Planet of the Dead (Book 2): War For The Planet of The Dead

by Flowers, Thomas S.

  Within a minute, she had a few hundred viewers tuning in. Satisfied the feed was running smoothly, Amy stuffed her phone into her pocket, now relying completely on the GoPro Steadicam to broadcast what she was seeing and what she was reporting.

  "Already, what appears to be several tanks have moved across Interstate 695. Fighter jets have been conducting flybys every few seconds. And local authorities have been scrambling through the streets. Whatever is going on, its big, and we're going to take a closer look."

  Pulling the strap to her helmet, Amy started off toward Anacostia Road that ran underneath the interstate bridge. Above her, the bulky, tan colored tanks rolled into the Capitol, vibrating and thundering loudly. The entire city seemed to erupt in pandemonium. People were shouting, screaming. Gun reports were rattling. And the constant booming, roaring cycle of jets. It took some time, longer than she'd expected. Out of breath, she crossed over to M Street.

  "Okay. I've moved closer to the Capitol. This seems to be where the mass of the troop movement is located. As you can hear, gunshots have been going off almost nonstop." Amy paused, looking around, watching as the tanks and the Humvees with what looked like soldiers on top in turrets, aiming at every passerby. "I'm going to get to an elevated spot. Hold on."

  Looking around frantically, Amy ran down Virginia Avenue toward a six-story apartment building. It wasn't incredibly high but would probably be high enough to give her a look at the city around her. She went in through the entryway and headed for the staircase. Taking the steps in leaps. At the last level, she climbed the ladder to the roof.

  Panting, out of breath, Amy inched closer to the edge facing Capitol Hill.

  "My God," she whispered, falling to her knees. Licking her lips, struggling to remind herself that she was broadcasting live--audiences around the world were tuning in, not just from Washington DC, but across the state, in Virginia, Georgia, Kansas, California maybe, Texas, and perhaps even across the pond in the UK--France, everywhere the feed could go, she could go.

  "As you can see, there seems to be some sort of siege on the Capitol. The tanks along the interstate have opened up, shelling the city. What sounds like .50 caliber rounds and small arms fire are rattling. It looks like one section of troops facing off against another with the White House in the middle." Her voice was panicky, cracking every few words. Amy took several deep breaths. Several more of the F16s passed overhead. She fell, feeling as if someone had pushed her. A canister dropped from one of the jets as they split off. Crawling to the edge, using it as cover, she watched as the canister impacted and belched out a wall of liquid fire that seem to consume an entire block.

  "One of the F16s just dropped--what is that? Napalm? They dropped napalm on the Capitol!" Amy stood but kept hunched over and made her way to the farthest left corner, trying to get a better look at what was happening. Across the Capitol, explosions burst in tall flames in several areas. The gunfire never ceased. Rattling. Rattling. Over and over again.

  Booming thunder behind her.

  Amy fell again.

  Standing, she made her way back across the roof and looked out the way she had crossed the river.

  "It looks like a squadron--fourteen tanks have positioned themselves on the other side of the river. Jesus! They're engaging the dozen or so tanks and soldiers that have been firing on the Capitol. It's hard to tell; I cannot see what division they are with--from Fort Bragg maybe. Hold on." Amy ducked down as the jets flew by again. "It looks like the fighter jets are opening fire on the tanks on the other side of the river behind us. Perhaps Air Force units out of Langley."

  Keeping low, Amy glanced farther east.

  "Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. There seem to be several Blackhawk helicopters hovering near Lincoln Park. They seem to be--" she started to say.

  Hovering, the helicopters, about ten in all, opening fire. A great metallic whirling echoed across the way, nearly as deafening as the jets. A stream of light burst from the Blackhawks, raining down on what appeared to be the Supreme Court of the United States with M134 Gatling rounds.

  "Are you seeing this?"

  The tanks began spreading out, several on both sides, smoldering black soot up into the early morning sky. Some of the Humvees opening fire on the helicopters, but it was too late. The Blackhawks swooped and swayed out of the line of fire. Passing over the troops, the ones on the far west, they decimated them with guided folding-fin aerial rockets.

