Posted by: EastCentralMSMilitia Apr 23 2006, 12:12 PM
All in vain. (A dark story)
What’s the most humane way to kill someone you love?
Three days ago, I was just me being me, working at my most current job, trying to get 10,000 square feet of prep work done for a concrete patio and driveway, the final installment on this job that I started a year ago was supposed to be a simple remodel.
Anyone familiar with construction knows that when you open up an old house (this one was built in 1956) that things almost never go according to plan. Well this one was no exception. What began as a simple project to strip the roof off and reframe it, ended by us tearing the entire house to the ground and starting over. Just the way it goes sometimes.
The owner was happy and mad at the same time. She was a widow with no income so the expense of the job was coming out of her pocket 100%, on the other hand, she was getting a brand new house out of the deal and would never have to worry about it again.
We finally finished the house up back in late November, minus a few detailing items. She was moved back in and happy. To celebrate, she invited all her family over and celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas in her new house. No matter that the driveway was dirt and there was no concrete outside. Fortunately, the weather held and it was dry and sunny.
I had started on the driveway and patio around the house two weeks ago. We had just poured a massive footing for an eight foot high, 125 foot long retaining wall behind the house and I was using the dirt from the excavated footing as base material to correct the grade around the house for the concrete.
It would have been nice. It would have beautiful, but now it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now. It is all over.
Three days ago I was a hard up contractor with a wife, kids, and pile of bills on the table. Three days ago, my only concerns were trying to make the holidays as pleasant as possible, put food on the table, and making sure the lights stayed on. Three days ago, I thought I knew what was going on in the world.
I have been prepping for some time now. I had well over 4 months of canned food stored up, a years worth of freeze dried food and grains, water for a year, enough guns and ammo to equip a small army, a large stash of medical and first aid supplies to handle just about any injury I felt comfortable trying to treat by myself and supplies to try to keep someone alive long enough for the pro’s to arrive, or as comfortable as possible until they died if the pro’s couldn’t come. I didn’t have access to any fancy stuff like morphine or prescription type stuff, but I had a large stockpile of just about everything I could buy over the counter.
I had put away clothing against wet and cold for all the family members, stocked up on stuff I wanted to have on hand for every survival scenario I could afford to think about. I was prepared as could be for any collapse or hiccup in the fabric of society and the illusion of law and order. I was trained in the Marines to kill, rather efficiently, and how to survive in a war zone, combat operations in urban terrain, the whole nine yards. I wasn’t a grunt in MOS, but my command overlooked that minor discrepancy and we trained like the grunts anyway. Didn’t matter now; didn’t matter at all.
Both of my vehicles were in the driveway. Neither will run. No phone lines were working, and the cell towers were off or inoperable, which was more likely. It has been that way for the last three days. The electricity shut off last night.
I was working hard to get out California for the last several months. We finally sold our house back in October of 05. We paid off the last of our debt and put the rest in a CD for six months. We were going to move to Idaho, but didn’t want to do it in the winter months, too much of a drastic change, especially for the kids, to go from a desert environment to the high sierra mountains and severe cold and snow. So we elected to wait until spring and move up there when we had the summer months to get adjusted and familiar with the area and get my new business established.
They say hindsight is always 20/20. I guess we should have left when the house sold and just taken our chances. Too late now, we would never leave California now. I pulled my SIG P239 from its spot in the master closet and ejected the magazine and checked it. It was full. I replaced it and worked the slide, chambering a round. It was an effort to do so.
I had been paying close attention to world events over the last year and I knew in my heart that the time was near. End Game. In my mind of course, I lived through it all, being the superhero of my own fantasy. I knew it was serious and treated it as such. Preparing to the extent I was able, but with limited money and income, you can only do so much. There was almost nothing I could do to prepare against what happened at midnight, 3 days ago.
