Seeking a Sane Society: Nothing is the Same (The Seeking Series Book 2)

by Albert A. Correia

  “That’s a matter of opinion, but the question is, what good is it here and now?”

  Zach recalled what Burchett had said the day before. He didn’t remember the exact words, but the significance was clear. So, too, was his response to Goldman.

  “It’s a darned good start.”

  The End

  Get a sneak peek at Correia’s

  anticipated sequel:

  Book Three of The Seeking Series

  The communities of Catalina Island and California’s Central Valley have slowly begun to reorganize following a nuclear holocaust that wiped out most of Earth’s population. Ex-U.S. Army Ranger Zach Arthur has agreed to act as the head of the military unit on Catalina and advise the newly formed State Militia in the vast Central Valley.

  When small town families begin to mysteriously disappear, Zach traces them to a maximum security penitentiary where he finds they are being held as involuntary laborers. Just as he begins to formulate a plan, a Russian mafia group lands on the coast and force-marches twenty women slated for slavery to the same lockup.

  Even for someone with Zach’s experience, rescuing prisoners from a well-guarded, impregnable prison appears impossible. But when his thirteen-year-old daughter, Denise, is kidnapped and thrown into the same prison, it becomes personal.

  Can he save the life of his daughter and free dozens of others from an organized group of well-armed thugs? Find out in the latest installment of Albert A. Correia’s The Seeking Series.

  Expected in the Spring of 2017

  Chapter 1

  “HE’S more dead than alive,” the nervous driver told Richard Silva. They were looking at a very large man sprawled out on the bed of a pickup in the parking lot of Barnes Occupational Center. “I’ll tell ya one thing, though,” the man continued. “This is the meanest dude that ever lived, and he just plain ain’t gonna die ‘til he gets even with that guy an’ gal on Catalina.”

  “Gal?”

  “Yeah, man. His mind’s been wandering, but one thing he keeps spouting off about is some young, skinny chick screaming, or screeching, or some such thing. He’s got it in for her, I can tell ya that.”

  Silva leaned over to take a close look at the massive, prone man. He shook his head when he saw the condition the chief of his “state militia” was in. “What the devil happened?” he demanded to know. “His face is caved in and half his bones look broken.”

  “Probably are,” the other man agreed. “The dude landed on a rock from fifty feet up.”

  “Fifty feet up? How the devil did that happen?”

  “I don’t know how, just what. When the shooting was over and he didn’t come back ta da boat, I went looking and found him on top of a big rock in the bay. He’s talking crazy, but the way I got it figured is, the guy he’s planning on killin’ knocked him off da cliff. I saw where it was, and it had ta be at least forty, maybe fifty feet high. The rock he landed on is real jagged, so I’d bet whatever part of him hit it got busted up bad. Not sure what the gal had ta do with it, but he blames her, too.”

  “That was almost three days ago. Where have you been.”

  “Geez, man, it took me hours ta get him off that rock. With that Coast Guard cutter out there, I had ta take the long way from the backside of Catalina ta Santa Barbara. Then I had ta find something big enough ta haul this guy in. Most the abandoned trucks didn’t have no gas, so it took the best part of a day just for that. The roads are all tore up, so I had ta go all the way inta the middle of the valley. Then, when I got ta the Tracy Inn, they told me ya’d gone. Yer lucky ol’ Mal here wakes up now an’ then or I’d never have found you.”

  “Okay, okay,” Silva snapped. “Let’s get him over to the main building. There may be something in the infirmary for his pain.”

  They got in the pickup and Silva gave directions to a two story building. They woke the big man and, with one on each side, helped him limp into the building. The doors were very thick and secured with extra strong locks. All were broken open.

  “Man,” said the driver as they passed through one of the doors, “why’s a job center need security like this?”

  “Don’t let the name fool you,” Silva told him. “This used to be a maximum security prison.”

  “Used ta be? What is it now?”

  “The state capital.”

  “State capital? When I was at the Tracy Inn, they told me that was the state capital.”

  “It was when I was there,” said Silva intently, “and it will be again when I return.”

  * * * * *

  Swirling winds pelted old Milo’s face with dirty snow as he hunted food on the shattered surface of Kodiak Island. The debris that marred the air for months blew away, but the occasional snowfall now got mixed in with the ash that blanketed the skies. The flakes were a dull gray by the time they whirled their way to the rubble that once was Kodiak’s commercial center.

  Milo figured he had uncovered just about all the edible foodstuffs that survived the devastation of Kodiak, but his hunger dictated one last tour of the ruined town. A gust of wind rolled a loose rock into an open crevice at his feet. His glance into the crevice was more rote than inspective. What his eye, though, captured his undivided attention. He found a round object with a slight glint to it under some partially covered rocks. Metal! He dropped to his knees and clawed the rocks away. There were two unopened cans of tuna lodged between two cement blocks. There was no rust on them and they had pull off tops, so he wouldn’t even have to use his knife to open them. One of the unexplainable after affects of the strange happenings in recent months was that there were no forks to be found, anywhere. His knife was for eating.