  "Are you seeing this?" Amy said again, wondering if she was seeing it herself. "They're--killing each other. Military against military with no clear allegiance."

  More explosions and rattling gun reports.

  Amy watched and filmed without a word as the interstate bridge screamed and shuddered and then collapsed into the river, isolating the dozen tanks across the way she had come.

  "They seem to be pushing west toward--the Capitol Building, my god, the tanks have started shelling the Capitol Building!"

  Even from her distance on the apartment building roof off Virginia Avenue, Amy could see the large whitish dome splinter and fold within itself. Dust and smoke rose, now covering most of the city in a sulfuric haze. Wanting more, wanting to cover the story, she made her way to the ladder and descended back out into the streets following the parade of war westward.

  Gulping air, Amy said, "It looks like the fight is moving west toward the White House. I repeat, it looks like the fighting is moving west toward the White House. My name is Amy Horrigan, and if you are just now tuning in, I am reporting live from what appears to be a siege on Washington D.C."

  Interstate 695 stood between her and L'Enfant Plaza, along with platoons of soldier marching northwest, past what she knew to be the Smithsonian. To her right, she could make out the black marble Holocaust Memorial Museum. The jets passed again overhead.

  Come on! She prodded herself, jumping out into the interstate strangely free of bumper to bumper traffic. The vehicles that did remain were abandoned. Passengers no doubt fleeing the city and the carnage.

  Amy stopped and pressed herself against the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, bending over for a moment to catch her breath before peering on the other side of the building. Stretching out before her was the green yard of the National Mall. The troops had moved on--even the tanks had progressed past Constitution Avenue.

  "I believe the battle is merging on the White House. I'm going to cut across here and see if I can get a better look," she reported to her online audience.

  She glanced again both ways. Closed her eyes. And then ran for the green.

  A loud whistling soared overhead.

  Amy duck instinctually.

  To her left, what she thought was the Washington Monument, the tall obelisk erupted in a whirling blaze of fire. She glanced to her right, a tank had its cannon aimed at the structure. "They--someone--just destroyed the Washington Monument, my god, what is happening here?" she said, panting, running faster for cover.

  And she didn't stop.

  She kept running.

  Dodging passing cars.

  People running away in tears.

  Screaming.

  And shouting.

  Gunfire rattling all around.

  Explosions thundering and quaking the ground.

  The entire city seemed to be imploding.

  Before long, she stopped at Pennsylvania Avenue. Not too far away, Amy could see black smoke rising from the remains of the White House.

  "It looks like...the White House has been destroyed. The whereabouts of President Johnson unknown, or his cabinet or the Chiefs of Staff. Perhaps this was all some coup, some grab for power. This is just speculation. All I know is...this is devastating to see. Unreal." Amy reported to her audience from the GoPro camera on her helmet. Dazed, she walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, stopping at Pershing Park. The rattle of gunfire could still be heard, but it seemed to have continued west. The jets had broken off in pursuit of over aircraft that had entered the area.

  Amy stopped and adjusted her angle so tha
t those tuning in could have a clear shot of the White House. "This has become a very appalling story. Forming a grisly pattern, that even under martial law, as ghastly as that is, this looks like the end of civilization as we know it, a coup de grâce of democracy happening not only in the United States but throughout the World," she said, recalling something she'd seen on one of the other news channels.

  "I do not know how much battery I have left, but I promise I will not stop covering--" she started and then stopped. Above the dying commotion of battle rose another sound, one Amy had never heard before. Slowly she turned. Staring down 15th Street there looked to be a mob forming, lurching north towards her.

  "Looks like a riot is breaking out in Washington, a very odd one. They don't seem to be screaming or shouting. Just. Moaning; is that the sound they're making? I can't tell. They're moving drunkenly. No. Wait. Something isn't right." Amy started toward them, squinting to get a better look.

