by Mark Tufo
Lopez, still on the floor, aimed through the holographic sight on his MP7; the feeding zombie looked up and hissed at him. A three round burst from his weapon rendered her face unrecognizable.
Deke couldn’t believe it. He was fatally injured by the smallest superficial bite; tiny teeth marks were visible on the exposed flesh between his gloved hand and his ACU sleeve. He let his weapon hang from its sling and checked Matthews’ pulse. It was too late for him. The young operator had bled out already and was starting to turn a pallid gray. The carpet was slick with blood and the gut shot Lowery was fighting to breathe, bloody air bubbles frothing from his mouth. Acrid cordite, comingling with the metallic smell of blood, filled the Presidential Suite.
Deke tended to the rapidly fading Lowery. Lopez was smarting from the bullets his vest had absorbed. He gingerly moved forward to assist Deke just as Lowery reanimated and rolled over onto his stomach. Deke stood erect, backpedaled and put a plush chair between him and the corpse. The creature that was once Lowery managed to rise, allowing the entire contents of his bowels to spill through the gaping entry wounds. Fecal odor now permeated the room. Lopez gagged as he double-tapped his undead teammate with his silenced carbine.
A dry rattling moan originated from the next room. Lopez entered the adjoining marble tiled bathroom, in a combat crouch, with his carbine at the ready. The sound was coming from the white clawfoot tub. He approached cautiously and looked over the edge at what remained of the First Lady’s body. She was naked and twitching in the bottom of the empty vessel. It appeared she had been attacked and eaten by her undead children. The bite marks were small, but so much of her had been consumed the only thing she could do was track movement with her eyes and click her jaws open and closed.
Lopez, Rooks and Dooley finished clearing the President’s private residence. Lopez called out, “Clear.”
Deke hailed Mike.
“This is Rainman, I’ve been infected. Wholford, Matthews and Lowery are all KIA, Lopez is assuming command of Zulu-Two, how copy?”
On the other side of the White House Mike halted in his tracks, let his weapon hang on its sling, and rubbed his temples before answering.
“Cowboy, copy that. What the hell happened?”
Deke recounted how he had paused briefly before engaging the First children. “Shit went FUBAR on me. I take full responsibility. FLOTUS is dead. I repeat the First Lady is down.”
Lopez took command of Zulu-Two and ordered his men to digitally document the scene and retrieve DNA swabs from all of the dead. Rooks took the camera from Deke and captured images of the dead girls and the First Lady, who was still hungrily eyeing the soldiers.
Deke confirmed his pistol was loaded by pulling the slide back far enough to see brass in the chamber; he then stepped to the undead Mrs. Odero and fired one bullet into her brain. He started to shake, not only from what he had just done, but also from the viral process taking place throughout his entire body. Deke’s limbs were going numb. The last time he felt this miserable was during the cold water survival course at Fort Benning so many years ago. He had survived that day but he knew he wasn’t finishing this one. The weary soldier closed the door behind him and pulled the photo of his wife and little boy from his breast pocket and gave them each one last kiss. Tears formed in his eyes as he put the pistol into his mouth. It tasted of gun oil and metal. His infected limbs shook more forcefully. He had to bite down on the barrel to keep it in his mouth. Willing his finger muscles to contract, he left this world. The bang reverberated in the tiled bathroom.
In the West Wing of the White House, Mike and his team slowly made their way down the marble spiral staircase. He and his men located the dark wooden door to the White House Situation room. Aside from Mr. Jones and his intern there had been no other infected in the West Wing. The bloody handprints and blood trail in the upstairs hall outside of the Oval Office were the only indication things may have gone sideways on the President and his protection detail. Mike had a sinking feeling there would be no one left alive to tell that story.
The men formed up in front of the wood-paneled titanium blast door. Mike rapped on it with a gloved hand. A series of bumps and bangs answered him back.
In his ear he heard a new report from the other team.
“This is Lowrider, we are enroute to the West Wing. My team is at half strength,” Sergeant First Class Lopez said.
“Copy that Lowrider, Cowboy out.”
Mike got the attention of Warrant Officer Clark and warned him to be ready to receive the three remaining team members, lest they have another friendly fire incident.
Clark nodded in recognition.
During the mission briefing hours ago, Speaker of the House Valerie Clay provided the last known entry code for the situation room. She was the only known surviving member of the U.S. government still communicating with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Barring the retrieval of a living breathing POTUS or VPOTUS she was the next in order of succession.
Mike touched the keypad and entered the digits he had memorized. The green light on the keypad blinked momentarily before the door slid into the wall, revealing the interior of the situation room and the carnage inside. The smell was noxious and Mike had all he could do to keep his gag reflex in check.
President Odero’s hubris kept him from accepting his protective detail’s recommendation that he be moved to a safer location. The men and women staffers pleaded with him and the First Lady to allow them to be moved to Iron Mountain as protocol dictated. Instead he recalled all of his cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff back to the White House just hours after declaring martial law. Only a handful of the cabinet members had made it back and none of the Joint Chiefs of Staff returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Of the staffers that did return, President Odero’s National Security Advisor Daniel Guzman was already infected, thus dooming everyone in the White House.
