“I cannot agree to this, sir. I’m sorry.” Sean pushed his chair back and began to rise, but the President shook his head.
“There is little of the congress left but I’m sure when we restructure our government, we can—”
Dallas leaned forward on her hands. “Your word means nothing here, Mr. President. We’ll take a signed promissory note or nothing.”
He blinked. “A what?”
“A promissory note. It’s when you—”
“I know what one is. I’m surprised, that’s all. I did not expect to come here and negotiate.”
“Because you are the President of the United States of America!” Sean exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be blackmailed into doing something that will—”
“Careful, Skippy,” Roper said, leaning into his face. “That’s my president you’re talking to.”
For a moment, there was a stunned silence.
“She’s speaking metaphorically, of course,” Butcher explained. “But we’re pretty sure you get the picture. Careful, there.”
The President cleared his throat. “No harm meant, ma’am.”
“None taken. Mr. President, everything is going to be different for my people when this is all over. It’s not just about rights, which you will insure. It’s about politics as well. We demand to be included…not voted in…Hell would freeze over waiting for a Christian nation to allow gays a chance to make policy. This is a game changer, boys, and it’s no longer negotiable. You want our help, it’s going to cost you. We’ll have the rest of the forms drawn up during dinner. We’ll see you out come morning.”
“Morning? We can’t stay here tonight.”
“I’m afraid you really have no choice. It is getting late. It’s safer leaving in the morning. You’re perfectly safe here. We have guest quarters which aren’t too shabby. They’ll get you a place for dinner.” Dallas nodded to her people, who started making their way to the mess hall.
Everyone left except Roper.
“One minute more, please,” the President said softly. “Sean, please go have dinner. I’d like a word alone with Dallas.”
“But sir—”
“It wasn’t a request.”
“Yes, sir.” Sean looked at Roper as if she ought to leave as well. She merely shook her head and shooed him away.
When everyone was gone, Dallas and Roper sat across from the President. “What is it you needed to say, sir?”
President Rainier stared down at his folded hands for a long time before slowly looking up at Dallas. “Can your people truly stop these abominations?”
Dallas nodded. “We have and we can. By our latest estimate, we have killed nearly a quarter of a million of them since we left California. The hordes come this way on their way to you.”
“To us?”
She nodded. “They go where the food source is, and sir, your area is like a smorgasbord to them. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not because I have no idea of your numbers, but they’re coming.”
He nodded. “We’ve noticed more activity.” He stared into Dallas’s green eyes. “And for your help, all you want is equality?”
Dallas reached over and held Roper’s hand. “Sir, if it was that easy, if that was all we wanted then it begs the question why we never got it. You see, Mr. President, nobody wants to be ‘tolerated,’ and that’s what this country has done for too long. Now you need us. If we are to save us, if we are to put our lives on the line, we want in…all in. More than likely, when it’s all said and done, the majority of the population will be gay or lesbian. We won’t participate in any apartheid government.”
“Aparth—”
“Please. Let’s not pretend. We will have all the same rights, all the same representation or this will never work.”
He nodded pensively. “If you can destroy this curse, you can have me work as your maid if that’s what you want. You draw up whatever papers you need to, Dallas, and I’ll sign them. Consider it done.”
“There’s one more thing. I don’t know if you’ve done so or not, but you need to start opening diplomatic channels with the leaders of those offshore ships. They’re vultures just waiting for us to die.”
“You seem to know a great deal about what’s going on out there.”
“It’s no secret, Mr. President. The rest of the industrialized world thinks we’re out of the game. You need to let them know that’s not so. You need to make it clear that we’re rebounding. If you do not, we’ll be fighting several wars within our own borders.”
“I don’t know how that’s going to shake out, but you have my word I’m doing all I can do to keep those hounds at bay. I believe they thought the disaster would be whole. I hear they are somewhat surprised that it…that it didn’t clear us out completely.” That was when it hit him and he fully understood. “They don’t know, do they?”
“No, sir, I don’t believe they do. Haven’t you had any communication with the outside?”
“Of course I have. Our allies have made it clear they can do nothing until we have a handle on this.” He shook his head. “A handle. What a joke.”
“You gave them Hawaii and Alaska. Why?”
“I needed to placate them.”
“How did you communicate with them?
He sighed. “They flew over and dropped a package of long range walkie talkies. I really had no choice but to give them over. They were willing to protect both states from infection.”
“We are going to need them back, sir. You know that, right?”
He folded his hands on the table, suddenly looking even older and grayer than when he first arrived. “What all do you need?”
