After the Day- Red Tide

by Matthew Gilman

  On the rooftops of shops, the owners set up gardens and in some extreme cases aquaponic systems with fresh fish and vegetables. These systems were high yielding but not enough to feed more than the people that ran them. Some shops tried reopening restaurants. The menus were limited and it was difficult to have a place serving food with armed security. The system of barter for a meal was complicated at first but soon a standard was set. Because fresh food was available people showed up to buy fish and vegetables instead of having a hot meal served, a luxury people simply could not afford. Koreatown continued to work together and survived on their own while the rest of the city fluctuated from violence to peace and back.

  The spotters on the rooftops started noticing a change. For three years they had watched as people ran around in the streets shooting at one another while they fought over the limited resources. Gangs in all out wars and scavengers would sneak around trying to find something of value. One day a spotter saw something that didn’t make any sense to him. Men of different gang colors were running together towards the shore. They weren’t fighting one another; instead they appeared to be working together against the same enemy. Who that enemy could be was the biggest question. Spotters wrote messages to the shop owners and radioed information to each other trying to piece together what was happening. The shop owners organized an emergency meeting and met in the center of Koreatown. The leader of the group was an elderly woman they called Lady Kim. She had moved to the U.S. after World War II and had set up shop a few days after she exited the boat. She married, gave birth to five children, and most of them opened their own businesses. During the L.A. riots she was one of the first to organize spotters on the rooftops never forgetting how Korea was after the war. She remembered the Chinese and Russians rolling tanks down streets, troops dragging people out of houses, and shooting people in the streets. She never forgot these lessons.

  “Lady Kim, I’m afraid that what might be happening outside of our district is something we should learn more about. For the savages to work together all of the sudden is a great concern.” Chang, a food market owner, stated.

  “To put importance on something that barbarians consider important is the blind leading the blind.” another man spoke out.

  “There is no harm in trying to gather information.” Mrs. Smith, a young nail salon owner said. Her shop had been converted to selling dried herbal medicines after the crash.

  The argument went back and forth. The success of Koreatown had gone to the egos of many.

  “We will send two runners to the coast and see for ourselves what is happening. It is better to know that there is no threat than assume and be caught off-guard.” Lady Kim spoke.

  Her order was followed and two runners where sent into the city. They were scheduled to collect any information they could find and return the next day by noon. Instead of the AR-15s that the spotters were given, the runners were armed with 1911 Colt .45s. Lady Kim was fond of investing in the same weapons that the military used.

  The two young men left the neighborhood and returned early the next morning. Both were extra cautious and had sprinted over a mile the last leg of their trip back.

  The group was gathered together immediately and the runners were ordered to keep their mouths shut until every member arrived.

  The two men stood in the room still breathing heavy from their run. Lady Kim was the last member to arrive. Using her cane to navigate to her seat, many wondered if the cane was a prop to make her appear less dangerous than she really was.

  “Well?” Lady Kim asked.

  The two runners looked at each other and one of them finally spoke.

  “The Chinese are here.” the man who had run to the south said.

  “From Chinatown?” one of the shop owners asked.

  “No, the real Chinese army, a fleet landed at the harbor unloading troops.” the man who ran north said.

  “Gather our troops, arm everyone. We are going to war.” Lady Kim told the group. There would be no debate, nothing to slow down getting prepared.

  Lady Kim turned to her grandson, a young man almost thirty.

  “I will need your help with something.” she said.

  He nodded and they left the room. Lady Kim exited the building and walked to her shop two buildings over. After the attendant unlocked the door for them she went to the back and went down the stairs into the basement. In the storage area boxes were stacked on shelves and piled high in what appeared to be random spots. The kids and grandkids were familiar with Lady Kim’s method of organized chaos.

  “You will need to move these.” she said pointing to the boxes stacked against the back wall.

  Her grandson moved the boxes and exposed the back wall of the basement.

  “Grab that,” Lady Kim pointed to a sledgehammer that was resting next to the stairs. “And start smashing that wall.”

  “Are you sure?” her grandson asked. It was a stupid question he realized. She never gave an order she wasn’t sure of.

  He lifted the hammer and hit the wall. Small chunks of concrete flew in the air. Lady Kim stayed where she was and waited to see what was on the other side. He continued hitting the wall, larger pieces flew off and dust clouded the air. He created a two foot hole and then worked on making it larger. He started to see things on the opposite side. When the hole was large enough to walk through he set the hammer down and looked inside. It was a small room, about the size of a walk-in closet. Much of it was filled with crates, cans, ammo cans, and long plastic bags that were difficult to see through.

  Lady Kim gently pushed her grandson aside and looked in for herself.

  “Just like I left it.” she said.

  “What is this?” her grandson asked .

  “My insurance policy.” she said. Then she looked at him. “The Chinese are going to wish they never fucked with me.”

