Look we are not through here, you help me find my sister and we'll help you increase your numbers. We will join you for the invasion of Washington." Lucy said trying to make him help us. "We could use the support, but you would have to help with New York before we even think about DC." He said back. We understood that, but we were on a tight schedule. After the meeting I went through the army's Intel file and found out my mother was in a lab inside the pentagon, which became an army base with troops and scientists. I decided to send Skunk with a few soldiers to Washington. I told him before he left, "My mother is in the Pentagon, try to get in and tell her that the army will come to get them and what they are working on after we take New York." He agreed and went with the troops. He said this might be the last time we see each other, but I told him that when we reach DC we will meet again. We all said our goodbyes and they went off.

We assembled the team going to find Sam. The team included: Lucy, Gage, Allen, and myself. Allen was a trooper who was assigned to assist us in finding Sam. We all got our new equipment. I had a sweatshirt, overcoat, backpack, Kevlar vest, boots, jeans, goggles, wool hat, and knee and elbow guards. Gage had the same equipment, Lucy and Allen had the same gear except the overcoat. Weapon wise I had an M14EBR with six spare clips and my father's revolver with sixty spare rounds. Gage had an auto shotgun with ten spare clips and a standard pistol. Lucy and Allen both had M4's, six spare clips and standard pistols.

5

When we left I felt like we were not going to return to an intact base, the mutants were all over and might attack. I put these thoughts behind when we left in the helicopter. I asked the soldier where we were going and he said that we were going to the Cave. It had no name because it wasn't always there or had a history. It was made by one of the bombs dropped there, and the mutants swarmed it. I had my doubts about finding anyone alive in there. When we entered the cave we found the walls covered in what looked like human flesh. It smelled like old rotten meat, and looked like disfigured faces. I looked away, and moved ahead of the group until we found the chamber where they were keeping people, except one thing caught my eye. The people were all female; we checked all of them looking for a live one. We found two Sam and another woman, the other woman was awake and scared. Sam was unconscious, so Lucy and Gage took her down from the wall while I got the other woman. Allen kept watch and saw mutants coming; he began to fire his clips away, slowly running out of ammo. When he ran out he was slashed and eaten, only he got back up. His face was disfigured and he pulled out his pistol. We were in shock, how could he pick up a gun and use it? More importantly, since when can a person killed by mutant come back as one of them. This sounds like an old zombie movie my father talked about. We ran with the women on our backs, and fired when we turned around. We kept going in one direction and kept getting cornered by the creatures. I thought we were done for, until an explosion brought down the ceiling over the mutants head. When we all looked up we saw three people standing there, two men and one child. They saw us walk in and followed us. I figured it was a stroke of good luck but it was the opposite. They grabbed Lucy, Sam, and the other woman and ran away. Gage was knocked out and I was thrown to a wall and fell unconscious.

Gage woke up and dragged me away from the cave. The Blackhawk was gone and the pilots dead on the ground. I assumed the raiders forced Lucy to fly, and then killed the pilots so they wouldn't be followed. I was scared, we had no ride home and we were in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't stand and I was feeling woozy, "I need water, rest, and medical attention." I said in a woozy and desperate voice. Gage took me to the nearest town, which was 20 miles away. When we got there, the only building we could get in without hassle was a gas station. When we got in, Gage opened the hood of a car and took water from the radiator. It was dirty, so Gage boiled it and gave it to me in a cup. I drank it and laid down in a bed. Gage continued to look out for any raiders or mutants. After a few days I was ready to go.

We got what we had left and activated a device Allen gave us. It allowed us to find the chopper. When I turned it on it said the chopper was nearby. When we looked up we saw a building that was in half, but behind the part we could see we saw the tail of the chopper. When we saw that, we decided to pay those bastards a visit. We entered the building and looked for the raiders, we found the guys dead. Lucy was awake and nearly shot me. "Lucy it's me!" I screamed. "Prove it!" she shouted back. "Lucy, you have a sister named Sam and you were taken by a group of raiders two days ago to this location via Blackhawk helicopter." She believed me, and lowered the gun. The other woman was dead, and she said they raped Sam. I was depressed by the fact that we didn't get there soon enough. Lucy and I went to the chopper, started the engine, and we flew back to the base. Lucy and I agreed to never speak of this again.

6

It has been three years since the day we found Sam, and New York was finally taken. We were ready to make a final advance to Washington and I would finally meet my mother. I had experienced war against the new mutants that now could shoot back. The army had lost many of its troops to these new mutants. They were losing this war, but I convinced them that we needed to go to the Pentagon to find my mother and see what she has come up with. We left as soon as Gage and I were ready, Lucy was now our pilot, and Sam became the medic of our group. When we landed in the Pentagon we meet the guards who were very kind to me and my group. The only member of the welcoming party that recognized me was Skunk. "Skunk, hey how are you?" I said in joy. "I am fine, and your mother is waiting for you in the lab chamber." He said back. He was happy to see me, but he was serious because they were desperate for time.

I went into the lab and met my mother. "Son, is that you? Yes, it is you. I have missed you and wished you would have come sooner. How is your father?" She said in joy. I became somber and answered, "He died in the defense of our metro, eight years ago. I'm sorry." She looked away and shed a single tear. "I heard, but I didn't want to believe it." I held her tight and broke the ice asking, "Mom, what is here that has been so important that you left me a wild goose chase to find you?" "We have been working on a way to destroy the mutation in humans." She replied. My uncle came over and said, "This virus can do one of two things. It can both destroy their bodies and kill them, or it can revert their brain cells back to the way it was before they mutated. Though the second is less likely, so I believe we should take the first option and kill them." "No, if there is a chance to restore them to humans we should take the chance." My mother protested. I said, "Let me decide mom." She looked at me and gave body motions that she trusted my judgment. It was after this small fight that the radio chimed in, "Team this is Lucy, we have been ordered to go to nearest metro and find our agent called "Tom"". Mom told her, "No we need to head back to New York and head to Staten Island." Mom explained, "We need to head to the metro you grew up in, the reason is because of the special filters in the metro and the filters at the surface. If we implant the virus into the filter it would be spread into the atmosphere and do either thing we discussed." She gave me two viruses, one that would kill them and the other restores them.

When we got out of the lab and returned to Staten Island, I entered the tunnel system with Gage. Sam stayed outside with my mother; they went into the building with the filters to adjust them. Gage and I fought through waves of mutants and eventually we reached a door marked restricted. We entered the room to see more flesh and mutants, the last wave got Gage in the leg and me in the arm. I sent Gage out and took the two viruses and had to make a decision. Which one do I use? One will kill all mutants that is guaranteed, but the other could restore their memory. It was an impossible choice, but I chose the second one. After I put it in the reactor began pumping out the virus. After a few minutes mom called down, "It is good, the virus is airborne." I began to leave when the reactor started to explode from never being used to being over used. I couldn't get out in time, it exploded.

Gage got out a few minutes before the explosion. He got to my mother and told her what I did. She said, "I'm proud that he made this choice." After the explosion they looked at the wreckage and each of them shed a single tear. Then the radio crackled, "This is Nick Underwood. Gage, Mom, Sam, can you hear me."