Radioactive Omnibus- A Prepper Survival Story (2 page)

Jim replied quickly. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what? You making those banshee screams into the radio?” Coyle jeered.

Jim shook his head and stood up from the floor of the bridge and looked out the window into the bay.

“I think we were picking up some traffic from the training exercises going on.”

Jim scanned the massive destroyers in the bay. Waves lapped helplessly onto their grey, steel sides.

Coyle’s voice broke him out of his trance, “Well, I think we should finish up here and grab some food. I’m starv—”

Before Coyle could finish, an explosion rattled the bowels of the ship and knocked Jim onto his back. The noise was deafening. A continual high pitched ringing filled Jim’s ears. The boat rocked back and forth sliding his tools across the floor banging into each other. The blurs around him came into focus, while his legs kept buckling underneath him. A seemingly far away voice called out to him. It was faint, but growing stronger. Coyle was screaming through the radio.

“Jim! Jim! What the hell was that?  Talk to me, Jim!”

Jim reached for the radio across the floor and fumbled it into his hands. 

“Coyle? Are you alright?”

“I think I busted my ass, but I’m okay. You alright?”

Jim felt around his body for any injuries and then glanced at his reflection in the window to see if he had anything on his face.

“I… I’m fine,” he said.

Jim watched smoke plumes rising from the base. Small bodies in the distance ran towards one another. Several fire trucks headed towards the source of the smoke. He gathered what was left in his bag and immediately began to exit the bridge.

“Coyle, meet me on the main deck. Forget whatever gear you have lying around. Just grab whatever’s left in your tool bag and move. NOW!”
Jim descended the stairs to the main deck. When Coyle joined him on the side of the boat Jim’s bag dropped from his hand.

Smoke rose from a crater the size of the forty-seven foot cutter they were standing on. Chunks of concrete, metal, and debris littered the base. Teams of medics rushed towards lifeless bodies on the ground. Fires engulfed buildings and vehicles. The words that left Jim’s mouth were barely audible.

“Jesus Christ.”

Coyle came limping up the steps behind him. His breaths were labored and his mouth went slack jawed at the sight of the carnage.

Jim looked him up and down, patting his limbs and body for any wounds.

“You sure you alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. Jim, what the hell happened?”

“I’m not sure, but we need to find the closest security office and check in.”

Jim and Coyle ran along the dock. The screams and cries that were silenced by their distance from the blast grew louder the closer they moved to the giant crater.

They ran past the main office and Jim spotted Captain Terry talking to a group of soldiers while pointing in different directions. A portion of them broke off and sprinted towards the blast site.

Jim waved his arms. “Terry!” he yelled.

Terry whipped around. Dirt, blood, and ash soiled his white shirt.

“Jim, you alright?” he said.

“I’m fine.”

Two more soldiers rushed up to Terry. Their helmets were tilted forward more than usual, hiding their panicked eyes.
“Captain, we’ve got twenty men trapped in the barracks that collapsed after the blast.”

“You boys get on the horn with CBMU 303 and tell them we need wreckage crews here ASAP.”

“Yessir!” they said synchronously.

Terry turned back to Jim and Coyle.

“I need the two of you to report to the rear security office and wait there ‘till we sort this out. Angela!”

A young sailor with braided hair helped lift a gurney carrying a soldier with a missling leg into the back of an ambulance. She rushed over to Terry at the sound of her name.

“Yessir?”

“I need you to escort these two back to the rear security office.”

Angela grabbed Jim’s arm, pulling him forward. “You gentlemen follow me.”

Jim called out to Terry who was trotting off. “You need any help?”

Terry waved him off. “Just follow Angela and we’ll take care of it from here.”

Before Jim could object further another earth shattering blast rocked the base. Jim flew forward with Angela whose head smacked against the concrete. Jim’s hands caught himself before his face hit the ground.  Pain shot from his hands, wrists, and elbows up to his shoulders form the force of the blow.

A trickle of blood poured from Angela’s ear. Jim rushed over to her unconscious body. He checked her pulse. She was alive, and she was breathing. She moaned as her eyes fluttered open. Jim cradled her face gently in his hands.

“Angela, can you hear me?”

Behind Jim, Coyle stumbled onto his hands and knees with an endless string of cursing. Jim glanced over to Terry who still lay motionless on the ground. More sirens were blaring in the distance. An ambulance’s blue and red lights flashed in the distance. Jim flew his arms up in the air.

“Hey, over here!”

The ambulance made a sweeping turn over to them. Jim knelt down to check on Angela.

“Angela, do you know what today is?” he asked.

“Tuesday,” she mumbled.

Jim picked up her security badge from the pavement beside her and examined it. “And can you tell me your last name?” he asked.

“Parker,” she whispered with her eyes half shut. She then turned her head sharply and threw up on the ground.

