“Well, yes, but we’ve still got...”
“Enough, General, my mind is made up.” It was true, she really was as insane as the whispers had been saying. Franklin looked around the room, noticed the half a dozen Marines standing guard. Who would they listen if it came to it? The Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the President? Franklin knew the answer to that, knew that most of the men here had been selected by Fairchild herself based on the soldier’s profiles. He’d even seen her talking to some of them, their pride beaming through at the respect they were being shown.
Armed insurrection wouldn’t get him anywhere here. He didn’t have the numbers.
“We will rain down nuclear fire on every city, infected or not. The faithful have no need to fear the cleansing fires.” Except for Washington, it was only right that city be spared. Perhaps in the future, any survivors could reclaim the city. Fairchild doubted it, for she didn’t feel there could be any survivors.
“You really believe this, don’t you?”
“I always thought you were a believer, General.” The President looked at him with disappointment.
“I am,” Franklin insisted. “I just don’t think nuking millions of people is the answer to this.”
“That’s because you are using emotion rather than logic. We have seen that our armies cannot hold back the undead. Fort Detrick, Washington, Los Angeles and New York should have all proven that to you. If we do nothing, the undead will sweep across the land and add millions more to their legions. If we act now, we can mitigate that, degrade their numbers and make the environment too hostile for them to continue in their existence.”
“The undead don’t fear radiation, people do. It’s humanity that will suffer most from your plan.” She had to listen to him. There was no way this could be allowed to happen. “And you are aware you might set off the other nuclear nations? If you do, you must realise they might retaliate. Even as far below ground as we are, we might not survive such an attack.”
“I know,” was all Fairchild said in response. She would hope that the other nations would be too preoccupied to worry about the nukes flying from the USA. But what if they saw the launches and thought they were under attack? It was a risk worth taking.
“Don’t you understand, you will make it impossible for us to survive. There will be nothing left of us.”
“Isn’t that already the present reality?”
“You realise Iceland may likely become a target,” Franklin advised. “You know the island is virus free. You know that they have started manufacturing the vaccine. A third of our navy is steaming there as we speak. If we lose that, we lose everything. Don’t do this.”
“I don’t care about Iceland,” Fairchild said calmly. Her eyes seemed to twinkle with the insanity that was festering behind them. “This is our chance to start again, to wipe the slate clean. This is God’s judgement, and we have been found wanting.” Franklin looked around at the dozen or so people present in the room. They were roughly equally split by those who looked indifferent and those more normal people who looked horrified.
“The last we heard, Russia had their country under control. Try and contact them again. Tell them what you are planning.”
“They broke off all contact. And how long will it stay that way?” Fairchild countered. “How long before the undead millions in Europe and China overpower whatever forces the Russians were able to put together? It’s time, General. The Lord has waited long enough.”
“You can’t expect me to authorise this,” Franklin demanded. There was no way he could live with the deaths of billions on his conscience. That would be the end result of Fairchild’s plan. Those that weren’t vaporised by the atomic blasts would die from their injuries or the resulting radiation. Anyone else would probably starve to death from the nuclear winter that followed. Those below ground would undoubtedly never see the sun again, the radiation keeping them trapped for a generation.
“I am the Commander in Chief.” Fairchild’s voice was raised now, a blood vessel pulsing in her neck. This was not the woman to have in charge of this crisis.
“There are whole states still unaffected. States with good Christian families who want no part of this.” He knew this was his last retort, and he also knew it wouldn’t work. Fairchild was a fanatic.
“If they believe, then they too will serve at the Lord’s right hand.”
William Lewis watched it all. Like any good Secret Service agent, he knew how to blend into the background, to be unobtrusive and aware of the threats that surrounded POTUS. How ironic that he was now the very threat she should fear. Lewis knew he had to do this, and knew his time was limited. He had hours at best, the rat bite on his leg not visible to the other people in the room. That was one of the benefits of wearing black. Already the skin there was starting to itch with a crazed fire that was slowly expanding across his flesh. He hadn’t looked, but Lewis was sure the black rash was spreading, the blood vessels becoming corrupted as the virus worked on his body and on his mind. If he was lucky, one of the Marines would kill him after his desperate act which would at least save him the fate that had befallen so many.
He shifted his right hand slightly, his peripheral vision showing that he wasn’t being observed. The flap on his holster popped easily.
“I will hear no more of it, General. My decision is final. If you do not do as I wish I will find someone who will.” Someone would be needed to verify the President’s order, Lewis knew. All the general could do was stall the inevitable.
Lewis suddenly realised he had no idea who the President would be if he was to act. The Secretary of Agriculture had been sworn in as Vice President, only for word to reach them early this morning that he was dying from Lazarus. With the chaos, nobody had been picked to take his place. If he killed Fairchild, and he was committed to that now, who would there be to take up the post she was about to desecrate for all eternity?
“I refuse,” Franklin said sternly.
