After the Day- Red Tide

by Matthew Gilman

  “The sad thing is when it happens nobody will have a clue.” Lerner said looking over the map.

  “At this point I’m fine with that.” Palahniuk said.

  “It would be nice to go down in the history books as the man that stuck it to the Chinese.” Lerner replied.

  “I’ll be sure to mention you in my memoirs.” Palahniuk said smiling over the table.

  They both chuckled over the idea of books ever being in print again.

  Lerner spent a week on the calculations. Nobody else on the submarine knew what the plan was. Lerner checked, rechecked, triple checked the math for each missile. Only after he was positive on the math did he hand the order and the coordinates over to Palahniuk. It had been a week since the two teams had gone out into the city and word never came back and the men had disappeared. Palahniuk assumed they deserted and went on with their own lives. He thought about sending out a search party but decided to keep the rest of the men back until the missiles were airborne.

  After receiving the coordinates, Palahniuk handed them back and told Lerner to check them again just for safety sake.

  On the hull of the sub a group of five men sat on the sides fishing. It was the favorite past time of the men who spent the last five years stuck under the surface of the oceans. Fishing poles bobbed above the water. There was no shortage of fish but even with the new food it was getting old quick.

  “When do you think the captain will let us go?” one of the seamen asked the others.

  “I think we are free to go but where do we go to?” another responded.

  “The two teams never came back. There must be something out there.” a third man added.

  “Right. Tons of pussy for the taking.” Some of the men chuckled at the comment. They all longed for the comfort of a woman.

  “We haven’t seen a soul since we started climbing this river. Doesn’t anybody else find that weird?” the first man asked again.

  “What’s with all of the questions?” the second man asked.

  “What else is there to do but think?”

  “I’d rather not think. That’s why I joined. Too much responsibility. Let somebody else do it.”

  “I think we should ask the captain what’s up and if we are going to move farther up river or not. If we aren’t moving I’m leaving.”

  “I just think…” the first man turned then felt a punch to the chest. He looked back and saw an arrow sticking out of his chest. “What the hell is that?” the rest of the men stood up and dropped their fishing lines.

  One of the men grabbed the man with the arrow and tried to pull him up off the ledge only to see two more arrows sink into his chest.

  “Get back inside!” one of the crew yelled as men rushed up the ladder. Arrows flew through the air and struck some of the men. One had an arrow in the thigh and another took an arrow in the back. Four of the men made it back into the sub. The fifth was left outside

  The crew was in a panic. Men rushed around with med kits trying to take care of the two men who were hit.

  “Who is out there?” Palahniuk asked the men.

  “We don’t know. We were fishing and then Smith took an arrow to the chest. We rushed back in as arrows started flying at us. We never saw them.”

  Palahniuk went to the periscope and looked out. A group of men with compound bows and crossbows stood on the shore. One of the men, a larger stocky man, had a long box pointed at the Submarine and was talking with the rest. They must have been making plans for trying to get in.

  “Lerner, do you have those coordinates set?” Palahniuk asked.

  “Yes sir,”

  “Good, initiating nuclear missile launch protocol.” Palahniuk took his key off from around his neck and the crew chief came up asking what was going on.

  “Sir,” the crew chief said.

  “We need to get these nukes off the ship and the only way to do that is to use them. I’ve been working with Radar over here to make sure they are used against the Chinese in the most effective way possible. Are you in or out?”

  As Palahniuk finished a pounding sound came from the top of the ship. The men outside were trying to get in.

  “Why don’t we just set course up river?” the crew chief asked.

  “Oh my God, just fire the fucking missiles already!” the man with the arrow in his leg hollered.

  “Hey,” the crew chief yelled back then saw the rest of the crew staring at him. They had learned over the years to trust their captain. It would only be a matter of time before the chief was over-powered and the missiles were fired anyway.

  The launch codes and the times of launch were entered along with the coordinates. Palahniuk entered his code and the crew chief entered his. They placed their separate keys into the launch pad and turned them. Pressing the red button the submarine shook as the first missile fired into the air straight into the sky. Of course they were unable to see the sight for themselves but they were filled with sense of awe as the first U.S. submarine to fire with missiles in the history of the navy.

  Every hour a missile fired into the air. The men who were pounding outside had left the submarine. Perhaps they were on the shore watching the missiles take off. It would be a long show with twelve hours of fireworks going off like clockwork.

  The crew stayed inside and waited out the launch. They would never see the reward for their work but knowing they were fighting back after seeing Washington D.C. was a prideful moment for all of them. Cheers went through the sub with every rocket launch.

  With the final launch Palahniuk ordered the crew to set course up river.

  “Sir, the sub is still tied to the dock.”

  “How did the dock look?” Palahniuk asked.

  “Questionable.”

  “Let’s see how the dock has fared over the years.”

  The blades spun and the ropes strained as the sub pushed back towards the waters of the Mississippi. The crew could hear the cracks and pops of the wood breaking. The dock snapped in two with the outer half leaving with the USS Nemo into the river. The blades of the submarine stopped and pushed forward sending the submarine up river. The submarine dragged the dock with it slowing it down. Palahniuk worried that the men who were trying to get inside would follow on foot if the submarine moved too slowly.

