My feet are burning! And oh God the smell! The smell of a lot of dead, rotting flesh! She gags, even as she draws level with the roadway above. She only manages a glance at what is probably over a hundred dead people all milling about, then she is vomiting all over, while still trying to run.
Must be like an oven cooking the dead! Oh the horrible smell.
Still, the sights before her are worse.
Someone must have got angry or desperate in a Semi. Cars, vans and SUVs are flipped, on their sides or crushed, all over this particular stretch of interstate. Maybe some guy panicked when he realized that the traffic jam was never going to clear up?
She passes a child’s pink sneaker, then a few feet farther on a pathetic ripped apart thing with curly black hair, wearing a pink dress. She sobs, and swings the water jug at a guy in a brown business suit. The jug connects on the guy’s jaw and he spins halfway around, staggering, with one arm pin-wheeling and other arm, barely attached by splintered bone 83 and sinew falling with a thud to the ground. One more swing knocks him flat on his back. She lets the now mangled jug drop from her fingers.
Cars are all over the grass median between the highways. The things are everywhere she looks.
I’m not going to make it Mom.
With that thought in her head, she hears a helicopter’s rotors. She wants to look up, but the one-armed thing is getting back to his feet.
Got to find another way home. That helicopter will probably fly right over me.
She turns back the way she came, making a wide circuit around the couple staggering toward her.
Jacob
Jacobs stands in the dark and listens. His right hand is on the pistol grip of his M-4 rifle, and his left holds a flashlight with his thumb on the on-switch.
The only choice really, is to go down the stairs. Going into the neighbor’s apartment won’t really help anything, just delay his departure.
Unless there is a fire escape! The bitch back there has one. I’ll bet you! Must be too tired. I’m not thinking clearly at all.
He clicks the flash light switch, taking a step backward just in case. Moans echo up to him.
Swings the flashlight over toward the Clements door. Gotta try that way first. Three steps take him over to the door. A wireless door bell button is on the door itself not too far below a peep hole. Bitch MaryBeth used to call ours a peek hole. Remembers hearing her drunken bitchy voice: “I can see you out there Paul, through the peekhole! I called the cops already!”
He pushes the button.
Bitch locked me out of my own house. Changed the locks while I was in the field. Top it off, she was fucking some college kid that mowed the yard. Fucker thought he was bad ass because he played offensive guard and could bench four or five hundred pounds. Must’ve weighed over two fifty, crew cut hair, tanned, perfect teeth and a physique straight out-of Muscle and Fitness. All of it didn’t mean shit. Settled his fucking hash.
Marybeth’s too. Neither one of them were in good shape when he was through with them. Neither one reported him either. Not that time.
Pushes the button again and holds it down.
Nothing happens. The bell portion is plugged into electricity. The battery powered button can send the signal all day, but nothing is going to happen on the other end. The landlady must be the only one with power.
Knocks on the door with the padded end of his flashlight. The door is wood, not steel like the other one.
The moans sound like they are closer.
He clips the flashlight onto his rifle, with the light still on. Tries the doorknob and it turns. The door swings open revealing a short hallway and a living room beyond. Wind stirs the curtains in the room. Windows must be open. He can smell something burning, and something dead.
Four corpses are lined up on the floor in front of the living room couch. Each of them has been shot through the head. He looks around, but doesn’t see a gun anywhere. They’ve been dragged here anyway.
The whole setup looks much the same as the other penthouse apartment. He glances out the window, but can’t see a fire escape. There is a very nice view of the south side of St. Pete.
He steps around the bodies, three elderly women and a middle aged woman in a nurses outfit. There is a doorway in the southwest corner. The kitchen and dining room are the other way.
The doorway opens on another hallway. Three doors on the left and one on the far right end. The first door is open and blood is pooled all over an old parquet floor. He sweeps the room, left to right. Sees a double bed, two dressers, a book shelf and an open closet. Clothes wrapped in plastic hang in the closet. An open window is centered in the west wall, and a slight breeze is shifting the vanes of a Venetian blind.
