Chapter 9

Welcome Wastelanders to the Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland Audiobook Podcast! My name is Joe Gillis, and I’m the writer and narrator of this Serial Fiction Series. We’re in Chapter 9 this week, but there is a new chapter every Friday, so be sure to subscribe.

And if you stay until the very end, you’ll get a peek behind the page with a quick tidbit about this chapter.

The story so far…

The newly retired Joe has been working hard, or should I say, watching people work hard at remodeling his Batcave, umm, I mean, Titan One missile complex. While enjoying a much needed break from doing nothing, Maya and Sanjay surprise him with the MECHA IR environment she had been building for him in her spare time for the past few years. But before they could enjoy it, an alarm triggered warning him of motion around him in the real world because the construction night crew rushing out of his facility.

Well, let’s find out what happened.

Chapter 9

Coming out of the virtual world to a scene of your construction crew bolting past you to escape whatever was happening was pretty dang jarring. It got even worse as the sounds of confusion and mayhem grew louder as my hearing gradually kicked back in.

“I’m not sure what’s happening. The construction crew is running out of my complex,” I told Maya and Sanjay in the MECHAverse.

“Maybe there’s a gas leak or something,” Maya said.

“Yeah, maybe. I think I need to go see what’s going on. Hold on a sec.”

My place was in the middle of nowhere, so the only things lighting up the night sky were the construction lights. That wasn’t enough to figure things out, so I grabbed my hard hat and hi-vis vest and headed toward the entrance to see what all the commotion was about.

“Wait, they’re all bailing on me and driving off.”

After spotting the foreman, I switched over my audio to yell out in the physical world.

“Hey, Mike, what’s going on?”

He stopped as he was hopping in his truck to answer.

“They just made an announcement on the radio saying that North Korea launched missiles at the U.S., and some are headed directly our way.”

“Really?!”

“My apologies, Joe. I really have to go and can’t talk right now. My family is probably asleep and won’t even know what’s happening.”

Sadly, my first thought was, North Korea has missiles we need to worry about? Then I snapped out of it.

“Why don’t you and your crew grab your families and come back here? I have tons of food and supplies, and plenty of space for all of us to survive whatever happens.”

“That would be fantastic. I'll grab my wife and kids and return A-SAP. I’ll tell the others that they're all welcome here, too.”

“I’ll stay up here until the last possible moment.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he said before he shut the door on his truck and drove off.

It was dark out, and I watched the lights from the vehicles as the night crew rushed to save their families. My HUD unit locked onto the vehicles, providing me speed and distance data as they drove off. Before I switched back to the IR environment, I activated ALFINA.

“ALFINA, can you let me know when anyone arrives?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Thank you,” and just like that, I was back in IR with Maya and Sanjay. “Guys, they’re saying there are missiles headed our way.”

Jumping back into IR was sort of like walking back into a room at a party. You know, the other people had continued to talk without you, but for some reason you thought that everyone had somehow frozen in time while you continued on with your life. And that had happened here. I started speaking as though I was walking back into the room without even paying attention.

Once I stopped talking, I could tell they had already heard the news, and with all the joy seemingly knocked out of her, Maya confirmed it.

“Yeah, we were just watching it in our news feed.”

“Dude, they’re nuclear.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Wait, hold up. North Korea has nuclear missiles that can reach here? Why are they even launching them?”

“Haven’t you been watching the news?” Maya asked me.

“No, I’ve been building my Batcave, so I really haven’t been paying attention to anything else.”

“We’re at war,” Maya revealed.

“Man, I knew there was some tension building up across the world, but I didn’t know it had turned into an all-out war. I just figured this was just another long, drawn-out conflict that would feed the 24-hour news cycle for a few months, and then people would just forget we were at war.”

“Well, it just got real.” Maya gave the impression that she was watching something on her HUD.

“Yes, it did.” Sanjay sounded pretty somber, too, so I knew it was serious.

“Do you guys have enough time to get here? You know, my place was built to withstand any sort of extinction level event like nuclear war, so we can ride out whatever is coming our way.”

Maya took a deep breath before answering. “There’s not enough time.”

I pulled up a news broadcast to try to get a better understanding of what was going on. Unfortunately, it was even worse than I had imagined.

