After the Bomb

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 1

The evening was clear and cool, like it often is high in the mountains. The Professor pointed out various constellations shining brilliantly in the darkening sky as his students sat around him next to a crackling campfire while his wife debated the government’s latest social policy with another group sitting in the dark off to one side. One of the students strummed quietly on a guitar. Everyone spoke in subdued tones as was appropriate for such a still, peaceful setting.

Dr. Edward Tabor and his wife took a group of his students to the mountains every spring to explore, to discuss, to learn real science, as opposed to the book learning he dispensed during the rest of the school year. He was a Geology Professor at Clarendon College, generally referred to as The Clarendon by nearly everyone associated with that hallowed institution. Geology was the purest of the sciences, in his view. It was the study of Mother Earth, the study of the building blocks that made up everything else, the basis for all other science disciplines. Scientists, and particularly Geologists, needed to get out into the world in order to learn. That’s why he took his students on these field trips, plus the fact that he, and his wife as well, genuinely enjoyed them.

Clara Tabor was an academic of sorts, herself, though she was currently not employed as anything other than a busy Professor’s wife. She had taught biology at the local high school for many years before finally leaving her profession to spend most of her time at The Clarendon volunteering with a variety of student groups and generally helping her husband with his classes and his students, which, the way he approached it, was a 24 hour a day job. He didn’t just conduct his lectures and go home, like a lot of his compatriots. He involved himself with his students. Both he and his wife became part of their lives. They counseled them on their other classes. They helped guide their careers, and involved themselves in all other aspects of their student’s social and private lives. The Professor and his wife had no children or other close relatives, so their students became their family.

The Professor’s style fit in well at The Clarendon. The ivy covered brick buildings of the small private institution sat nestled in the tree covered foothills of the Oregon Cascades. Students were sent there by their affluent parents to get rounded educations, to become socially polished and to pursue meaningful careers. Professor Tabor understood the role that was expected of the college and its professors.

Over the years, he’d had many opportunities to move on to other, larger, more prestigious universities where he could make much more money, or even, in one instance, become a department head, but he had turned them all down. The Clarendon was his life. He enjoyed interacting with his students. He loved the give and take his small classes allowed. He had no use for the bigger universities where the professors were tiny figures at the front of huge lecture halls who never got to know their students, where the ‘publish or perish’ rule was paramount, where professors spent most of their time doing research or writing textbooks that nobody would ever read. He was a teacher, and teaching was what he loved to do, and Clarendon College let him do what he loved to do.

This year’s field trip was to a large lava cave deep in the Cascades wilderness. They would make a long weekend of it, camping near the mouth of the cave and exploring the cave and studying the surrounding geology before heading back to the campus late Sunday night. Professor Tabor’s field trips were legend at The Clarendon. While the trips weren’t required for any of his classes, the Professor gave generous extra credit for attending and he and his wife went out of their way to make the trips enjoyable both for themselves and for all the students. The field trips fit in well with his general philosophy of teaching science. Not only would the students be studying the rocks and other geology, but they would spend time looking at all the other assorted fauna and flora in the area.

This particular site was perfect. The Professor had been there several times before and liked its remoteness and the fact that there was a good, if primitive, Forest Service campsite just a short distance from the mouth of the cave. The cave and the campground sat in a beautiful bowl-shaped valley on the eastern flanks of the Cascades, heavily timbered with numerous rock out-crops. There are a lot of caves in the Central Oregon Cascades. Most are associated with the multitude of ancient volcanoes that make up the Cascades mountain range. A lot of them are shown on various maps or guides with romantic sounding names attached to them, like Skeleton Cave or Wagon Tire Cave. Some were commercially developed. Some are just holes in the lava rock that covers most of the region. Some were full of ice most of the time.

This cave had no name and it didn’t appear on any trail guides or tourist maps, probably due to its remoteness and the fact that it wasn’t particularly unique or unusual, at least as lava caves go. A lot of the loggers and forest rangers who had worked in the area for any period of time knew of the cave but most of them hadn’t explored it. In fact, it was a Forest Ranger who had told Professor Tabor about it a number of years ago. He always stopped in at the local ranger stations when he was on these field trips. He found the rangers to be full of tips and pointers on things to see. They had good maps and they were always cordial toward him and his students. The ranger station nearest the cave was about twenty miles from the campsite by dirt road. The Professor had stopped to visit with the ranger on their way in.