  The mob was made of several hundred people, some moaning, others gnashing and biting at the air. There was a low growl amongst them, hungry and desperate.

  Closer and closer.

  They moved faster than expected.

  Closer--almost at a trot.

  Amy flinched.

  She wanted to run.

  But she couldn't take her gaze from them.

  Several were wounded, horribly.

  They were ghoulish looking things, hardly like people, eyes empty but for one single desire, to consume, to consume every living thing, to consume her.

  "I..." she wheezed, her breath gone from the fear of it all. "I...as you can see, the mob, the people, I think they're dead--dead and walking, a mob of living dead, everywhere. They're everywhere."

  Within a few feet of the dead reaching her, Amy finally turned and ran north and stopped. Directly in front of her now, she faced another mob--a squad of soldiers aiming rifles in her direction.

  Gunfire zipped past her head.

  She ducked at the sound of the snap in the air.

  Behind her, red mist sprayed out the back of one of the living dead. Stunned, but nothing else, the creature kept staggering forward.

  Thinking quickly, Amy dove for the ground.

  A volley of gunfire erupted from the squad of troops.

  More red mist, a few actually fell, but the others kept coming.

  Amy closed her eyes.

  The gun reports ceased.

  She opened her eyes.

  The troops were retreating.

  But the dead were still coming.

  Closer and closer.

  Some passed her--perhaps in pursuit of the others.

  But not all.

  Not all.

  Many fell upon her.

  Reaching.

  Pulling at her clothes.

  Her flesh.

  Amy thrashed and screamed for help, but none came.

  The living dead bit down on her forearm, drawing blood and an immediate festering of more of the dead. An older looking man, his skin ashen and his eyes white grabbed her hand with surprising strength.

  She pulled and pulled but could not free herself.

  The man chewed and severed two of her fingers.

  "God!" she wailed, gritting her teeth.

  Yelling, kicking, she was almost free, but more of the dead swarmed around her.

  Another of the dead had her leg and through the fabric of her thin pants plunged its greedy fingers, penetrating her skin and worming for meat.

  Sobbing--screaming--both, the world buzzed with pain.

  Something had hooked her mouth. A dozen cold stale-tasting fingernails, pinching her tongue and pulling at her gums, pulling at her flesh.

  She wanted to vomit.

  Her stomach knotted.

  Her throat burned.

  And with a wet rip, she felt her tongue removed. Blood pooled in her mouth, nearly drowning her lungs, tasting iron.

  Above the roar of the Siege of Washington, Amy heard the horde of hungry dead things. Growing around her in a large wiggling circle.

  They plucked her eyes and fought to consume the glistening orbs, yanking out the stem of nerves.

  And finally--mercifully, the world faded from her consciousness.

  All but for the audience, for somehow the GoPro remained intact, filming every horrifying moment of Amy Horrigan's death.

  Vladimir Ryazanskiy

  Low Earth Orbit,

  International Space Station

  Below, Mother Russia came into view through the thick port window of the Skylab onboard the ISS. It was night, the sun far on the other side of the globe. Moscow was a mass of twinkling sparkles of glittering lights. Cosmonaut Vladimir Ryazanskiy watched, strapped to his lab desk, his once clean-shaven face now with several weeks' worth of a gritty beard. Somewhere down there, he couldn't quite tell--somewhere in the pitch black of his homeland a bright dazzling light ignited and mushroomed upward, spreading out several diameters, and then dissipating. It did not take long for him to realize what had happened.

  "...yadernoye oruzhiye--Da pomozhet nam Bog."

  He watched for a moment longer and then returned to the task at hand--ignoring his other problem, one he had yet to realize a solution.

  "One thing at a time," he told himself. He took a roll of epoxy and patched his spacesuit. "First the suit. Then the air leak in module Soyuz MS-09. And then I deal with my crewmembers."

