Read Online Nuclear Midnight by Robert Cole - Free Book Online Page A

time.
    After lunch Alex wandered restlessly about the house, from room to room and from window to window, peering out into the overwhelming greyness as though a different angle on it would somehow show a chink of light. But his mind was busy. He was turning over the events of the past few days, trying once more to come to terms with the disappearance of his former life, his prospects, his family and Jason. Who knew how far this contaminated wasteland stretched? Perhaps all around the world, so that there would be no escape from it. In the living room he approached the window and rubbed some of the condensation off the panes with his sleeve. Large flakes of snow jiggled their way past and settled on the growing heap on the sill. He tapped the glass and the snow subsided, but at once more flakes settled and began to rebuild, as before.
    The door opened and Tina came in, walking unsteadily. She gave him a half-hearted smile, then sank down onto a chair.
    Alex thought how weak and fragile she looked; though he knew there was an enormous depth of strength within her. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked.
    She shrugged. ‘In a day or two, I'll pick up. How about you?’
    Alex was silent, knowing that it wasn't his physical condition she was enquiring about.
    ‘Are you still thinking about Jason?’ she persisted.
    He made a face.
    ‘You must have been very close.’
    He began to fret at this. These were his personal concerns he did not want to discuss. He hunched his shoulders and turned to stare out of the window.
    ‘It might help if you talked about it?’ she probed further.
    He said sharply: ‘I don't want to talk!’
    She leaned back in her chair.
    At that moment he just wished she would go away. That would be the tactful thing, not to probe any further. But she remained where she was, her hand pressed lightly to her lips.
    ‘You and I are very different,’ she said, after a long period of silence. When he still didn't respond, she continued, ‘you brood over the past and let it distort your reasoning.’
    That was more than he could stand. He turned round sharply. ‘There's nothing wrong with mourning the dead!’
    ‘If that's all that you're doing?’
    ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
    ‘You're not just feeling sorry for yourself, are you?’
    Her question infuriated him. ‘Aren't you upset that your parents died?’ he snorted. ‘Don't you care?’
    ‘I loved them,’ she said simply. ‘But they're dead. There was nothing I could have done to prevent their deaths.’
    ‘I'm still alive,’ he fumed. ‘And that's it, is it? That's all you have to say?’
    ‘Yes. Oh, don't look so superior,’ she continued, seeing his disgusted expression. ‘You don't hold the monopoly on feelings. I hurt just as much as you do, except I choose not to dwell on it. Nothing has ever been changed by dwelling on the past.’
    Alex held her gaze for a moment longer, then sighed and turned away. ‘It's not just the past,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It's everything past, present and future. I don't think I'm capable of surviving in this world, and I don't think I want to.’
    ‘You mean you want to give up?’ she asked. ‘Lie down and let someone finish you off, like they do a lame horse? You may as well have let them shoot you at the hospital.’
    ‘I had someone to live for at the hospital. Now I have nothing. What's the use of dragging on from day to day, week to week, just for the sake of it? Not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or if the next people you meet will try to kill you for your food? Too scared to relax for a moment and all the time slowly dying of radiation sickness?’
    ‘Things are not that grim,’ Tina said firmly. ‘You're letting your imagination run away with you. It won't be like this forever. We've only seen what it's like here; this may be the worst there is.’
    ‘No, you know that's not true. There will be much worse. The country may never recover; for all we know the whole