A fire escape is visible through the window.
The voice of the pilot in his ears, “You hear me Private Booth?”
Booth nods, then catches himself, “Yes sir, I’ve got Jacobs headset on.”
“We’re passing over Interstate 275 now. About eight minutes we’ll be at the Gandy Bridge approaches. Should be real close to the crash site of the President’s wife’s chopper.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m going to have to go in fast Private. I want you and your men off asap. We’re running low on fuel and I’m going to leave you there to go gas up. You understand?”
“We’ll be on our own for a while.”
“Exactly. Probably an hour at least. We should be a priority though.”
“Just come back for us. Any word on whether she’s even alive?”
“Nothing.”
Booth turns back to the other two men. Hicks has a water bottle attached to his mask and is drinking. Lepski is retying a boot lace.
“You guys ready?”
“Sure thing,” says Hicks.
Lepski nods, “Wish the Sarge were still with us.”
“Might be better that he isn’t,” says Hicks.
“Least he gives a shit about something Hicks!” Lepski roars. “He Ain’t all wrapped up in worrying about stuff that don’t matter like Booth here.”
“That’s enough Private!” shouts Lassiter. “Lock it up.”
“It’s okay, Chief,” says Booth, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Like it or not Lepski, Jacobs was over the edge. This isn’t like Iraq. We can’t haul dead bodies around. Jacobs didn’t accept that.”
The lenses of Lepski mask are fogged over, “None of us were supposed to die, Booth. We should have gone with him.”
“Who’re you kidding Lepski?” asks Lassiter, “We’re all going to die.”
Johnny
The last corpse twitches a final time, and is still. He drops the now useless shovel in the dirt. The blood-drenched, gore-flecked head is snapped off from the haft. He crouches in the shadow of an old oak tree, and peers cautiously in all directions. Sweat is rolling off him in rivers, and his shirt is literally soaked and salt-rimed. The yellow safety vest is long gone, but his name badge is still there.
Fucking crazy, hateful people. His massive chest heaves, as he tries to pull in enough air, and to settle down.
Not everyone has their own personalized theme music, but Johnny Dead Eye Kruger does. For thirty years now the a cappella lines still resonate in his mind.
“What’s the name of that guy: Dead Eye, Dead Eye, Dead Eye!”
Clear as day, Johnny can still hear the three kids who used to torment him, still hear the harmony and dedication that they would pour into the song.
Even if he could forget, there are always people out there just waiting for their chance to put him down–To de-humanize him, mistaking him for the monster they want him to be.
Always the voices: “Better behave, or I’ll let that man over there get you!” That one was the classic, never-to-be-forgot chart topper. The frustrated mother trying to quiet a distraught child, pointing a finger at him, and threatening her child with him–As if he were some monster without feelings of his own, to be pointed at without regard.
Peo
ple could never see past his fright mask of a face. Add his six and a half foot frame to the picture and he either frightened or amused people. Whether he liked it or not, he would always be noticed. There was a choice. He could either mystify people by wearing an eye patch or horrify them with his blind, milky white, right eye. Most of the time, he simply kept the eye closed.
A woman bursts through the front door of a office building a mere ten feet to his left. Her blouse is torn, and she is screaming. Two men follow close behind her, one of them laughing, as the other shouts, “Run bitch, but we’re going to catch you!”
Johnny reaches up and pulls the eye patch off, then shoves it into his pants pocket.
Becoming a monster might be his best option right now. He stands up, and all three people stop.
“Whoa Torenz, who’s this?” the smaller, younger man asks. Both men are big, but not as big as Johnny. Torenz is black, with enormous shoulders, wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt, jeans and boots. There are gold chains around his neck and on each wrist. Although in good shape, there is the beginnings of a jowl beneath his chin. The other guy is short, white and stocky with seemingly no neck. He’s wearing jeans with the fly undone, and sneakers. Mirrored sunglasses cover his eyes, and a goatee gives him a sinister air. A portrait of Joseph Stalin is tattooed over most of his muscled chest. As for the woman, Johnny notices only that she is black, with long braided hair, and wearing a yellow, flowered dress and sandals.
