Chapter II: Friends and Family
4 Oct 0833 EDT
Cambridge, MA, United States
At the sound of the first blast Tom and his sons went from a hasty walk into a run towards the school where they expected Hal and Karen to be. They hadn't gone but four blocks when Ben had to stop to catch his breath. Tom slowed down and ran back to his son who was wheezing and gasping for air. Matt kept going until he realized his father wasn't with him anymore, and then he turned around and looked back at him and Ben. "What about Hal, Dad?" he asked Tom innocently enough. "We forgot Ben's inhaler back at the house." Tom told Matt and then went back to attend to his older child. "Relax Ben, deep breaths, one, two, three, now exhale. Breathe in, One, two, three and out." Tom said calmly trying to coax Ben out of an asthma attack. Despite the deafening roar of a new explosion to the southeast Tom tried hard to give Ben the appearance that he was perfectly calm, that he had everything figured out and that all was going to be ok. Matt on the other hand was frightened and grew more scared when he saw other people running for their lives opposite the direction that they were headed. He worried about Hal; the high school wasn't far from where he had heard the latest explosion. What about his mom, she was at a hospital doing volunteer work when all this began. Yes it was the other direction away from the explosions but Matt was still scared something might have happened to her. Not quite grasping the delicate nature of the situation with Ben, Matt was getting impatient as children often do, only this time his anxiety was well founded. "Easy now Ben, everything is going to be all right. We've got to go on and get Hal ok? We'll walk the rest of the way so you can keep up, just stay calm and think positive. We'll grab your inhaler on the way back to get Mom ok?" Tom told Ben looking him straight in the eyes with a sincere and caring expression after Ben had regained control of his breathing. Ben nodded, still too out of breath to speak. "You going to be ok?" Tom asked. Again Ben nodded yes. "Alright Matt, thanks for keeping a sharp lookout for us son. We're walking the rest of the way, lead on but stay close to us ok?" Tom told Matt who walked off ahead of them, going a little too fast for him and Ben to keep up with. Tom knew he couldn't ease Matt's fears until he saw the rest of the family safe and sound with his own eyes. So long as he could keep his eyes on his youngest boy he would be fine, and Matt knew enough not to run so far ahead that his father could not see him.
Hal and Karen had sought refuge inside the school once the bombardment had begun. When Matt ran into the school building he found both of them huddled together inside in the janitor's closet. Had he been older and the situation been more normal he would have suspected the two being in the middle of making out. Instead they were clutching onto each other for comfort and hoping that the building wouldn't collapse on top of them. The halls of the school were dark and full of long shadows broken by bars of light coming in through the shattered windows. "Dad! I found them! They're over here!" Matt called over to Tom and Ben who were searching another part of the deserted school. "Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes little guy." Hal said standing up and jostling Matt's hair around. "You two all right?" Matt asked. "Never been better kid. We were just riding this storm out till you got here. You see, you're late to the party." Hal confidently answered his little brother. Hal seemed to be unfazed by recent events instead presenting himself as a rock of strength for Karen, who by herself was rather fearless as well. While little Matt might have been fooled Ben knew better; he knew it was all an act. Hal's ability to exude confidence and pretend that nothing got to him was why, in Ben's mind, he was the one that got all the girls. Ben, a sickly young teen who was mostly known for nerding out over superheroes and Harry Potter, and wore prescription glasses inspired by the latter, wasn't the type of guy most high school girls went for. He envied Hal for his strength, both mental and physical and wished he wasn't the one trembling with fear every time he heard a "boom" outside. He also wished he could run a mile in under eight minutes, or even finish running a mile without his asthma acting up on him. The contrast between the two boys often led to conflict but this time they both were happy to see each other. "Hey Benny boy, how you holding up over there?" Hal asked him as he and Karen came out to find him and Tom heading there way. "Worried about you, you dumb jock." Ben joked. "No need to worry, we're fine and dandy four eyes." Hal playfully mocked him back. "Alright you two, no more name calling we've got to get back out there and find your mom." Tom told the boys before leading his sons outside.
4 Oct 0849 EDT
Cambridge MA, United States
Rebecca Mason and the other volunteers helped the hospital staff at Mt. Auburn Hospital bring in the scores of injured people that had arrived among the people fleeing westward. They had come to participate in a benefit for cancer research and most of them were not medically trained. Still they did what they could, helping patients in the door, getting them processed, seen and treated by whomever they needed to see. Most of them were minor injuries at first, a sprained ankle, bruised knees and elbows, panic attacks and the like. These people many of the volunteers could tend to with basic first aid given the required supplies from the hospital. When the people that were closer to the blast sites arrived so did the more severe injuries, burns, bone fractures, acute radiation sickness, possible concussions and wounds from flying shrapnel. These people had to go directly to the hospital staff. The emergency room soon became overwhelmed. Most of the hospital staff remained on site to treat those that came in, not just those in the emergency department but physicians, nurses and nursing assistants from all wards came down to the ER to deal with the rising tide of wounded men, women and children fleeing the carnage downtown. Among these people were Dr. Michael Harris, a surgeon and friend to Rebecca and Dr. Anne Glass, a pediatrician who for now had plenty of children among the wounded to tend to. "Rebecca? What are you doing down here? Please tell me you are alright?" asked Dr. Harris when he saw Mrs. Mason kneeling down and applying bandages to the scuffed up knees of a ten year old boy. "I'm fine Dr. Harris. I was here for the cancer benefit run when everything just got crazy all of the sudden." Rebecca explained. "Notice the pink running shoes?" she added drawing attention to her footwear. Dr. Harris was one of the physicians on the team that treated Rebecca during her bout with breast cancer some time ago performing exploratory surgery and excising a tumor from her left breast before she began her chemotherapy. "Well thank heavens you are all right, I can't lose a former patient we all fought so hard for so early on. Why that tarnishes my reputation after all." Dr. Harris replied half joking. "You should probably get back to your family though. I'd imagine old Tom is worried sick about you. We doctors can handle it from here." Harris told Rebecca. She didn't know if it was out of concern or a slight that he said these things but took them in a positive light nonetheless. "Tom knows I'm here and probably is headed this way to find me so it's probably best that I remain here until he arrives." Rebecca replied. "I see your point. In that case take two of these." Dr. Harris said, reaching into his lab coat and removing a bottle of pills. He popped the cap open and handed Rebecca two of the large horse pills inside. "What are these?" she asked. "Potassium Iodide. We're assuming that those blasts are equivalent to small tactical nuclear weapons. We've already got some patients complaining of symptoms that would suggest a massive acute dose of both gamma and neutron radiation." he answered. Rebecca walked over to one of the coolers outside that had been set up for the run later today and took out a bottle of Gatorade, opened it and swallowed the pills.
