Nuclear Summer

You're off to work and the highway's clear with the cool morning air and the traffic light. Over the Hill out of Santa Maria, you climb into the Vandenberg AFB boundary on Interstate 1, pushing your old car up the hills of scrub oak and forbidden areas beyond numerous gated entrances into the propertyoccupying both sides of the road. Lompoc is where you do your hours at your latest job and this is the shortest route as 101 has you climbing through a snake trail from that way. As you round a curve away from the rolling grape ochards the light hits you and thats that. A little bit of the sun has burned for a moment.

Your wife, now picking up the pieces of clothing their children have left on the floor in the hall, sees the glare of raw fury through the living room window as the house burns under the torch and her last breath to scream sears her lungs. She is beyond caring as the frame house, roasting now, is shattered by the primary pressure wave.

The children are now getting off the school buss at summer school and as they walk behind the berms that support the athletic bleachers they see the flare of heat all above them inside the effected shadow of the mound structure. Hellish light is burning in the sky and the trees are smoking and busting into flame. Kids are shrieking and burning in a wash of lingering flare. Bob and Kathy feel no immediate heat and no direct light. It was like a sky of flash bulbs going off for seconds fading to red light.

A blast of heated air, like a fist hits and again the berm shields the now terrified children from burning debris and slam of pressure , deafening them in its awesome enormity.

They will live awhile longer, protected by many feet of soil from everything but the neutrons. They do live long enough to see everything burning and the horror of a new world order.