The world health community was getting excited and scared about the prospect of a new pandemic hitting the world and causing incalculable damage, economically and otherwise. They were positive that the population of the earth was about to be cut dramatically. All I knew for sure was that it was going to be three people less in a few more minutes. And the flu wasn’t a concern anymore.
With no warning, at least to us, nuclear missiles had been launched 3 days ago and I had no warning at all. Not much we could have done about it anyway, except maybe jump in the truck and head east and hope for the best, or at least a quick death. But I had no warning, and when the nuke hit, we were all sleeping. The sound woke me up and then what felt what a small earthquake hit us shortly afterward. We live directly east of Camp Pendleton and being a military base, the largest on the West Coast, it got hit a few times. To top it off, LA was to our northwest and San Diego even closer to our south. March Air Force Base was just up the I-15 from us. They all got hit. San Diego being the 5th largest economy in the nation, got hit dead center. We were screwed anyway you cut it. We didn’t get hit by any blast, but we could see the mushroom clouds and the sky was a very weird light. I had screamed at my wife to get up, get dressed and grab the kids and whatever they needed. We were gonna leave in 5 minutes, not a second longer. I had run outside and put the key in the truck to start it and nothing happened. I knew then we were screwed no matter what. EMP had knocked out the electronics on my fancy ’02 F250 crew cab 4x4 that doubled as the family vehicle. Now it was a lawn ornament for all intents and purposes. I looked down the street and saw neighbors in a panic trying to do the same thing I was. They were all in the same boat. Virtually everyone on my street evidently made a lot more money than I did because they all had the latest and greatest of trucks, toys, and big boy stuff. Now all of it was just expensive, cool looking, pieces of junk. One of my neighbors got his desert sand buggy started and wheeled it out of the garage and took off. I have no idea if he made it very far; he was wearing a bathrobe and had a Chihuahua.
I sat there in my truck for what seemed like eternity, wasting time in a daze. The sky was lit by a weird glow from the 3 mushroom clouds over the hill on Pendleton. In my mind, I knew we only had maybe a half hour before the fallout hit. Being directly east of Pendleton and the ocean, the wind pushed everything right into our valley. We were gonna get it hot and heavy.
Upon reflection, I suppose I could have grabbed the family and broke into the school across the street. Maybe the gymnasium would have offered more protection from the fallout than my flimsy track house we were renting. I’ll never know now, and we would have had the problem of water and food in any case.
I snapped out of it and ran back into the house and locked the doors and told my wife to get the kids secured in the hallway bathroom and lock em in and then help me, we didn’t have a second to lose. She began to protest that the kids wouldn’t be safe in the bathroom unattended but I yelled at her that that didn’t matter right now cause we would all be dead in an hour if she didn’t help me right f*****g now! She must have realized I was serious and she put the kids in the bathroom while I went to the garage and grabbed the box of 6mil visqueen and a package of duct tape.
Between the two of us, we managed to tape all the windows and doors and seal every crack and draft we could find in the house in about 45 minutes. I could see the fallout coming down and I wished I had been able to afford a few dosimeters and a survey meter. Two things I had not bought because of the price tag and because those are things you buy with hope that you will never have to use them. I wished I had them now, but on second thought, that would have just it worse for us, being able to watch our doom rise on a meter.
After we got the house secured, I salvaged my bottle of K19 pills and made everyone take two. I didn’t know how many to take since we didn’t have directions, but I figured something was better than nothing. I knew it wouldn’t work at all against the gamma radiation. I grabbed a few gallons of water and a couple boxes of granola bars and a can of formula mix and a baby bottle and two bags of diapers and met my wife in the hall bathroom. It was most central to the house and away from doors and windows. I had a feeling we were screwed, but I didn’t say anything. All my dreams of having an underground bunker and years of preps on hand was more of a fantasy now than it ever was.
Our 10 month old daughter died from radiation sickness on the second day. It became apparent that we were not safe in the bathroom so we didn’t stay there. If we were gonna die we might as well try to die comfortably. Is there such a thing with radiation sickness?
