After the Day- Red Tide

by Matthew Gilman

  The room exploded in cheer, men hugged each other and hollered.

  Palahniuk put his hands up trying to get their attention again.

  “However, however, where is home? That is the question I have been trying to answer. How can I ask you to take this sub somewhere that isn’t home to you?”

  “We’re family, where this sub goes, we go.” one man hollered from the back.

  “That is exactly why I’m leaving it up to a vote. Hopefully, we can agree as to which route we take and set this ship down in its final resting place of our choosing. On this map here I have two paths we can take. One is up Chesapeake Bay and up the Potomac River to the Appalachian Mountains. And the other is up the Mississippi River and maybe the Ohio River depending on where we want to make the final stop.”

  “What about the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes?” one of the men asked.

  “I thought about that and considering we don’t know what Canada’s opinion of us is or how they sit on world affairs, I’d rather not have a nuclear sub fall into their hands.”

  The men agreed and stuck with the two offers that were on the board.

  “You have until the end of the day, 12 hours to vote. Votes will be counted at 2100 hours so make sure everyone gets theirs in.” Palahniuk said placing a jar on the table with a stack of post-it notes.

  Word spread to the rest of the crew quickly and the jar was filling fast. The crew chief came to Palahniuk at 1800 hours with the jar.

  “What are you doing?” Palahniuk asked.

  “The men voted, all of them. They are eager to hear the results.”

  “Two hours going to kill them?” Palahniuk asked.

  “After five years on a submarine it’s too long to wait for anything.”

  Palahniuk grabbed the jar and started pulling the folded post-it notes out. The crew chief helped and in the end they had two counted piles and one vote set aside.

  “It looks like we’re going up the Mississippi.” Palahniuk said.

  “And the one guy that wanted the Potomac?”

  “I might have a talk with him.” Palahniuk said. He had a feeling as to why someone would want to take that route.

  It was almost 1900 hours and the click of the microphone being picked up could be heard throughout the sub.

  “Attention crew, this is your captain speaking. The votes have been added up and it looks like it is almost unanimous we will be going up the Mississippi River for our last voyage. However, I would like to hear the opinion from the crew about taking a detour to Washington D.C. to get one last look of the capital before we go home, thank you.” Palahniuk placed the microphone on the hook and went back to the charts to start plotting their next course.

  A few minutes later a man came to the deck asking to speak to the captain. Palahniuk let him in.

  “Sir, I’m the one that voted for the Potomac. I was from Washington D.C. I wanted to see my home for the last time.”

  “You know the city was destroyed.” Palahniuk asked him.

  “I know, but it’s like, it’s like when a person’s house burns down. Even though there is nothing left and you try to tell them they still want to see it. It’s not real unless I get to see it.”

  “I think we all understand that.” Palahniuk said. “I’ve already plotted a course to the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac. We are all going to get a view of D.C. before we go up the Mississippi. A last farewell to the America we once knew.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The crewman left the room and went back to his department.

  “You think that’s wise?” the crew chief asked.

  “I think we all want to see it with our own eyes.” Palahniuk said.

  The submarine was a few hundred miles off the east coast of the United States. It wasn’t difficult for them to change course and head to Maryland. The seas were calm, no sight of any Chinese vessels or vessels of any kind. The closer they came to shore, the quieter the sea became. The radar operator noticed that the sounds of the ocean were gone.

  “Sir, I haven’t heard anything for hours, whales, dolphins, nothing is out there.” the operator said to Palahniuk.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “Remember Fukashima?” the operator asked.

  It wasn’t a long shot to assume that the radiation from the blast and the fall out would have affected the Atlantic.

  “Wouldn’t the current have carried the radiation away?” Palahniuk said to himself.

  “It doesn’t mean that the source isn’t still feeding into it. Think about it. When it rains all the water collects into the drains, is sent down to the rivers and streams into the Potomac and then into the Chesapeake Bay and into the Atlantic. If the one blast never went away it will keep feeding radiation into the ocean until the levels are gone.”

  “And that is thousands of years from now.” Palahniuk said thinking about the missiles that still sat in their containers in the sub.

  The quiet ocean continued until they reached the shoreline and Palahniuk viewed the coast from the periscope. The shore was void of movement, less than the isolated islands they were depending on a few years before. The trees appeared dead, devoid of leaves their branches and trunks skeletons of their former bodies. Boats littered the coast, litter from the storms coming in and no humans to clean it up. That was the most disturbing thing, no people at all. For some reason Palahniuk thought he would see people fishing on boats and activity on the shore and in the bay. Maybe that’s because the last time he was here that was how it was. Palahniuk checked the time and it was five in the evening.

  “Prepare to surface.” Palahniuk ordered.

  The sirens blared in the sub from the horns and the crew prepared to surface. The submarine broke the surface and water rolled off the sides as the vessel leveled off. The white dead water revealing the life that still existed underneath the surface.