  “I need two men to go outside and cut the ropes from the dock.” Palahniuk asked for volunteers.

  Two men raised their hands and prepared to climb the ladder.

  “They’ll need cover.” the man who was hit in the leg with the arrow said. He pulled a Colt .45 from his hip holster and hopped to the ladder.

  “You sure?” Palahniuk asked.

  “If I see those assholes I’ll be the guy they wished they never saw.”

  The men climbed the ladder and the first man turned the lock and pushed the hatch open. He looked out, knife in hand. It was early morning. The sun was about to come up over the horizon and he had a hard time seeing the submarine. He climbed out and started down the tower to the hull. The second man followed and the third stayed on the tower overlooking everything.

  The men rushed out and found the ropes. The dock had broken up into sections but it was still dragging. The men worked quickly, moving up to the nose of the sub.

  The man on the tower thought he saw something fly past the men on the hull. He cocked his gun. The men didn’t seem to notice anything, then the ping of an arrow striking the side of the submarine. The man on the tower looked at the shoreline and saw a shadow moving around. He aimed and fired. The flash from the muzzle lit up the tower for a second. He knew it was giving away his position but it was worth keeping the other two men safe. With the .45, the man on the bank of the river was out of range but he hoped for a lucky shot. He saw the figure stop and another arrow hit the side of the sub.

  The two men cut the last rope and ran back to the tower and started climbing the ladder. The man on the tower climbed out to let them in and keep covering them until they were inside. He watched the shadow moving
. The first man was inside. As the second climbed down the shadow stopped on the river bank. The man on the tower took aim and fired four rounds at the bank. He felt the air move around his head. Had the man on the river bank almost hit him? The second man was inside now.

  The man on the tower aimed again and emptied his magazine at the shadow. He started to climb inside and the sun peeked out over the horizon. He could see the man on the river bank, a man with a longbow. The man on the tower looked at him, raised his fist, and raised the middle finger. The man on the shore did the same. Climbing back inside, he placed his Colt .45 back in the holster and laughed to himself.

  “What an asshole.” he said to himself as he worked down the ladder with his injured leg.

  The USS Nemo traveled up river for three days before anyone went outside. It docked just south of Chicago and Palahniuk made sure his men were armed and ready to go before sending them out.

  “Make sure you have everything you need.” he ordered to the crew.

  “We’re not coming back are we?” one of the men asked. The crew was quiet.

  “No, we are not.” Palahniuk had one of the demolition experts tear apart a torpedo and make a detonation device to sink the USS Nemo to the bottom of the river. The crew had mixed feelings about the news. Some were excited and others sad knowing their home of so many years was going to be destroyed.

  After the area was cleared the crew sat on the shore and waited as the demolition expert set the charges and exited the submarine.

  “Five minutes, sir.” he said checking his watch and looking back at the submarine.

  “I can’t believe it’s over.” one of the men said to himself, but the comment captured the thoughts of all of the men.

  “We could do a funeral.” one of the men said but nobody seemed to care much for the idea.

  Five minutes felt like hours and then the rumble inside the vessel. The nose of the sub exploded. The hull ruptured and smoke escaped into the air. There were a few smaller explosions that followed but the submarine quickly filled with water and sank to the bottom of the river with the top of the tower left exposed to the world as the USS Nemo’s own self-made gravestone.

  After that moment Palahniuk was no longer a captain. He was a former navy man like everyone else on the riverbank. He had no home, no pension, and no family. He was starting over from scratch.

  “So, what do we do now?” one of the men asked.

  “Who is going to Chicago?” Palahniuk asked.

  The men broke up into four groups. The division was made by the direction they were going to travel. Half the men were traveling west, a quarter of the men were going east, the majority of the rest were going south, going north was Palahniuk and two other men.

  The two men with Palahniuk were the mechanics from the sub. He knew them as a pair of tough redneck backwoodsmen but they were brilliant when it came to working with machinery. Jerry and Kyle were both from Wisconsin but wanted to live out their retirement in northern Michigan. Jerry had been there in his late teens on a hunting trip with his dad and bagged the largest buck he ever shot. While he grew up in Wisconsin, living somewhere new appealed to him after being cooped up in a submarine for over five years. Kyle was always game for something new and had no interest in going back home. Kyle joined the navy to see the world and with the USS Nemo no longer taking him to new places he was ok with seeing more on foot.

  The four groups broke up and said their goodbyes. Once they started walking nobody looked back.

  Palahniuk carried his duffle bag on his back and after the first few miles he wondered what he could take out to lower the weight of the bag. Jerry and Kyle appeared to be doing fine, they had kept up their physical training over the years with pushups and chin ups. Palahniuk checked his watch and said it was time for lunch.

  “We should keep going,” Kyle said looking around the open area they were standing in. They were surrounded by corn fields and a few scattered trees. He didn’t like being out in the open. It could also have to do with being stuck in a submarine for so long that the closed quarters felt like home.