“Weapons, ammo, big guns, big bombs. Planes if you can spare them, tanks, anything your military has that will help us get the job done. Deliver half here. I’ll let you know where the other half needs to go before you leave. We’ll need to coordinate communications, and I won’t have any interference from the military or your people. Nothing. You supply us the bodies, the equipment, and the weapons, and we’ll train them to be zombie killers.”
He chuffed. “Gee, is that all?”
“Nothing less than total equality. In the end sir, we’ll be the majority anyway. Might as well be able to say you made it happen first.”
The President rose and shook her hand. “That’s a deal. You have my word on it.”
Dallas shook his hand. “Sorry if this feels disrespectful sir, but after years of being promised Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you’ll have to forgive me if I ask you to put your word in writing.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Of course.”
After dinner, when the President finished signing everything Dallas put in front of him, he turned to her and said, “You’d have made one helluva politician.”
She smiled softly and replied, “I was one helluva firefighter, sir. That was good enough for me.”
“Well, Dallas, I hope you get to return to that someday. We won’t soon forget the sacrifices you’ve made to our country.”
Dallas shrugged. “I’m still alive, Mr. President. Right now, that’s good for today.”
As a surprise for the rest of the group, the Chips gave a performance and then they handed the stage over to the President, who answered questions for over an hour. They weren’t easy ones, either. He was drilled. Relentlessly. And when it was finally over, Fletcher showed the President and Sean to their quarters, where they slept until the breakfast bell rang.
When President Rainier and his plane lifted off, Dallas looked down at the signature on the crooked line, making her Commander-in-Chief of the gayest army in the universe.
Suddenly all she could do was laugh.
****
Three months later, when the Fuchs was geared up and ready to roll, when the weapons and ammo were securely stored in a dozen military trucks, when the two thousand gay soldiers had trained with Dallas’s people, Dallas and a small contingency were finally ready to move on out to secure the next prison.
A
ll month long people had been asking Dallas where they were going, and she had never told another soul––not Roper, not Butcher, not even Einstein. She wanted everyone’s focus on the training and the preparation, on the present, and so when, at long last, they were one night away from leaving, Dallas took Roper to the highest building in the prison, spread out a blanket on the roof, and laid on her back looking up at the stars.
“Lay here with me, love.”
Roper eased herself next to Dallas and lay in the crook of her shoulder. There were more stars in the sky than she could ever remember seeing. “Wow. I forget how beautiful the sky is when there are no city lights.”
Rolling over on her side, Dallas traced Roper’s jaw line with two fingers. “I never forget how beautiful you are. I just wanted to bring you up here to thank you for all the support and love you’ve given me since we came here. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve built a whole life here.”
“Yes we have. It’s strange to think we’ll be leaving it. I’ve sorta gotten used to the routine, the food, and—I’ll deny saying this—I’m going to really miss the entertainment.”
“The Chips are coming with us.”
“Not them. The drama boys. I’ve loved their romances.”
Dallas smiled and leaned over to kiss Roper. “Your secret is safe with me, you little romantic. That’s one of the reasons I brought you up here.”
“To be romantic?”
Dallas sat up. “I guess that depends.”
“On what?”
“On what you think about my choice of the next prison we’re going to take over.”
Roper sat up and tilted her head in question. “Gotta say, love, you have my attention. What are you getting at?”
“Over a year ago, I promised you if we could ever go back and get your horses that I would do everything in my power to make that happen.”
Roper’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ve missed them so much. I love Charger and all, but she’s not mine. Not really.”
Slowly wiping a tear perched on her lower eyelash, Dallas smiled softly. “I know. That’s why we’re going to Alcatraz. We’re heading back home to California.”
Roper’s chin dropped open. “What? Please tell me you’re not kidding.”
“I’m not kidding. Tomorrow morning, when we pull out of here, we’ll be heading west, west to the coast, west to San Francisco, west to…”
“Home.” Roper’s voice was soft and wistful. She couldn’t believe Dallas had been planning this all along—a way to get them back to California where they had left everything behind.
Everything.
Throwing her arms around Dallas’s neck, Roper hugged her tightly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t believe you kept this a secret for so long.”
Dallas pulled back and kissed her deeply, her hands running through Roper’s hair. “I only made the decision after a long and often heated debate with Luke.”
“Because it’s so far away?”
Dallas shook her head. “He wanted Texas. I want to go as far West as we can because the eaters are clearly moving east. We’ve all seen it and talked about it at great length. It’s like a migratory pattern, only once they get there, they will start killing everyone they can get their hands on. I want to be as far away from that as possible. I think the only way to save this country is to divide it in half, and we are going to go the half that will be safer.”