  The submarine entered the bay and Palahniuk viewed the scene through the periscope. The coast on both sides was littered with boats; in some places they were stacked on top of one another from a storm or hurricane that decimated the area. The docks were in need of serious repair and the buildings were missing side panels and parts of the roofs. Again, like before, no people visible.

  Palahniuk let the rest of the crew have turns viewing the damage. The reactions varied from person to person. Some looked away like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Through the periscope it wasn’t real from them. It was no different from watching an event on television. A bomb blast at a street market, you see the image but you don’t feel the initial concussion or the glass flying through the air. You don’t have the blood of other people on your hands or pieces of furniture sticking out of your skin. Viewing the damage outside from inside a safe box was not the same thing as smelling, seeing, and touching it with your bare hands.

  The USS Nemo continued up the bay to the mouth of the river and entered for the short journey to Washington D.C. Occasionally, the submarine would brush against objects that had drifted down the river and became stuck on brush or logs hidden on the riverbed. The USS Nemo carried on until it reached its final destination. At first Palahniuk didn’t realize he was there. There was nothing to recognize. The Washington Memorial was gone. The Capitol Building, Lincoln Memorial, and The White House appeared as piles of rubble that collapsed in on themselves. Everything was grey. The grass was grey, the remains of buildings and the Cherry trees were all grey dead former reminders of what they once were.

  Palahniuk didn’t realize it when it was happening but he was tearing up at the sight. He stumbled back from the periscope and didn’t say anything. The rest of the men were reluctant to look. Finally, the one that voted to travel up the Potomac took the periscope and glanced in. He moved the scope around left to right.

  “No…no…NO!” He couldn’t look away. He tried to look for the city that he knew so well. The city he had grown up in and witnessed so much history was gone, disappeared from the face of the earth.

 
He viewed through the periscope until he couldn’t look anymore.

  Palahniuk told some of the crew to keep an eye him for suicide watch when he was done. He was afraid that this man would feel he had nothing left to live for.

  The USS Nemo stopped in the river and the crew took turns viewing their former capital until the sun set. Then, the night vision was turned on and everyone continued to take turns looking at the city until sunrise.

  The crew was quiet and when the periscope was left alone Palahniuk gave the order to set the sub in reverse and move back to the bay. It was slower and more difficult to maneuver back to the bay but a few hours later they were in the bay and heading back to the Atlantic.

  The ocean was quiet like it was the day before. The USS Nemo submerged back to its safe environment and headed south. They stayed near the coastline and kept it in sight. Constantly searching for information Palahniuk continued his task of searching for survivors.

  In a day they were off the coast of Florida. The radar operator was excited to hear dolphins and other animals in the ocean making noise. The world was alive again. Palahniuk looked through the periscope and viewed the beaches to find them empty.

  “Tell me if there are any topless sunbathers.” the crew chief asked as Palahniuk worked at his job.

  “No sunbathers, but I do need a break.” Palahniuk stepped away from the periscope and let the crew chief take over the boring job of viewing the world through a hole in the wall.

  The crew chief was sad to see the beaches covered in litter that was no longer cleaned up by the locals. He had a feeling there were no more locals and if there were they were too busy with other more important matters than cleaning up a beach. The swampy southern Florida tip passed into view as the submarine turned around the southern point. Palahniuk showed up on deck and took over his job of driving the sub.

  “What are we really going home to?” the crew chief asked.

  “We’ll find out.” Palahniuk said. He couldn’t make promises of a land filled with women wanting to take men into their arms at first sight. He wanted to promise something but the only thing that was for certain was that their job was over once this submarine docked for the last time. After that point their fates were in their own hands and they could go wherever they wanted.

  Entering the Gulf of Mexico the radar became silent again. Memories of the deep horizon oil spill came to mind. Things were never the same in the gulf after that. The dispersant that was used to “clean up” the oil had only hidden it from the surface. The oil had sunk to the sea bed and polluted the same space out of site from the public. The waters of the gulf were never the same and the DNA of the life forms here had been altered. For better or worse it was unknown what the repercussions would eventually lead to with the spill but through the radar the operator could tell the gulf was not the healthy place it once was.

  The gulf was a grave yard of old shrimp and fishing boats. The Mississippi and Alabama coast looked like the previous coast they had seen. Out in the gulf the leftovers of the oil rigs still stood, towers in the middle of the ocean without crews. They were slowly rusting away until they would finally drop into the sea and disappear from existence. New Orleans was a wasteland. The city looked flooded.

  Houses and buildings were submerged and boats floated around in the streets. The levies had failed again and the city was not repaired. The water had not been pumped out. New Orleans had returned to the natural environment that it once was. Some of the crew had gotten word that the USS Nemo was on the New Orleans coast and wanted to see what the city looked like. Palahniuk left the periscope and let the crew take turns to see how the city looked. Like Washington D.C. the reactions were of disbelief and denial. Some broke down but the majority thought that somehow it would come back again. There was no government to save it, FEMA no longer existed.