  “Ok, let’s get to the next town.” Palahniuk replied. It was strange to him that he no longer gave the orders, he tried to prepare himself for that but the ideology of rank was imbedded in him from decades of training.

  The road never seemed to end. Walking was something new and Palahniuk was feeling muscles that he never noticed before. His feet were sweating and he could tell he was starting to blister.

  Signs were closer together on the road, a signal that a town was coming up. He wished that he could get a burger at the local diner or even a bag of potato chips from the gas station. Resting and checking his feet would be a luxury in itself.

  The town was small, a few shops with a gas station, diner, antique shops and the railroad tracks that ran straight through. Everything was in various states of disarray. Plants were growing out of the gas pumps, roofs had caved in on some of the houses off the main street. The local market had the windows smashed out and the shelves looked bare inside.

  “What the hell happened here?” Jerry said taking in the full picture.

  Palahniuk walked up to the gas station and pushed the door in. He grabbed an old newspaper off the rack and looked around. Again the shelves were bare. He looked behind the counter and found two mummified bodies on the floor. He took a closer look and saw the bullet holes in the skulls of both of them. He pictured what happened in his mind. Clerks being shot before desperate people came in and took what they wanted.

  He walked out with the bell ringing as the top of the door hit it. He pulled the newspaper out and looked at the front page.

  D.C. NUKED! read across the top of the page with a mushroom cloud on the cover. He wondered if the picture was real or if it was created for the cover.

  “We already knew that,” Jerry said glancing at the cover then scoping out the area.

  Palahniuk flipped through the paper and found nothing of any real substance. Pages of theories and speculations, nothing was definite, facts were nowhere to be found.

  “Well, I guess this changes nothing.” Palahniuk threw the paper down and the pain from his foot reminded him of the break he wanted so badly earlier. “I need a break.”

  “Well, go wait for us at the market and we’ll take a look around.” Kyle said looking at Jerry.

  Palahniuk limped over to the market and stumbled inside. He sat on one of the counters and took his boots off. He felt his socks peel away from his feet and he knew before taking them off all the way he had blisters and they had probably burst. He looked down at his right foot and saw the red skin, blood and swollen flesh that he dreaded.

  Taking his other boot off, he found the same thing. He needed to let them dry and heal but the miles of road they had ahead of them were going to make that impossible. It had only been one day, but twenty miles was a long trek. He put on a clean pair of dry socks and carefully stood back up. He searched the aisles and found the medication section. Wrappers and plastic were scattered all over the floor. He looked around and was desperate to find anything. He couldn’t die of an infection after surviving for years and beating the odds. He spotted a box of Neosporin and picked it up, the rattle inside brought a smile to his face. We walked back to the counter and opened the package finding a full tube inside. It had most likely expired but better than nothing.

  He took the socks off and smeared a thin coat of the ointment on his feet. He let it sit there and waited for Jerry and Kyle to come back.

  Jerry and Kyle weaved their way through the town and found an old military surplus store on the outskirts. Sitting in the parking lot was an old deuce and a half truck, much like the one Rambo drove in the movie First Blood. The body was painted in the old forest green pattern with a green canvas cover over the bed of the truck. Jerry drooled at the idea.

  “You think we can get that running?” Jerry asked.

  “Hell yeah,” Kyle said walking up to the shop.

  Looking at
the front door of the shop Kyle noticed there were bullet holes in the door, the metal folded out. Whoever was shooting had done it from the inside. They were both hesitant but Jerry kicked the door. It didn’t budge. He kicked it again and felt some movement. The third time Kyle joined in and the door separated from the frame. It opened enough to allow Jerry to peek inside and he saw a stack of boxes behind the door. He pushed it further and he was able to squeeze in. He pulled his sidearm out and looked around the pitch black building.

  “I need a light.” Jerry said. Kyle handed him a lighter and Jerry went inside. He found the counter and went behind. On a hook hung the key he suspected was for the truck. He explored through the store to get an idea of what was available there. There was plenty for them to work with.

  “Jackpot!” Jerry said back to the door.

  Jerry handed the key to Kyle and went back inside. He pulled some tarps off the windows letting light in. The shelves and piles of supplies were now visible. He didn’t see any food yet but figured a place like this would have some MREs (meals ready to eat) somewhere. Jerry went back outside and saw Kyle already tinkering with the truck.

  “What do you know about these?” Jerry asked.

  “Diesel,” Kyle replied.

  “Right, but these will run on anything. That gas station back there I bet has a tank full of used motor oil. We can use that to get out of here.”

  “Are you serious?” Kyle replied.

  “We just have to get this started.”

  Clearing the doorway and looking around the shop Kyle found spare parts for the truck in the back room. They switched out the battery after topping off the acid inside. Jerry switched out the fuel filter and checked the oil filter. They checked the tank and found it almost empty. Most gas and diesel wouldn’t be good anymore so they went back to the gas station for a source of fuel. Jerry continued to the station and Kyle checked on Palahniuk.

  “We have a ride.” Kyle said looking at Palahniuk sitting on the counter. “What happened?”