The professor liked the fact that this cave was relatively unexplored, which meant unspoiled like many of the others around the region. Nobody had left garbage in the cave or started any fires or tried mining or carted off any of the delicate rock formations that had formed over the millennia. The accessible portion of the cave extended for about a mile under ground, though the Professor suspected that it probably went much further but was full of sand and silt that had seeped in over the ages. Entry was through a difficult rocky area where the cave’s roof had collapsed sometime ages past. It took some rope work and some relatively easy spelunking skills to climb down the rocky collapsed area to gain entrance. This was all part of the appeal of the site. The difficult access kept the cave remote and kept most other people away, while at the same time providing for a good adventure for the students, most of whom had never done this type of thing before. Also, the other geology in the immediate area was interesting in its own right. Just south of the cave entrance was a series of spectacular obsidian cliffs, another remnant of the region’s volcanic past. The Professor had seen evidence of prehistoric mining of the obsidian which had been made into spear and arrow heads by Indians for thousands of years. Moreover the forest around the cave entrance had never been logged off, providing an excellent example of old growth forest which gave the Professor’s biologist wife a superb natural classroom for one of her favorite topics. All this made the made the cave and its surroundings an excellent site for the spring field trip.

The Professor and his wife and students were mesmerized by the brilliance of the stars. Most of the students had never seen them this bright. The lights from the city usually obscured the stars to the point that they seemed unremarkable, but here, high in the mountains, there were no bright lights and the thin atmosphere made the stars absolutely spectacular. The Professor knew all the constellations and the mythology behind each of them. The big and little dippers, the big bear and little bear to the ancients, were there as always. Over there was Orion, the hunter, and over there, Gemini, the twins. And over there were Cassiopeia and Andromeda. The Pleiades had never been clearer. Several satellites drifted through the field of stars, and occasionally the red blinking wing lights of a jet plane high above. Clara Tabor marveled at how peaceful it was and how isolated from civilization they were. There was no traffic noise, no glow from the city lights, no smog to obscure the stars. Off through the woods, in the distance, a lone owl hooted, the only sound other than that of the students talking quietly among themselves and the quiet strumming of the guitar.

Suddenly, without warning, a pair of jet fighters in tight formation shrieked over the campsite from the south, interrupting the tranquility. They were barely a thousand feet over the tree tops and they were flying close to the speed of sound. The noise was deafening. They were gone as soon as they had arrived. Professor Tabor kicked over the bottle of beer he had been sipping and several students jumped to their feet and started to run, to where they didn’t know. Several others dived for cover in the darkness. It took everybody several minutes to regroup after they were gone. Somebody said they must be from the air base up in Portland, probably on a training mission. The Professor said he had heard that they sometimes train here over these mountains. Throughout the night the jets could be heard to the east of the camp, their sound echoing off the hill sides as they flew up and down the valleys. It seemed that civilization had somehow chased them down and found them here in the wilderness.

Paul Van Brock, one of the students in the group, had a short wave radio in his truck. He was somewhat of an electronics geek and, though the short wave radio was not particularly good at picking up music like most of the kids liked to listen to, he enjoyed scanning through the airwaves to see what he could pick up. He went to his truck and turned it on, thinking he might be able to pick up radio transmissions from the pilots, but, after scrolling through the channels for several minutes, he couldn’t get anything that sounded like it might be from the jets. He did get a whole variety of stations in several languages, but no pilots. His reception, at this location high in the mountains, was excellent, and he was picking up stations from Europe and even China, which was usually impossible to do down in town.

He grew tired of the radio after a while and went back to the campfire, but the tranquility of the night was ruined and most of the students drifted off to their tents and bedrolls.

