The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "Continue to hold your fire," Barnes said, watching as the tiny helicopter moved silently away over the canyon. "They may be back at some point. Maybe they'll land the next time."

  "Continuing to hold fire," was the reply.

  Skip flew slowly over the canyon and its raging waters, staying well clear of the bridge, which he was surprised to find still standing. Utilizing his military mind he examined the terrain and tried to think where he would put a bridge emplacement if he were in charge of Auburn defense. After a moment's thought he decided on the tall hill on the far side of the bridge, basically the same place he had put it in Garden Hill. With that in mind it took him less than ten seconds to spot their camouflaged lookout bunker.

  "I have an emplacement on the big hill on the south side of the canyon, just east of the bridge," he told Jack. "Get some shots of it and tell me what's there."

  "Right," Jack said, swinging that way. It took him a little longer to find it but finally he did and zoomed in. "Looks like two people in there," he said. "Both have assault weapons that they're pointing at us, both in cammies."

  "Okay," Skip replied, nodding. "Let's give them a wide berth and then swing along the south side of the town as we pass. Keep filming."

  Skip flew slowly - less than twenty knots - but it still took them only three minutes to pass clear of the town of Auburn. On the way out they were able to spot and film the bunkers that guarded the west side of the town as well.

  "What do you think?" Jack asked as he lowered the camera and took a few deep breaths to try to clear the nausea that looking through the viewfinder while in flight had caused.

  "They've got their shit together down there," Skip said, putting on a little more speed. "Maybe a little more together than we do. And they have a hell of a lot more people and guns than we do too."

  "Is that good or bad?"

  Skip took his eyes off the view before long enough to look at his companion. "It could be either," he said. "It could be either."

  They reached the Sacramento Valley six minutes later. The foothills of the Sierras came to a sudden end and they were looking at brown water stretching off to the west, north, and south as far as they could see. The surface of this water was not smooth by any means. It was cluttered with floating debris of all shapes, forms, and sizes, everything from tree branches to lumber to tin cans. In addition to the debris there were thousands of human and animal corpses bobbing around, most near the end of the decomposition cycle. The stench was so strong that they could smell it even from two thousand feet in the air.

  "Jesus," Jack mumbled, staring downward in awe through the viewfinder. "Look at all of the bodies."

  "About a million people lived in Sacramento County," Skip said. "About six hundred thousand in San Joaquin County. All of them died when the water came in."

  Jack said nothing else, knowing that Skip's wife and daughter were probably among the floating bodies, although much further to the south, and that that was preying on his mind.

  Skip banked gently to the left, turning them to almost a due south heading. He stayed out over the water about half a mile from the point where the foothills rose up out of it.

  "How much water is down there?" Jack asked after a few minutes of staring at it.

  "A lot," Skip said, his eyes looking straight ahead. "The Central Valley is about four hundred miles long from north to south and about sixty miles wide. All of it will be flooded now thanks to the rains draining down out of the mountains."

  "What about on the other side? Is this the coastline now?"

  "The coast mountains will still be poking up," Skip said. "But everything on the other side of them will be washed away from the tidal waves I would think. San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Monterey, they're probably nothing but mud flats now."

  "Christ," Jack said, looking off towards the horizon. "That one little comet really did a number on us, didn't it?"

  "It really did," he agreed sadly.

  Skip spotted the twin black ribbons of Highway 50 rising out of the water and into the hills a few minutes later. He turned back to the east when he was directly above them, carefully avoiding a radio tower that was miraculously still standing just on the edge of the Central Sea. Two miles from the shoreline was the town of El Dorado Hills, a bedroom community for the Sacramento region and the town that Paul had advised him to keep an eye out for.

  Like most of the other foothill and mountain communities, landslides or flooding had flattened most of the buildings but some of the town remained standing. Like Garden Hill, there were several walled subdivisions full of expensive houses dotting the landscape. Unlike Garden Hill, there was absolutely no sign of people. El Dorado Hills appeared to have been abandoned.

  At the same time, something about the town was telling Skip that it was different than the other dead towns they had come across. He could not put his finger on just what it was, but his instincts were being jigged by something. He kept clear of the actual town but slowed up considerably as they passed. "Get a good record of this place," he told Jack.

  "Why?" Jack asked. "There's nothing there. It's about as empty as can be."

  "Just do it," Skip said.

  With a shrug, Jack did it, filming every inch of what was still standing and then panning out to the surrounding area to get that as well.

  Five minutes later they were back over familiar ground. The destroyed town of Cameron Park loomed ahead of them and beyond it, its rich airport. Skip circled several times around the airport, Jack and the troops in the back keeping a sharp lookout for anything amiss. They saw nothing but what they expected to see. The airport and the surrounding terrain looked the same as it had two days before. Skip made the decision to take them down.

  He descended slowly until he was hovering right over the fueling area. Inch by inch he decreased his altitude until the tank was resting on the ground. Though he couldn't see this happening, he was able to feel it when forty pounds of weight was suddenly removed from the aircraft. Jack, looking out through his open door, confirmed the touchdown visually. Skip pulled the release latch that opened the cargo hook and allowed the rope holding the tank to fall free.