“But we’re supposed to be killing them. Doesn’t it make more sense to go where they are and—”
“The American military can do that. The folks at Angola can do that. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel in New England. They don’t need us for that. They need us to clean out the dark corners where danger lurks. They need us to clean the state that, if it wasn’t part of the United States, would have been the ninth wealthiest nation.”
“California does have everything it needs to be self-sufficient.”
Dallas tucked a stray hair behind Roper’s ear. “It does, and I’m willing to take our folks and move in the opposite direction because I don’t want our backs to them. Ever. I want to start on the island of Alcatraz as a base and clean up San Francisco first. We need to get a city on its feet, and since all bridges leading to it were destroyed during the initial viral outbreak, it’s the perfect place to start cleaning.”
Roper swallowed hard. “My horses…”
Dallas kissed the tip of her nose. “Exactly. We’ve done great stuff here. We’ve trained an army. We’ve made deals with the President, now it’s time for me to take my girl, my family, and go home. It won’t be easy, and we’ll have to kill a lot of those things along the way, but I think it’s worth the risk. If we are going to take back our land, I’d rather we do so in our own backyards.”
Roper blinked back the tears. “And you think we’ll find my horses?”
“If I have anything to say about it my love, we’re going to find your horses and a whole lot more.” Holding Roper to her, Dallas looked up at the stars and made a promise to herself that come Hell or high water, she would take her family home.
Home.
If she was going to die anywhere, it might as well be there.
****
First chapter of the third book in the series:
Mob Rule
“Heads up, people, we’ve got company,” Roper announced, shielding her eyes from the bright Texas sun. “Three…no…make that four vehicles at two o’clock.” Reaching for the binoculars at her feet, Roper kept her eyes on the road ahead.
Dallas clenched the wheel of the Fuchs military carrier tightly, her palms perspiring. They hadn’t seen any living since they had left Angola State Prison yesterday morning. Plenty of undead could be found shuffling across blood-stained roads moaning the death sound the flesh-eating undead made, but not one living person in over two hundred miles.
Now this?
“Churchill?”
“I’m on it, Boss,” Churchill answered, climbing up the ladder to the machine gun turret atop the Fuchs. Military made, the transport wore an all around steel hull with protection against even armor-piercing rounds. The E8 machine gun turret could be armed with missiles, a 30 mm cannon, and an F-62 machine gun. Fully amphibious, the Beast, as it had been christened, had kept them alive when the virus first broke out over a year ago.
They’d shed blood once before to keep it. Dallas hoped that would not be necessary now. “Well?” Dallas asked, not taking her eyes from the road.
Roper lowered her binoculars. “Stop for a second.”
Dallas slowed to a stop. “I don’t like this.”
“Yeah, a welcoming party has never been a good thing.” Roper handed Dallas the binoculars. “They’ve formed a reception line.”
Dallas peered through the lenses for a moment. “Military Jeeps. No one is getting out.”
“Recon?” came Einstein’s voice from the back of the vehicle. At seventeen, he had seen enough in the past year to know what being hunted felt like, and this was definitely beginning to feel that way.
As the country fell rapidly to a military-made virus that turned certain people into flesh-eating zombies they called man eaters, Dallas’s group and the others had initially found sanctuary in the bayou of Louisiana. From there, they moved to Angola Prison to try to kickstart some semblance of a normal life for survivors courageous enough to make the trip through zombie minefields.
After six months in Angola, they were heading home to California through those very minefields in an effort to start another safe colony to try to take back the city of San Francisco.
Dallas handed Einstein the binoculars. She, Roper, and Einstein had been together since the very beginning, and had it not been for his intelligence and knowledge of zombie lore gleaned from years of computer games and Walking Dead novels, they’d be dead like the rest.
“Feels like we’re being reconned.” Dallas reached over and lightly squeezed Roper’s hand. “You want to run back and tell the bus what’s going on?”
Kissing Dallas’s hand, Roper grabbed her rifle and machete and hopped out of the Fuchs. “You see movement while she’s out there, Church, shoot first, ask later.”
“Roger that. Finger on the trigger, Boss.”
Boss.
Dallas had been their group’s leader now for over a year. She’d seen more death in that year than she would for a hundred lifetimes. Every day since that first moment she saw people eating other people was a struggle. Every day, there was a new threat, it seemed, or new a danger to face. At first, it came from the zombies who gathered together to eat human flesh. Then, they’d had to fight marauders and what was left of the military. There were always dangers lurking around every corner.
Always.
And this…this she feared, was just another danger facing her and her family.
This, she thought as a cold seeped into the marrow of her bones, might very well be the one they didn’t all walk away from.
Man Eaters (Book 2): The Horde Page 29