Clara Tabor and Molly Williams, one of the students who was her appointed assistant, were up early the next morning getting the fire going and cooking breakfast – bacon, eggs and pancakes with biscuits and coffee. Nobody was going to go hungry on this trip. As the smell of bacon drifted through the camp, it didn’t take long before most of the group was up and looking for something to eat. About half way through breakfast, Clara noticed that one of the girls was missing.

Where’s Sharon? she asked loud enough so that Sharon would hear if she was close by. She’s putting on her face, her tent partner said, somewhat sheepishly. After the first night at camp, most of the students started looking a little more earthy than normal. The guys usually didn’t shave, and makeup usually stayed in the suitcase, if it made it to the camp at all. Not with Sharon Laird, however.

Sharon was one of the best looking girls at Clarendon. She was dark complected with ebony hair and large dark brown eyes – one-quarter Sioux Indian on her mother’s side, she claimed – and she was gorgeous, always meticulously groomed and dressed. Of all the students, Sharon Laird was the one Clara had been somewhat anxious about bringing along on this trip. She was plenty smart and got acceptably good grades, but she was a bit of a trouble maker, always getting into some sort of mischief. Nothing serious especially, but if something was going on, she was usually right in the middle of it. The guys were usually incoherent when she was around. Most of the girls were jealous. She had it, and she knew it. But it took her a while to get it all put together.

She emerged from her tent as most of the other students were finishing up, looking splendid as usual, her hair carefully coiffed and her face perfect. She didn’t complain about the cold eggs and pancakes that were left for her. The bacon was all gone, but she didn’t complain about that either. She claimed that she camped a lot with her family, but it was obvious that she didn’t like to get dirty or break her perfectly manicured nails. Clara could hardly wait to see how she looked after a day of crawling around in a dirty, damp cave. Clara wasn’t sure why she had wanted to come on this trip unless, maybe it was to be with her boyfriend.

Mike McGinnis was a tall, slender, nice looking lad. His father had a successful medical practice in Boston and Mike had come west to The Clarendon to study Pre-Med and had aspirations of someday joining his father’s practice. The only problem was that he was only a mediocre student. He came to Clarendon primarily because he couldn’t get into any of the fancy eastern schools, and Clarendon, sad to say, was willing to overlook his lackluster performance in favor of a generous contribution offered by his father. He was certainly smart enough but he had little motivation. His social agenda was far more important to him than his studies. Mike spoke with a heavy Boston accent which he liked to use to his advantage when he was partying. Everybody said he sounded just like one of the Kennedy brothers. His parent’s wealth was obvious from his stylish, expensive clothes and the new Corvette that he could often be seen driving – usually too fast – around campus. Mike’s motivation for coming on this trip had nothing to do with his interest in geology, or caves, or the sciences, in general, but rather from a stern lecture by Professor Tabor on his poor performance in class so far this term and his need for all the extra credit he could get in order to pass his required geology course.

He was the perfect boyfriend for Sharon Laird. They were, indeed, a handsome couple, a lot of fun at parties, and compatible in styles, value systems and interests. Clara Tabor’s concern about their behavior, particularly after dark, went unfounded. They politely huddled together holding hands during the evening campfire, and then modestly retired to their respective tents when it was time to go to bed. They weren’t bad kids, she decided. They just lacked the depth and intellectual intensity that she and the Professor felt students should have. It was clear to her that Mike would never make it to medical school and she wasn’t even sure why Sharon was going to Clarendon instead of pursuing a modeling career or some such thing, but they weren’t causing any trouble and were even pitching in to help around camp. She thought maybe she had just misread them.

The students cleaned up after breakfast and, under the direction of the Professor and his wife, packed hearty lunches, drinks and extra flashlights into their backpacks for the long day in the cave. Everyone had jackets, hard hats, gloves, and a good light. Several of the stouter boys carried ropes and climbing gear for the climb into the cave. Professor Tabor carried a first aid kit for the inevitable skinned knees and a huge lantern as well as several more extra heavy duty flashlights. As he explained to his students, one didn’t want to get caught inside a cave without a good light.