“Then I will have you shot as a traitor.” The threat was real, and Lewis stepped closer, keeping the general in his sights, as if ready to follow the Commander in Chief’s orders. It looked like he was covering Franklin, and he slipped his hand on his gun, each step bringing him closer to the President which meant his shot would be more accurate, increasing the chance that he would deal a killing blow.
Lewis was a good shot, thousands of hours spent on the shooting range. He could put a bullet where he wanted it with the accuracy that would count in this situation, even though he would only have a moment. Once his gun was pulled, he would have to act instantly because the others guarding the President wouldn’t hesitate.
“Please, I implore you. Reconsider your actions. It’s still not too late.”
“Oh, but it is General. None of us ever had a chance.” The President was smiling now as if this was the moment she had been waiting for all along. Lewis could see it, could see the belief that had clouded and shaped her decisions from the very start.
She was still smiling when the bullet smashed through the front of her skull and wiped out the left frontal lobe. It carried on through the brain, taking her madness and her ideology with it. Whether there was an all-powerful God to accept her into his paradise, nobody there that day could tell. The President of the United States was already dead by the time her body fell to the floor.
William Lewis didn’t last much longer than that. He stopped the missiles flying though. Even though the virus would eventually take most of them, the sacrificial actions of Lewis probably saved billions of lives. The problem was, it might have been better if he’d allowed the missiles to fly. The nuclear holocaust might have been the only real chance humanity actually had.
27.08.19
Middlesbrough, UK
Mitchel watched the security monitors because that was what the soldiers wanted him to do. There were two soldiers in the room with him, but none of them spoke, which suited Mitchel just fine. There was nothing really that he had to say to any of them any
way.
The monitors showed that there were more troops arriving, a ship now pulling in at the unloading dock. He had been told that tens of thousands of men would be arriving, ships waiting offshore to ferry refugees away in an operation that had been put together too quickly. Mitchel didn’t know where the soldiers would be coming from, or where they would be going, but the question had popped into his mind, and he had asked it.
“Can I come?”
“Of course you can, mate,” the sergeant had answered. Mitchel had never really planned ahead with his life, simply going where it took him. He’d never been to university, never written down goals. Even his work as a security guard had been something he had simply dropped into. Mitchel had just drifted from day to day, ensuring he didn’t offend anyone because he really didn’t like conflict. It made him ill, the thought that someone could somehow be upset by an opinion he might have held abhorrent to him. He had learnt long ago that it was better to just keep such thoughts to yourself.
Being told he could be saved wasn’t the biggest surprise, however. That news had come when he had been handed a belt with a loaded holster. It was now deemed mandatory for every capable adult to be armed with the knowledge that anyone might need to deal with the undead wherever it may appear. He’d originally had no idea how to shoot or load the thing, but someone had shown him how in return for Mitchel sharing his stash of food. If he was leaving here anyway, he figured he didn’t need to worry about running out of the essentials.
The assortment of fat and sugar laden garbage had gone down a treat with the soldiers lucky enough to have it shared with them. Mitchel had then been in the strange situation where people had been thanking him, and he hadn’t known what to do with himself. Whereas before he would go through life almost unnoticed, now he found himself accepted, soldiers nodding to him when they encountered him in the corridor. It was an unusual feeling if he was honest and he wasn’t convinced it was a good thing.
He’d shown the sergeant the weak areas of the perimeter, where he suspected the graffiti taggers had once broken in to leave their insanity on containers that would be shipped halfway around the world. Several times in the days before the epidemic, Mitchel had run those damned kids off the facility, his torch beam like acid to them. There would be no fresh graffiti now, the vulnerable areas strengthened with razor wire and tripwire operated flares to warn of any breach.
It looked to Mitchel that there had been a plan for this all along, helicopters now routinely unloading fresh troops. As far as he could see, Mitchel was the only civilian here, which made him feel sort of special. He was sure that would change because surely the evacuation had to involve those who weren’t in the military. Or was the army just abandoning the country they were required to defend? Whatever the answer, Mitchel wouldn’t raise a single word of complaint or protest. He would do exactly what was asked of him, just as he always did. To think that someone as bland as himself was going to survive all that had happened.
He would soon learn that the abandonment of the country was exactly what was happening. He should have been horrified, but honestly, he found he was okay with that. He was to be invited along, and that was enough for him. Just so long as wherever they were going had enough books to see him through the rest of his life. Looking at the video feeds from the facility’s security cameras, he could see that the ships were already arriving.
Part of General Woolington’s plans for a possible retreat had been to ask the Royal Navy to keep a flotilla of ships offshore should they be needed. The Royal Navy had been happy to oblige. Offshore there was an assembly of ships, some military, others acquired from the civilian fleet. A desperate mishmash of Fort, Albion and Bay Class ships, as well as an impressive assortment of cruise liners.
It was enough to get Woolington’s men off the island of Britain, but everyone else would be left to their fate.