  "It's down and safe," Jack confirmed, bringing his head back in and closing the door.

  "Okay," Skip said. "Let's take one more pass around and then we'll set it down. Be ready for anything down there."

  "Ready for anything," Jack repeated. He looked back behind him at the three newbies. "Lock and load, guys," he yelled loudly enough for them to hear over the engine noise. And then, by example, he flipped the safety off on his weapon and jacked one into the chamber.

  "Where did that chopper come from?" Barnes asked the assembly of officers in the room. "That is the question that we have to address."

  It was an hour after the flyby had occurred and Barnes had gathered the two remaining platoon commanders he had left in town - Lieutenants Corban and Smith - for a meeting on the ramifications of what they had seen.

  "It came from the east," said Corban, a dark haired neo-nazi who thought that Timothy McVeigh had been framed. "That means Garden Hill, Blue Canyon, or Truckee."

  "No," said Smith, a former naval officer aboard a fast frigate. "We know from Bracken's recon trip that Garden Hill didn't have a chopper. I hardly think he could have failed to note a helicopter in the town. That chopper was based at Cameron Park before the comet. I bet that's were it came from."

  "But it came from the east!" Corban insisted. "Cameron Park is to the southwest!"

  "So they went north and flew along the canyon before they got to us," Smith said. "Just because it flew in from that way doesn't mean that's where it came from. Who the hell do you think was flying it if not for the pilot that flew it before the comet? It had to have come from Cameron Park!"

  "Either way," Barnes said, silencing both of them just by talking, "we have to find out. That chopper and its pilot are perhaps the most valuable things left in this region, more valuable than food even. We need to get our hands
upon it, not just so we can utilize it ourselves but so we can keep others from utilizing it against us. We must stop at nothing to get our hands upon it. We must sacrifice men to take it if that is necessary and we must destroy it if we can't take it.

  "Our mission for the near future has just changed, men. Once our battalion returns from Garden Hill we will concentrate all of our efforts upon finding that machine and its pilot. Nothing else will take precedence until that is done."

  "Okay," Jack, the videographer, said as the section with the train cars started to play. He was sitting at the front of the conference table next to the television set that Paul had utilized during Jessica's trial the previous night. He held the video camera in his hands and was using the controls to fast forward and rewind sections for Paul, Skip, and Paula. The camera was wired into the TV so that its images could be seen on the large screen.

  It was two hours after the mission had ended, an hour before dinnertime. The helicopter was sitting safely back in the parking lot outside and the tank containing 250 gallons of jet fuel - a tank that Skip had neatly landed atop a wheeled pallet that Paul had built - was resting safely in the maintenance shed. After dropping off the tank and refueling from it, Skip had flown back to Cameron Park alone to pick up the four troops he had been forced to leave behind due to weight concerns. Though absolutely nothing had happened to Jack, Karen, Cindy, and Ron while they had been alone and isolated down there, it had been a long hour and half for everyone concerned. No one liked to leave their people hanging in the wind in an isolated place, nor did anyone particularly like to be left there.

  As a reward for the successful mission Paul had opened up the intoxicant supply room for the benefit of the returning troops. Currently Ron, Cindy, and Karen were utilizing one of the empty storage rooms to play a game of quarters with tequila shots. Skip, though he longed to join them, was abstaining for now so he could give his debriefing and discuss some of the Mickers at hand. He, like everyone else in the room, including Jack, was sipping from a warm bottle of beer as the video played. In front of him was a small pile of marijuana that he had carefully crunched up with a small pair of scissors. He was trying to roll a joint but was not having a lot of luck since it had been more than sixteen years since he had last attempted such a thing.

  "Give me that shit," Paula said to him after the third paper ripped in half while he was twisting it. "Fucking cops don't know how to roll a decent hooter." She pulled the pile over to her and began expertly constructing a fat one.

  "I didn't know you knew how to do that," Skip told her, watching her fingers go through the motions.

  "I'm a writer," she said. "We all smoke dope. It's a law. Where do you think that some of this shit came from? I turned over at least an ounce when we gathered supplies."

  Paul, watching the exchange, laughed a little and then turned his attention back to the television set just as the view began to pan over the train cars. There was no sound since all they would have heard would have been the engine noise and the picture was a little jerky but the zoom worked admirably. "You were right, Skip, those are grain carriers and the lids are still on."

  "Will the grain still be good though?" Paula asked after sealing shut her creation with saliva. "That's the real question."

  "Those containers are relatively airtight," Skip said, "but they're not vacuum sealed or anything. There's probably going to be a little mold in there after all this time. Maybe even weevils or some other vermin."

  "But we should be able to salvage some of it, shouldn't we?" Paula said, holding out her hand to Paul and miming the act of operating a lighter.

  "We should," Paul said, fishing out his Bic disposable and handing it across. "And a little mold wouldn't hurt us anyway. If it comes down to starving or getting a few bugs in the food, I'll have to go with the bugs every time."

  While Paula lit up the joint and took a tremendous hit of it, Jack slowed the speed of the tape as the first of the cargo carriers came into view.

