“We dropped a constant curtain of artillery fire across the front,” the Colonel explained and then revealed an incredulous fact with a stab of his finger. “During the offensive south, we fired more shells than the Army has fired collectively in every other military conflict during the Twentieth Century. That includes Vietnam, Korea and the Middle East engagements.”
“And this curtain, as you called it – that kept the undead at arms length?” I asked.
“That, and the false insertions by the Black Hawks.”
I blinked. I hadn’t heard anything about false insertions. I flipped over to a new blank page. “What are false insertions?”
Colonel Richelson reached a long arm for his glass of scotch and took another prim sip. “From sunset until sunrise each day of the assault, we operated sticks of Black Hawk helicopters in zombie occupied territory, working in areas ahead of the tanks,” he explained. “The Black Hawks would fly very low level operations to draw the attention of the enemy. Because the zombies are attracted to sound, we were able to set the helicopters down and then take off again quickly in a series of manoeuvers that were designed to lead the zombies away from the tanks, and to concentrate them into areas where the armor would advance the following morning.”
I grunted my grudging respect. It was a clever tactic.
“And this helped distract the undead while the men involved in the assault were being rested?” I prodded.
Richelson nodded. “It certainly did,” he confirmed. “And it also served to maximize the enemy losses. Drawing them into clusters made the work of the armor as it advanced the following day even more devastating.”
MARIETTA, GEORGIA:
It was just a desolate nightmare landscape of grey rubble, black charred timbers and the burned out wreckage of cars. For miles in every direction the land was flat – made that way by the relentless artillery bombardment, which had preceded the Army’s rolling assault through the heartland of the south.
There was nothing to indicate that where I stood was once the thriving city of Marietta.
“We found the bodies over here,” the soldier pointed. He stepped away from the Humvee and went towards a broken pile of wreckage that had once been a large building. In the eerie silence I could hear the vehicle’s big engine popping and ticking as it cooled.
I followed the soldier over the broken ground. Steel girders had been twisted by artillery fire. The smell of smoke still seemed to hang in the air, even after so many months.
A rat scurried over my boot and disappeared into a crevice of rubble.
“When we found them, they were laying beside their weapons,” the soldier intoned, his voice hushed and respectful. “We figure they were from the Georgia State Defense Force. We found thirty-one bodies.”
I paused in mid stride. “Georgia State Defense Force? I didn’t know such a unit even existed.”
The soldier nodded his head. He was a grim-faced, serious young man who still looked too young to shave. “Yes, sir,” he said earnestly. “The State Defense Force is comprised of men and women who make up an unpaid, volunteer component of the US Defense Forces.” The soldier paused for a moment. “My father was part of the State Defense Force in Mississippi. A lot of retired veterans join.”
I was fascinated, but also curious. “And what makes you think that the bodies you recovered from this site were members of the Georgia State Defense Force?”
The soldier shrugged. “This was the Clay National Guard Center,” he said simply. “It was the unit’s Headquarters. When the Georgia National Guard was mobilized to fight the zombies, the State Defense Force was tasked with securing the buildings and equipment while they were fighting at the front. It’s one of their primary missions.”
I looked around again. I could see a bombed and cratered airstrip in the near distance. It was overgrown with weeds and littered with debris.
The soldier followed the direction of my gaze. He nodded again. “This site used to be a Naval Air Station,” he explained, “and the underground bunker we discovered is about another half-mile in that direction.”
We walked.
“As best we could figure it, there were twenty six men and five women inside the bunker,” the young soldier explained as we stumbled across the rough ground. “Each of the bodies was evacuated and returned to relatives for burial wherever possible.”
I was struggling to keep pace. I stopped for a moment and took a second look around, more to catch my breath than for any other reason because there was nothing to see. “How long ago did you discover the bodies?” I asked.
The soldier made a thoughtful face. “We found them a few weeks after the armor rolled through this part of the state,” he explained. “One of the mopping up crews in an M113 was checking the area for dreads. They reported the bunker.”
“Did they go down inside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did they find – apart from the bodies, I mean?”
The soldier shrugged his shoulders. “A letter.”
I felt my heart skip a beat. “A letter? Written by one of the men?”
“Yes, sir.”
I paused for a moment. “What did it say?”
The soldier reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said. “The Colonel told me you would want it. You can read for yourself.”
The soldier handed me a folded piece of paper within a small clear plastic evidence bag. I realized my hands were trembling.
“Who wrote it?” I asked in a whisper.
The soldier shook his head. “It’s unsigned, sir.”
I opened the bag and carefully unfolded a single page of paper that was wrinkled and stained with spatters of dry blood and the grime of dirty fingers. I held the letter in my hands like it was a priceless relic and sank down onto my haunches to slowly read:
We’re surrounded by the undead. There is only enough ammunition for another day, then no more. We’re fighting at night now, heading up to the surface after it gets dark to take the war to the enemy. Each shot brings more of the undead down on us. Last night they almost found us.