The source of the banging came forward, a Secret Service Agent, most of his face hanging in strips over the collar of his blood-caked white cotton oxford shirt. His empty leather shoulder holster bounced with his lurching steps, the flesh colored earpiece dangling where his ear used to be swishing to and fro like a bloody pendulum. Jaundiced eyes stared at the soldiers entering the inner sanctum. Somewhere in the recesses of its hippocampus the thing remembered it had something to protect. Mike became its target.
With the precision honed from hours of practicing live fire shooting, the team swept the medium-sized room, each instinctively taking the proper firing zone.
Mike punched out the Secret Service zombie’s right eye with a three round burst, crouched low, and crab walked to the right around the massive table flanked by enormous darkened LCD panel televisions.
Seconds elapsed and the rest of the room was cleared of undead. There were six in total: three more agents, the Vice President and his younger trophy wife, last place in death for sure. Mike sensed the movement beyond the next open door before making contact. It was the President. He was now undead. There were defensive bite wounds on his hands and his pants legs were tattered and torn exposing his monogrammed boxer shorts. Handcuffed to his right arm was an aluminum attaché case.
“Calvin, you rolling digital?” Mike bellowed.
“Affirmative sir.”
“Tighten on the face then.”
“Copy that.”
The image that the camera digitally captured didn’t resemble the president. His cheeks were sunken; his usual commanding steely stare was replaced by dead, glazed over eyes peering from a waxy alabaster mask.
“Odero is beyond recovery, preparing to terminate POTUS.”
Captain Mike Desantos had the President in his sights and thought, This shouldn’t be happening. His MP7 silently spit lead and the zombie that used to be the most powerful man in the free world crumpled to the thick carpet spilling blood and brain matter from his bullet-riddled skull.
Mike drew his Hard Steel Tanto blade and put his combat boot on the dead President’s upturned hand. With th
ree rapid sawing motions of his knife he removed the appendage. The blood slickened handcuff slid from the stump easily. For the first time since the helos dropped the men at the White House, Mike hailed Fort Bragg so they could inform the former Speaker of the House Valerie Clay she was the new POTUS.
“This is Zulu-One, we have recovered the fumble. How copy?”
“Copy that, RTB (return to base) with the football. Reaper-One and Two are refueling, exfil in ten mikes.”
“Roger that. Zulu-One.”
Two miles away the helicopters that had inserted the team loitered after their last aerial refueling. Arrangements were made to top off their tanks before rendezvousing with the Delta Teams at the White House for the exfil.
Lastly, out of curiosity, Captain Desantos took the expensive white gold Breitling chronograph from the dead President’s other wrist. He turned it over and read the engraved inscription, “For your unending service and dedication-Welcome into the Guild-The Marzenberg Group.”
The watch went into his pocket but the disbelief at the words he had just read wouldn’t go away.
Chapter 156
Day 3 - Outskirts of Nampa, Idaho
Leo pulled first watch. His eyes played tricks on him a time or two but he didn’t wake anyone or shoot at shadows.
Sheila rapped on the driver’s side window causing Leo to literally jump out of his seat an inch or two. Leo smiled when he realized who it was. Shyly, he asked Sheila what she was still doing up.
“I couldn’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see her face, and I hear her voice constantly. Am I going crazy?” the pretty blonde asked.
“It sucks. Those walking dead motherfuckers suck. Life sucks without my little brother… So to answer your question, no, you are far from crazy. I ain’t crazy either. We are just so used to them always being with us,” Leo said, looking toward Sheila in the dark.
“I miss her so much!” Sheila started to sob silently, her body wracked with grief. Leo innocently rubbed her shoulder for a few minutes until she composed herself. Sensing that she could use some support he asked, “I was wondering, can I ride with you tomorrow? We can keep each other company.”
“Yes… yes you can. Maybe we can distract each other from thinking about… “
They sat in silence with their own thoughts until Cade materialized from the inky darkness ready to take over guard duty. Leo’s first impression was that Cade looked like a robot because of the NV goggles on his face.
Leo fell asleep under a sleeping bag on the third bench seat. Sheila slept stretched across the second row while Cade kept watch.
Cade could see his breath when he exhaled; the temperature had dropped off considerably after the sun made its exit. Even though his hands were growing numb from the cold, he kept the window open so he could rely on his sense of smell to warn him of any approaching undead. While keeping one eye on the surroundings he checked his phone for messages. He had no cell service and there were no new messages so he powered it off and turned on the stereo. With the volume turned down very low Cade checked all of the AM and FM stations for news, but all he heard was white noise. There was an hour of watch left for him but he knew the luxury of sleeping afterward was out of the question. During Ranger training and the Special Forces qualifying course he had gone days with little or no sleep. He would do that now because he knew their lives depended on him. Cade also felt a huge responsibility for Leo, especially after what had happened to Ike.
