“Seems like the whole world is just waiting for someone to push the first button.”
He talked a little about his wife, Peggy, who worked locally in telephone sales, and their three sons, Johnny, Dwight and Merle.
“Guess you know from that what kind of music I’m into,” he guffawed. J.B. and Ryan looked at each other blankly.
The picture wobbled, and the gears of the vid-machine grated and whined as if they were about to give up. Ryan leaned in the chair and pressed the Fast Forward button, letting it go ahead for several seconds.
“Don’t have time to watch all this, J.B.,” he said. “Mebbe take it with us.”
“Stop it here.”
Don was back, looking rather less cool and in control than he had on Christmas Day. “Things don’t,” he began. “Sorry. Start with date. It’s January 15, 2001. Yeah. Government tells us not to worry. Motherfuckers. Not to worry. They don’t live out in the open. They’ve got their bunkers and hideouts. Me an’ Peggy’ll be fine. What about them good old boys of ours? Where do they go? Can’t come in here. Built for two. Jesus on the fucking cross, what a mess!”
“Can’t have been a big magnetic pulse in the skies round here,” commented J.B. “Would have cut off all the electrics.”
Haggard rambled on a while longer, cursing the politicians, both Russian and American, for letting things slide to the brink of war.
Ryan ran the tape farther forward, watching the dancing picture and halting it when there was an obvious change of time.
“January 24.” Looking’at his watch, Don went on. “Late morning, I think. Watch stopped. Guess it’s around ten-thirty. Peggy’s worse, crying and throwing up and taking on so.”
Don looked terrible. His shirt was stained and dirty, and he was pale and unshaven. His eyes were sunken, and he had obviously been weeping. “I’m real fine, folks. Whoever you are. Felt the bangs again a day back. Last night, maybe. Not sure. Bet I’m real fine and so’s Peggy. Just a mite sickly. See my hand shaking some. Should have stocked up on liquor, Never thought ’bout that when I built this place. Saved our lives, I guess. Can’t tell for sure. Haven’t been up top. Won’t yet.”
J.B, walked across the room and removed a knife from a neat mounting on the wall. “Tekna.” He held it up, showing Ryan the five holes in the hilt and the distinctive double sawing edge. “Surgical steel with a high chrome content. Haven’t seen one in years. I’ll take it.” Sheathing it, he hooked it on his belt.
Ryan pushed the Fast Forward control, stopping it when the man’s head vanished in a blur of visual static. He glanced at his chron again, seeing they still had a little time. To watch this film was even more amazing than being in a vid-house or a Holiday Inn. Seeing this vid was to witness the beginning of the long winters, as it was happening. The neutron bombs had fallen, infecting everyone with a lethal burst of nuke energy.
“Twenty-fifth January. Air filter doesn’t fucking work properly ‘gainst what the Reds dosed us with. I can feel it rotting my fucking bones. Peggy’s worse. I’m going up top to see one time. If anyone ever sees this, you’ll know what it’s like.”
The camera showed the walls of the tunnel and angled shots of the ladder as Haggard carried it up. He panted and sighed, stopping a couple of times to gather breath. Then there was a break, presumably while he cautiously opened the hatch and peered out. The next shot was in his garden, the man providing his own commentary on what they were seeing.
“Lotsa smoke all round. Looks like there’s houses fired toward ‘fayette. Our house is standing good.”
Wobbling and jerking as Haggard carried the camera with him, shooting as he went, the film showed a murky scene, poorly lit on account of the smoke drifting by. At first it didn’t seem the holocaust that Ryan and J.B. knew it to have been.
Then it began.
The commentary began to stammer and fade, sinking to a spasmodic muttering that identified people here and there. It finally faded to silence, and the sound track only picked up a low keening, with a piercing scream intermittently shattering the quiet.