With the Professor in the lead, narrating the hike to the cave, pointing out miscellaneous plants and a few animals along the way, and his wife bringing up the rear, the students trekked single file up the trail to the cave site. The entrance to the cave was dramatic. Apparently a large section of the cave roof had collapsed, probably centuries ago, leaving a large, jumbled hole in the ground. They came upon it fairly quickly as they hiked up the trail through the thick forest. The hole was filled with large jagged lava boulders and, at the bottom, off to one side was the small dark entrance to the cave.

A climbing rope was strung down through the jumbled rocks so the students could hang onto it as they worked their way down the hole to the cave entrance. The Professor led the way, helping students around the rough spots while Clara held back, shouting encouragement to anyone who needed it. Most of the group scampered down, over, and through the rocks with all the enthusiasm of youth, with only a few approaching the descent with any degree of consternation. They had to crawl through the entrance hole on their hands and knees, but once inside, the cave opened up and there was plenty of room for everybody to stand and regroup after their rigorous descent. The temperature just inside the mouth of the cave was a cool, damp 45 degrees and the need for the warm jackets suggested by the Professor was evident.

Once inside, the professor gathered everybody around and delivered a short lecture on how the cave was formed. He explained how eons ago, during the massive lava flows that erupted from the many ancient cinder cones that were scattered about the Cascades, this cave, and many like it, were formed as the lava hardened around the edges of the rivers of lava as they flowed from the volcanic vent, eventually closing over on top. The lava eventually drained away leaving a hollow tube where they were now standing. The cave may have once extended for miles in either direction from this location before it eventually collapsed or filled with silt. He explained how there may be hundreds of other, undiscovered caves, similar to this one that lay deep under the lava layers that cover much of the area.

They worked their way deeper into the cave as Professor Tabor used his bright lantern to point to interesting formations and structures along the way. At several locations the cave narrowed and necked down so that they had to proceed on their hands and knees, but then it would open back up again to reveal rooms that were 40 or 50 feet high and as wide as an average house.

It was in one of these massive rooms about three-quarters of the way into the cave that the professor decided to stop for lunch. Before he did so, however, he asked everyone to stand very still and turn out their lights, just for a moment, so that they could experience the darkness. With no sources of light what-so-ever, the eyes will not function and there is nothing blacker. The experience was frightening and claustrophobic for a number of the students, but after a moment the lights came back on and everybody had a good laugh and settled in for lunch.

It happened with no warning. A massive concussion ripped through the blackness of the cave, the floor shuttering violently for just a brief moment, and dirt and rocks showering down on the group from the ceiling above. Screams and gasps echoed through the cave and the air was instantly filled with dust. The Professor’s first thought was that it was an earthquake, but this was different. Instead of a rolling, wavelike motion lasting a minute or so, like most earthquakes he was familiar with, this was more like a sharp jolt – more like you would experience if a large truck hit a building you were in. One thing he was sure of, regardless of its cause, deep in a cave was not the place to be at this moment.

Let’s get out of here, he yelled, as he dropped his sandwich and started back the way they had come toward the cave entrance with the rest of the group right on his heels. The second concussion hit about thirty seconds after the first, followed close behind by three others, each more violent than the one before it. These brought the roof of the cave down on top of the group. The Professor and the other students closest behind him didn’t stand a chance. They were instantly buried by tons of rocks and boulders. Those further back were pummeled with a confused mass of boulders, large and small. It was over in an instant. The cave was filled with gritty dust that muffled the cries and groans of survivors and brought visibility to zero in spite of the lights and lanterns that still shined through the dusty haze at odd angles.

All of those surviving were injured to some degree or another. Daryl Howell, the guitarist from the previous evening, had his right knee severely crushed and buried at an unnatural angle under a pile of rubble. Clara Tabor was struck in the back of the head by a large boulder that, in spite of the helmet she was wearing, put a severe gash in her head and knocked her unconscious. Stewart Miller, one of the Professor’s senior Geology majors, had the fingers of his left hand crushed by a rock as he was scrambling to find nonexistent cover. Several others were totally or partially buried. Everybody had multiple cuts and bruises.

