Exit Zero

by Neil A. Cohen

  Wendell sat down across from Ivan. Wendell had been, for lack of a better term, a frienemy. Ivan did not particularly like the guy, but he was well connected in the prepper community and drove a lot of clientele Ivan’s way. He broadcast a bad local access TV show out of his basement and wrote non-stop on blogs, but he wanted a radio show to follow Ivan’s and a bigger piece of the cut from referrals to Ivan’s bomb shelters and survival goods.

  Wendell cleared his throat. “Ivan, can I speak with you?”

  “Sure,” Ivan responded and rubbed at his wounded head. His headache was not relenting.

  Wendell looked over at Marifi; not the way he usually did, but in a way that indicated to her he wanted her to leave.

  Ivan also looked at Marifi. “Sweetie, could you please excuse us?”

  She shot Wendell a death glare and left the room.

  “Your old man is helping that new government agency,” Wendell started, “with is not such a bad thing.”

  Ivan raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I know about that. You did not think anyone else knew what was happening here, but I do. The Agency hired your old man to solve the ultimate riddle,” said Wendell. “How can the government get the population to give up their rights, forgo elections, clear out the dead wood and become compliant little producers again?

  “Well, first thing is, you have to eliminate everyone on the dole. How? Give them the one thing they can’t live without: food. Free food. Once they eat it, they go friggen nuts and start eating each other. Would anyone really notice? They kill each other every night, we’re just taking the guns out of their hands and giving them a knife and fork to wipe each other out.

  “They’re already leaches sucking this country dry. They wanted free food, and once they eat it, they will be surrounded by free food, all the food they can eat.”

  “You’re on crack, you know that, Wendell?” Ivan snapped but was beginning to squirm a bit in his seat.

  “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Ivan.”

  Gunshots rang out in front of the house. Ivan began to stand up, but Wendell stood first, pointing his gun at Ivan.

  “Whoooooaa, slow down there, pal. Sit right down. That’s just some friends I am expecting.”

  Ivan was shocked. How could this idiot get the drop on him? He sat back down uneasily in his chair.

  “You and me, we were both swapping emails about how pissed we were about those Occupy hippies and the IRS and the NSA,” Wendell droned. “So I know you and I are simpatico here.”

  “We’re nothing alike,” Ivan countered.

  “Sure we are, you just can’t see yourself for what you really are,” Wendell sneered. “Those protesters always shouting about the 1% and having Eat the Rich bumper stickers on their stupid hybrid cars? Well now they can eat each other. Who cares? We let them kill each other for a while, then when they have thinned out their own ranks, we go in and clean up the mess and rebuild. It’s the perfect plan. The poor and unemployed eat each other, the wetbacks from South America fill their ranks. Those people and are much more amenable to working for five dollars an hour and are too clueless to worry about anything like political elections or unionizing. And by bringing in only the women and children, and keeping the adult males out, we can keep them from overbreeding once they get here.”

  Wendell was referring to a long standing yet only recently exploited loophole in the immigration code that stated any child who managed to make their way into the United States from a non-contiguous country would be allowed to stay. Some came with their mothers, who were also allowed to stay. All men over the age of 18 were immediately deported. While the law had been on the books for years, it was only about six months before that hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, of women and children began flooding across the border. No one knew why it began all of a sudden, but Max Gold had been traveling frequently to Central and South America in the weeks prior. When the government refused to halt the flow, it sparked the Texas succession movement, which now occupied the attention of the country.

  “And what about the rest of the country?” Wendell continued. “They are so scared shitless seeing zombies running around the streets, they turn to the government to save them from being eaten alive. People will give up anything to feel safe. Sure, some of those rich bastards will bitch about not getting to vote anymore, but living in a dictatorship is a small price to pay when you can manufacture goods with generational cheap labor.

  “Goods and services will be so cheap, it will make Walmart look like Macy’s. We will overtake those Chinks in a decade. Soon they will be buying all their poorly made crap from us.

  “But your old man planned a bait and switch and they found out, now it’s time to pay the piper. You see, your old man’s connections can’t help him out this time. The military and the government have turned their backs on him. Fair-weather friends, huh? The Agency figured out what your old man was planning. They realized he was not going to follow the plan and unleash this plague into the populace, he was going to try and set up his own shadow government, maybe even try a coup and replace the current government.”

  More shots rang out from outdoors.

  “Your old man really had the right idea on how to turn this country around,” Wendell said. “Shame he won’t live to see it.”

  Chapter 52

  Buzz

  Jerry walked outside into the dark evening and breathed in the cool air. The clear night sky was a strange juxtaposition to the chaos unfolding below. He could hear an endless cacophony of sirens over the stone walls, and could see the plumes of smoke from fires breaking out in all directions. Some shots rang out, followed by a quick burst of automatic gunfire.

  He looked around for the National Guardsman who he had posted outside the door. A motley crew of frightened residents had attached themselves to the group on their way to PCRC to retrieve Dr. Coleman’s journal, as well as some soldiers who either got separated from their unit or were the sole survivors. On the way to Chadwick Manor, most of the new recruits had peeled off. Perhaps they felt they had a better shot of survival on their own. Only four stragglers remained by the time they arrived at Ivan’s Plan B location. One guardsman, a husband and wife in their late 60’s, and a guy from Asbury Park who called himself Joe Mullet, a very befitting name based on his clothes and hairstyle.