“Not sure what we got here, Rodney. Looks like a big dummy.”
Johnny opens his right eye. The woman gasps, backs up a step or two, then almost falls on her ass. The two men seem frozen.
“Fuck, what’s wrong with his eye, Torenz? Is he one of them?”
Johnny starts toward them and pulls a hammer from his belt.
The woman rolls out of the way, and gets to her feet. Johnny ignores her.
“You gonna say anything, dummy?” Rodney asks.
Johnny grins, steps forward with his left foot and swings the hammer.
Rodney ducks beneath the swing, but is too slow as Johnny’s right foot comes forward and he reverses the hammer into a backswing. The steel head hits Rodney behind his right ear, punching through lank hair, then oily pocked skin before lodging deep into his skull. Rodney crashes to the ground, yanking the hammer from Johnny’s hand.
Something makes Johnny look up.
Torenz is pointing a big revolver right at him. He’s smiling.
Johnny’s grin is still in place.
Torenz shifts the pistol’s barrel to the woman.
The grin slips, and before he can speak, the weapon fires. The woman’s head jerks and she collapses to the ground. Johnny doesn’t look, just rushes toward the other man. Torenz aims toward him, and squeezes off two shots.
One shot hits Johnny in the left foot and he falls face first in the dirt.
Torenz doesn’t stick around. Johnny watches him run south into the stalled traffic on Thirty Fourth Street.
The reporter’s always dignified, calm mien is in place. Slim, debonair Lance Mathers, beloved and trusted by the people, is everything that Foster is not.
He isn’t even sweating. Guy has me up against the ropes with one question. No teleprompter, no aides standing by, just the unblinking eye of the camera with its ‘Live’ light on. The stack of notes and reports in front of him are almost all out of date, and complete useless. He clears his throat. Dry as a piece of cotton. “Get us some water will you, Lieutenant?” he asks. The young soldier, with the old face, nods, and heads for the kitchen in the back of the room.
“Back to the question, if I may, Mr. President?”
Foster turns his attention away from the vast empty cafeteria They’re sitting in, and tries to gather his thoughts.
“The answer is yes, Lance. The vice president, the speaker, and almost anybody else you can think of are missing or dead. My cabinet never made it out of the capitol. I’ve been told that most of the Senate and Congress got out. Right now, no word whether they survived after escaping. There are other shelters such as this one. Still no definitive word on the Joint Chiefs.”
Lieutenant Green comes back with a plastic pitcher of water and two glasses. A sheen of condensation glistens on the pitcher. Green fills both glasses and sets them before the two men.
“Thank you Lieutenant,” Foster says. Mathers is silent.
Green nods and backs away.
Foster can see big chunks of ice, as he lifts the glass to his lips and swallows gratefully. Slow down, There’s ice in the water. A moment later, the glass is empty. He reaches for the pitcher.
“What about the First Lady and your children, Mr. President?”
Hand on the handle, Foster pauses, meets the other man’s eyes and forces himself not to answer immediately. He looks human, but…All the instincts of a shark or tiger. Remorseless.
Somehow, despite the grief and outrage coursing through him, Foster answers in a steady voice, “Like most everyone out there, Lance, I have my own personal grief and loss. They’ve been missing for hours.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, I didn’t know.”
Foster raises an eyebrow, “No, perhaps you didn’t, Lance, but the public should know that we all are firmly mired in this disaster. I have a stake in seeing this through also. Yes, I am safe in a bunker, but my wife and children are not. Whether we like it or not, once any of us dares to love someone we open ourselves up to be hurt. The whole world faces this situation.”
Mathers face has gone beet red. “Mr. President..”