During a disaster, people’s reactions differ greatly. Some shut down completely, unable to function at all due to shock or fright or injuries. Others snap to their senses quickly and start trying to rescue those who need help and generally get the others organized. Stewart Miller emerged as one of the latter group, in spite of his severely injured hand. He quickly directed those who were able to move back to a clear area away from the collapsed area. Two of the other students, David Johanson and Jane Allen, quickly pitched in and began uncovering those who were partially buried and moving them back away from the rocks that were still falling occasionally from the ceiling. Mike McGinnis and Sharon Laird, though both bleeding themselves, began trying to administer first aid to those who were more seriously injured. Several were unconscious. Several were bleeding badly from assorted injuries. There were a number of obvious broken bones and quite a few that were probably broken but were not as obvious. Mike had spent much of his life watching his physician father administer to the sick and injured and had a good sense of what had to be done.

After the dust settled, it was apparent that about a quarter of the group, those who had been toward the front nearest the Professor, were hopelessly buried. The cave was totally blocked with massive boulders. After searching, they found five students buried who were still alive, but were very seriously hurt. Five others, including Clara Tabor had serious head injuries but were slowly regaining consciousness. Of the others, only eleven were what could be considered mobile, though they all had multiple cuts and bruises.

Stewart was a natural leader and he quickly began to try to figure out what they had to work with. They had no first aid supplies, since the Professor’s first aid kit was in his backpack and buried in the rubble. Stewart took his shirt off to be ripped into primitive bandages. Most of the others did the same, though they kept their jackets on to ward off the chill of the cave. There were no sticks or poles in the cave or anything else that could be used to splint the broken limbs. They had a number of remaining bottles of water and the remainder of their lunches and a few cans of soft drinks. Most of their lights still worked, plus the spares that were in their backpacks, though Stewart figured these would not last long. It was obvious that the exit from the cave was blocked and there was no way to tell how bad the blockage was or how long it would take either themselves or some rescuers, if there would be any, to dig them out.

Clara Tabor had come around, and in spite of her badly lacerated head, began to help Mike and Sharon doctor the injuries. Meanwhile, Stewart and the others tried to figure out what to do next. Lots of other people knew where they were – all their parents plus friends and roommates. The Professor had left a detailed itinerary and a good map with his department secretary. They had a good emergency plan, as was required by the college for any field trip of this sort. If they didn’t show up for classes Monday morning, someone would certainly come looking for them. This realization wasn’t very gratifying to any of them since it meant spending, at a minimum, two more days in their present situation. Stewart figured, on top of that, it could take several more days, at least, for rescuers to locate them and dig them out. There was no way their food and water supplies would last that long unless they started rationing very carefully.

They decided they should start trying to dig themselves out. Maybe the cave-in wasn’t as extensive as it appeared from here. Maybe by moving a few rocks, they could make a hole big enough to crawl through. Everybody agreed it was worth a try. Besides it was better than sitting around in the dark doing nothing.

Stewart suggested that they form committees based on tasks that needed to be done. Mike, Clara and Sharon would continue taking care of the injuries as best they could. They would try to move the seriously injured back away from the cave-in and make them as comfortable as possible. Though Molly Williams’ arm appeared to be broken, she and Nancy Hall, another student, would collect all food, water and lights and work up a strict rationing plan. They would try to make their limited supplies last as long as possible and make sure everybody got their share and that none was wasted. Stewart and David Johanson would take one light and would explore the rest of the cave, looking for a possible easier way out. There was, apparently, fresh air coming into the cave from somewhere and they were hoping, maybe the roof had collapsed further into the cave where they hadn’t yet gone. It was worth looking into, at least. The other students, using one other light would start looking at the cave-in and try to find the best place to start digging.

Stewart and Dave were an odd looking pair as they drifted off into the darkness. They had gone to high school together and had been friends for many years. Stewart, carefully cradling his smashed and throbbing left hand in a crude sling, was short and wiry. He was about 5 feet 6 inches tall and couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds. Dave, on the other hand, stood a hulking 6 feet 3 inches and weighed at least 240 pounds. He