  The guardsman was now missing from his post. Of all the group, Jerry had felt most confident in that guy. The gate was still locked at the end of the driveway, so he may still be on the grounds, since there was no way he could shimmy up the walls.

  What then caught Jerry’s attention was the slow moving sedan that passed by outside the gate. Cars were flying past full of panicked residents who were rushing to rescue relatives, escape attacking relatives, escape a disintegrating state, all of which they would fail to do.

  But they did not cruise by at a leisurely pace, and that is what the sedan did for a second time, then returned and did a slow roll up to the gate.

  Jerry drew his gun but kept his arm hanging down by his side.

  The car idled by the front gate for a few minutes, and then a tall white male exited from the passenger side while the driver stayed behind in the still running car. The passenger walked up to the gate and began fiddling with a box on the side of the gate attached to the stone and brick pillar. A loud burst of static over Jerry’s left shoulder caused him to spin around. There was no one there at the entrance. A second static buzz followed by an electric “Hello?” Jerry viewed an intercom panel located on the wall next to the front door that he had never noticed before. Ivan must have had it recently installed.

  Jerry walked closer to the intercom, turning his head back and forth from the intercom to the car at the front gate as he proceeded.

  Another buzz. “Hello? Is this working?”

  Jerry looked closer at the intercom and wondered if he should just ignore it and go inside for Ivan, but then a third buzzy “Hello!?” came, this one sounding more pleading and pa
nicky.

  Jerry looked over the intercom panel and saw a red button that read SPEAK. He pushed the button responded, “Who are you, why are you here?”

  No response. Silence. His heart rate increased.

  Jerry looked over at the car and the man at the gate, and then back at the intercom. Still no response. Jerry began to raise his gun when the man walked away from the intercom and back towards the gate. Jerry tensed, and he felt his right hand gripping his gun tighter.

  The man cupped his hands up to his mouth and shouted, “LET GO OF THE BUTTON!”

  Jerry removed his finger from the SPEAK button.

  The man returned to the intercom and again the buzzing voice continued. “Is this Ivan’s safe house? We are part of his audience. He told us to come here.”

  Shit, Jerry thought. Ivan had told his followers that if the shit hit the fan, those followers who survived should meet up at the old Chadwick Manor, but Jerry had not thought that anyone would have actually taken note of that location and showed up at the dilapidated mansion.

  Jerry pushed the button. “Okay, hold on, I am going to go get Ivan.”

  The intercom burst to life again. “Hey man, you can’t leave us out here, we’re not going to survive another minute out here. Things are going to hell out here, you have to let us in!”

  Christ, what was he going to do? He turned to re-enter the house.

  “Please, please.! Let us in. I am with my family here, there are maniacs everywhere, I can see them coming down the street!”

  Jerry did his best to peer at the car. It appeared to be another man in the driver’s seat.

  The intercom again spoke. “It’s just me and my partner, and our daughter is in the back seat, she is an infant, we adopted. Please, you have to let us in!”

  An explosion rang out from several blocks away and Jerry could see a fireball rise into the sky.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it. He paced back and forth. More shots rang out and Jerry again looked at the panel. Another button said GATE. He pushed it and the gate opened.

  The man jumped into the passenger side and the car entered. As soon as it passed the gates, the gates began to close again.

  As the car rolled up the driveway, three Skells wandered towards the gate. Jerry pointed his gun and fired, striking one in the leg and the other in the shoulder. Two more appeared and now the five of them were inside the gate. The gate continued its agonizingly slow movement closing, two more Skells, these two looking particularly ragged, wandered through the gate. The slower one, an emaciated man, got his arm caught in the gate as it closed. He kept trying to move forward, confused at what was stopping him. Jerry again fired, bringing one of the intruders down with a solid shot to the stomach, and the other in the chest, knocking the Skell down, but not killing it.

  Jerry ran past the car as it came to a stop before the front door and approached the remaining Skells. It was getting darker by the minute and the lawn was covered in overgrowth of bushes and trees.

  What appeared to be a teenage girl, now weighing at most fifty pounds, lunged at him and he kicked her backwards with the bottom of his boot, then shot one bullet into her abdomen, putting her down. A man in a bloody suit that hung off his emaciated frame grabbed at Jerry’s shoulder but he fired off two shots, finally killing the creature. He frantically looked around for the other three.

  The man in the gate howled out and forced his body in Jerry’s direction. Jerry could hear the bones cracking in the man’s arm as he lunched left and right, trying to free himself.

  A woman in a bathrobe, her hair still wet, came out of the darkness like a ghost, nearly flinging her body into the air in her attempt to reach him. He fired, but stumbled backwards and fell on his ass. She crawled at him, snapping her jaw. Jerry could see he was not the first she had attacked this evening, parts of flesh and sinew hung from her teeth like drool from a bulldog. He kicked at her face, once, twice. Her teeth dug into the sole of his boot. He regained his composure and kicked her face one last time, then fired a direct shot into her mouth, which traveled down her throat and blew her stomach out through her pelvis.