“Let me finish Lance. What I’m trying to say here is this: No single country is at stake here, but the human race is. If we don’t buckle down and trust each other, all is lost. My fellow Americans, we are recalling every oversea asset we have. We will persevere in this endeavor, and then our troops will be home to help. In the meantime, take care of each other. Hold on, and be strong. God bless.”
Foster stands up and walks away. Behind him, he can picture the flustered look on Mathers face. Hears the cameraman say, “Guess That’s a rap, Mr. Mathers?”
Talaski
“Put me down, you bastard! Put me down!”
Talaski stops running and sets her down. Suzy leans against his chest, sobbing and breathing hard. Amy puts an arm around her. Mills stops just behind both of them, and looks around for zombies or any other threat.
“Can’t believe he’s dead,” Suzy says, “I can’t believe he left me.”
Keller speaks up. “He wasn’t thinking about you at all.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Mills says. “A block more and we’ll be there.” Talaski wraps Suzy in his arms. “Take a deep breath and calm down,” he whispers in her ear.
Mills says, “We need to get to the truck. Can everyone calm down long enough to do that?”
“You calm?” Talaski whispers again in Suzy’s ear.
“Yes! Let’s just get out of here, okay?” she asks.
“Follow me,” Mills says, and lets her arms go. All four of them set off at an easy jog.
Things never change. We’re still killing each other. Guess we’ll be pitiable petty creatures down to the end. Fucking Mitch!
Talaski lets the thoughts slide away, and focuses. Shoves the barrel of his shotgun right into the face of one of the monsters, and pulls the trigger. The thing’s head and a large portion of its upper torso are obliterated in the blast, spraying a wide area behind in blood and gibbets in flesh.
They all run, firing into the growing crowd, and only when they actually see the truck, does he allow any hope to re-gain a foothold.
Tracks
The makeshift armory is full. There isn’t a wide selection, but there is a lot of what there is. There are racks of rifles, machine guns and pistols and boxes of ammo and grenades. Nothing exotic, but all of it deadly.
“Take all the ammo you can carry,” Hadley says. “Extra weapons for others is great, but the ammo is what we’ll need later.”
Bronte i
s standing next to Tracks. He whispers, “Soon now, Tracks. We need to be ready.”
Tracks nods, and feels his eyes tear up, “He putting up a good show, but he Ain’t accepting it yet.”
“No, he isn’t, and he’s looking worse.”
“True.” Hadley is even paler than before, and the shirt he’s wearing is splotched with sweat and blood. Behind him, Chief Nast and the sailor, Bailov are stacking two dolly carts with ammo crates.
“Good thing one of the boats is big,” Graham says to Ralls. “The little Sea Hummer we have would never take this much weight with everyone on it.”
“I’d really like to take one of our motorized lifeboats. They are stocked and ready with food and water,” Ralls says.
Graham picks up several M-4 rifles and slings them over each shoulder. He keeps one in his hands ready. “Maybe we can, Captain.”
“To tell you the truth, I think it will. We only have to go up two decks.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” says Bronte, “the problem with your idea is that we have people waiting for us to come back the same way.”
Tracks picks up an M-4 complete with a grenade launcher, and takes two belts of grenades, slinging each belt over a different shoulder. He places a grenade in the launcher and loads a full magazine into the rifle. There is no hesitation in any of his actions.
“I’ll take one of those rifles too, Alan,” says Hadley. “I don’t think we’ll get out of here, as easy as we got in.”
Tracks loads and hands over one of the rifles.
“Not too far removed from the M-16A1,” Hadley says, looking it over.
“Not too much,” Tracks agrees with a nod.
Bronte takes two rifles, buckles an LBE complete with a pistol around his waist, then picks up a SAW, otherwise known as the Squad Automatic Weapon. “You got ammo for this on the dollies?” he asks, while fitting a drum magazine into the weapon’s well. He then picks up two more and shoves them into a backpack.
“Sure,” says Nast. “Looks like you boys know what you’re doing.”
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