Inside the hospital Dr. Glass stumbled through the darkened hallways where she bumped into Lourdes Delgado, a pre-med student that had come here from one of the nearby colleges to observe for one of her classes that she had started in the fall. Anne was moving with such haste that she knocked Lourdes to the ground. "I am so sorry miss." Anne apologized as she bent over and helped Lourdes back to her feet. "It's alright ma'am. It's so dark in here I'm surprised anyone can see where they are going." Lourdes replied. "Definitely, you'd think they would have the generator running by now." Anne added. "Yeah, and by the way ma'am if it's not too much trouble, one of the doctors told me to move the patient out of room 23C do you by any chance know where that is?" asked Lourdes. "Yes. It's down that hall over there four doors down to the left." Anne directed her. "Thank you." Lourdes said with a smile as she and Anne parted. She seems awfully chipper given the situation Anne thought to herself as she made her way back to the ER were a veritable flood of patients were waiting for her.
Tom reached the hospital and found Rebecca outside tending to the ever growing number of patients as explosions continued to rattle the earth from both the north and the south. Tom ran ahead of his sons and gave Rebecca a firm hug, lifting her off the ground slightly in his embrace. "Dad, get a room." Hal snickered at his father as he came up behind him. Ben and Matt followed a short distance behind. Rebecca and Tom broke their embrace without the intended kiss of affection as not to embarrass their boys. "Tom, make sure you and the boys take these." Rebecca said after kneeling down and picking up a bottle of potassium iodide tablets that she had been tasked with handing out. She counted out enough for each of them and handed them out, starting with Tom, then Ben, Matt and Hal. "Mom these taste totally gross." said Matt as he cringed from the bitter taste in his mouth as he chewed up and swallowed the pills. "That's because you're not supposed to chew them genius." Hal ridiculed his little brother. "He's a little kid, he doesn't know better." Ben said in Matt's defense. "Hey! I'm not that little! I'm going to be 8 next summer, that's not a baby." Matt protested. ". . .and I turned 14 exactly two weeks ago." Ben said to his little brother. "Your point?" Matt asked. "My point is that I'm twice as old as you so that makes you a little baby to me." Ben playfully teased Matt. "Dad! Tell Ben I'm not a baby!" Matt called out to his father for backup. "Ben, Matt isn't a baby." Tom laughed. His kids, fighting as always almost made him forget that the world was falling apart around them.
Tom's brief moment of peace was torn asunder by the arrival of Dr. Harris. "Tom, good to see you again." Dr. Harris greeted him with a handshake. "Likewise Doctor." Tom said. "I'd hate to be so abrupt with you but as you can see my skills are in high demand right now so I'll get to the point. We're filling up fast here, not to mention we are awfully close to those nukes with a limited supply of iodine tablets" Dr. Harris explained. "What I would ask you fine gentlemen is if you could do us a huge favor and escort some of our patients to the hospital in Framingham, it's further away and I haven't seen or heard any explosions coming from the west. I would presume to believe it's safer out there further from the city center." Dr. Harris continued. "I'd be glad to help doctor." Tom accepted the task. "Why thank you Tom. We're getting together all the patients who can walk and those whom they can carry together and will be sending for you shortly." Dr. Harris told Tom. "We'll be here. Oh and doctor, do you mind if we grab a couple extra inhalers with Ben's medication before we go?" Tom asked. "Sure, help yourself." Dr. Harris answered and then hastily went back inside the hospital. Tom followed him and went off to claim Ben's medication. Another massive explosion out towards Logan airport dwarfed all the previous explosions. The aliens had just sterilized most of central Boston with that blast. Looking back at the billowing pillar of fire rising into the sky Tom, well versed in the tactics of warfare knew what was going on, the aliens were softening themselves a landing zone. In his estimation, assuming the alien weapons were analogous to neutron bombs by the magnitude of their detonations and the limited structural damage they caused to the skyline and also assuming that alien physiology was similar to humans, they had between 24-72 hours before radiation levels would have sufficiently subsided to allow the extraterrestrials to land ground forces downtown. He hoped that he would have enough time to get his family far enough away by the time that happened so that he at least would have a chance to protect them.