“I repeat, North Korea has launched nuclear missiles at the United States. We just lost contact with Guam, which means that we have less than 20 minutes before we expect them to begin to reach the continental U.S.” The female reporter spoke in an uncannily calm voice. “We urge you to get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned in.” She was then interrupted, and we all heard one side of a conversation. “Wait, what? What do you mean? Okay. Okay. Okay.” She expressed with worry while nearly losing it, “I have just been informed that both China and Russia have launched nuclear missiles in retaliation for the ones we launched in response to North Korea’s action. The White House fears that their actions may leave no—no habitable place,” she forced out, trying to hold back tears, “in the United States, or possibly anywhere else in the world.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What the heck is wrong with humanity? Are you guys catching this?”

“Yes. I can’t believe this is happening,” Maya was holding back her own tears. I could hear it in her voice.

“Where are you at?” I asked.

Maya started to answer, but it sounded like she couldn’t without breaking down. Sanjay glanced at her and must have noticed the same thing, so he answered for them.

“We’re both at the office.”

“Are you together?”

“Yes.”

“Are you—”

Sanjay cut me off. “Yeah, we’re totally heading down to the underground data center.”

“Oh good, that place should be able to withstand a blast. Is my ham radio still down there?”

“It is… and we didn’t let anyone raid your crazy stupid supply of food, either.”

Maya wiped away a tear before joining in the conversation again. “Uh, we were kind of hoping that you’d come back someday, so we left it—so we left it all exactly the way you had it.”

“See, I told you guys—”

Sanjay cut me off again. “I’ll give you that, you know, your whole doomsday prepper thing might be the only thing that saves us.”

“You’re welcome… In all seriousness, I’m glad you guys have each other.”

I kept scanning around my soon-to-be 210-acres-of-nothing facility, expecting to see some of the crew returning. Instead, it was eerily quiet—no sound, no vehicles, nothing.

“Come on. Come on,” I tried to urge them while standing at the entrance of my luxury tower missile silo. Then it hit me.

“Guys, I think I’m going to have to do this alone,” I told Maya and Sanjay. “I don’t think anyone is going to make it back in time.”

“Your place is 20 minutes away from civilization on a good day,” Sanjay laid it all out for me. “Based on the math of when they left versus what the news said, they had less than 25 minutes before impact. With that timeline, there’s no way anyone is going to make it back there in time.”

“You have us,” Maya said, comforting me as she placed her hand over my virtual heart. “I got you.”

That tore me apart. Tears welled up in my eyes as I pushed out what might be my good-bye. “Thanks for always being there for me.” I let out a deep breath so I could get the rest out. “I love you, guys.”

“See I knew you’d come around eventually,” Sanjay pushed out one final joke before I lost connection.

That concludes Chapter 9 of Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland.

Well, things have just gotten real, haven't they? Don't worry, my tagline still holds true: Who knew the end of the world could be this much fun?

Will anyone will make it back in time? What will Joe do? Stay tuned until next week to find out.

So I promised a peek behind the page, but instead it’s going to be a peek behind the read. Okay, here’s the thing… I’ve never had to cry on cue before. I’ve directed things where someone had to cry on cue, but personally, I’ve never had to do it… well, until now.

Yes, those are real tears you hear… okay, you can’t hear tears, but you know, crying. So I guess I’m a real actor now… Here’s where I’d insert the laughing so hard I’m crying emoji if you could see this sentence in text form.

How did I summon them? Well, that actually is a peek behind the page, because it’s how I felt when I was writing it. I’m not gonna lie, part of that emotion was because it felt like a final goodbye to Maya’s inspiration, Jackie Taylor, my friend who already passed away. So those emotions just came bubbling back up while I was narrating this chapter.

Well, that brings us to the end of another chapter, but don’t fret, this story is truly just about to kick in.

If you enjoyed what you heard, hit subscribe to continue to get a new chapter every week. Want to get new chapters early? Join Joe’s Post-Apocalyptic Army at CinematicWasteland.com and get up to 4 weeks early a membership. There is even a free level that gives you access to the Podcast or Web Novel one week early.

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Thanks for joining me on this crazy journey! See you on the flip side!

Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland copyright 2023, Joe Gillis, All rights reserved. This is a Jowagi Production and is distributed by Slacker Entertainment.