No food left, but we still have water. Jerry thinks the zombies will move on, but they haven’t yet. Most of us want to make a last stand here and save a bullet for ourselves at the end. There’s no way we’ll go easy. There’s no way we will let them get us – we won’t be turned against our own troops and families. We’ll die with our boots on. All we have left to fight for is each other. There’s no escape. It’s too late for that.
I miss my wife and kids. I pray to God they got away in time. This will be hard on my little girl.
We’re all going to die here…
I handed the letter to the young soldier. He slid it back into the evidence bag and tucked it carefully into one of his pockets.
I turned away…
And smudged a tear from my cheek.
‘SEPIA’ RESTAURANT:
WASHINGTON D.C.
The Secretary of State eased his shirt sleeves far enough to reveal the diamond-studded cufflinks, and glanced at the face of his gold wristwatch. “I’m on the clock,” Vincent McNab said. “So don’t fuck around with formalities, okay?”
I nodded. This man had a reputation for being a hardline tough guy. His straight-talking approach to diplomacy had won him no friends internationally since the zombie apocalypse, but within America he and the President were seen as exactly the kind of team the nation needed as it had faced its most perilous crisis.
Personally, I liked him.
It was rare to find a politician who didn’t care for politics – and Vince McNab was one of those guys. He had no political ambition – just a desire to do his job to the best of his ability. He didn’t have one eye on his re-election prospects, or an eye on the Oval Office. He didn’t care for Washington, he cared about America. He was a man on a mission, and that mission had nothing to do with his own popularity, or a looming November election.
A waiter brought drinks. McNab bared his teeth in a fi
erce grimace that was probably his idea of a warm friendly smile.
“Are you gentlemen ready to order?” The waiter had menus tucked under his arm.
McNab ran his eyes quickly down the list. “I’ll have the usual,” McNab snapped. “And he will have the same.”
The young man retrieved the menus and scurried away. McNab stared at me across the restaurant table and set his hands down on the starched white tablecloth like a gunslinger ready to reach for his pistols. “So?”
I sipped at my drink to buy a few moments of time. The man was like a whirlwind, and I didn’t want to get swept up in his bluster. This interview was important to me. I needed to get it right.
“What did you order for me?” I asked.
“Tuna salad sandwich,” McNab said. “It’s all I’ve got time for. And I don’t think it’s right that the nation’s leaders are swilling alcohol and feasting on three course meals while the rest of the country is still struggling to survive. Do you?”
“I see your point,” I agreed carefully, “but why bring me to a restaurant at all? Couldn’t we have done this interview in your office?”
“No,” McNab said. He glanced past me, his eyes moving in his head. The restaurant was all but deserted. We were sitting in a dark corner, with the drapes drawn across the windows to block out the afternoon sunshine. There was only one other occupied table – a couple of dark suited men wearing sunglasses and sipping at bottles of water. The men were both young, with short neat haircuts. Secret Service, I guessed.
“I didn’t want this conversation to take place anywhere near the State Department.”
I didn’t pursue the matter. I shrugged my shoulders and took another sip of my drink. The Secretary of State picked up his glass and swallowed his bourbon like it was medicine.
McNab was a tall man with curly grey hair and the kind of soft pouches of skin under his eyes that made you think he was sleepy. He had a beaked nose, and deeply etched lines across his brow that formed a V between his eyes. His gaze was dark and hawk-like, his restless presence disconcerting.
“So?” he said again impatiently.
I took a deep breath. “You know I want to quote you, right? You know this interview will be on the record?”
McNab swatted the words away like they were flies with a flick of his hand. “I know that,” he growled.
I shrugged. I pulled my cell phone out and laid it on the tabletop. It was recording.
“During the height of the zombie apocalypse, America was vulnerable internationally,” I began. “Would you agree with that?”
McNab nodded his head. He sucked at his teeth for a moment, glanced down at the cell phone, and then he literally launched himself into a tirade.
“You don’t know the half of it,” the Secretary of State hissed. “Nor do the American people. But they should. They should know that the fucking Chinese and the fucking Russians have seized on America’s vulnerability and taken the opportunity to place the world right back on the brink of global conflict.”
I sat back, stunned. “Are you serious?”
McNab gripped the edge of the table. “Do I look like I have a sense of humor?”
He didn’t. McNab looked like the kind of man who never laughed. He was intense, bristling with energy and passion.
“Can you explain what you mean in more detail? They’re fairly inflammatory claims. I don’t imagine the Chinese or Russian governments would be pleased to hear your accusations.”
“Fuck ‘em!” McNab said like he meant it. He leaned across the table and fixed me with his hard eyes. “What I’m telling you now is exactly the same thing I have already told the Russians and the Chinese to their faces, and in exactly the same kind of language.”
I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “I don’t imagine the Chinese took the criticism terribly well.”
“Fuck ‘em,” McNab said again. “The days of delicate diplomacy are long gone. We’re in a different world now. For years America was the world’s policeman – we intervened in global conflicts and we exerted military and economic influence to maintain the peace. But this zombie outbreak changed all that. We were forced to become isolationist – we were forced to pull out of Europe and the Middle East to protect America from infestation.”
