by M. Lorrox
“More like you’ve HAD more balls between your legs.” Li Chen grins as Madeline steams. “Alright, everybody just shut the fuck up. Let’s do this.”
Madeline watches Li Chen as he walks past; he doesn’t look at her. She considers tripping him or giving him a shove, but she doesn’t. Asshole.
Steve shrugs as he passes her, following behind Li Chen. “C’mon, Mad.”
She shakes her head. What a bunch of tools. When I get my cash, I’m gone. They can fuck themselves.
She follows them out of the tree line and toward the hospital. They don’t have any problem passing through the chaotic ER’s lobby, then Madeline leads them to the room she was put in, in the wing with the other vampires. A different guardsman is on duty where Deina was stationed, and the three young vampires in scrubs are allowed to enter.
Various reports are fed piecemeal to the Pentagon Field Command Center. News coverage from the suburbs report zombie attacks taking place well outside the quarantine. Local police are hunting for the zombies in those locations.
Fort Lesley J. McNair, just two miles from the Pentagon and just south of the quarantined zone in DC, has connected into the microwave relay communications system and has reported that one of the LAZoR units on the north perimeter was offline for a little over two minutes.
An Apache on the Zom-Air assurance mission cuts across DC to refuel at Joint Base Andrews, and when they land, the pilot and gunner report seeing three large robots or odd vehicles moving down North Capitol Street. Also, they noticed the machines were weaponized and were firing in bursts like infantry small arms.
The communications officer at the Pentagon Field Command Center prepares to send the slew of news to General Riley, and he hopes the general will remember to not shoot the messenger. Where the fuck is Captain Rickman? …Fuck. He takes a sip of water and opens the line over to the Downtown Command Post.
After a minute, he’s connected to General Riley. He delivers the news as professionally and clearly as possible while sweating bullets. General Riley’s temper is well known, and so is his frustration when plans go haywire. The radio operator finishes his report to the general, wipes his forehead, and braces himself for the impending attack. “That’s all, sir… Sir?”
General Riley takes a fast breath as his eyes streak across the sky like lightning toward the northeast—to where the mechs were spotted. “What idiotic sacks of shit burst through the quarantine? Chaos! We can’t have amateurs in the mix! They can ruin everything!” He grits teeth and groans. “They need to be removed from the equation. Do we have any more Apaches on the ground, or any currently refueling?”
“Negative. The bird that noticed them was the last of the patrol group to refuel, so it might be another hour before another Apache sets down.”
Shit. “Just tell me you’ve got some good news for me too. Any updates on shutting down the signal jammers?”
“Let me check on that, sir, hold on.”
Goddamn that Dr. Melgaard. He had to have been behind the jammers, too. Fucking prick kneecapped us before dragging us out to the firing squad.
“General, yes, they’ve shut down three devices, and the teams are coordinating to find the others.”
“Is there still EM band interference across our spectrum?”
“Plenty, sir.”
“Ff-fine. As soon as we have normal comms, I want a helo to get me, immediately. Until then, orders stand. I repeat, ALL ORDERS STAND.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“Riley out.” He shakes his head as he stomps out of the command tent on the roof of the FAA building. He looks onto the National Mall toward the Capitol Building—which is directly south of North Capitol Street. He grits his teeth and turns his hands into fists. “Corporal Daniels!”
The marine runs up and salutes. “Sir!”
“How many RPGs do we have?”
“Three, sir.”
General Riley nods. “Perfect. Get them ready. Prepare them all for immediate use at the northeast corner. Now.”
“Yes, sir!” Daniels runs off toward the stockpile of their remaining armaments.
General Riley snarls on an inhale, and his eye twitches. Nobody can threaten the success of this mission. America depends on what we do today, so that it can see tomorrow... “FUCK!”
It doesn’t matter who they are. All threats must be neutralized.
“In five... Four... Three... Two...”