My 3 year old daughter had stopped screaming 3 hours ago. She just lay there in semi consciousness, her skin blistered and boiling, fluids running freely from the open sores that seemed to grow by the hour. I couldn’t stand it anymore, it was more than I could handle. My wife was lying in bed, unable to get up. Death was at the door and there was no stopping him. The pain was incredible and unceasing.
I slumped and shuffled over to the bed where my wife and daughter lay. What’s the most humane way to kill someone you love? I didn’t know, but the pain was unbearable and I knew that death was inevitable, but no telling how long it would last until my daughter died, and then my wife or I. My beautiful precious daughter…. No longer beautiful, but still precious to me. My wife wasn’t responding, her breath coming in ragged gasps. I guessed it was only a short time now.
I sat down next to my daughter and with an effort, placed a towel over her head and then the pillow. I pressed the SIG against the pillow and her forehead. The tears ran freely, I sat there for several minutes, unable to follow through but knowing I had to. It was the merciful thing to do wasn’t it? My tormented mind was in anguish. I removed the pillow and the towel and leaned over her small head, her eyes were closed, she was barely breathing. I could just suffocate her, it would be easy and fairly quick. Certainly no worse than the pain she was in now. Why God? Why?
I whispered in her ear “I love you baby, I’m so sorry…” and then put the pillow over her head and pressed down. She didn’t move at all, she was too weak and most likely beyond caring. I held it for eternity, losing track of time and crying inside, there was nothing left on the ouside to show, my eyes had quit watering. Finally I came back to reality and removed the pillow. She was gone. Her torment was over and she was with God and Grandpa now. Probably mom and my sisters too. My sisters lived near Los Angeles and probably bought the farm without ever knowing about it. My mom lived south of Pendleton and closer to the coast and she may have been spared, but I doubted it. My dad had died several years ago from cancer.
I stood up with a concerted effort and almost fell over. I moved over to my wife’s side of the bed, passing the mirror as I went. It was rather disgusting. My skin was basically melting off, boils and blisters covered my face and skin from old blisters and boils that had broken open was hanging in strips from my face. My whole body was the same way. Clothing had become unbearable to wear so we had just removed it. I welcomed death, it was the only relief in sight. I sat down next to my wife and nudged her. She looked the same way I did, and she didn’t respond. I leaned over her and almost collapsed on top of her. She was breathing slow and shallow, with a slight pause between breaths. I knew it was short for her too. I stroked her hair and it came out in clumps in my fingers. She didn’t respond at all. I placed the towel and the pillow over her head and then put the SIG against her temple, folding the pillow over the pistol. I hesitated a moment and whispered to myself “God forgive me…” and squeezed the trigger. The sound was muffled in the pillow and instantly her pain was over. There was no mess, the towel had taken care of that and preserved what dignity she had left by covering her head and hiding the damage.
I managed to stand up again, no longer feeling anything inside. It was over. I had one last task to carry out. I went out to the living room, a trip that seemed to take a year. I went over to the dog crate and found the dog was dead. Good, I didn’t have to kill anyone else but myself.
I went over to the table and took a notepad and pen and managed to scribble a note to whoever found us, telling them our names, ages, and what I had done and why. It wasn’t a very good note, I could barely hold the pen and write and my blisters were oozing and smearing the ink on the paper, but I managed it.
I went over and collapsed on the couch, putting the SIG back into my right hand. The world was blurry and my breathing was hard. The pain was intense, like a fire was burning on my skin, what was left of it. The rest felt like a fire was burning on an already burned part of my body. The pain was unbelievable and unreal, almost to the point of euphoria. I was cooking alive from radiation and there was nothing I could do about it. Wait a minute… yes there was. I put the Sig against my ear and just before I squeezed the trigger, I wondered what I could have done differently; what I did do had all been in vain. “Hear I come Lord, Forgive me.”
I squeezed the trigger.