  Satisfied with his work, Vladimir unlatched the strap of his seat, floating, he kicked out toward the adjacent module. Sealing the room, he pulled on the recently repaired spacesuit. Securing his helmet, he locked the magnetic anchors of his boots and slowly went through the process of opening the latch. With the cabin pressurized, the bay opened to the pitch black of space. He stepped out, keeping his gaze on the hull of the station. He recalled getting sick once during flight simulation training when he was still a young recruit--back when the Russian Air Force was called Soviet Air Forces. His drill instructor had forced him to run twenty kilometers around the training facility for what he called a "serious lack of stomach."

  Checking that the canister of epoxy was still attached, Vladimir deactivated the magnetic strips of his boots and floated out to the hull of the space station. Several meters ahead he could see the issue. A thin jet of oxygen was spouting through the Soyuz module. Using a latch harness, he tethered himself to the module, pulled himself closer, and began sealing the leak. Finished, he touched the gel to ensure it was hardening and would in fact hold.

  "Good enough, for now," he said.

  Spinning himself around, Vladimir unhooked the latch. Kicking off one of the module fins, he sailed back toward the bay. Inside, he sealed the latch and re-pressurized the cabin. Waiting for the digital display to light up green, he twisted off the helmet.

  "Now for my comrades."

  He floated back through the Skylab and into the inner hub of the space station. Breathing easier now, thanks to the patch on the air leak, he inhaled deeply and exhaled long--calming his mind. Vladimir recalled another drill instructor during survival training, a mandatory element to his fighter pilot career. His instructor had always told him that he needed to clear his mind of all noise and to focus exclusively on the task. Everything else was a distraction and distractions were coffin nails.

  Vladimir stopped himself. Floating down, he peered through the porthole, into the locked communications module. Through the window he could see them, his crewmates floating awkwardly--unsure of what to do with themselves in zero gravity. Though they shouldn't be doing anything, if the world made sense. American Captain Pete Coppock had opened his wrists two weeks into the communications blackout with NASA and RKA. They were alone; the last bits of chatter were so full of static none of them were one hundred percent on what they heard. Someone's poor attempt at a joke, they all believed.

  "The dead returning to life?"

  "What nonsense!"

  And yet, at the idea of being stuck in the space station indefinitely, Pete got twitchy. He iso
lated himself from the others. And then he sliced open his wrists against the side of some paneling's.

  It had been a huge ugly mess.

  Like red gelatin floating, pooling together.

  They had evacuated the room, venting the gore into space.

  And then they collected Pete.

  They bagged him and put him in the Soyuz MS-09 module until they could figure out what to do. Wait for some kind of guidance of base command--communication that would never come.

  It didn't take long to discover the horrible truth.

  Pete woke--changed, not living; not dead.

  Major Mallory Higgins, a British medic, had gone to Pete. Shocked, as they all were at his sudden resurrection. She'd tried to check his vitals and he...

  They had tried to help her. Both Vladimir and his comrade Feodore Popov. They struggled to free Major Higgins, but Pete, he wouldn't surrender. He was like a rabid dog with a bone. Panicking, Vladimir floated around and kicked Pete hard, knocking him back, colliding with several panels of equipment and damaging the haul.

  Higgins stopped the bleeding on her wound.

  But over time, while they observed Pete isolated and locked in the module, she suffered from a quickly escalating fever. Within a few days she'd slipped into a coma. By the fifth day, she died.

  Popov thought about moving her body in with Pete but was concerned with what his reanimated self would do to Higgins's corpse.

  And then she woke.

  And attacked Popov.

  He also suffered from a fever.

  And died.

  And woke again.

  Somehow, knowing he had to fix the leak and would need access through the module, Vladimir was able to isolate his entire crew inside the communication module. But now that the air leak had been resolved, he needed to wrangle them back.

  Just beyond the communication module, he could see Command. And the only way to get to the Command module was through Communications.

  Higgins, or whatever she had become, spotted Vladimir watching through the small door window. She growled and lashed out with her hands, drawing the attention of the others. All were pale and ridged. Whiteish eyes and purple-blue wounds. They looked like animals, working to somehow find a way to get to him, like fish out of water.