The sound of shattering glass filled the house as several runners dove through the living room windows. Jerry stepped into the room and fired his remaining bullets at the infected. He reached for his extra magazine and then remembered that he had left it behind in the Jeep. With the gun slide locked back, he threw it at the nearest runner. He realized that his situation was a bad one and there was a good chance he was going to die, and as he came to grips with that reality, he heard the old man wailing like a small child. Coming to the conclusion he wasn’t going to go make it, he also decided that he wasn’t going to die without a fight. Whoever or whatever these fuckers were, he wasn’t going to make it easy for them. With his heart beating wildly and his body electrified with adrenaline, he darted into the living room and picked up a chair, rushing headlong at the runners and crashing into two of them. A third grabbed onto him, but he spun and began punching wildly, knocking the infected woman away from him.
Knowing that the living room was lost, he turned to fall back into the hallway. He spied a wooden baseball bat that was leaning in the corner next to the front door. He guessed that the old man must have strategically placed it there in the event of a break-in. Grabbing that, he met a runner who came rushing into the hallway from the living room. With an overhead swing, the bat met skull, shattering the bone. The runner went down and Jerry let out a primordial scream as he stood over the fallen infected. He continued to beat down on the head until it turned into a dark jelly. Fixated on the total destruction of his nemesis, he didn’t even notice that the living room was filing up with more and more infected.
The sound of approaching footsteps on the wooden floor of the hallway made Jerry look up. There were at least half a dozen more runners pouring into the small passageway. He backed away from the advancing mob as he swung the bat at them. Seeing that the group was blocking his path to the front door, he began to slowly back his way down the hall towards the back door. When he felt his back touch the door, he reached down to grab onto the door knob. As he was about to open it, someone outside began to beat and bang on the door. He was trapped.
With his back literally against the wall, and with no other place to run to, Jerry knew that he was in his last moments. He gripped the bloodied bat with both hands and readied himself for the final onslaught. The sound of shattering glass throughout the run-down home let him know that the end was near, and for a brief moment the advancing mob paused and looked at him, as if they were sizing up their victim. The leader, an otherwise frail looking woman with a huge gash across her face, let out a scream, signaling the attack.
Taking one last deep breath, Jerry let loose with the bat, taking her out with a strike across her temple. The next attacker, a bloodied, overweight man dressed in a security guard uniform, stomped over the body of the fallen woman as he made a dash for Jerry. In a final flurry of screams and shrieks from the infected, and curses and profanities from Jerry, the horde set upon him.
It was only a matter of seconds before Jerry’s body parts were being tossed around the hallway.
Chapter 5
White House Situation Room, Washington D.C
“Goddamn!” President Haddock exclaimed, “I want President Moroshkin or Prime Minister Troitsky on the line right now! I am not interested in talking to any of their damn flunkies!”
“We’re trying, Dom, we really are,” replied the National Security Advisor, “but we can’t get through to them. The best we can do is some colonel who claims to be leading a resistance in Moscow.”
“And Oscar, we still can’t reach him?” Haddock asked in reference to the White House Chief of Staff.
“We’ve got multiple reports of breakouts here in the metro area,” Perryman said with a worried look on his face. Just prior to entering the situation room, he had been handed a report from the D.C. Police indicating that the authorities were quickly losing control of the city, and he feared that the chief had been lost in the chaos. “We’re trying to get some people out to his home, so we’re just waiting to hear from them.” A deep sigh from Perryman conveyed his fear to the president.
Haddock slammed his clenched fist down onto the conference table and shot an angry glare at General Marcus Washington. He had to fight the urge to reach across the table and grab the smug, portly general by his neck. He pointed an angry finger at the military man. “As Chairman to the Joint Chiefs, you were supposed to know about this, all of this! How in the world can you sit there and try to convince me that you didn’t know what Vice Chairman Jenkinson was up to?”
“As I tried to explain to you sir, Admiral Jenkinson intentionally failed to reveal his suspicions to us when he first sent the research team to Kazakhstan.” Washington nervously tugged at his shirt collar and he could feel sweat beading up on his brows. He knew that he was on the hot-seat and he could feel his face flushing. “He was operating on his own when it came to that. It wasn’t until way after the team had arrived back in Maryland when he fully disclosed what his true motives were in sending the team over there. We thought they had gone over there to assist the Kazakhs…we had no idea that they were there on an intelligence gathering mission.”
“This is truly unbelievable, I mean truly unbelievable!” Haddock barked. His nostrils flared and he gritted his teeth as a spasm of anger came over him. “One of our most senior military officials sends a research team to investigate the fact that somehow the goddamn Russians had developed a weapon that brings the dead back to life, and no one thought to notify the President of The United States?”