  "They're still locked shut," Skip said, taking the joint as it was passed to him. "There could be anything in there, anything at all from canned food to auto parts to boxes of condoms from the latex factory in Oakland. We need to fly some people out there to go down and take a look." He took a large hit and then passed the joint on to Jack. Jack looked at it for a moment, feeling decidedly strange to be offered such a thing by an adult, but finally, figuring it was an honor, he took it and sucked some up.

  "I agree," Paul said, holding out his hand as the joint came his way. "I could rig up some of the vertical rescue supplies from the fire engine so that people can be lowered down from the helicopter. A pair of bolt cutters and channel locks should be enough to get those doors open."

  "Do I hear you volunteering for the job?" Skip asked with a smile.

  Paul sucked up his hit and put an amused grin upon his face. He had been neatly trapped. He passed the joint back to Paula and then exhaled a plume of smoke. "I guess I walked right into that one, didn't I? Yeah, I guess I can do it. I'm terrified of heights, but I'm the only one who knows how to operate the ropes and pulleys."

  "You're scared of heights?" Jack asked. "But you're a fireman."

  Paul shrugged. "Most of the time we stay on the ground. Part of the academy is that we all have to climb to the top of the ladder-truck aerial. That's 110 feet up. They had to threaten to dismiss me before I finally did it. And even then I barfed halfway up."

  "A fireman who's afraid of heights and a cop who can't roll a joint," Paula said. "What a strange group we have here."

  They all had a laugh and Jack, after taking another hit, advanced the film to the part where the tanker cars came into view. Paul had a small orange book in front of him and he opened it as Jack paused on the first HAZMAT number: 1203. He flipped through and found the entry in less than a minute. "Gasoline," he announced. "Just like you thought, Skip. What else do we got?"

  "One-nine-nine-three," Skip read as the next group came into view.

  "Hang on," Paul said, flipping through a few pages.

  "I guess jet fuel would be a little too much to ask for, huh?" Skip said.

  "Apparently so," Paul said, putting his finger on the entry. "It's diesel fuel, probably from the same refinery. That could come in handy if we can find a way to get our hands on a generator of some sort. If nothing else it'll keep the fire engine running. What's next?"

  The last three cars were marked with the number 2373, which Paul identified as diethoxymethane.

  "What the hell is that?" Paula wanted to know.

  "Beats me," Paul said. "Let me look up what the book has on it." He flipped through the pages for a few minutes, referencing a different section. "It just says it's a flammable liquid with a low flash-point. It doesn't say what it's for. We'll have to do some more research on this one."

  By the time they looked at the last of the cargo carriers and speculated on just what might be inside of them, the joint was nothing more than a roach and they were all feeling quite pleasant. Jack then fast-forwarded the tape until the footage from Auburn began to come into view. Of course by that point every person in town knew that a large community of people had been found in the neighboring township, but it was quite different to hear about such a thing and to actually see photographic evidence of it. Paul and Paula watched with rapt attention as the first set of bunkers came into view.

  "You can see," Skip narrated, "that they are fairly well set up in the defense department. Those are sandbagged emplacements that are constructed considerably better than the ones we have. They could withstand a prolonged artillery barrage with those. You'll also note that they all have assault rifles. My guess is that there was a gun store in town that they raided after the impact."

  "There was a gun store," Paul said. "Auburn Bait and Guns. It was where a lot of the Garden Hill men used to get their shit."

  Skip nodded. "There was also a sheriff's station in town, was there not?"

  "Yes," Paul agreed. "Auburn is the county seat. T
he main office was there."

  "That means that there's a good chance they have some fully automatic weapons as well if they were able to get to that building before it got washed away or whatever."

  While everyone considered that, the tape rolled on, showing closer views of the emplacements and then shots from inside the town itself.

  "Look there," Paul said, peering at the tiny figures of people moving here and there through the streets. "Those are all women walking back and forth. At least it looks like they are. You can just make out the long hair and the uh..." He looked uncomfortably at Paula.

  "The tits?" she said, smiling.

  "Uh... yeah," he said, laughing a little at his own embarrassment. "The tits. And do you notice something about them?"

  "None of them are carrying guns," Jack said. "They're all carrying firewood or water buckets or other things, but none of them are armed."

  "Right," Paul said. "It looks like only the men have the firearms."

  They continued to watch the video, rewinding it and fast-forwarding it again and again as they approached and then skirted the town. They watched as the troops, reacting to an alarm raised probably by the emplacement crews, came rushing out into the street to take cover. All of the troops seemed to be male. There was a small margin for error of course, not every figure was in focus enough to tell, but it certainly appeared that what they suspected was true.

  "So what does that tell us about this place?" Skip asked as Jack halted the tape again. "It seems, based on what we see here, that they have a woman to man ratio that is similar ours. But there, they are not utilizing their women as soldiers. Why not?"

  "They don't trust them to do that," Paula said. "I don't want to draw any hard conclusions based on this few minutes of video taken from a mile away, but it seems to me that, at the very least, we are talking about a society that is vastly different then what we have. Are they doing this just because they have enough men to spare that they don't need to arm up the women, or are all of those women captives there? We have no way of knowing."