  He then saw the other two. He had not noticed it before, but they were both infected soldiers. It pained him, but he shot them both in the stomach until his gun was empty. Jerry staggered back to the car which now sat in the driveway facing the front of the house. The two male occupants were standing in the vestibule by the front door of the house. Jerry peered into the back seat to ensure the child was okay, but saw nothing, no child, no child seat.

  He looked up at the men, who were entirely too calm for the circumstance.

  “Where’s Ivan?” the one on the left asked, a middle aged man with a paunch wearing a suit.

  “Where’s the baby?” Jerry replied.

  “Where’s Ivan, Jerry?” the man asked again.

  “What the hell is going…wait, how did you know my name?” Jerry looked at the man in the suit closely. He was sure he knew him from somewhere.

  It was then that Jerry heard muffled sounds from the back of the car. He looked again into the back seat area and noticed someone squirming under a blanket on the floor. He opened the door, pulled the gray blanket back to reveal Patrick Callahan, bound, gagged and blindfolded,

  Jerry jumped back and drew his weapon to fire, the clicks reminding him that he had emptied the entire clip. The passenger pulled out a gun from his waistband and fired two shots into Jerry’s chest, throwing him several feet backwards. The driver walked over and stood above him. He pointed his gun and Jerry felt what seemed like a bowling ball exploding on his chest, but the pain did not last long and he was soon in darkness.

  The front door of Chadwick Manor exploded outwards from a blast initiated inside the house, sending wood and metal fragments in all directions. Through the smoke a barrage of gunfire targeted the driver and passenger. They ran to the back of the car, and using his remote key, the driver popped open the trunk.

  He reached into the hatch and pulled out two tear gas canisters, pulled the pin on one and lobbed one into the hallway. He pulled the pin on the second and sent it flying into the house as well.

  Shots rang out for another couple of seconds, but soon the gas permeated the entranceway and the shooting stopped.

  The driver reached into the back and pulled out two gas masks, tossing one to the passenger and donning the other one himself.

  “Alive,” the passenger reminded the driver, and they grabbed extra weapons from the trunk and entered the gas filled hallway.

  Chapter 53

  You Get What You Pay For

  When the shooting outside continued, Ivan again reached for the guns he kept in the drawer of the desk.

  Wendell hastily and awkwardly pointed his 9mm at the seated Ivan.

  “I’m sorry, Ivan, but don’t make any further moves. Just sit there. You are going to have to go with these guys. They are not going to hurt you, they just want to bring you in to help negotiate with your father.”

  “You traitorous bastard! You’re throwing in with them?”

  “Look, man, this is not personal. I needed the money, and they are the government, not killers. They are not going to harm you.”

  “How much did they pay you?”

  “Five thousand dollars.”

  Ivan jumped up out of his chair startling Wendell, causing him to step backwards and raise his gun higher towards Ivan’s face.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?! Five grand? That is all it took, that’s what I am worth?”

  “Times are hard,” Wendell responded.

  “Five thousand dollars! Dude, I will give you $7500 right now if you turn that gun around and blow your own fucking brains out, how about that?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Ivan. We don’t all have a rich daddy. Besides, they told me I could be in charge of New Jersey after the transition. Sit back down in that chair.”

  “No, you go fuck yourself . You turn on me for five thousand dollars and the promise that you will be the king of
Jersey! Do you know how embarrassing that is?”

  “I said sit down!” Wendell shrieked.

  “Or what? You’ll shoot me? Do you know how much bullets cost? You sure you can spare them, you cheap piece of shit?”

  Wendell took a step closer. “I will shoot you!”

  “No you won’t, you prick. Then your friends get no prisoner and you get no money. How ever will you survive without your five thousand dollars? How will you ever look like a big man when you walk into the dollar store and start throwing your wealth around?”

  “I will shoot you in the leg.”

  “You’ll do nothing, because you are a five thousand percent pussy. I will tell you want I am going to do, I am going to open up this drawer, pull out my gun and shoot you in the ass cheek where you keep your wallet. I hope you collected the five grand in singles and stuffed them in there, maybe it will stop the bullet.”

  Ivan reached for the top drawer in the desk.

  Wendell took several steps backwards. “Don’t do it.”

  Ivan reached into the drawer and pulled out his own 9mm automatic.

  Wendell fired. Ivan raised his gun and fired back. Wendell closed his eyes and fired again when he felt the second shot Ivan fired slam against the wall to his right. He continued to squeeze the trigger as a total of fourteen bullets flew back and forth in the volley of gunfire.

  When the shooting stopped, Wendell opened his eyes to see Ivan’s arm sticking up from his crouched position behind the desk, arm raised, finger clicking on the trigger of a now empty gun.

  Ivan rose from behind the desk to view that both he and his target were unscathed. Both of them were awful shots.

  It was then that Agent Moore, who was the driver of the just arrived car, walked into the room, shut the door, and removed his gas mask. Having had true training in how to handle a firearm, he was able to do so with his gun never wavering from its position pointed it at Ivan’s head.