Jackson rolls video and has Wren framed on one side of the image—the automated turret toward the right and the white spire of the Washington Monument stands above the treetops in the distance. He holds up one finger for about a second, then he points at Wren.
“Good Evening. This is Wren Riggs coming to you live from inside Washington, DC, feet from the quarantined zone.” -BOOM!- The LAZoR unit in the background takes out a zombie. “Behind me you see one of the military’s automated defense systems. I apologize for the frequent noise, and be advised that imagery may become graphic at any moment.”
Jackson checks the data readout on his LCD. He gives Wren a thumbs-up.
“Today is probably the third most tragic day we’ve faced so far in this war against the zombies—the first being when the west coast of the United States was caught by surprise by this horror, and the second being when the zombie-filled cities on the west coast were bombed into rubble. And now, the tragic situation at the Pentagon and in the Washington DC Metro area, continues to unfold.” She drops her head and brings out a tear, then she wipes it immediately. “I’m sorry.” She clears her throat. “I’d like everyone to take a moment for the tens of thousands of poor souls who were lost at the Pentagon...
“Now let our hearts open for the innocent people trapped inside the quarantine zone behind me...
“Thank you. I stand here, next to the one of the iconic statues that welcome visitors from Virginia into Washington DC, at the Arlington Memorial Bridge. The pair of statues, together, are called The Arts of War, but each individual statue has its own name. I stand alongside the statue that we as a community, as a nation, as a people, find ourselves embracing tonight—it’s called ‘Sacrifice.’”
Jackson feels a cold shiver. Shit, she’s good. We might have a chance at a Pulitzer. I’ll do a slow zoom...
“With sacrifice in mind, I’ll bring everyone up to speed on the response to this crisis. First, at the Pentagon, the U.S. military conducted top-secret rescue operations. Then, the building’s outer wall was breached to gain access to the building and to thin the horde within. Now, three such openings have been made.
“The Pentagon Metro entrance was blown open, but since, it has been resealed, stopping the flow of zombies out of the Pentagon. Then, brave soldiers entered the metro tunnels to cleanse them of zombies. We don’t have information on their progress, but the sacrifice they’re making is present with me now, with each and every breath.”
Major General Hecate, Coach, Ghost—still carrying Miller—and the other soldiers in their small platoon are about to enter the Rosslyn Metro station. They hear distant gunfire coming from ahead, echoing through the tunnel. Hecate kills the last of the zombies in front of her and wraps her urumi blades back up and out of the air. Her face is covered with diseased blood, but she’s unfazed by it. She knows she can’t contract the virus, and she’s used to her face being covered with blood.
She holds up her fist, and they all stop. “Anybody know what the deal is up ahead?”
A Green Beret from Coach’s squad steps forward. “Yes ma’am. Strait on and we’ll come to the station. There, this line meets the Orange and Silver Line. There’ll be a tunnel heading west, into Virginia, and another tunnel heading east, into DC.”
“Thank you.” She glances around to her team, assessing their state. Coach holds a flanged mace in one hand and a nadziak—a huge, war-hammer-like weapon—in his other. Blood drips from the steel tips of both. Ghost shifts Miller on her back. He jostles up and then lands with a wince. The other Special Forces soldiers take the moment to check the
ir magazines and ready a spare.
There’s more gunfire, and Hecate motions toward the sound. “Ghost, you want to help those shooters out and drop off your backpack?”
She nods. “I’ll help them out, but this backpack—” She motions with the long and bloody blade of the katar on her right hand. “—shoots bullets for me. I kinda like it.”
“Whatever you want, girl, just clear the station. The next station toward DC, is that inside or outside the quarantine?”
The same Green Beret that helped a moment ago furrows his brow, then nods. “Uh, yeah, Foggy Bottom. It’s inside the quarantine.”
“Okay. Coach, you and your squad make your way to that station and see what needs to be done.”
“He nods. You’re heading the other way, I suppose?”