  Her grandson was shocked. He had never heard her talk like that. He saw a look of anger and pain on her face. She never told anybody in the family about her days in Korea before the war. Back then it was still Korea and not North Korea. After the war was over the Japanese occupation force was gone they were replaced with the Chinese and Russians that were just as bad. Her husband was one of the men dragged from his home and shot in the street to make an example to the rest of the village. Afterwards, she traveled to the south with everything she could carry and bribed her way onto the first ship to America. Her first husband was a Buddhist, a man of peace. She loved him for that but she had learned from his mistake. Later, in America, she heard a man once say while walking down the street, “If you want peace prepare for war.” She didn’t know where it came from, and it didn’t matter. From that moment on she worked to make sure that what happened to her husband never happened again.

  “Gather some trusted men and start carrying that up to the shop and do an inventory. When you’re done we will gather the group and plan our battle.” Lady Kim said.

  Her grandson looked inside the room again and was able to make out some of the items inside. Walls lined with machine guns and rifles of all shapes and sizes. Stacks of ammo cans. Cleaning kits, bandoliers, magazines, Lady Kim had stored away everything to wage a war. Whatever the Chinese had done to his grandmother they had really, really pissed her off.

  Chapter 3: Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean

  The USS Nemo sat submerged offshore. Contact with other branches of the military stopped three years ago and they had been on their own ever since. Captain Palahniuk looks through the periscope inspecting the island they found. The supplies of the submarine were dwindling down and the way they replenished their supplies was to find isolated islands and collect all the food they could find. Coconuts, tropical fruit, and some fish and meat were collected and preserved the best they could before loading it into the submarine and disappearing again into the ocean.

  The island, like many in the Pacific, looked devoid of humans. He saw palm trees; tall peaks that made him think that resources would be plentiful.


  “Prepare to surface.” he ordered as the buzzers started to sound and the crew grew excited.

  The crew would rotate to the island and take turns hunting down food and exploring the new land. Many simply wanted out of the steel can they lived in and get some sunlight.

  Two inflated boats left the submarine filled with pale white men. They were excited and sped to the shore as fast as they could. They were armed with limited weapons and had other equipment to help survey the island.

  Driving the boats on shore, the crews stepped out and hauled them onto the beach tying them to tree trunks. They split into two groups of five men and set out in opposite directions. The island was rocky once you left the shoreline. The trees and vegetation grew through the rocks and thin soil that had accumulated over time. The crew collected fresh water into their canteens that tasted better than the desalinated water of the submarine. Local vegetation was picked over and a few guys volunteered to be a guinea pig to see if the fruit in the book was the plant they were looking at.

  “Why do you do that?” Smith asked. He was a younger seaman that joined the navy a year before The Day and was put on the USS Nemo days before Washington was bombed. The question was to Sawyer, an older man in his late thirties that always seemed to get into trouble whenever possible.

  “What was the most exciting thing you have done in the past month?” Sawyer replied leaving with the rest of the group to continue their expedition.

  At one point the lead man stopped and raised a fist in the air, the signal for the line to stop. He waited patiently. Then, the rest of the group heard a sound. Grunting, snorting.

  The men grew eager. One man pulled out his side arm, an older Colt 1911. He checked to make sure a round was in the chamber.

  Waving the group up the leader moved a pair of branches apart and looked into a clearing where a large boar rummaged around eating whatever it could find.

  The leader looked at the man with the gun, made a gun with his hand and pointed it at his head, signaling what he wanted the man with the gun to do. The man with the gun nodded and took careful aim. The shot rang out and echoed though the island.

  The second group stopped in their tracks a few miles away.

  “That was a shot right?” one of the men asked.

  “How did we get the bright one in our group?” another voice said.

  The point man pulled out his radio.

  “Tango 1 to tango 2, hearing shots over here, was that you? Over.” he said.

  The static on the radio followed for a few seconds.

  “Tango 2 to tango 1 that was us. How many of your guys are in the mood for a pig roast?”

  Captain Palahniuk was strict with keeping the submarine manned with a full crew and only relieving men to shore that had their spots covered by someone that was qualified. Palahniuk never left the boat instead sitting on top of the vessel in a lawn chair enjoying the sun while he could.

  The inflated boats rotated men back and forth until the pig was almost gone and the leftovers were brought to the sub and kept in the mess hall for the men to pick through. Needless to say, nothing was left. During those trips coconuts and other supplies were hauled back to the sub and stored away. The process was tiring, carrying or lowering bundles by rope down the ladder inside.

  The fruit and other plants helped fight scurvy; one thing the captain was concerned about since it had been a common problem for sailors for hundreds of years. The electrolytes from the coconut water would prevent most of these problems but he had to ration the coconuts to keep the submarine submerged for longer periods of time.

