by Joe Nobody
It was another five minutes before Daniels finally reported, “All secure, sir.”
Then the rattling grind of the metal gangplank floated up to the bridge. After a solid thud of the walkway being secured to Utah’s hull, Daniels announced, “Docking completed, sir. Ready to disembark.”
“Let’s get below and see how badly I tore up our boat,” Ulrich stated calmly. “I hope the Pentagon doesn’t dock my pay to cover the repairs.”
It was a relief that Ulrich was maintaining his sense of humor. Jack knew it was a coping method for the officer, as well as helping others deal with the stress that was nearly as thick as the ash polluting the air.
“Sir, don’t you find it odd that a vessel, any vessel, can enter a US Navy base without being challenged?” the XO asked.
“Yes. Even more telling is that no one has met us at the dock. We could be a boatload of Russian Commandos mounting an invasion, and the Navy’s Welcome Wagon doesn’t appear to be on duty.”
It was just over 30 minutes later when Jack and Ulrich climbed out of the forward torpedo room, both of the officers’ faces smeared with an expression of disgust.
“We are now officially out of commission,” Ulrich stated. “No way we can go to sea with a 14-inch slash through our hull.”
“You did an excellent job docking the boat, sir,” Jack countered. “No one could have done better. Besides, there was no other option.”
“Still, a US Navy submarine doesn’t go to sea if it can’t submerge. Even with the damage control patch they’re welding on, Utah won’t be able to handle any pressure. I’m afraid it will take a few days in dry dock to repair my handiwork.”
The two men returned to the bridge, finding Chief Daniels preparing the shore party he had selected. Four sailors stood at attention, each holding an M16 rifle at port arms. Jack noted the spare magazines in their pockets and assumed that each of the men was rated MA, or Master at Arms. It was as close to an infantry squad as the submarine could muster.
Daniel’s voice was stern, “We don’t know the current status of the base. Our last, solid information was that the Marines had taken over, but that was several days ago. Do not, I repeat, do not shoot at anyone unless fired upon. Identify yourselves and this boat if challenged. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” the chorus agreed.
“Excellent. Now, stick with the officers and keep your heads on a swivel. Good luck.”
Daniels then returned his attention to his commanding officer, “I’ve also taken the liberty of posting armed security at the gangplank, sir. This base is too quiet for my liking. Something is definitely wrong.”
Nodding, Ulrich said, “Good work, Chief. Let’s go see if we can find out what’s going on around here.”
Given the stillness of the night, the shore party’s footfalls across the gangplank sounded like a stampede of cattle to Jack’s ears. It was difficult to believe they were in the middle of one of the world’s busiest military facilities.
Captain Ulrich noticed it as well, “I don’t even hear birds or insects, Commander. It’s eerie.”
The pumice and grit provided a solid coating of nearly six, snow-like inches of ground cover. A light slate in color, and far more like powder than the product of any winter storm, it was slightly crunchy under their feet. Here and there, the beams of the detail’s flashlights brightened drifts, just like the main deck of the Korean container ship Jack had boarded. “Almost reminds me of the Hollywood movie depictions of a nuclear winter, sir. The ash would serve to dampen and absorb sound.”
Heading down the long concrete pier, Jack pointed out the Los Angeles Class sub docked between Utah and the main cluster of the base’s structures. “There’s no gangplank or security, sir. She looks cold.”
“Odd,” the captain responded.
Next, they spotted a Marine Corps Humvee that had been abandoned after slamming into a utility pole. One of the rifle-toting sailors pointed out a series of bullet holes in the dash. Cisco swept away a coating of cinder from the seat, a dark purple stain now appearing in the flashlight’s circle. “What happened to the driver?” someone asked. No one had an answer.
They trekked another 100 yards before the point rifleman stopped, his beam fixed on an odd shape ahead.
There, in the middle of the otherwise-flat concrete surface, laid a series of unusually shaped humps, all covered with the same grey, fluffy carpet of volcanic spew.
The shore party stopped, studying the formation with a wary eye. It was Jack who stepped forward and began brushing away the ash with his shoe. The commander jumped back when the empty eyes of a human skull appeared.
“Shit,” Cisco hissed, “Wasn’t expecting that.”
Despite the haunting appearance, the commander took a knee and began uncovering the cadaver while asking, “How long would it take for a human body to decompose?”
No one seemed willing to hazard a guess, so the skipper keyed his radio mic, ordering the bridge to locate the boat’s pharmacist mate and ask him the question.
“Something strange about this poor fellow,” Jack continued. “It’s like his skin has been melted off, yet I don’t see any burn marks on his clothing.”
Ulrich stepped forward to examine the body, pointing at the bloodstained uniform of a Marine private and the two bullet holes in the man’s tunic.
“Captain, he says the answer depends on the environment, humidity, wildlife, and average temperature. He has no idea about San Diego, sir,” Utah’s bridge reported.
“Thanks for nothing,” Ulrich mumbled.
“I’m no expert, sir, but I don’t think we’re looking at normal decomposition with this man,” Jack added.
The commander then pulled a small knife from his pocket, opened the blade, and gently cut into the deceased Marine’s uniform.
