No Warning

Jim Mackenzie taught 4th grade at Carpenter Elementary School in Red Deer, Colorado. It was one of three elementary schools this town of 11,000. Red Deer was about an hour west of Colorado Springs. Most of the people that lived there commuted to Colorado Springs for work. While it was definitely a blue-collar town, the residents were friendly, and crime was low.

Jim was in his late 30’s. He was about six feet tall, and while he was no body builder, it was clear he liked to stay in shape. His wife was Sara, and she worked as an accountant for a firm in Colorado Springs. They had no children of their own, as Sara was unable to. So, their “kids” were their three dogs. Jim loved his job. He had taught other grades before, but 4th graders were his favorite. The 18 students he had in this year’s class called him Mr. Mack.

Aside from being unseasonably warm for late October, there was nothing out of the ordinary about this particular day. Just after 2:00, Jim was finishing up an English lesson with his students. The town’s emergency sirens sounded, but no one paid any attention. They frequently sounded to alert the city’s volunteer fire department.

Then it struck. First was the bright light, but upon hearing a loud explosion, Jim looked outside and saw debris flying. His eyes got wide.

“Everyone get down!” he yelled. But there was no time.

In the end, it didn’t really matter if they had a place to hide. The entire town, including the school, was ripped to pieces by the nuclear blast. Jim and his students could feel the blast winds as it threw them all into a corner of the room. Then it was over. Jim checked his students. Of the 18, only three survived the blast. And even these three had some third-degree burns. Jim was burned as well.

Jim took a quick look around and saw the mushroom cloud a short distance away. He knew that if a nuclear war ever broke out, that NORAD (just outside of Colorado Springs) would most certainly be a target, but figured it would never come to that. He glanced around. Everything he saw was debris on fire. And bodies. So many little bodies.

He picked up his surviving students one by one and took them to the basement to help protect them from the fallout. The basement was intact and still mostly covered by the floor above, but given that there was now no electricity, it was dark. He then went and got what he could from what remained of the nurse’s office. He began applying rubbing alcohol to one of his students when he saw Rachel Nicholson carrying one of her 1st grade students. Jim rushed over to help her. He took the girl from Rachel and set her next to his 4th graders.

“Are there any more?” Jim asked.

Rachel shook her head, sat down, and cried.

Jim looked Rachel over. She wore a knee-length dress with a cardigan sweater on this day, and had her brown, shoulder length hair pulled back in a pony tail as usual. From what he could see, Jim saw that she had some severe burns on the right side of her face and both legs. He got out his phone, but of course there was no signal.

“I’m going to go see if there are any more. Stay here,” Jim said to her.

Jim ran up the basement stairs and searched for survivors. The stench of burning bodies was almost too much for him. He ended up finding two 6th graders, two 3rd graders, and Denise O’Donnell, was who with one of her kindergartners. Not only did Denise have burns on her body, but most of her hair had been singed off, and she also had a lot of bleeding cuts from the shards of glass. These were the only survivors. Jim brought them all down to the basement. He did the best he could to cover the basement stairs opening with large pieces of drywall and plywood to help protect them from radiation. It was now very dark down there.

While Jim was doing this, Rachel used the flashlight on her phone to look over the first aid supplies Jim had brought down. There wasn’t much. Certainly not enough for everyone. Rachel shone the flashlight on the kids. They all sat there with their eyes open, staring blankly into space. They were clearly in shock. Jim then came over and sat next to everyone. Rachel set her phone down with the flashlight facing up.

“What happened, Mr. Mack?” asked Ariel, one of his students.

“It looks like we got hit by a nuclear bomb, Ariel,” Jim replied.

“Are we all...” she asked, her voice trailing off.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Where’s my mom and dad?”

“I don’t know yet,” Jim replied. “But we’ll see if we can find them.”

Ariel began to cry. Denise put her arms around her.

“Now what?” asked Rachel.

“I don’t know. We definitely can’t go outside. The radiation would kill us. So, I think we’re stuck in here until FEMA finds us,” replied Jim.

“How are they going to find us?” Rachel asked.

“Good point,” said Jim. He then took Rachel’s flashlight and walked around the basement. He found a metal rod that was maybe four feet long. He took off his shirt, tied it to the rod, then stuck it through an hole in the basement stair opening he just covered. He then went back and sat down.

“We had no warning,” Denise said. “How is that possible?”

Jim and Rachel just shook their heads.

Jim then thought of his wife. “I wonder what else is going on out there.”

After a little while, the shock began to wear off the kids and they began to wail in pain because of their burns.

“We’re in trouble,” Rachel said.