Phoenix Rising

For the children of Three Mile Island.
For the children of Chernobyl.
For all of us, children of a nuclear age.

“Look not back in anger, nor forward in fear—but around you in awareness.”

—Ross Hersey

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

One

Snapping my arm forward, I winged a stone toward the woods. It fell short of Ripley Powers’s dog, Tyrus. I meant it to fall short. I had no wish to hurt the dog, only to chase him off.

“Get on home!” I yelled through the gauze mask that had covered my face for nearly a week now. I shook my fist at the dog. “Get on home, Tyrus!”

Even after he’d run into the woods, Tyrus’s barking cut through the crisp November air, echoing down the valley.

Back across the field, in a corner of the front pasture, the yearling sheep crowded together, except for one, lying alone on the cold ground. I studied it from the road, waiting for some sign of movement. I saw none.

Brushing my hair back with the crook of my arm, I scowled. “Damn dog.”

Muncie stood beside me. “It’s Ripley’s fault, letting Tyrus run loose.”

Ripley’s dog took off running every chance he got. If he couldn’t find any trouble on our farm, he’d go agitating somewhere else. One time Red Jackson picked Tyrus up all the way to Cookshire, over the mountains and forty miles south of here. That was when there still was a Cookshire.

Dropping her backpack beside mine, Muncie crunched after me across the brittle November grass. Her short, bowed legs struggled against the pitch of the land.

Long-legging it over the electric fence, I got inside with the yearlings.

Muncie stayed outside in the field.

As I approached the fallen ewe, the rest of the flock pressed tighter toward the far fence. Their steamy breath came fast, forming a cloud over their heads.

I knelt before the bloody sheep, my mind racing. Radiation scared me most. That was everyone’s fear these days.

But I’d lived on a sheep farm long enough to know radiation hadn’t killed this ewe. Her rear end, her throat, her insides, were torn open. My mask puffed in and out; a nettle of anger stung at my chest.

We had just let this flock out of the barn yesterday, even though radiation was still leaking down at Cookshire.

So much time spent worrying about overcrowding the sheep in the barn to protect them from fallout. We never considered a dog attack.

“Nyle?” Muncie asked. “Is the sheep dead?”

“Ayuh.”

“What killed it?”

As much as I worried about radiation, Muncie and her family feared it ten times worse. We’d all hovered over our radios, listening to the reports since last week. The announcers assured us of our safety. And we all wanted to believe them. But dread wore the Harrises to the bone. They feared more for Muncie, because of her being a runt to begin with.