The normally heavy cloth seemed to yield to Jack’s blade with less resistance than the commander would have expected. It was brittle, more like thin cardboard. When he had managed to cut open a two-inch slice of the sleeve, he reached down and tugged on the fabric.
The skin underneath still belonged to a dead man, but it was far more intact than any exposed section of the fallen infantryman’s body. “What the hell?”
“Could there be some sort of corrosive substance in the ash?” another sailor asked. “Something that dissolves skin?”
The question was valid, each member of the shore party now glaring down at the powder that covered their shoes and pants.
“We waded through this stuff onboard the Korean ship for over an hour,” Jack stated. “No one reported any sort of skin burn … or rash … or other issue. I don’t think it’s the ash.”
“We need to keep moving,” Ulrich stated firmly. “Perhaps someone here can explain all this … if there’s anybody left.”
As the group moved on, a flash and then a low rumble rolled across the harbor. Everyone turned around just as another streak of lightning shocked the western sky. “That front is moving in,” Ulrich commented. “This little expedition of ours is going to suck even more if that storm catches us out in the open.”
Why haven’t the rains washed away the ash? Jack thought. He didn’t voice the question, instead filing it away as another component of the mysterious world he now occupied.
They finally vacated the dock area, wandering through one of the side streets of the massive base. The lightning bursts coupled with the thunder’s boom were closer now, the electrical flashes illuminating a bizarre, surreal landscape.
They passed several unidentifiable ash mounds, some of which could have been bodies, or not. After the encounter with the dead Marine, no one was anxious to excavate the unusual ‘bumps in the road.’
At the next intersection, there had been an automobile accident, two of the base’s fleet of small pickup trucks apparently involved in a fender-bender. No one had bothered to remove the vehicles, one of the units still sitting with the driver’s door partially ajar.
Despite the openness
of the landscape, Jack felt like he was plodding through a cave. With the starless, moonless sky devoid of electrical lights and the mono-colored carpet of volcano exhaust blanketing every surface, the commander was reminded of being inside an underground cavern. Even the crunchy footfalls of his men sounded peculiar.
The wind picked that moment to rise from the west, the already spooked crew now having to shield their eyes from the blowing grit that covered every surface. They could detect its blizzard-like consistency in their flashlights. Jack fought the urge to cough, desperately not wanting to make any noise.
Entering a row of warehouses helped, the structures blocking part of the storm’s approaching fury. The first few spits of rain began to fall.
“What the hell?” one of the sailors quipped, slapping his neck.
“Shit!” barked another man, rubbing the back of his hand. “Something bit me!”
Jack then felt the same stinging pain. “Insects?” he whispered, looking down at his arm. “At least something is alive.”
His flashlight, however, revealed nothing but a drop of greenish liquid on his limb. The rain? he thought. What on God’s earth?
The few drops now became a mist, the lightning flashing with more fury now, the thunder almost constant.
Jack’s skin began to burn, every section of his exposed skin feeling like someone was holding a hair dryer far too close. He pictured the dead Marine back on the pier, the unusual decay of the man’s flesh. It then dawned, “Acid rain!” he snapped to his crewmates. “We need to get inside! Quickly!”
They all understood, but no one moved. It was as if they were waiting on Ulrich to give an order. Jack didn’t hesitate, eyeing the wide door of a warehouse just a few feet ahead. “In there,” he pointed with his light, having to shout to be heard above the wind and thunder. “Get in there!”
It took the shoulders of two sailors to bust in the door before the shore party hustled inside the dark bowels of the vast building. A quick sweep of their torches showed the place was vacant, a few empty pallets in one corner its only occupants.
“Acid rain?” Ulrich stated more than asked. “Are you shitting me?”
They all began to rub their skin, the burning sensation still annoying, but beginning to fade. “I can’t be sure, sir,” Cisco responded. “But it makes sense. That Marine’s skin had a burned look about it, and his uniform was almost crispy.”
“What would cause something like that?” one of the sailors mumbled. “How could anything live with storms that dump burning rain?”
“The volcano evidently blew a lot of nasty stuff into the sky,” someone else offered.
While Ulrich radioed Utah, the rest of the men huddled around, staring out the open doorway as the front generated a constant mist of precipitation. The shower wasn’t enough to wash away the ash, offering just enough moisture to generate a super-soupy fog.
Fortunately, 15 minutes later the front had blown through. The lightning began to explode more to the east, and Jack was the first to gingerly venture outside and test the atmosphere. “I wouldn’t step in any puddles, gentlemen, but there’s no rain coming down.”
Despite the executive officer’s reassurance, the sailors hesitated at the doorway, wide eyes scanning the heavens as if they expected another deluge of scorching drops at any moment. Jack shook his head, “Oh, come on out. You won’t melt. You’re not the Wicked Witch of the West, and this isn’t Oz.”
“Could have fooled me,” someone mumbled.
Normally, the commander would have rebuked the offhand remark, the vocalization a clear breach of discipline. He let it slide. He and his men were trudging through a real world nightmare. He had far more important things to worry about than a mumbled gripe from a panicked sailor.
