Death Cload

  2100 hours, Captain James S. Steward of the United

States Air Force straps on his G-suit and goes over his

mission briefings one last time.  He walks out into the

hanger and awaits his chariot.  The SR-71 Blackbird, the

fastest plane in the world with it's twin turbine engines

and slick black radar absorbent skin make him a flying

shadow in the air.  His mission, to fly a covert

reconnaissance mission over Moscow, the heart of the USSR

Intelligence believe that the Russians have a build up of

nuclear missile silos around the capitol. 

With the Cuban

missile crisis at hand, the United States cannot let their

guard down on a sneak attack from the Communists.

     "Another suicide-run," says Captain Steward to his

flight maintainer.

     "Yes, sir," replies the private.

     Captain Steward squeezes into his cockpit seat like a

sardine in a can.  Little switches, gauges, and buttons

embellish the cockpit, each with a crucial part in flying

the aircraft.

     "Ready to rock n' roll."

     Steward pulls the Blackbird out of the hanger like a

cumbersome Oldsmobile, but only this special Oldsmobile can

travel over twice the speed of sound undetected by enemy

radar.  With a push of the throttle the twin-turbine engines

roar with authority.  The bird takes flight disappearing

into the night skies evanescently.  The only sign that it

exists is the trademark sonic boom as it passes the sound

barrier.

     After approximately seven hours flight time and two in-

flight re-fuelings, the Blackbird reaches its destination,

Moscow, Russia.  The thermal imaging camera, located in the

bird's hull, depicts the radioactivity from nuclear silos as

bright yellow and orange blobs on the terrain.  The images

show seas of yellow throughout Moscow.  The city resembles a

giant missile base up and operational.  Captain Steward

pulls a 180 and heads for home with sick eerie feeling in his

stomach.

     After a long comprehensive study of the recon images,

the United States order an increase in their production of

their nuclear missiles to counter-attack any offensive the

Russians have planned.  Silos sprout like weeds throughout

the United States and the President gave the order for

Defcon 2.  The country falls in a state of panic, as they

slip one step closer to a nuclear holocaust.

     On the other side of the Atlantic, the USSR notices the

nuclear build up in the United States.  In fear of an

preemptive strike, the Communist fuel and prepare their

birds just in case.  This pre-war act resembles a chess

game; one  side makes and move and the other counters it

until both sides end up killing all their pieces.  Both

countries fall into a stalemate, waiting for the other to

make the first fatal move. Tensions mount as the stand off

continues for weeks.

     On a clear Sunday morning 0700 hours, Russian radar

picks up an American U-2 spy plane just finishing a routine

recon mission.  The Russians take this as a national threat

and a violation of their air-space.  So it begins.  The

Russians make the first crucial move, launching twenty-four

nuclear armed missles on populated cities scattered

throughout America.  Strategic cities like Washington DC,

Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Dallas fall among the

list of targets.  American satellites pick up the launch,

forcing them into Defcon 1.  The United States counter-

attacks with a wave of their own missiles aimed throughout

Russia.  The missiles take the air like a swarm of bees,

with a stinger capable of killing millions within seconds

upon impact.  Somewhere over the Atlantic the Russian

missles and the American missles pass each other by.  The

missiles home into their pre-determined targets with no

mercy and no hesitation.  The impact of a single warhead

creates a tremble that measure 2.9 on the Richter scale.

The blast-wave radiates hundreds of miles wiping out

everything in its path.  Houses and building blow over as if

constructed of paper.  Complete obliteration within a matter

of seconds.

     The victims of the blast-wave do not even have the time

to hear their own scream.  Everyone within a hundred miles

of the detention sees a flash and instantaneously they

disinergrate into a meager pile of gray ashy dust.  Those

who did not die immediately upon impact suffer radiation

poisoning.  Any person within two-hundred miles of the blast

suffer radiation burns so severe that the skin sizzles like

bacon .  Some victims sprout a third arm and mutate into un-

human creatures, like teenage mutant turtles.  After several

hours of exposure, the victim's skin melts into a liquid

state and they go into convulsions.  Radiation poisoning

saturates their internal organs and the body rejects them.

The body's own innate instinct to flush out foreign objects

causes victim to vomit their own internal organs.  Moments

before death the victim's eye s shrivel up like sun-baked

raisons.  This nuclear holocaust claims billions of lives.

Both countries literally glow like a night-light from the

radiation.

     The mushroom clouds , the only thing left, blanket the

Earth.  The clouds mask the Sun restricting light to reach

the surface.  Acid rain pours out of the radioactive clouds

and eat away the O-zone layer.  Ultra-violet rays bake the

Earth like a microwave TV dinner.  The surface temperature

reaches a scorching two-hundred degrees.   The polar ice

poles and two-thirds of water that once cover the Earth,

evaporate leaving the landscape naked.  For tens of

thousands of years our Earth cannot support life all because

the hands of man.  The upraise in humanity results in the

annihilation of the human race and of the world.  We created

our own demise ; we created our own Doomsday.