After the Day- Red Tide Read online

  “You stupid bitch! I’m trying to help you. Don’t you see that?” he said storming out of the tent.

  He walked to the middle of the camp and was suddenly knocked on his back. He felt like someone punched him in the chest. He looked down to see a small hole in his stomach. A gut shot. He couldn’t move his legs. Whoever had shot him did a good job. More shots rang out, then rapid shots. People ran around the camp and dropped. Bullets flew through the fabric of the tents. He watched a few people run for the woods but were shot down before they made it to the trees.

  “What the hell is happening?” he said pressing his hands on his stomach.

  A few minutes later the shooting was done. The camp was quiet. A man appeared. Face covered in ash and dirt, wearing camouflage and carrying an M4 rifle. Neither of them said anything. The gray faced man raised the rifle and pulled the trigger.

  The man with the camouflage hat was dead.

  The gray faced man went around the camp checking the tents.

  Betty had been lying down on the floor of the tent while the shooting took place. Bullets flew over her as the whole thing went down. Then the door was pulled open and a man stood above her holding a rifle.

  She looked up. Her clothes torn. Her body thin and frail. The sad look on her face. Could this guy end it for her? Somehow she found the will to live.

  “I’m not like them.” she said, the old cuts on her wrist from the nylon ties still visible. The man lowered the rifle then raised it again. She wouldn’t have trusted herself either.

  Then he lowered it again and told her to get out.

  “GET OUT!” he yelled a second time. She stumbled out of the tent, after not being able to walk for weeks. She ran to the woods and disappeared in the trees. She didn’t hear any more shots. She stopped and realized she was dead without a few things. She turned around and went back and hid in the bushes.

  She watched the man nailing a sign on a tree and then leaving. She went back into the camp and went through the tents where she found a few clothes and items she would need. What she wanted most was her box of seeds. She looked everywhere. She found Paul’s backpack in a pile of plunder from their raids. Then she found her bag, the seeds still on the bottom. These people had been so concerned about eating people they never went through the other items they had on them. Paul’s rifle was gone. His ammo was also gone. She put her few belongings in his hiking bag along with the seeds, strapped it to her back, and began the long tiring walk out. The added weight was a burden after not eating for such an extended period of time. Her muscles were eating themselves and her body was doing the same thing the cannibals were doing. It was eating itself. She ate whatever she could find simply for the calories. Grubs, maggots, and worms. She set up traps for fish in hopes of getting a meal. Game was out of the question at the moment. She found some cattail on the shore of a pond and dug the roots out. She ate the inner stalk and carried the tubulars back with her. She made a fire. She found two fish that she was able to eventually catch by hand. She cooked the fish eating anything that she could find on them. They were smaller bluegill but better than nothing. Already her body was feeling a bit better. She had a long road to recovery.

  She built a lean-to that Paul had shown her when they first went on the trails and made some bedding. She didn’t want to rest after being held in the tent for so long. She wanted to move, get away, and find a better place. She didn’t sleep well, waking every time she heard the slightest noise. It would be a reaction she would carry for years. It was what she did when the man with the camouflage hat entered the tent.

  She did well for herself living as a nomad. Foraging for food was the easy part for her. With time and practice all the hunting tricks Paul taught her over the years started to pay off. She gained muscle back, her health was better, but mentally she wasn’t sure she would ever recover.

  While foraging for food she approached a tree line, the common place for wild food to be found. When she reached the edge she saw a farmhouse and people outside. She immediately thought about the cannibals, and then she wondered if these were the people that slaughtered them. She must be too far away by now, always traveling, trying to get away.

  These people were different. They were working the fields. Her field of botany came back and she started questioning what they were doing. She gauged the weather and time of year. There were no cold frames and too many people for so little space. She walked out of the woods. She gulped and her hands shook. She asked herself if this was a good idea.

  The people turned and looked at her. They didn’t appear to feel threatened and waited for her to walk up.

  “Can we help you?” a tall thin man said.

  She looked around. Two children, a boy and girl, worked with hoes. A woman used a steel rake to collect large debris from the field. The man appeared to be trying to get an old tractor working. She looked back at the man.

  “What are you trying to plant?” she asked.

  “Corn.” the man said.

  “When did you plant the last corn crop?” she continued.

  “Last year.”

  She looked at the sky and knew it was already midsummer.

  “It’s too late in the year for that. You won’t get a crop.” she said

  “Better to try than not have anything at all.” the woman said.

  “You could do a little homestead and get some fall crops going.” Betty suggested.

  “I’ve been farming my whole life. I don’t know why I should be listening to you.” the man said.

  Betty turned around and started to walk back to the woods. She turned around.

  “You know of any other farms around here that are available?”

  They pointed her down the road to a smaller piece of land, the one that they didn’t want. She liked it. Water supplied by a windmill, some chickens were still running around eating whatever they could find. The previous owners were still inside, bodies dried and mummified. She dragged the bodies out and buried them next to the house. She cleaned up a bit, took stock of what was available and went to work. She made a larger version of her garden with Paul. She built cold frames and hoops. She learned to wake up early in the morning and hunted deer with a 30.06 she found in the house. She put together a smoke house and preserved meat for the winter. The frost hadn’t come yet and she was confident she would be able to make it through winter with no problem.