They continued through the long, low series of storage facilities, eventually approaching an open area that led to several two and three-story office buildings. “Let’s head that direction,” Ulrich pointed. “The communications building is two blocks over.”
As they rounded the next corner, the landscape changed drastically.
The first object that fell into their small circles of light was an armored personnel carrier, lying on its side. Surrounding the behemoth were several body-shaped lumps covered in the off-white carpet. Here, the odor made it obvious that death laid underneath.
The buildings on both sides of the street had been severely damaged, reminding Cisco of photographs he’d studied from war zones. Shards of glass jutted from window frames. Concrete walls showed deep pockets of damage or outright holes in their surfaces; piles of blast debris littered the sidewalks.
Ulrich whistled, “There was a battle here … but who was fighting?”
“This is a Marine Corps armored unit,” one of the sailors noted, pointing at the lifeless metal beast. “My brother is in the Corps, and this is called a Marine Personnel Carrier. According to him, this brute would carry 8 to 9 combat soldiers into an urban environment and basically roll over anything that got in its way. An MPC is supposed to be unstoppable,” he explained, kicking the side of the now defeated machine.
They hadn’t progressed another dozen steps when one of the flashlights illuminated a man sitting with his back against the pole of a road sign. Around him were another five or six prone figures.
Jack drew near to the upright fellow, initially thinking they had located a survivor. The commander’s torch illuminated the hollowed out skull of the victim, his entire face having been blown away during the fight. Evidently, the cadaver’s sitting position had kept the ash from covering his body.
“Look at him,” Ulrich said. “Look at his uniform. He’s not a soldier – he’s a cop.”
Despite the horrific image of the faceless body, Jack brushed away the thin coating of grime from the deceased man’s jacket. Sure enough, the metal badge displayed the acronym “SDPD” quite clearly.
“Why were the police fighting the Marines?” one of the sailors asked no one in particular.
“Maybe they were helping the Marines,” someone else offered.
“Let’s move out,” Ulrich overrode, sensing the fear and stress building in his men. “The communications facility is right up here.”
Jack didn’t blame the senior officer. The headless cop was a visual that would haunt each of them for years, if not forever. It was time to move on.
The closer they slogged toward the large limestone structure ahead, signs of previous combat increased in frequency and intensity. A sea of bodies coated the ground, Utah’s sailors having to step around the dead and manage their footfalls. Sometimes the impasse was due to a single, fallen comrade, other routes blocked by a small pile of the fallen. Two more military vehicles appeared in the circle of their flashlights, both units appearing to have burned.
The boarding party found itself at the foot of several stone steps leading to the front doors of the communications building and facing another obstacle.
Someone had erected a barricade around the steel and bronze entranceway, everything from old desks to sandbags randomly stacked to block the door and provide cover. “Careful,” Jack warned. “This was obviously the Alamo, and there still may be trigger-happy defenders.”
“Sir, you might want to see this,” one of the Utah riflemen called out, pain obvious in his voice.
Ulrich and Cisco approached the sailor who was now bent over vomiting. Between heaves, the man pointed around the corner of the building into what appeared to be a delivery area.
The light from Ulrich’s torch revealed a horrific scene.
Evidently, the defenders had used the side street as a morgue, or more accurately, a crematorium. Dozens and dozens of bodies had been stacked and burned, the charred bones and blackened skulls nearly filling the area.
“God in heaven,” Ulrich mumbled. “There must be over 50 … I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Jack struggled to hold down his own bile. “They probably torched the remains to keep down the smell,” he ventured.
“This is Commander Jack Cisco, Executive Officer of the USS Utah!” Jack shouted after making sure everyone in their party had found some place to avoid flying bullets.
“Hello inside the communications center! This is Commander Cisco! Don’t shoot!”
Jack felt like a second-rate actor in a “B” grade movie, but couldn’t think of anything else to say. There was no response from inside the darkened building.
Twice more Jack called out, refining his announcement each time. Still, no one answered the hail.
“I don’t think anyone is home,” the XO finally whispered to his captain.
“We’re going to have to go in,” came the dreaded reply.
Again, Jack wished for daylight. Their flashlights made every man an easy target. A hostile could be concealed so many places in the shadows.
Exchanging nods with his superior, Jack stood and forced one fear-weakened leg over the nearest section of the obstruction. When a hail of gunfire didn’t rake his exposed body, he gingerly threw his other limb over the wall of sandbags and immediately fell flat on his ass.
The surface inside the perimeter was carpeted with not only soot but also spent shell casings. Hundreds and hundreds of the small brass tubes were strewn everywhere, all coated with a frosting of slick ash. It was like trying to tiptoe across an ice rink wearing wooden shoes.
It took the now-embarrassed naval officer two steps to figure out how to slide his foot along the surface and remain upright.
Inside, his flashlight’s beam illuminated empty ammo cans, bandage wrappers, MRE boxes, and piles of war trash. It was obvious that an extended firefight had occurred here, probably lasting for days if not weeks. But where were the defenders?
Forcing himself to proceed toward the dark, foreboding interior, Jack moved cautiously and slowly, his light sweeping the area, his pistol up and ready.