“And you claim the Chinese and the Russians took advantage of that, right?”
“They did,” McNab said flatly. “America is on the brink of financial ruin. Our economy has collapsed. Wall Street, our industries… everything broke down when the apocalypse spread through Florida. People left their jobs to protect their families. Others tried to flee north to Canada. We had martial law introduced. Everything ground to a halt, and then collapsed from under our feet. The Chinese… the fucking Chinese… what did they do? Did they offer to help? Did they extend any aid to America? Of course not. They called in their fucking debts! They sent a delegation to Washington insisting that we repay all loans immediately,” McNab’s face was twisted with his rage and loathing.
“And naturally we couldn’t,” I prompted gently.
“Of course not!” McNab was seething. “We were on the brink of Armageddon.”
“So you think the Chinese demand to repay the loans was what… a ploy?”
McNab nodded. He waved his hand at the waiter for another drink. “When we met the delegation, they had a compromise,” the Secretary of State smiled bitterly. “They would forgive all loans – wipe the slate clean. All we had to do was turn our back while they invaded Taiwan.”
“They used the loans as leverage?”
“They blackmailed us,” McNab said. “And there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t defend Taiwan because we had every piece of American military hardware fighting to defend America. So they bought tacit permission to invade Taiwan, knowing we couldn’t do a damned thing to stop them.”
My mind leaped ahead to a frightening thought. “Are we still vulnerable, Mr. McNab? Is America at risk of a Chinese, or maybe a Russian invasion?”
“No,” the Secretary of State said emphatically. “The bastards wouldn’t be game.” His drink arrived. He moved the glass away to the side of the table. “The Chinese aren’t interested. Their focus is on Asia. Now they have Taiwan, and the North Koreans are massing on the border to South Korea. They’re backed by the Chinese – but they’re keeping their expansion plans firmly in the Asia region. The Russians… well they’ve swept through the Ukraine and they’ve also taken Poland. They have troops on the border to Germany, but that’s as far as they’ll go until next spring. They wouldn’t dare try to invade America.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. “Really? Given America’s current position?”
“Because of America’s current position,” McNab corrected me to make his point. I didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
The Secretary of State glanced down at his watch and then stared back into my eyes. “When the apocalypse swept through the southern states of America, civilization as the American people know it collapsed. We have power supply problems, blackouts and brownouts. We have food shortages, no exports, no economy. We have no social media, limited cell phone capabilities. We have drinking water problems and in some states we have riots in the streets. We still have martial law.”
I nodded, but I didn’t see the man’s point. If anything it seemed like he was making the case for the very real prospect that America could be invaded by Russia.
“The point is that America has changed,” McNab went on. “Americans have changed. We used to be the wealthiest, most envied nation in the world. We used to be financially the strongest nation in the world. Not any more. Now we have become a nation of gun-carrying survivalists. We’ve become like Sparta.”
“Sparta? You mean ancient Sparta?”
McNab nodded. “The Greeks and Romans were the affluent cultures in the ancient world. They had art and civilization. They had philosophy and literature. The Spartans were warriors. They were no-frills fuckers who terrified th
e ancient world because their focus was solely on their own survival. That’s who we have become. We got king-hit by the zombie outbreak, and when a man gets hit he tucks his chin onto his chest and regains his balance. That’s what America is doing. Then the guy gets back up off the floor and he fights back,” McNab enthused, and there was a rising tone of passion and fire in his voice. “That’s what we’re going to do when the time is right, only it won’t be the old America, it will be the new America swinging punches – a tougher, leaner nation filled with people who haven’t been made lazy and apathetic by everything they have been blessed with. It will be an America filled with warriors who know how to survive, and know what it’s like to fight for their life.”
I was about to ask another question when the waiter arrived with our sandwiches. He was a nervous young man. He set our food down on the table and fussed over how the plates were arranged. The Secretary of State gnawed on his lip like he was stifling his temper. When the waiter had disappeared, McNab took the top off his sandwich and examined the filling.
“NATO has collapsed,” McNab said as he prodded a piece of tomato with the tip of his finger. He pushed the slice to the side of his plate and replaced the bread. “The fucking French – the chicken-shit bastards have pulled out of the organization, and maybe Belgium will do the same. They don’t have the balls to stand up to Russia without us propping them up.”
“And what does that mean, do you think?”
“I know what it fucking means!” the Secretary of State’s voice rose and took on an edge of frustration and temper. “It means the fucking French are a useless pack of cowards who haven’t won a fucking fight since the time of Napoleon. Now they’re trying to hide from Russia because they don’t have the guts to stand and fight. They left NATO, and that means they’ve abandoned their European partners.”
“Which means…?” I kept prompting gently. I felt like a kid poking an angry snake with a stick.
“It means we now have Germany and Britain left on their own to man the Fulda Gap against Russian armor. We can’t help them, and no one else from NATO is coming to their aid. The fucking French have seen to that.”
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