Fallout: A Science Fiction Short Read

By L.C. James

The anti vaccine movement brings forth the end of America and results in Dystopia. A young couple struggles to survive and find love in the process. The odds are stacked against them and time is their enemy. Can they survive or will they fall victim to the super virus like everyone else? A science fiction 2 hour short read. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackberry Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781087849317

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L.C. James

Fallout

First published by Blackberry Publishing 2019

Copyright © 2019 by L.C. James

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

L.C. James asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

L.C. James has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

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Contents

Fallout

Fallout

Chapter 1

Every night we watched the news. There were stories we’d all heard, about certain parts of the country being affected by some kind of illness, but there was nothing official. No one was saying anything more than they had to, and that, I’m certain, was how things ended up as terrible as they did. I go back to that time more often than I can remember, thinking about how different things would have been if we’d been warned. If someone had told us about what was happening. If anyone had said anything. Only the truth was kept from us, because telling us, they said later, would have caused panic, and the last thing they wanted was for everyone to panic. For everyone to worry about what was coming next. Only not knowing meant there was more panic in some places. Places, fortunately, far away from the town I called home, but every time we heard the stories it became more and more obvious that bad things were coming next.

Mom was the one to get ill first. We didn’t think too much of it, because it seemed like a cold. Nothing more. She worked at the local kindergarten, and there were a number of children who’d been kept from school, due to some illness that was sweeping through. That was normal. I didn’t know of any winter that Mom hadn’t got sick at least three times. Sometimes we all picked it up. Sometimes we didn’t. Our immune systems weren’t battered on a daily basis the way hers were, especially as the number of unvaccinated children increased. A year before the worst happened there was a measles outbreak at the local grade school, that then spread to the kindergarten, and there were kids who’d died due to it. Kids who’d never have the kind of lives they could have had if their parents had made the decision to immunise them against measles, but they’d come to fear the vaccines more than they had the illnesses, which was a mistake. Those of us who made the decision we were going to protect our kids were seen as demons.

On the night I visited, wanting to take Mom some of the soup she’d always made for me when I was younger, I found her collapsed on the bathroom floor. Dad was still at work, so the logical thing to do was call an ambulance. Unfortunately for me they were too busy, so, using every last bit of strength I had, I carried Mom to my car. I don’t know how I managed it. I just knew I needed to get her to the hospital, but it was when I reached there I understood how bad things had become. How much had been kept from us by the people who should have told us what was coming. That’s something I will always hate them for, because, if we’d known, we would have been able to prepare. Maybe, just maybe, I would have been able to keep my family alive.

Going back to the car, certain Mom wouldn’t get the help she needed there, I grabbed my phone. I’d been keeping Dad updated, because that was what he wanted me to do. Finding the words was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. Breathing in deeply, feeling the tears welling up in my eyes, I did my best to work out what we could do next, before I actually dialled his number. That was an old habit, and, as I pressed the numbers in order, I thought of how much I still needed them both. He answered before the phone had even had a chance to ring. Carrie?

All the beds are going to be full. I don’t want to move Mom in right now, knowing that. I glanced around the car park again, seeing the sheer number of cars, and heard the sound of another ambulance arriving. Nothing here is going to work out the way we need it to, so I’m going to take her home, and see what we can do for her there. I looked into the car. Mom’s face was white, and covered in a sheen of sweat, which… I bit down hard on my lip, not wanting to think about what might come next. I’ll call Darren when I get there, and tell him I’m going to be staying with you for a bit, until we can get Mom stabilised, and then we can go from there.

***

From that point on I made things up as I went along. I had no idea what I was doing, but the first news report we saw that night was about the illness that was sweeping across the state. The illness we should have been told about days before. Keeping that from us… okay, knowing what I do now means I understand there was very little we could have done to protect ourselves. At the same time all I could think about was how we’d have been able to make that choice for ourselves. Looking back I think I might have been able to do something more for Dad, and for Darren, and for Mark, but Mom, by that point, stood no chance of pulling through. Only, as I tried to cool her down, I had no way of knowing that. No way of knowing that the illness she’d caught, the illness we all believed was nothing more than another kindergarten sickness, was going to kill her, and, by then, had already passed on to all of us.

With every moment that passed I felt more and more… I don’t even know that I have a word for it. My mental clarity was fading. That much I’m certain of. I focused on Mom, because that, to me, was the most important thing, and kept gently sponging her forehead. All I wanted at the point was for her to wake up. There was no reason for me to think