  Looking at the map, Palahniuk plotted their next move. After leaving the Middle East, the sub went to the Indian Ocean and then into the Pacific. There he listened to radio broadcasts and collected as much information as he could. The sub was one of a kind. Made from stealth materials and fueled by nuclear power it was an invisible mode of transportation that he took advantage of. The sub was built in secret and put into commission without news of it getting out. The USS Nemo was a departure from the previous idea that bigger was better. The engineers designed it on the older World War II submarines with a nuclear power source instead of a diesel motor. The submarine was small, quiet, and could not be picked up on sonar. It was the stealth fighter of the sea. Nobody knew about the USS Nemo except for the crew and the Pentagon. These days the higher ups were more interested in stealth jets and space weapons. Submarines were old news no matter how high tech they were. Mentioning subs only reminded people of the Cold War and The Hunt for Red October.

  Palahniuk often worried that his career would be forgotten and ladder climbing up the chain of command would be overlooked. Now he was happy to have been placed where he was. As far as he knew this sub and the crew with him in charge were all that remained of the United States Navy.

  Palahniuk plotted their course to the Atlantic Ocean, his hopes were to reach the east coast and regain contact with Washington. Maybe his mission was futile and he should be looking for a home that his crew could adapt to and eventually immerse themselves in. He thought about Hawaii but found out that the island state was a disaster zone from the massive die off. The island couldn’t produce enough food to support the population and millions died.

  His last ditch effort to remain a captain in the U.S. Navy would take them back in to the Indian Ocean, around South Africa, and up the Ivory Coast. It would be weeks, longer if he had to play cat and mouse with any enemy navy vessels. So far the Russians and Chinese remained the biggest threats. He kept his fingers crossed that it would be an easy trip.

  Chapter 4: West Coast United States

  When the items from the basement compartment were gathered and inventoried, everyone in Koreatown was astonished with what Lady Kim had hidden for decades. The list read to the group as such:

  Guns

  10 Mosin-Nagant bolt action 91/30 models, 5 with mounted scopes zeroed in before storing

  10 Thompson sub-machine guns chambered in .45 ACP

  One crate filled with 20 factory modeled AK-47s

  30 Tokarev semi-automatic pistols.

  5 M14 rifles chambered in .308 Winchester/ 7.62x 51mm NATO

  Ammo

  10 spam cans of 7.62x54r for the Mosin-Nagant rifles. 440 rounds each.

  20 ammo cans filled with .45 ACP, unknown # per can.

  20 ammo cans filled with 7.62x39mm for the AK-47s, unknown # per can

  5 boxes filled with 1000 rounds of .308 Winchester each, sealed in plastic with rice packs to fight moisture.

  7 cases ,14 spam cans of 7.62x 25mm, 1600 rounds each case

  At the end of the list were the holsters, slings, pistol belts, bandoliers, cleaning kits and manuals. After the items were inventoried they were handed out to the residents of Koreatown.

  That evening everyone went through their manuals and cleaned their guns, removed the cosmoline, the thick sticky grease that fought rust, and oiled their weapons. Lady Kim and the group went around Koreatown and figured out where to fortify positions and how to create the best places for traps and choke points. All trade and commerce was suspended. Koreatown was cut off again to the city to make sure there were no spies that would try to scout the area. Spotters were ordered to shoot anybody that appeared to be checking out the area.

  They waited weeks. They could hear the fighting in the distance. One of the spotters was bored and had taken an old radio out of the store he worked in and turned the dials to see if he could get anything. Maybe it was a lost cause. People had tried for days to find signals only to get static. Then he heard a voice.

  “…major fighting in Hollywood. The local gangs have been able to keep the Chinese at bay for over a week now but it appears they are on the offensive. I don’t know how long I will be able to keep broadcasting but I promise you that I will be here until the end. For those of you who want to join the fight, Hollywood Boulevard seems to be the place where the action is. And now a message from out sponsors, haha who am I kidding. I would like to thank
my land lady for bringing me some awesome ramen noodles and of course the runners who are keeping me and you updated on the progress. Now for some music. Here is an oldie but a goodie. Rolling Stones with Paint It Black.”

  The music started and the spotter put his two way radio to the FM radio for a few seconds. After a minute he stopped.

  “Who was that?” a response came from his two-way.

  “We have radio! Someone is broadcasting over the FM.”

  After that moment the rest of the rooftops were each given the cheap AM/FM radios that had been sitting in storage. They listened and stayed up to date on the battle in Hollywood.

  Then the Chinese came. Three blocks away a spotter saw a group of green dressed Chinese soldiers moving through the streets.

  “We have company.” the spotter said over the radio.

  Lady Kim stood up in her kitchen and put her cigarette out. She picked up the radio.

  “Nobody fire, let them get close.” she said.

  Lady Kim walked into her bedroom and moved the clothes aside. Sliding open a hidden door she pulled out her personal home protection. A BAR, M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, large in size and caliber. She knew when she bought it on the black market decades ago that anybody who saw a little Asian woman carrying this around would shit themselves before running away. She loaded a magazine filled with 30.06 into the receiver and pulled the hammer back loading a round in the chamber.

  When Lady Kim appeared on the roof jaws dropped. While everyone was armed and ready to do some major damage they suddenly felt ill equipped when they saw Lady Kim’s BAR which appeared larger with her height. She no longer had her cane and instead marched around with the energy of a twenty year old.