“I understand your anger Mister President, but Admiral Jenkinson failed to disclose the true nature of the investigation and—”
“And now we have mass chaos in our nation! Chaos that we could have been prepared for had we known what was really going on!” Haddock stood up and began to pace back and forth with his hands on his hips. “Jesus Christ! We could have been better prepared…maybe formulated some kind of response, but now we are playing from behind the eight ball! I would have done more than just alert the National Guard. I would have brought the Army home!” He stopped briefly and violently tugged at his tie as he loosened it. “And where is that miserable piece of shit at? He should be here right now, in front of us…answering for this!”
“He’s missing right now, sir,” Defense Secretary Chambers said. Chambers knew that he needed to calm down the president before his anger—and fear—infected not only the present cabinet members, but the entire staff manning the situation room. He also wanted to deflect the president’s anger away from Washington. He had known the general for almost twenty years and he had no doubt in his mind that Washington would have never intentionally tried to cover up something as incredible as this. He tried to speak with a calming tone. “We can’t contact him at all. Same goes for the chiefs of the Army and Navy. The chief of the Marines is inbound and the chief of the Air Force is at Dover.”
“Well, it’s nice to hear that the Secretary of Defense has something to say on this,” Haddock sarcastically said as he spun and stared down Chambers. “And the members of the research team, those two civilians and what’s his name—Major Roberts—where are they at?”
“Doctor Irene Hopkins should be here any minute now, Mister President,” Chambers replied, again in a calm tone. “She was the only one who was able to make it out when Fort Detrick was lost.”
“And just how did we lose Fort Detrick?” Haddock asked in an incredulous tone.
Hesitantly, General Washington answered, “When we had a containment failure in the lab. We’re not sure what actually happened, but several staff members were exposed and there was an outbreak and—”
“And the whole place went to hell,” Perryman interjected. He too had grown tired of the general’s excuses. “And now, whatever hard scientific data and research we did have on this calamity is up in flames! Oh, and don’t forget to mention that the whole region is lost and we have reports of outbreaks up and down the entire eastern seaboard as a result of that containment failure!�
�� Perryman could see that the Defense Secretary had attempted to come to the aid of Washington, and he resented him for doing so. He glared scornfully at Chambers. Washington needed to face the music. It was as simple as that.
“Do you realize what we are facing here?” Haddock asked Washington. The president then looked around at everyone else who was sitting at the table and he asked again, “Do you realize what we are facing here?”
“I think we do, Mister President,” Washington said.
Haddock stood still for a moment and was able to calm himself. He took two deep breaths and moved back over to the table, sitting down with a thud. Being an otherwise calm and collected individual who was known for his prudent and deliberate actions, it was obvious that he was having trouble in trying to restrain his emotions. His despair was becoming infectious to those in the room and anxiety was starting to grab at everyone. After a few more moments of silence, he gathered his composure and in a more settled tone he said, “Okay, people, I want a list of the major metro areas that are suffering the worst. We’re going to have to impose martial law in those places, but we need to have the resources in place to do so. I want Homeland Security to provide me a threat assessment to our power grids, our nuclear facilities and our water supplies. I need to know how long we can expect the power and water to run in a worst-case scenario.
Secretary Chambers, I need to know the status of our military, any degradation to their readiness and how quickly we can have troops deployed in our cities. Work with Attorney General Spencer in regards to coordination between the military and law enforcement. As far as I know, he is secure at Quantico, so we’ll see about having him flown here. We also need F.E.M.A. up and on the go as soon as possible. Fuel is going to be a huge factor in keeping this country alive, so we’re going to have to utilize our strategic fuel reserve. We have to make sure the military and first responders have enough fuel to move around the country, and we need to make sure we’ve got fuel in place for generators in case we have loss of power issues. And until that doctor gets here, we’re in the dark as far as any scientific data goes, so we need her here. Someone please find out where she’s at.”
General Washington sat in his chair and fidgeted. He was seething. And he was humiliated. No one had ever addressed him like the president had just done. He wasn’t used to being put on the spot or being made to look like an incompetent fool. As the president continued to go over his plan, Washington realized that there was no way that they were going to be able to secure every major metropolitan area in the country; it was simply too much to ask for. He knew that he needed to advise the president of such, but he was still smarting from Haddock’s earlier attack. He surely didn’t want to get another dose of the president’s anger, so he carefully thought about what he was going to say and how he was going to say it. After a few moments of thoughtful planning he said, “Excuse me Mister President, I am sure everyone else in here is of the same thought, and when I say this, I don’t mean to come off as uncompassionate or insensitive, but we will not be able to secure every major city in this country. We don’t have the time, the man-power or the resources to successfully undertake such a task as that.”
“Well, Mister Chairman, you damn well better do your best,” Haddock angrily replied. “I don’t want to be responsible for even one single life being lost because of the incompetence of your staff.” Smarting, Washington sat back in his chair and thought it better to not say anything else.
Sensing that the president was about to unload on the general again, Chambers stepped in to mercifully divert Haddock’s attention. “Mister President, in order to provide protection to the country, we will have to recall all of our forces from abroad, even our forces in South Korea, but, in order for them to get here as quickly as possible, they may have to leave behind a large portion of their equipment.”