  He rolled over from his knees to his backside, pulling open one of the cans as he did. He pulled the knife from its scabbard and dug in. There were peas and carrot slices in with the tuna, so he looked at the label to see what he was eating. A large imprinted expiration date stood out. It was two weeks past. That brought a wry smile to his craggy face. He wondered if there was anyone still alive who worried about expiration dates on canned foods.

  Even though he might be the only living being on the island, and he wasn’t likely to live much longer himself, he put the empty can in his bag when he was through. No one had ever called Milo Strunk a litterbug. Sighing contentedly, he leaned back, rested on his elbows, and looked out over the water. The water he had spent most of his life on was right there, just a block away. He saw a lot in his eighty-two years, and not much surprised him. Yet, the sight of a large submarine not a thousand yards away furrowed his brow. More startling than the submarine was the three men in a rubber raft that were heading toward shore.

  Two were armed with un-holstered weapons, and they were looking right at him.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 2

  HE KNEW he could pick off the three of them easily before they had a chance to get him if he had his rifle. He didn’t, and it wasn’t the first time since the island was reduced to rubble that he missed it. It was in his cabin. He never found a trace of his cabin, much less anything in it. So, he sat and waited.

  He watched as the men tied their raft to a stub of metal that extended out from the rubble at the water’s edge. He dropped the unopened can of tuna in his bag. He would eat it later – if he had a later. As the men made their way over the ruined structures that were now the area’s surface, he stood. The man in front was in an officer’s uniform. The men behind carried the guns. Seeing that Milo was unarmed, they holstered their weapons.

  When they got to him, he raised a hand slowly and said, “Howdy.”

  The man in uniform blinked. He didn’t say anything. By the way the other two men kept their eye on him, Milo figured he was their prisoner, and they were expecting something from him. The guy behind the man in uniform said something in a language Milo did not recognize, but, because the submarine was Russian, he assumed that was what they spoke.

  “I have been told,” the man Milo had concluded was a prisoner said in haltin
g English, “to ask you if there is any food on this island.”

  Milo couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sorry, it really isn’t funny, but I ate the last can of tuna a few minutes ago.” No sense in giving up the other can.

  The uniformed man nodded. He looked around. “This damage does not look like what bombs would do.”

  “No,” Milo responded, “it wasn’t bombs. You guys didn’t bomb the island, but it was you guys who bombed Alaska, wasn’t it?”

  “I do not know. In Russia, the high command does not confer with underlings when deciding who and who not to bomb.”

  Milo found the comment amusing, but refrained from laughing again. He said, “Well, that’s one thing we have in common. And, what the heck, it could have been China or North Korea. It really doesn’t matter anymore who did it, but someone hit Anchorage and Juneau with nuclear bombs, and then they blew the devil out of about every other town in the state with conventional bombs. Whoever it was, though, didn’t bomb the island directly. It was probably scheduled for later. When the powers that be saw what happened, it turned out not to be necessary. See, most of the buildings were knocked down initially by an earthquake.”

  “Initially?”

  “Yeah. Oh, it was a biggee, all right, and did some massive damage right off. It happened about a day after Anchorage was knocked off the map. I heard what happened on the mainland and decided to take a hike. . . to get away from town. No sense being where a bomb is likely to be dropped at any moment.”

  “But, there were no bombs?”

  “Not a one. Of course, all those bombs shaking up the ground the way they did the day before may have caused it. I’m no expert on quakes, so I reckon I’d best let future scientists argue over that one. My thinking, though, is that the quake hit right here under the island, like one did in the sixties. That one wiped out half the town and most of the fishing fleet. This one must have been five times worse.”

  “Where are the people? We have seen no one but you.”

  “All dead, I think,” Milo told him. “As I said, I was out for a walk when it hit. It turned out I was on the only hill that wasn’t completely flattened. I got tossed around something fierce, but the hill and I somehow survived.”

  Shrugging, he continued, “By the time I got back to town, there wasn’t much left. There were still people then, though. Aftershocks knocked some more off, and then that thing happened.” He pointed at a volcano that stood thousands of feet above the general terrain on the mainland peninsula. It was the source of the black ash that was still spewing for miles.

  “You think the ground shaking caused a new eruption?”

  “A new volcano, period. There wasn’t even a hill there before. A day after the earthquake, we had an even bigger shake, and that monster sprang up out of nowhere. Anything still standing fell and got crumpled up so thoroughly it formed what is like a new surface. Everything, building, cars, and I guess people, got crushed and busted up. They’re buried under the rubble – heck, they are the rubble. There hasn’t been a soul around since.”

  “Except you.”

  “Yeah, except me. Being inland appears to have saved me, at least for the time being. There may be some more like me, but, if so, they’re staying hidden.”

  The officer looked at the man next to him. “Any questions?” he asked. He turned to Milo. “This fellow speaks passable English.” He jerked his head toward the man behind him. “The man back there is the boss. I think he understands a little, but he doesn’t speak it.”

  “Where is food?” the man next to the officer asked.

