The first night was the worst, they listened to the screams of the poor should who were not vaporised in the first initial blasts, their cries of agony and their banging on the fallout shelter door kept everyone's nerve frayed, but the survivors could not even think of opening the shelter's door, lest they cause the exposure of the people here.
"The Government will come and help us soon." one lady said with confidence, which was soon shot down.
"Don't be silly, they are the ones who got us into this whole mess in the first place, they are probably all gone, dead and vaporised." another man said as he re-read the same articles in the newspaper as he had twenty times before.'
The conversations were muted, hushed and the boredom settled in to keep everyone, well... very bored. There were only three children in the shelter, one was the little girl and there were your boys around 10 and 12 years of age. They played and roughhoused and played silly pranks on each other, often bumping into one of the shelter dwellers as they chased each other around.
Nerves were frayed even more when the hysterical man could not stand it anymore and made a break for the door.
He had been muttering to himself for the last day, they were almost a week after the bombs falling on DC, food supplies were starting to become a concern, and stomachs were growling. But it was his constant insane muttering that had started to get on everyone's nerves.
One night, they heard the door opening, people awoke with a start, and the fresh smell of burning 'everything' wafted in to the shelter. people cried out in dismay when they saw the red glow of fires still burning, intermixed with a green tinge from the Nukes clear to see through the open shelter door.
"Close the Door! Close the Door!" one woman shrieked. She too became hysterical from what she had seen.
A pile of burned bodies lay at the entrance to the Shelter, a crazed man sat before the bodies and had pulled off a leg and was gnawing at it, so great was his insane hunger.
Garry pulled a pistol from his vest and aimed it at the crazed man. Nina ran to the little girl and hid the child's face and blocked her ears for what was to come.
The feral light in the man's eyes shone, reflecting the light that came from the shelter as he chewed open mouthed, the burned flesh of the dead. He snarled with an animalistic snarl and scratched the side of his head; flesh came away, along with some of his hair. He snarled and hissed again at the people in the vault and moved to approach them. Garry squeezed the trigger and shot the man in the head. He then calmly stepped up to the door and closed it, once again sealing them in.
Nina sighed. And wondered how much radiation they had just all taken in. Garry looked grim, he too knew it and he sat down beside Nina with an air of despair.
"We have enough Rad-x for almost everyone here, but I don't know how bad the count is out there still, Do we wait or do we go?" he wondered.
"Let's take a vote..." Nina suggested. "I'm thinking to stay here for another week, the longer the better, but I know others want to seek out their families and see if they have survived, I on the other hand have nowhere else to go, it's not like I'm going to get back to my home country anytime soon." she sighed and stroked the girl's hair.
Garry nodded. "Ok." he said and stood up.
"Right so I know that a few of you want to go out and see if your families have survived, it's no secret that our food supplies are dwindling, and our water is low. There is enough Rad-x left for about twenty people, so if you want to, twenty of you can leave, and take a rad-x. That leaves about fifteen of us left here." he sighed. As he looked out at the group.
"I know the odds aren't great either way, but it's up to you if you want to stay or if you want to leave. I'm going to stay here for at least another week, hopefully by then it might be safer to leave than it is now with the rad count going down, but then we have no Geiger counter to tell what the count is like."
"What about a weapon for those of us who are wanting to leave?" one man asked.
"You might have to use whatever you can find, wooden planks, steel bars, you might even find a gun or two on someone if you're lucky, I don't thin that vehicles would work, EM pulses from Nuke usually kill much of the electronics, but I heard that some of the newer Corvegas have a pulse shield, so you might be lucky" Garry looked to the group.
"So, who will leave and who will stay?"
Nina looked at the group, all were tired and despairing and they just wanted to go back to their lives, impossible now that the world had burned in atomic fire. No one knew what was safe anymore
"I'll stay for another week at least." Nina said as she stood up, the little girl holding her hand. Some moved over to stand with her, others moved towards the door indicating their desire to leave. Once all was settled, there were twenty five people who were eager to face the horrors outside, ten left to stay in the shelter.
Nina handed out the last twenty Rad-x pills and bid them all farewell. The group moved out quickly, Garry shutting the door behind them. Nina sighed, it was far quieter now, and the place seemed very empty with just the ten of them in there now. She sat down and ran a hand through her hair. A large clump came away in her hand.
"Oh... Shit." she muttered, looking at the strands that lay about in her fingers.
Garry came over to her and saw the hair in her hand. "I've... been losing hair too, and some of the others have not been feeling well either. So far I've managed to keep my food down but just barely." he sighed heavily.
"It's radiation poisoning isn't it?" he asked her.
"Yes." she said simply.
"Prognosis?" he asked her, looking concerned, but already knowing the answer in his heart.
"Not good, we are dying." she said simply. "the radiation will kill us on a genetic level, unless we can get some Radaway and rad-x, we will continue to get sicker and sicker, lose our hair, vomiting and diarrhea, lose our teeth, then we just die." she said sadly.
"Well... I guess that's it then..." he muttered.
"No, It's not, We may not have the supplies here to help, but I can go back to Our Lady hospital and get some Radaway and rad-x, Stimpacks too, maybe some more food, if we filter Rad-x with the food it should be safe to eat." she explained.
Garry sighed. "Ok, I don't like it, but ok." he pulled out his gun. "Do you know how to use one of these?" he asked handing the 10mm pistol handle first to her.
"It's an automatic?" she asked him. He nodded
"Yeah point and shoot, you have about 11 rounds left in that clip," he pulled another clip out of his vest "and 12 in this one, use them wisely, head shots drop them quick." he said as he handed her the other clip.
"You sure you can do this?" he asked her. "Want me to come along?"
Nina shook her head. "No, I will be faster on my own and the less exposure the less Radaway I'll have to use to clear the rads from my system." she said as she pulled on a backpack that someone had left behind. She emptied it of everything but a few bottles of water and some food.
"I'll be back as soon as I can." she said as she paused at the door. Garry leaned over, took her by the shoulder and kissed her.
"For luck." he said sheepishly.
Nina blushed, not sure what to make of it. "Thanks." she replied. She turned and looked at the little girl, who ran to her and hugged her tight. "Hey sweetheart, it's ok, I'll be back soon." she said as she ran her hand over the girl's head, curly blonde locks came away in her hand. She looked at the golden curls and almost cried in dismay.
She had a purpose now; she had to get the Radaway for the people in the shelter.
She moved out, prying the child from her leg, and letting Garry take her. "I'll be back soon." she said as she headed out into the ruined city.