Well, I'm not dead. That tells me a number of things.

For starters, I have a pretty good idea that we're at war with Canada right now. Also, I'm pretty sure that the rest of the country is toast and that some distinctly weird shit is going down.

I'm 5 clicks from bupkis. There's nothing worth hitting within probably five times that range from where I am right now and even that is charitably a tier 3 target even from the Soviet perspective.

Back in the day the Russians operated a 40 kiloton warhead which was delivered by the SS-3 missile system; it's since retired but, as pretty much the only warhead that was operated by not-the-united-states, survivable from 5km out, and delivered by missile I'm pretty sure that's what the strike was from. The SS-3 isn't terribly sophisticated as ballistic missiles go and it's probably in pretty poor repair on account of being decommissioned since 1969 but given that someone's nuking rural southwestern Virginia, the re-appearance of a 45 year old atomic weapons system is hardly the strangest thing about today. At least it explains why there's a surplus of developable land in my little mountain town; the SS-3 never was tremendously accurate.

The bad news is that, accurate or not, the SS-3 is an intermediate range missile with a maximum range of about 750 miles. That's about 1200 km in communist units. Since the SS-3 isn't sea-launchable that leaves a launch site somewhere in the continental United States or southern Canada -- somewhere around Toronto or Ottawa; it's a theater weapon, so my guess is Toronto.

The Canadians are invading.

I always knew this day would come.

It could be the Russians invading through Canada but that seems a bit of a stretch. Invading Canada without anyone noticing would be difficult, even if you were good at hockey and very polite. Setting up a disused missile system within spitting distance of Detroit while still maintaining the charade of being our Poutine loving neighbors to the north beggars the imagination. No -- it's far more likely that, fearing Donald Trump's latest amphetamine laced metamucil bender, the Canucks have decided that it's aboot time to deal with the United States before things go even further off the rails and this is the fumbled first strike - an apologetically ineffectual weapon purchased in oil shale money from some Eastern European arms dealer.

The interstate will be a ruin after the blast and areas north are far more logical targets. My van's old though; it should still run despite the EMP and I have an hour or so to get clear before the fallout becomes a problem. I slip off my shoes and walk in sock-feet to my vehicle -- better to ditch the potentially radioactive socks than to be without shoes -- and prepare to head west through the Jefferson National Forrest before swinging south.

We'll regroup in Georgia, down below the gnat line, and use the weather to our advantage. They'll be sapped by the heat and, with a little luck, we can push them back north of the Ohio river by next Thanksgiving, though I expect it'll be a sparse one.

No maple syrup in the sweet potato casserole, that's for sure.