She shrugs and wipes the blood off her face. “Ghost, when you’re done with the station, find me down the tunnel heading west.”
“Aye-aye, cap’n.”
“Good job everyone. Keep it up. When we hit the station, we clear it and split up. Let’s move out!”
As she turns to face forward again, she returns her urumi blades into her hands. The Green Beret that was helpful starts to charge alongside her—only to remember the absurd cloud of slashing steel that she wields.
He drops back and waits for Coach to pass in front of him.
In fifty yards, they reach the station. The tunnel opens up, and a platform runs alongside the tracks on one side. On the platform, escalators connect to another platform above.
Hecate charges down the tracks. “Clear this level!”
Ghost jumps the three feet from the rails to the lower platform without effort and without a sound. When Coach leaps up and lands on the platform, his metal armor and weapons jangle as the floor shakes. The two knights head down the platform, shoulder to shoulder, while the rest of their squads climb up behind them. While the vampires focus on the zombies already on that lower level, the soldiers fire on zombies that pile down the escalators—and fall over the railings—from the upper platform.
When Hecate slices the last zombie’s head clean off, from ten feet away, she turns back to face the rest of the platoon. She yells over the gunfire, “Hey, which tunnel leads where?”
The Green Beret familiar with the station lowers his carbine and yells back, “You’d take the one behind you! We head upstairs!”
Hecate nods, spins, then continues down the rails and into tunnel heading west.
The stream of zombies coming down to the lower platform thins, and Ghost, Coach, and their squads push up the escalators to reach the upper platform. Off to the side, long escalators head up to the station’s surface, and troops at the top rain down bullets. There aren’t too many zombies left in the station, and the platoon is offered a brief pause.
Coach spins and faces the knowledgeable Green Beret. “Which way to DC?”
He turns and motions to a tunnel behind them. “That way.”
Coach glances at Ghost. “Don’t go getting killed now.”
“Who me? Later, bro.”
“Sis.” He turns and jogs away with his squad.
Miller, still draped across Ghost’s shoulders, switches mags. “He’s your brother?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Which of you is—”
Ghost raises her arm and points at approaching zombies with her katar. “Enough chit-chat. Backpack, prepare to fire!”
Coach and his squad leave the station and enter into the tunnel headed east. He smiles as he trains his ears to his little sister kicking ass. Mom would be so proud.
A teen with a broken toe in INOVA Fairfax ER’s lobby is overwhelmed with the crowd around her, and she buries herself in her phone. The lobby’s TV hangs in front of her, and she uses a remote control app to try and replicate the signals it responds to. She succeeds with a smile and starts flipping through the channels. When she gets to a station carrying Wren’s broadcast, she stops and nudges her mom. “Check that out, that’s DC, right?”
The mom looks up from her phone. “That’s the Washington Monument… I wonder where she is.”
A nurse is rushing by with a filled wheelchair, and he pauses with his patient to hear the news. On the screen, Wren is leaned to the side and is looking back and forth behind her.
Wren reconnects her gaze to the camera, and thus, with her viewers. “These automated turrets were designed in response to the zombie threat, and although they are still in experimental status, I am sure we are all thankful that they are helping contain the threat and maintain a quarantine. I don’t have specific information about the teams that created these, or about the military personnel who are supervising them right now, but with every gunshot—” -BOOM!- She raises her eyebrows. Nice job, universe. “With every shot, I’m reminded of how much they’re doing to keep the rest of the country safe.”
The mechs move slowly down North Capitol Street, taking out as many zombies as they can. Uninfected people in treetops and on lamp posts alongside the street cheer. Many of them record video of the heroes on their phones, and although they currently don’t have cell signal to broadcast the footage, their hope has been rekindled. They narrate their videos with “No way!” “Thank God!” “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” and other exclamations of relief, and they look forward to uploading the videos later.