  In her spare time she collected various plants with medicinal properties and wild foods. The property around the house became a forest of wild food and herbs.

  Winter was slow, a time of self-reflection. Lonely nights brought back memories of Paul. Then, one spring morning, a knock on the door.

  She grabbed the 30.06 and went to the door. The knocking came again. She could see the shape of a man on the other side of the window.

  “Hello?” the voice called out. “Anybody here?”

  She was scared to answer. Somehow she made herself unlock the deadbolt.

  “Come in.” she said still holding the rifle.

  The door opened to a bearded man with blue eyes. He appeared healthy and in his thirties.

  “Ma’am,” he said looking at her, then the gun.

  “Stay there.”

  “Ok,”

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “My name is Bruce. I come from a town not too far to the north of here. We have a market that we are inviting everyone in the area to participate in.” he said pulling a paper flyer from his pocket. It was written out in marker and even had a map using highways and rivers to show the location.

  “What do you want from me?” she said.

  “I see you have a lot of plants outside in the cold frames.” he pointed out.

  “So,”

  “Our market is for trade, items you need. Food is a big priority and the more kinds we have, the better everyone is. What was your profession before The Day?” he asked.

  “Botanist.” she said.

  “Really? You might be the mo
st valuable person around here besides the doctor.” he said.

  “You have a doctor?”

  “Yes, she has a clinic at the market. Her name is Fatima, you could see her if you wanted to.”

  Betty put the gun down and grabbed the flyer from Bruce.

  “When does this start?”

  A week later Betty carried a pack full of dried herbs and other items to the market. It was a two hour walk but this was her chance to see a doctor.

  She came to the rows of covered stalls and the crowds of people that were acting civil. The whole experience felt surreal. She saw a booth that said “Doctor.” She walked up and a Middle Eastern woman sat behind the table. She was very pretty and had long black shiny hair and big dark brown eyes. Her face exuded kindness. Betty set her bag down and didn’t know where to start.

  “Hello, I’ve never seen you before. My name is Fatima.”

  “Betty,”

  “How can I help you?” Fatima asked.

  “How much does this cost?” Betty asked.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing we can’t work out later.” Fatima said.

  Betty was hesitant to talk at first.

  “What are you most concerned about?” Fatima asked.

  “I was taken by a group of cannibals a year ago. There was a shoot-out. I was let go and was malnourished. I have a place now two hours south of here. I feel like my body is recovering but my period never returned and I don’t know if I have anything?”

  “Have anything?” Fatima asked.

  “I was raped, when I was taken.” She tried not to cry, her eyes filled with tears.

  Fatima placed her hand on Betty’s and then sat for a minute. Fatima pulled out a piece of paper and wrote some information on it.

  “Here are directions to the cabin I live in. We can do a pelvic exam there and make sure you didn’t contract anything that is visible and make sure you don’t have any internal damage. There could be things I won’t find since I don’t have the equipment but at least we can try to get you some answers.”

  Fatima checked Betty’s pulse and blood pressure. She felt that Betty was malnourished and thought that could be the cause of her lost period. Fatima accepted a few pieces of venison jerky for payment and sent Betty on her way.

  Betty looked over the stalls and saw many items that she would like to have, calorie rich foods that she could add to the garden and her diet. Trade seemed to be simple. The items on the table appeared to be the extras from gardens and hunts and were traded for things they didn’t have at home.

  From the end of the aisle Betty saw a man that she mistook for Paul at first. He was a thin man, clean clothes, short cut hair, and a thin trimmed beard. His cheeks were different and his hair was a slightly different color. He was looking back at her. She turned to a booth and started looking at some greens that were cut from somebody’s cold frame.

  “Hi,” the man said.

  She turned and found him to be wearing clean clothes and smelled like he was freshly bathed.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I’m Chuck,” he said. “And you are?”

  “Betty,” she answered.

  Chuck put his hand out. She reluctantly shook it.

  “I haven’t seen you around here before.”

  “I just found out about it” Betty replied.

  “Bruce came to visit?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she caught a whiff of his hair. “I’m sorry, is that shampoo you’re wearing?”

  “Shh, I found it in my house, used it this morning.”

  She became excited.

  “Can I use some?” she asked.

  Chuck thought for a minute, and then pulled a small set of keys from his pocket.

  “I have a shower set up in the garage. I pump water to a tank above it and use the gravity for it to work. It’s not afternoon yet so the water won’t be that warm.”

  “I’m ok with that. I’ll pay you.” she said taking her pack off and starting to pull bags of jerky out.

  “No need, always glad to help a pretty lady.” he said.

  “Not so pretty right now.” she said walking with him.

  “We’ll get you cleaned up. You should have seen me when they lured me out of the woods. Looked like Bigfoot.”