An EMS responder jumped out of the back of the ambulance. His blue gloved hands gripping the medical bag in his hand. Jim watched the EMS responder shine a flashlight in her pupils and check her pulse. Jim patted him on the shoulder.

“I think she’s concussed. She knows her name and what today is, but the Captain over there has been motionless for the past two minutes.”

Jim watched the medic check Terry’s vitals. Then he heard the loud cracking of Terry’s ribs as the medic started CPR.

Jim then stumbled over to a building that Coyle was leaning against. He examined Coyle for injuries, but couldn’t find any. Coyle’s eyes were closed and Jim slid his eyelids open.

“Do you know your name?” he asked.

Coyle smacked Jim’s hand. “Shut up, Jim.”

“Doesn’t look like you have any brain trauma, except for what was already there,” Jim said with a half-smile.

Coyle forced a grin.

“You think you can stand?” Jim asked.

Coyle nodded as Jim helped steady him.

When Jim brought his attention to the rest of the surrounding area, he saw where the second blast had come from. A huge plume of smoke was rising out of the U.S.S. Midway. Tourists were running in all directions trying to flee the blast site. There were only a handful of first responders on the scene still, and too many injured victims for them to help. Jim ran back over the ambulance and grabbed a first aid kit out of the back. Jim passed Coyle and shouted back at him.

“Come on!”

The two of them ran along the dock next to the Midway when Jim saw a young man lying on the ground with his arm blown off. His horrific and painful screams filled the air as people around him ran for safety. Jim rushed towards the injured man, grabbing some gloves out of the bag. He tossed a pair to Coyle in mid stride.

“What do you want me to do with these?” Coyle asked.

“Put ‘em on!”

Jim skidded to the ground next to the boy and started pulling out gauze and bandages from the first aid bag. Coyle fumbled with the gloves and knelt down beside Jim with his face wincing. The young man cried in agony as Jim tried to calm him. His shrieks grew louder after every glance he gave the bloody stump that used to be his left arm. Jim stuffed gauze into Coyle’s hands and shoved them onto the wound.

“Keep steady, even, firm pressure. If the blood starts to seep through, just add more, but don’t remove the bandages you have. Let them pile up.”

Jim ran further up the dock a little ways to see if there was anyone else hurt. He scanned the dock, his eyes tearing from the smoke around him.

“Uh, Jim!” Coyle shouted.

Blood had soaked through the guaze. The white cotton turned crimson red when Jim rushed back over to Coyle and the now unconscious man. Coyle’s fingers were now deep in puddles of blood.

“Jim, I’m out of gauze!”

“He’s losing too much blood. We need to pinch off the brachial artery to stop the flow.”

Jim removed the gauze and jammed his fingers into the stump to locate the artery.

“I got it. Grab the IV tubing out of the bag and we’ll make a tourniquet to stop the rest.”

Coyle searched the bag for the tubing and flung it at Jim.

“Coyle, I’ll need your hands for this.”

Jim instructed Coyle to wrap the tubing around the end of the stump.

“Get as close to the edge as you can.” Jim said.

While Coyle finished tying off the impromptu tourniquet Jim dropped his ear down to the man’s face.

“He’s not breathing. Check for a CPR mask in the bag.”

“A what?” Coyle asked.

“It looks like a water jug with a mouth piece on it,” Jim yelled back.

Coyle pulled the mask out and slid it over the man’s face. Jim stopped him.

“No, you’ll need to open his airway up first. Tilt his head back with the palm of your hand, then place the mask over his mouth and give him two full squeezes of air… Good, now put the palm of your right hand right in the center of his chest, and then place your other palm directly over that. Perfect. Keep your arms rigid and bring your body weight over his body and press down hard. Do those thirty times followed by two more breaths with the mask and repeat.”

Coyle’s body shook with every compression. Sweat dripped off of his forehead. The blood on his hands dried and cracked in the sun. Jim kept coaxing him on.

“You’re doing great, Coyle. Keep it up.”

Jim looked around to see more ambulances arriving on the base. Another young man who was coughing terribly ran by them.

“Hey!” Jim said. “Go and grab those ambulances and tell them you have a priority over here with a severed limb that’s unconscious with severe blood loss.”

The man hesitated as he saw the huge pool of blood Jim was kneeling in.

“Go!” Jim shouted.

The man snapped back into reality and took off at a stumbled sprint. Jim knelt down and checked the man’s pulse. He couldn’t feel anything.

Two EMS responders with a stretcher came rushing up. The first one took over for Coyle who had fallen back on the concrete exhausted. The second knelt down by Jim.

“I’ve got the brachial artery pinched off, but he’s lost a lot of blood,” Jim told the responders. 

Jim and the EMS responders lifted the man onto the stretcher, while Coyle looked on in shock at what he’d just done. Jim followed them all the way back to the ambulance with his fingers jammed inside the man’s stump. One of the EMS workers and Jim traded places when they got to the ambulance doors. The two EMS responders and the young man jumped in the back and the ambulance took off.