Creative Writing: Apocalypse At The Nuclear Plant Essay, Research Paper

Creative Writing: Apocalypse at the Nuclear Plant

Pete pulled up to the familiar sight of cooling towers overshadowing his

car as he parked his car next to the multitude of his coworkers. His day began

just like the others. If there was any plutonium to be expected, he was damn

sure he would be the one to inspect it. He walked past George the security

guard, asked him how he was doing even though he didn’t really give a rat’s ass

how he was, he was just a friendly person. As he strolled down the corridor to

the area in which he worked, he noticed something strange. There was not as

many people buzzing around the hallways, hitting on the women workers, or even

hanging around the coffee maker. “Must be another layoff meeting,” he thought

to himself as he slid his access card into the slot and the door opened.

“Thank god you’re here!” his boss, Jarvis explained. Pete checked his

watch. “Am I late?” he queried. “No time for that, no time for that damnit!”

Jarvis seemed very upset about something to say the least. “Well, what is it?”

Pete asked with a look of haste swimming across his face.

Jarvis lead Pete over to the main testing area. “We discovered this

late last night. Seems one of the plutonium pieces is?,” he paused with a gulp,

“changing.”

“Changing?!?!”

“You better believe it because it took me an hour to comprehend what is

going on.”

“What exactly IS going on?”

Jarvis explained in his own special slightly whiny voice that he chose

to break out only in large meetings but decided to give Pete the thrill of

hearing now. One of the experimental pieces of plutonium had become so unstable

that it had actually began changing form. It had undergone it’s daily blast of

gamma radiation when something went wrong. Like the incredible hulk, it was

growing larger at, what would seem not that bad to the person uneducated in

nuclear physics, but to the trained mind, it was preposterous. Pete stepped

closer to the pulsing hulk of plutonium which was encased behind radioactive-

proof glass. He was speechless, dumbfounded, and yes, a little shocked.

“Where on earth did you get that?” Pete questioned Jarvis, his voice

reaching out and grabbing him by the throat, leaving him speechless. Jarvis

took a deep breath, let out a sigh and interjected, “That’s the whole thing,

Pete, we don’t know where it came from.”

“What, was it a prize in a fuckin’ cracker jack box?!”

“No, you don’t see?”

“Did you save up enough Marlboro miles?”

Just then the door to the lab slammed. Eight men in white lab coats

proceeded to march throughout the laboratory, inspecting the glowing hulk. As

Jarvis was walking over to the men, Pete closely looked at the hunk of plutonium

that had ?just appeared’. He started to motion over to Jarvis, who seemed to be

consumed in his ass-kissing second self with what Pete assumed to be government

scientists. He slowly strode backwards, taking the full 20 feet high and 10

feet wide mass into full view. He knew there was something very peculiar about

it, but he couldn’t quite place it. All he knew was that he was going to be

leaving work early today, he would not be one of those deranged scientists that

risked his life for the sake of science.

Pete walked over to Jarvis, ready to hand in his resignation, when

something happened. What that something is, though, will not be revealed at

this time. OK, you got me, I’ll tell you. As Pete was about to tell Jarvis

that his time with the company was up, there was an ear-popping crack which came

from the center of the lab.

“Holy Jesus Christ!” Jarvis was the first to see the hole which had

developed in the center of the mass of plutonium. There was a faint glow coming

from the hole. As the crowd of government scientists, Jarvis, and the lab

workers looked on, Pete snuck out of the lab with great haste. As soon as he

was past the door, he bolted down the hall toward the door. Just then there was

a loud screaming explosion coming from the way he had just came. He whirled

around to see his boss’ upper torso plastered against the wall. It just slumped

down with a loud squishing sound. He didn’t turn around again. As he passed

the guard at the front door, he just yelled “Get out while you still can!” and

took off for his car parked somewhere in the humongus parking lot. Every day

he spent at least 10 minutes wandering through the multitude of cars, searching

for his. Many times he had found a car that looked like his, tried to get in,

sometimes setting off annoying car alarms, and one time the key even worked, but

he didn’t realize that he was in the wrong car until he had noticed how clean it

was.

He darted past opening in the barbed wire fence which had loomed too

long over his workplace. In his glasses he could see the reflection of

explosions and felt the earth shake every few seconds with the force of what he

thought was a major earthquake.