The LG6 team on the rooftop of M Street NW and North Capitol Street looks on with mixed emotion. They aren’t sure if they should be proud or ashamed. One of the specialists shakes his head. “Orders directly from the president? Then seeing that marine being killed by the gunhead. And all those people…piled up out there…”
He loses himself for a moment as he looks across the wall of corpses the one unit on North Capitol Street has put down. There’s probably at least three hundred bodies, just there, and we brought eighty gunheads... That’s so many people. “Jesus.”
Corporal Clyde Wilson nods. “I know what you mean. Brass drew a line, and they threw us behind it, giving us a front row seat to watch the performance… I wish the units only shot zombies—if there was a way they could tell.” He shrugs. “Under other circumstances, I’d like to think we could have helped more people—helped those people.” He motions to the wall of corpses.
The other specialist points at the mechs further down the road. “At least we know we did some good. They’re in because we helped them in, and the zombies aren’t getting out. Those are two facts I’m taking with me to bed tonight.”
Legend holds that the streets of the District of Columbia were designed in such a way as to be intimidating for any visiting foreign dignitaries to navigate. That was before GPS and long before zombies. Streets with letter names run east and west, streets with number names run north and south, and they’re all broken into quadrants based on whether they are north, south, east, or west of the Capitol Building. So, there are two D Streets and two 3rd Streets, and there are four intersections of 3rd Street and D Street: 3rd and D NE, 3rd and D NW, 3rd and D SE, and 3rd and D SW.
Also, DC has avenues that usually—but not always—run diagonally through the city.
Thomas Circle is one of the largest and busiest intersections in DC, with two streets and two avenues coming and going from the circle. It sits along M Street NW, the northern border of the quarantine zone. One of the roads that intersects here—Massachusetts Avenue NW—travels beneath Tomas Circle at a diagonal, with M Street adjacent to the underpasses.
To ensure no zombies could bypass the quarantine by traveling underneath Tomas Circle along Massachusetts Avenue NW, two LAZoR units are placed at the east and west sides of the circle, on M Street NW, where they can look down and fire on Massachusetts in the underpass.
It’s a damn good thing there’s two units there.
Thomas Circle sits along 14th Street NW, which is a wide and frequently traveled straight-shot from the National Mall. Surrounding the circle are high-rise office buildings, hotels, restaurants, and a church. There’s always a ton of people in t
he area, or at least, there were. The two LAZoR units have a large overlapping kill zone, and unlike other areas where buildings funnel zombies together, here there are wide open spaces for the targets to stream across.
At this location, there’s no corpse wall. Instead, the grass of the large circle is littered with bodies. Both zombies and people attempt to sprint across the circle, but none ever make it; they just end up being added to those already lying motionless on the ground. The two LAZoR units still have plenty of ammunition, but they have not for one second had a moment of downtime since the first fleeing people arrived.
At the northeast corner of Tomas Circle sits the Washington Plaza Hotel. The building curves like a boomerang around the edge of the circle, typically granting tourists and locals a grand, open view of the great circle below. Tonight, however, the vista is much more gruesome than usual.
The team of soldiers managing that section of the LAZoRS sits along the roof of the hotel, while civilians look out their windows. Although the people in the hotel aren’t trapped and are safe from zombies, no one dares to leave. Many gather in the main lobby, the restaurant, and especially the bar, where they watch through the windows and shout.
The loud reports of the gunshots cut through the windows like they aren’t there, a constant, depressing reminder of the reality just outside. It brings many to tears. Some cry for loved ones who were inside the quarantine zone when the zombies attacked. Others cry because of the death and horror that is taking place before them.
They find crying to be the only thing—in the entire world—that has reason.
Eighty-five miles away, a man at a bar in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania yells over the noise of the crowd. “Hey, everybody! Shut up!” He points to the television in the corner. “Turn that up! That’s live from inside DC!”
The bottom of the screen reads: Breaking News - Wren Riggs at DC Quarantine.