27.08.19
Leeds, UK
There was hardly anybody on the streets which was probably good because most of the soldiers had now left. Gary was on his last patrol, the car he was in heading North, the last vanguard to join the exodus out of the city. He was supposed to be a visible presence to make the population think things were still under control. The army didn’t want a mass outflow of refugees following their retreat. The people of Leeds were now the buffer zone that allowed the army time to make their escape.
It was a sacrifice that someone high up had decided was worth making.
There had been talk amongst his fellow police officers that they could just make a break for it, but too many of them were entrenched in the idea that they should do the job they had committed themselves to. It was their duty and their promised ticket out of here. There were people missing from the ranks, but that was madness really. Where the hell would you be able to go if you went against the military plan? It was clear to Gary that there was no longer anywhere to hide from man or undead.
The roads leading out of Leeds were all blocked by checkpoints, so unless you wanted to try and get out on foot, you had no choice but to wait for the transmission of the order to retreat from the city. Gary hadn’t been outside the safe zone since the start of the crisis, but he could easily figure out what the situation would be like. Chaos would reign, and wherever they were present, the undead would strip the land of anything living. The roads would be crammed, the remaining population of the country either hunkered down or on the move. Only the military had the means to get out, the promise of a ship to Iceland still ringing in Gary’s ears. They had secured a single road leading north, nothing able to stop them as they forged their way towards the sea.
In World War Two, Dunkirk had seen the evacuation of four hundred thousand troops. This wasn’t even a twentieth of that, but perhaps the enemy they were fleeing was more dangerous. If you had been caught by the Nazis, they tended not to try and consume your lower intestines.
With no effective phone network and a total curfew now in operation, it was likely that word of the retreat hadn’t spread. People would only be able to communicate with a limited number of people, those who dared risk the curfew the sole means by which news could dissipate. The majority would be oblivious, but even then it wouldn’t take long for them to realise something was amiss. The outbreak near the school had been the perfect excuse to insist everybody go back to their homes, for their own safety. With bodies still swinging from lamp posts, it was a brave person who went against the orders given out.
There were very few brave people left, the rebellious all but purged, the criminals extinguished from the city.
It wasn’t right, though. Gary would keep his mouth shut and do as he was told so as he could secure his ticket out of here, but it hurt him physically to abandon so many people. Despite the threats that had been imposed on them, the populace had still trusted the word of the military. Perhaps the worst of it was the failure to even evacuate the children which was what this had all supposed to have been about. Keep the children safe and secure the future. How many times had he heard that mantra being said?
It might have seemed like evacuating the thousands of children would be the humanitarian thing to do, but there were too many of them, needing too much supervision. The children of the soldiers and the chosen few had been extracted of course, but the offspring of the majority would be left to whatever fate was hurtling towards the city.
Gary didn’t even know the half of it.
The car he was in pulled up at a junction, the driver still following the old rules even though there was little to no traffic. There were two people with Gary, one driving, the same two who had been with him when he had faked the death of Doctor Holleron. Nobody said anything, small talk meaningless now, and actually unwelcome. In thirty minutes’ time they would hopefully be north of the checkpoints, the last tail end of the mass escape from the undead who would be here any hour now. The military had tried to hold the undead off by deception and diversion, but those tactics no longer seemed to be working. The hordes were coming, and n
othing could now stop them. That had to be the case, for why else was the army running?
Actually, Gary was wrong on that because the undead were already here.
They all saw the crowd about a hundred metres down the street. Gary’s first thought was that the people had finally risen up to demand their rights. He quickly realised this wasn’t a riot as had occurred in the early days of the outbreak. The bodies hurtling towards him were moving too fast, their motion too ungainly. Even at this distance he could tell that, and the gap between his car and death was rapidly closing.
“What the fuck are you doing, get us out of here?” Gary ordered, the driver mesmerised by the sight he was unfortunate enough to witness. They were looking directly at the power of the undead, the road filling with them.
Shifting into gear, the car moved in the favourable direction. It didn’t stall, and a tyre didn’t randomly burst. It was reliable car, built for durability rather than speed. Even as it got faster, Gary could see that the undead were holding their own, the side streets also filled with them. In the split second that it took them to pass one road, Gary saw the creatures trying to smash their way into every building they could. This area was residential, multi-storey apartments all around. Most entrances had been strengthened, but it only took one window to fail or one door to crumble, and then the zombies would be in.
This was going to be a slaughter and Gary’s only chance was to leave the citizens to their fate.
27.08.19
Site R, USA
It hadn’t occurred to Reece that Site R possessed more than one underground monorail station. It was this second one that Rosenbaum took them to now. There were other people present, loading boxes into a train car. Several nervous soldiers stood guard, the boxes containing the most vital research that Rosenbaum’s team had gathered. Reece felt her hopes swell, especially when she realised this train was bigger than the one they had tried to catch from Fort Detrick.
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