With nothing to do but stare into the dark and listen to the steady rhythmic breathing coming from the back seat, he reflected on the day gone by. It was eerie how deserted the freeways had been. Since leaving Portland they seemed to be the only denizens of the road. Cade guessed that they had found themselves caught between two roadblocks on the interstate. The government was taking this quarantine thing dead seriously.
In the distance the pinpoints of light gave them away before the big engines announced their approach. A very raucous group of Harleys passed by at around 3:30 am as Rawley’s watch was about to start; they came back a short while later and probed the parking lot with their headlights. They stayed near the rest stop entrance for two or three minutes, motors idling and beating out a deep throated cadence. Cade and Rawley counted four headlights.
“What do you make of that?” Rawley said when the bikers turned and roared off into the Idaho night, red taillights diminishing in the distance.
“They’re bandits and they’re sizing us up. We’ve got enough vehicles here that they probably decided to get reinforcements.”
“Do you gather they’re the same murderers Duncan mentioned?”
“Dollars to doughnuts, one and the same,” Cade said bleakly.
Everyone awoke at dawn; as soon as the sun arose so did the temperature. It was going to be a hot day in the high desert.
Cade filled the group in on the evening incursion and reminded everyone to stay frosty and be aware of their surroundings. He finished by telling the drivers that in case of an attack or ambush, “Accelerate through the kill zone and regroup. Whatever you do, do not stop!” He spoke slowly and was careful to add extra emphasis on the do not stop part.
Breakfast consisted of MREs and bottled water. Weapons were loaded, gas tanks were filled and then the five dusty vehicles exited the rest stop single file.
“This is Rawley, come in.”
Cade found it amusing how unnatural Rawley sounded when he talked on the Motorola, considering he used to make a living singing and playing the guitar.
“Copy that,” he replied.
A little static came from the speaker. “How about I take the lead for a while?” Rawley asked.
“Copy that,” Cade replied again.
Rawley’s white Bronco overtook the Sequoia and held a steady forty-five miles an hour while dodging single stalls and slowing considerably for multiple vehicle choke points. On a couple of occasions he put the bull bar on the Bronco to use and handily pushed the stalled cars off of the road.
They were making good time and nearing Nampa, Idaho when they needed to stop to siphon fuel. A group of undead thrashed about in a Chevy Suburban as Rawley nervously emptied its large gas tank of unleaded. He was pretty sure they couldn’t unlock the doors, but stranger shit had happened. With one eye on the undead and one eye on the gas can he finally finished his unnerving task. Not wanting to waste ammo he left them to bake in the sun on their eternal road trip.
Leo had taken to riding with Shelly and she also welcomed his company and felt more secure with another person in the car. Their conversation settled on how things had been growing up with a close sibling and how they had enjoyed the camaraderie, but abhorred the rivalries. Shelly changed the subject and tried to imagine the future without Sheila. Not wanting to think about what was in store for him, Leo clammed up.
Harry’s Camaro started running rough soon after they left the rest stop. It was overheating and wouldn’t hold water. They inspected under the hood and found a burst hose. Not wanting to attempt a roadside repair, Harry reluctantly decided to leave it on the shoulder. He put his meager belongings into Duncan’s truck, got in and rode shotgun. He took one last glance at his fully restored pride and joy and then focused on the road ahead. Being a quiet sensitive kind of guy he was having a hard time coping with the new reality, as well as the loss of his one true accomplishment. He and his wife had lovingly restored that car. Harry was in a real funk that stemmed from the fact he wasn’t around to help his wife when the dead started walking. Losing the Camaro was the last straw.
Sensing his sadness Duncan said, “You can get yourself any one of those 2010 models when we find a Chevy lot. And I’m pretty sure that some dead guy walking around out there isn’t going to need his classic Camaro… either way I’m sure you’ll find a replacement.”
“Screw the car. I want to find my wife.” Tears were forming in Harry’s eyes. “She never came home from the mall the first day of the outbreak. I tried calling the police, the hospitals and her
family out of town. Poof! She just vanished.”
“Do you have any other family nearby?”
Harry dried his eyes with his sleeve. “No, none whatsoever. My wife has a brother and sister up in Olympia, Washington, but nobody answered their phone when I called. My wife Margaret had been gone less than a day when I tried to report her as missing. They told me that it had to be more than twenty-four hours since there was any contact before they would take a report. I waited and tried to make the report… by then it was too late, the police were not answering anyone’s calls. I suspect that they were combating the violence that was breaking out all over the city. Anyway… I couldn’t handle the stress. I just started driving.”
“I’m sorry man, I had no idea,” Duncan commiserated with a pained look on his face. He was clearly embarrassed that he brought up replacing it at all. Being a lifelong bachelor and never really getting along with the fairer sex, Duncan didn’t have much to say concerning Harry’s wife’s disappearance. Besides, he thought, Women are always leaving me and not coming back.