Nuclear Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughtfully. ‘But the radiation count will not be dropping for some time, you understand.’
    ‘How long?’
    ‘I cannot give you a precise answer to that question,’ came the reply. ‘But until I say you can leave, you are not to go out of that door. Is that clear?’
    Alex nodded, frowning as he did so. This man had an arrogant, rasping voice and his manner would have been offensive, under normal circumstance, but Alex sensed he was near the end of his tether.
    ‘You see those people over there,’ Kenneth continued, pointing towards a group huddled in the corner opposite them. ‘Against my better judgement we let them in late yesterday afternoon. I doubt if any of they will survive for more than a few days. They are already running high fevers and vomiting continuously.’
    ‘But some will live,’ the doctor interrupted. ‘People vary immensely in their abilities to tolerate radiation. We have no idea how much these people may have absorbed, or those that are still locked out on the other side of that door.’
    He jabbed a finger toward a large wooden door a few metres away, and Alex felt the tension between the two men suddenly rise.
    ‘You have no right,’ the doctor continued in a raised voice. ‘No right at all to deny people this shelter. I have a duty…’
    ‘Don't start talking about your duty again,’ Kenneth said acidly. ‘I'm not going to let people in who have absolutely no chance of survival. They'll only deprive us of valuable food and water before they die.’
    ‘They had a chance for survival late yesterday when they first started knocking on the door. We should have let them in then. They may still have a chance now, if only you would unbolt the door.’
    ‘It's too late!’ Kenneth growled. The finality in his voice seemed temporarily to silence the doctor.
    Suddenly, as if to reinforce the doctor’s plea, the door shook under repeated blows as if boulders or wooden beams were being hurled against it.
    Under the violence of the assault it creaked and groaned, but the large metal latch and reinforcing sandbags showed no signs of weakening.
    ‘What happens when they start using axes?’ the doctor groaned.
    ‘If they had axes they would have already used them,’ Kenneth replied harshly.
    The group fell quiet, listening. Alex wondered how many times already they had reached this same impasse during the night. Finally, when the doctor could bear it no longer, he stormed off towards the other end of the shelter, shaking his head as he went. Soon after the pounding stopped, faint cries and sobbing could be heard next, until they too ceased and there were no more sounds.
    ‘Let them in,’ Alex pleaded with Kenneth. ‘At least they will die in the warmth and not alone.’
    The sour faced man glared at him, but he seemed beyond arguing the point any further. He turned away without comment.
    Alex was left with Katie. When she looked up at him her eyes were moist. ‘Yesterday we should have let them in, that was wrong of us,’ she admitted. ‘But now it's too late, unless you want to watch people die slowly in front of you without being able to do a thing to help them.’ Then she too, walked off abruptly.
    Alex stared at the door for a long time. His conscience told him to cross the short distance towards it to draw back the bolt and fling it wide open. That would have been the humane and proper thing; but he, no more than Katie or the doctor, could do it. At length, shamefacedly, he shuffled back to his mattress and crawled in under his blanket again.
     
    Over the next few days the temperature over Europe began to plunge, reaching temperatures below5 0 C in the Baltic States. Only the moderating effect of the North Atlantic drift current tempered the advance of nuclear winter over Great Britain. But the temperature had still dropped far below zero by the third day, turning the intermittent rain into snow showers and blizzards.
     
    Clothes and blankets became a much treasured and