Nuclear Midnight Read Online Free PDF

sought after commodity in the shelter. Arguments as to the owner-ship of these precious items began to flare; there were cases of theft and even of stand-up fights. Finally, when the temperature fell to below1 5 C, Kenneth reluctantly authorised the use of several gas burners for warmth.
    These were set up in the centre of the shelter, which immediately became the focal point of activity.
    As the days wore on, a routine of a sort began to emerge. Twice a day a small ration of beans and rice was dished out in plastic bowls. Between meal times, the occupants of the shelter huddled close to the fires and would only leave to collect their ration, or to relieve themselves in the latrine, a small hole through the floor. Alex did the same, at the same time picking up what information he could by talking to people. This was how he learned that the chamber was actually the crypt of a fourteenth century church. While he had been unconscious the roof of the church had caved in, but the massively built crypt had escaped with no more than shattered windows and a few cracked ceiling joists. He was delighted, too, to find several people who had had friends or relatives taken to the same hospital as Jason. It was located twelve kilometres east, on the other side of the village. Together they all agreed to set off in that direction, as soon as it was safe to do so.
    By the fifth day radiation counters poked through small holes in the boards covering the windows showed that the radioactivity had fallen to a third of its level on the night of the holocaust. When Alex asked Kenneth about leaving, however, he merely pointed, in his curt fashion, toward the group of people who had been let in on the first afternoon. ‘Do you want to become like the others?’ he would say and that argument seemed unanswerable.
    For, of the sixteen people admitted on that occasion, ten were seriously ill and three had already died. Alex, like many of his companions, found himself irresistibly drawn to this wretched group. He was totally unaccustomed to death, or even serious illness. In fact he had never even been to a funeral or suffered anything more serious than a broken bone in his life. But now, like a spectator at the scene of a grisly road accident, he watched in horror and fascination as the sickness withered and decayed their living bodies. Each individual seemed to be affected differently. The three who died in the first few days rapidly progressed through vomiting and diarrhoea, to cold sweats and severe stomach cramps, which made them clutch their stomachs and scream in agony. Katie did her best to sedate these patients with pills, but they could not keep the medication down. When the morphine ran out, their screams echoed through the shelter for days. Then, almost thankfully, they went into shock and began to twitch, their breathing became irregular and they slipped into a coma and died. But the others hung on for much longer. They reached the vomiting stage and then seemed to improve. Their fevers broke and they managed to take a little of the broth that Katie had prepared, but their bodies still continued to decay. Their hair started dropping out by the handful, purple blotches appeared all over their skin and perpetual diarrhoea withered them into skeletal forms, too weak even to move out of their own excreta. Many times their helpers tried to clean them up, but they only made more mess and contaminated valuable blankets and clothing. Finally, six days after they had been let in, their fevers returned and they quickly succumbed. After a week, eleven out of the original sixteen had died. More floorboards were torn up and their bodies were lowered in, along with any clothing they had worn.
    The unfolding misery of these people had a profound and sobering effect on the rest of the shelter. Alex couldn't imagine a more painful, lingering death. The pitiful creatures they degenerated into had lost most of their resemblance to humanity. They were