  “Wish I could have seen that.” she said.

  “Really, I was a mess.” Chuck said.

  “And look at you now, getting all of the ladies.”

  “Betty, flattery will get you everywhere.”

  Part 3

  Three years after The Day

  Chapter 1: West Coast United States

  Placing his hands on the metal rail, Choi looked at the city on the shore. Never stopping in either direction it appeared as large as the ocean he traveled. The towers in the distance and the shops along the shore reminded him of home. Packed and stacked, people occupied every space imaginable as the city grew up instead of out. He thought about Shanghai, his home. It was the land he left behind to fulfill a dream. The only son of his family, it was his duty to carry on the family name. That was the only duty he sought to fulfill. Many families in China had firstborn sons, the lucky sign of fortune. There was much fortune on this boat. Filled with fifteen hundred firstborn sons it was to be the luckiest ship in the fleet. Many of these men came to collect their fortune, their birthright. All of them came seeking a wife. Either by force or hopefully, willingly, they would find someone to carry on their family names. There were no rules of child limits in America. Here they could have the large traditional families that made China so great for thousands of years. China may have passed its glory, but it will reclaim it in a new land.

  Choi saw smoke in the distance. It was different from the smoke of cooking fires and heating homes. It was the remains of explosions and destruction. The ship moved closer to shore, the echoes of gun fire and bombs floated through the air around him. He wanted to bring tools with him, to start a farm and build his house. Instead, the People’s Army handed him an AK-47 and told him that when they were victorious he would receive all the land he wanted and as many wives as he could handle. Polygamy was legal less than a hundred years ago and men often talked about the good old days.

  The Chinese government had promised the men that the flu had killed only the men in America and all the women were waiting for new husbands to come and take care of them. As Choi looked at the shore he was sure that the husbands were still around and willing to fight to keep their wives for themselves.

  The shore was coming closer. Choi looked at his AK-47 and the ammo pouches that covered his chest. He was scared, hands shaking, nauseous. It could be from the long sail and sea sickness, but why wouldn’t he have gotten it weeks ago? Choi realized that he could die before he ever staked his claim to his family fortune.

  Other men came up from below deck and looked at the city. Flashes and bright lights lit up in the distance.

  “Those men were full of shit, they handed me this gun and said ‘go get your fortune’. Why did I ever trust them? You don’t need a gun if it’s waiting for you!” one man screamed as he looked at the chaos. Choi pulled the bolt back on his AK and moved to the front of the boat. He would fight for his fortune. It was bad luck to have fear in his heart. This new land would be a new China, a better China, the China that should have been.

  The boat ran ashore and the men climbed to the beach off of nets that were thrown over the side. They didn’t have any resistance but Choi knew it was only a matter of time. Were the Americans fighting amongst themselves? Were they too busy to defend their land? He had heard the rumors about how lazy they were, the fat people that had to be removed from their houses with bulldozers. He hoped this was the reality of the situation. Choi ran up the beach. He found concrete walkways and little shops that had been broken into and looted. Palm trees grew in perfect rows and abandoned cars sat in the middle of the street.

  Choi loved American cars, the size and horse power was nothing like what he could buy in China. Buying a car was
still the ultimate sign of luxury. He walked up to the first one he saw. It was a yellow Mustang mid 2000 model. It wasn’t the color he would have desired but he had never been in one before. He tried the door and it opened. He sat in the driver’s seat and sat the AK on the passenger seat. He looked around for keys but could not find them. Disappointment set in, and then he perked up. He gripped the steering wheel and pretended to drive around southern California. He pictured girls in bikinis and Hollywood stars admiring him in his new ride.

  Choi looked between the seats and found a pair of aviator sunglasses. He put them on and felt like Bruce Lee back from the dead. I am the man!

  While he turned the steering wheel he heard a loud smack against the window.

  “HEY! What the hell are you doing?” It was one of the other men from the boat. Choi didn’t know his name.

  “What?” Choi put his hands up. “Get your own car.”

  “You don’t even know how to drive that thing.” the man said.

  Choi read the man’s uniform. Wang was the surname. Choi laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Wang asked.

  “I was pretending to be Bruce Lee back from the dead reclaiming my American dream.” Choi said.

  “Shit head, there is no American dream anymore, this is a Chinese dream now.”

  Chapter 2: West Coast United States

  It was now twenty years after the L.A. riots and yet Koreatown never forgot the lessons learned from that experience. Once the nuke went off in Washington, the Korean community met together and placed several spotters on the rooftops around the neighborhood. They picked the same headquarters that they had for the riots and copied their tactics from then. For a few days nothing happened. When the power went out that was the time they made sure all the spotters had rifles and plenty of ammo. When the flu broke out Koreatown completely shut themselves off from the outside world and afterwards trade was limited to distant transactions. The Koreans held their own for three years, bartering with the locals and living off the stockpiles of food they kept for themselves. Being a spotter on the rooftop was a full-time job. It paid well. As long as you were a spotter you received three meals a day. Two of them were ramen noodles but that was more than what most people had.