“Well, I don’t care what you have to do, but get our troops home as fast as you can. God knows we’ve already lost enough precious time in doing so.” Haddock was through with Washington and Chambers and he wanted to wash his hands of the two of them. He quickly sprang up from his chair and walked over to a large monitor screen that was hanging on a wall. On the screen was an image of the continental United States. With one last look of contempt at Washington he said, “The National Guard will just have to shoulder the burden until the active duty troops can deploy.” He looked away from the general and then said, “Now, will someone please explain to me what’s going on with this map?”
“Okay,” Perryman said as he walked over to the screen, “this map shows the areas where outbreaks have been reported. As you can see by the red clusters, there are numerous occurrences along the west coast.”
“Why the west coast?” the president asked.
“Well—and this is what the meteorologists have told us— the jet stream flows from west to east, and the fallout from the nukes first started showing up there on the west coast.” Perryman was pointing at the red dots that were scattered up and down California and Oregon.
“What about down around the Gulf? Why Texas and Louisiana…Alabama and Mississippi?”
“Well, sometimes there is a jet stream that flows from east to west…that one is a tropical jet stream. That’s the one that pushes the hurricanes up into the Gulf.”
“And that’s what spread it down there?” Haddock asked.
“Yes sir, we believe so,” Perryman said as he sighed. “It seems to be breaking out everywhere.”
“So then, is it safe to say that based on how these jet streams have distributed the fallout, we might all be infected?” Haddock asked.
“That’s a safe assumption, but we’re not sure. Now, these clusters you see here…the ones spread out over the heartland, we believe those were spread through travel. Primarily through travel from the west coast.”
“Travel?” Haddock asked with a perplexed look on his face.
“Yes sir, as in air travel. People flying in from the west coast…at least that’s what we believe.”
The president stood with his hands on his hips as he studied the map intently. What he saw frightened him, but he knew that he couldn’t show his fear to his staff. They needed strength and confidence, and he felt shame for his earlier outburst. He turned and looked down at the floor. It was a habit that he had when he pondered something important. “We need to suspend all air travel,” he said as he raised his eyes and looked around at his staff. “And we need to lock down all airspace around the country. No one, and I mean no one can enter the country.”
“That means we have to close the borders, both south and north,” Chambers said.
“Then that is what we’ll have to do. And that will be your job…yours’ and law enforcement’s.”
“We shouldn’t have that of a hard time with Canada, but Mexico on the other hand…well, that could get touchy,” Perryman added. “We might have trouble there. We might have to use force, even deadly force to keep people from crossing the border.”
“Then we’ll have to do that,” Haddock said flatly.
“Sir, are we talking about suspending the constitution?” Chambers asked. “Otherwise, we would have to get special legislation approved to allow us to do what needs to be done to close the borders.”
“If it means saving this country, we might have to consider operating in uncharted waters. How are we on contacting the legislature?”
“We haven’t had much luck,” Perryman answered. “Things are falling apart pretty quickly out there, and lots of folks are running…or they’re just hunkering down. Some of the cell carriers are off-line, so some communication has been lost.”
“Well, we need to see about repairing or restoring whatever we can so we can keep communications open and then we can—”
Haddock paused as a small, thin-framed man trotted into the conference room. “Mister President, the doctor is here.” He was out of breath and was pointing back behind him. As Haddock looked at him, he found himself thinking that the scene was reminiscent
of when messengers would run themselves to death in order to deliver messages from ancient battlefields.
“Thank you very much sir,” Haddock said. “Go ahead and show her in.”
The staffer exited the room and then returned with Irene. She was carrying a brown leather satchel full of papers and a laptop. The cabinet members all stood up and watched in silence as the disheveled woman approached the table. The worn doctor could feel their eyes fall upon here. She could also feel and smell the tension in the room.
“Please Doctor Hopkins, have a seat,” Perryman said.
“Thank you,” Irene replied in a raspy voice. She placed her satchel on the table and sat down. Once seated, the cabinet members took their seats and the president studied her face. He could tell that she had been through a rough time. Several bruises and healing scratches on her face and forehead showed that she had suffered some kind of traumatic experience. A dark contusion on her left cheek kept her wincing. He knew that everyone at the table had a million questions to ask her, but he was going to make sure that the doctor wasn’t too overwhelmed. She looked frail and fragile and he wasn’t sure how long she could endure a long Q&A session.
“First of all, on behalf of the country, I’d like to thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Haddock said with an appreciative tone. “I know you’ve been through a great deal and we’ll try to be as accommodating as we can.”
“Thank you, sir,” Irene replied. She found herself at a loss for words. She didn’t know if she should stand up or what. It wasn’t every day that she got to speak with the President of the United States and she didn’t know what the protocols consisted of for addressing him. She eased her seat back and was about to stand up when Perryman spoke.
A Glimpse Of Decay (Book 2): Staring into the Abyss Page 7