  “Good question,” said Milo. “As I said, everything here was destroyed. There may be some usable stuff buried, but us not having excavation equipment, it’s of no use. Winter is about on us, there’s no power, and I guess half the state is radioactive. In other words, there’s no food here. None in Alaska, period, except maybe some fish and polar bears.”

  The man exchanged words with the boss.

  “He wants to know, where is food if not here.”

  Milo thought before asking, “How many people?”

  “Eighty-five.”

  That took Milo aback. “Eighty-five?” He looked at the officer. “I was in the navy in the sixties and studied up a little about submarines. That’s a Romeo class sub, right?”

  “That is what Americans call them, yes,” said the officer.

  “Ship’s complement must be what? Fifty? Fifty-five?”

  “Fifty-four,” confirmed the uniformed man.

  “Except you’ve got a crew of eighty-five.”

  “Not a crew. I am the captain. We went to help people stranded on a sinking ship. Once we saved them, they overpowered the crew and killed everyone except key personnel. Only twenty are crew.” He indicated the man behind him with a twist of his head. “Forty are him and his men. The other twenty-five are female. Some are no more than teenagers. They, too, are guarded.”

  Milo nodded his understanding. Another thought hit him. “Say, I would have thought all the Romero class subs would have been out of service by now.”

  “For many years, they have only been used for training and surveillance,” the captain said.

  “So, you’re not armed?”

  “We are fully armed,” the captain replied proudly. “A week before the war started, we were suddenly made fully operational and sent into the North Pacific with orders to be on the alert for enemy warships.”

  “So, your high command knew something was up, right?”

  “I repeat, they do not confer with us at this level about such things.”

  “Any fighting?”

  “No enemy ships came into view.”

  “Probably none left to. . . ”

  “Stop!” snarled the man next to the submarine captain. “What you talk about not important. Important is where food is.”

  Milo turned to him, but didn’t hurry a response. “Okay. Being as there are so many of you,” he said slowly, “there needs to be a lot of food. I’ve thought about it over the few months since it happened, what with me needing food, myself. The quake in the sixties created a tsunami so big it just about wiped out ocean towns as far south as Northern California. The quakes and the volcano that rocked us a few months ago were maybe ten times worse, so I guess everything within twenty to thirty miles of the ocean was wiped out by tsunamis all the way from here to San Francisco. Bombs probably did away with what the water didn’t.”

  “Do not tell us where no food,” the man said irritably. “Tell us where is food.”

  “Well, just hold on to your britches there, fellow. I’m getting to it. As I said, I’ve been thinking about it, and I concluded the place where I grew up, California’s Central Valley, may still be able to produce food. It’s the world’s richest agricultural area, but none of the cities are gigantic, so they probably weren’t worth being nuked.”

  The man turned to his boss and the two thugs again had a quick conversation in Russian. They brought the submarine’s captain into it. After several exchanges, he nodded agreement to what they suggested.

  When the mini conference ended, the captain said to Milo. “I have enough fuel to get us to Central California. We have enough food to get us all there if we use it sparingly. That is where we are going.”

  “Good luck,” said Milo.

  “You know this California Central?” said the man by the captain.

  “Well, I grew up there, but. . . ”

  “You know place and you speak language. You go with us.”

  “I don’t know. . . ” Milo protested. But when he saw two guns quickly pointed at him, he continued, “. . . but, what the heck, there’s nothing to do around here anymore. Sure, I’d love to go along for a looksy.”

  At least he might live another couple of weeks this way, longer than he figured on surviving before they showed up.

  And it’s going to be interesting to see if there’s actually anyone or anything left in Central California, he thought.

  * * *
* *

  Chapter 3

  DENISE Arthur ambled along the southern shore of Catalina Island, kicking absently at pebbles. She glanced occasionally at the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, not really paying attention to the rolling waves.

  She had always been a happy, humorous girl who reveled in being part of a close family. She still loved her family and cherished her time with them. That hadn’t changed. Now, however, she needed alone time. Life, as she knew, had changed drastically.

  Three and one-half months earlier, her main concern was what to expect going from elementary to high school. Suddenly, almost all of the world’s cities and towns, and most of the people, were eradicated. They were simply wiped off the surface of the earth by a nuclear holocaust. It happened virtually overnight, with over ninety percent of the deaths and destruction occurring in the first week.

  To Denise and her family, however, it had literally been overnight. They were cruising on their sailboat in the South Pacific and didn’t learn about the holocaust until all the nuclear warheads were expended. By then, most of civilization was blown away. Returning to what was their home, the Arthur family was forced to fight just to stay alive.

  Denise had killed people. The first was a modern day pirate who attacked her on the Arthur’s 41-foot ketch. Later, because she was a crack shot, even better than the few ex-army snipers on the island, she had to take out bazooka-wielding assault troops who were trying to sink their sailboat. Protecting herself and her family had become a central part of her existence.

  It was not the men she killed that weighed heavily on her mind as she walked along, however. She had not seen those bodies. The pirate was knocked overboard by the impact of her shots, and she shot the others at a distance.

  It was the mangled body of the man she saw atop a rock in the bay that she could not expel from her mind.