  USS Nemo entered the Louisiana Delta and traveled north on its last journey. The submarine surfaced and the crew took turns on the hull of the sub. With the information they had collected over the years they made an educated guess that the Mississippi was clear of foreign enemies. The men were still required to be armed since they didn’t know how the locals had adapted to the new world. It was slow traveling up the Mississippi. Large ships were abandoned and making their way to the gulf on their own. Many were caught up on the river banks waiting for a rise in the water level.

  In some places the men would see a cargo ship sitting in the middle of a field where a levy had broken and let the water and its contents into the nearby fields. The ship sat surrounded by tall grass giving the impression it was still sailing in a field of flowing green water. One of the crew waved to the boat, possibly the last ship they would see on their journey.

  The next day the Gateway Arch in St. Louis sat on the horizon and the crew was excited. They were deeper in the country than they ever anticipated. Some of the men had expected the submarine to become stuck on the river bottom. Using sticks and fishing lines from their naval survival kits, the men started fishing in the river. Many were catching the Chinese carp that had infested the waters years before The Day. Without man being able to stop them from traveling further north on the river, the carp had infested the waters in several other areas including the Ohio River and Lake Michigan. The men at first didn’t know what to do with them. Finally one of the men started cleaning the fish on the hull of the submarine and carried a container of the rubbery fatty meat inside to the small mess hall. Using flour, salt, and pepper, the cook coated the fish and dropped it in a fryer. It wasn’t the catfish the men were accustomed to before The Day but it would do. It was a different meal from the coconut water and powdered eggs they were tired of.

  Palahniuk had the submarine stop in St. Louis. He was set on continuing up the river but wanted to see what the inside of the country looked like before moving further. The city appeared quiet and dead. Without a large or functional urban farming structure to feed the cities they would quickly become wastelands. The submarine was able to dock to a walkway that was in disrepair but it was the best option from what they could see.

  Using several ropes, the USS Nemo was secured and the crew was broken into two groups of five men much like the boats that were sent to the isolated islands of the Pacific. Once these men were gone Palahniuk didn’t expect them to come back. This was the last trip, if they decided this was the place and decided to call it quits he would understand that. There was one person he kept with him at all times.

  The crew called him “Radar” because he looked like the short radio operator from M.A.S.H. on television. Palahniuk knew him by his last name of Lerner. Highly educated in math and science he could have worked for NASA but instead joined the navy to get most of his college tuition debt paid off. Had Radar known The Day was going to happen he may have made different choices. Many people would have made different plans.

  “Lerner, I need you to help me with something.” Palahniuk said after relieving the two search parties on the hull of the ship. The sunlight had hurt his eyes; the fresh air gave him a new feeling of life. Over the years Palahniuk had left his physical training slide. Now he thought about starting all over again from scratch before finally leaving the ship. He had other priorities on his mind before he could take that final step.

  “Sir, yes sir.” Lerner replied shifting his face away from the empty radar screen. Lerner left his seat and followed Palahniuk deep into the sub towards the noise. In a section before the torpedo tubes Palahniuk stopped and turned around.

  “Do you know what sits on the other side of these panels?” Palahniuk asked.

  “Twelve long range ballistic nuclear warheads.” Lerner replied without hesitating.

  “Exactly. Now we have an issue because we still have these on the ship and can’t let anybody come and take them. We also can’t use them because where we are at leaves the United States, Canada, and Mexico as the only targets to detonate them.” Palahniuk explained.

  “Unless…” Lerner stopped himself.

 
“Go on.” Palahniuk was waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “We could send them into the stratosphere and time them to detonate over another area, the blast might damage satellites but what do we care without working electronics. Plus the EMP would short out most electronics that were within visible site of the blast. But that would take some timing to make sure it went off where we wanted it to.”

  “Could you?” Palahniuk asked.

  “Time the…” Lerner’s head started working in full force. “You’re looking at firing the Nukes?”

  “We have to do something with them. I figure it frees us from responsibility, and might give a punch back to the Chinese.”

  “But sir…” Lerner chose his words carefully after this point. “What if I can’t figure out how to time the missiles?”

  “I have faith in you. You’re the smartest member of the crew. You can do it.” Palahniuk patted Lerner on the shoulder and left the area walking back to the deck.

  Lerner looked at the two walls surrounding him and thought about the amount of power that sat behind the steel walls.

  “Whoa,” he said to himself before taking his glasses off and running his hand through his sweaty hair.

  Lerner went back to his station at the radar and couldn’t get his mind off his new task. He asked Palahniuk for the information they had gathered in the Pacific and about the west coast of the United States. They knew about an invading force and Lerner thought the best use of the nukes would be against the landing parties and ships that were supplying the coast. Any electronic devices that the Chinese were using would be useless after the detonation. The only flaw was that the missiles would have to be fired one at a time since the EMP would also knock out the electronics in the others missiles in range.

  Palahniuk and Lerner sat down and figured out the shipping routes for the Chinese, the invading forces in L.A., Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland. They decided on one nuke for each even with one nuke being able to cover several cities at once. They spread the other eight over the pacific and decided that it was the best way to fight back against the Chinese.