Ft Ashland

Ft Ashland

         Sam Adams was having the best day of his life. He had met his future wife, Maria Lee, and stayed up until midnight talking when the world ended, and the worst years of their lives began.

         Sam was a tenured professor at Southern Oregon State University, teaching English literature. He had been at the university for five years and had just gotten tenure. Sam was 35 years old. He had grown up in Berkeley, California, and gotten his BA in English literature at CAL. Sam obtained a Ph.D. at Bowling Green University in Ohio, where he did his thesis on “End of the World Fiction.”

         CNN and global media live-streamed the end of the world. It ended in a fiery nuclear war that engulfed the entire globe, killing half the population within the first month of attacks. Within one year, more than 75% of humanity died. The North Koreans had kept up the pressure on the President, who was becoming more unstable with political scandals threatening to overwhelm his administration.

         The attack by North Korea happened without warning early in November. They had announced they would join five-party talks in Beijing in early November. The U.S. Secretary of State and the Foreign Ministers of North Korea, China, Russia, and Japan were all in attendance. The President of China chaired the meeting. As it began, the North Korean Foreign Mnister rose to make his opening statement. He announced that the high command had just approved a nuclear attack on the U.S.

         CNN Announcer: “We have breaking news. NORAD has just confirmed that the U.S. appears to be under cyber-attack. The Hoover Dam and Columbia River dams have burst. All airports appear to have lost power, and traffic management systems across the country are failing. Our local affiliate in Las Vegas is showing the dam bursting. NORAD has just informed us that there are incoming nukes that are about to detonate, causing an EMP blast that will knock out the remaining pow….” CNN goes dead, as does the EMB system.

         It was 1:30 a.m. Just as the power went off, there was a blinding flash of light like the most intense lightning storm ever experienced. Moments later, everything electric—cars, computers, microwaves, blenders, and lights—blew out with an intense blue spark, and fires broke out all over town. Sam immediately knew what needed to be done. He had just finished writing an SF story about the end of civilization after watching Jericho and realizing that story was way too optimistic. The reality was that an EMP could wipe out industrial civilization for over a thousand years.

         “We had better go and see the Police Chief. Afterward, you need to get to the hospital. All the medicines in the refrigerators will go bad within days. Call Joe in the History department in the morning. He is an expert on early modern civilizations.” They walked out the door into the changed post-nuclear world.

         The first thing Sam and Maria noticed as they stepped outside was how quiet and dark it was. All the lights had blown out, all the vehicles had stalled, and a few scattered fires had started, but the snow was putting them out. Some people were out on the street, and Sam and Maria told their neighbors what they suspected had happened.

         “So, Sam, I know you’ve researched all this. What are you thinking happens next?” “Well, come with me to meet Police Chief Chuck and Mayor Joe. If the Mayor is asleep, we will have to wake him up. If we all pull together and concentrate on three core tasks—collecting food and setting up community kitchens, starting community gardens, and building a fort around the town to keep out predators, including humans—we might survive. We are just small enough to be viable.

         The food will go bad in seven days. No new food will arrive, and the growing season is over. Looters will get most of the canned goods. No one will cook without power unless they have a pre-1960 stove or wood stove. Gas stoves won’t work as the gas distribution systems and water systems also depend upon computer circuits which are all fried. There may be running water for a while as the water systems may be okay, but eventually, toilets will fail. I’d give that about six months, sooner if we have a cold winter due to nuclear winter.”

         Everyone ran inside. Sam told everyone, “That was Klamath Falls being hit by a nuke. Fortunately, between here and there are high mountains, so we might be okay. Hard to know. We need some of the scientists at the University to tell us. Here’s the deal. George and I are going to get the mayor and police chief. We will bring them here for an emergency management committee meeting. Marisa will take volunteers to the hospital to get stretchers and ER supplies, then divide into teams. One team will go to the crash site north of town, one south of town, and another team will hit the freeway entrances, north and south. Look for survivors and take them to the armory, which we will set up as an emergency shelter. Someone wakes up the management and opens it up, and someone needs to organize emergency bedding supplies, water, and food. We may have injuries and refugees. For now, we won’t turn people away, but in a few days, that will change once we have the fort set up.”

         Sam, George, Chuck, and Joe Brown, the Mayor, sat down and began mapping out the details of the EAP, following a written copy that the Major had printed out before the power failed.

         The major said,

          “Sam, this is the worst-case scenario, isn’t it?”

“Yep, Joe. End of civilization as we know it.”


Imagine you lost all power (including heat, electricity, water, gas, cell service, landlines, etc.) and Internet without any time to prepare. Write about how your life would change and how you would survive.

Use DRAMA as one of your genres.

From unpublished novel Ft Ashland