The Apocalypse Crusade Day 4: War of the Undead

by Peter Meredith

  Jerry, thinking that he had to press the attack, tried to stab again. He pulled the blade back, readying it for another thrust and giving Deckard a half second to recover. He grabbed the only weapon in sight: the gin bottle, and held it like a short club. The two paused. Jerry stared at the bottle, understanding coming slowly that its presence might have changed the balance of things slightly, but he wasn’t sure by how much.

  For Deckard, it was obvious. Neither the knife nor the bottle had any use defensively and he saw that whoever attacked first would have the advantage. Unexpectedly, he hurled the bottle at Jerry, who flinched as Deckard knew he would. The bottle clipped off Jerry’s shoulder and exploded against the wall. Although he hadn’t hit Jerry squarely, that flinch was enough for Deckard, who leapt forward, landing a terrific kick to Jerry’s round gut.

  Whereas Thuy was tiny and unused to the rigors of combat, Deckard was well practiced and was now feeling his form and getting into his rhythm. The kick struck with the force of a sledgehammer and it knocked the air out of Jerry. Another man might have tried to grapple for the knife. Deckard ignored it and shot a straight left at Jerry’s face, following it with a straight right and then a looping left and another right.

  He hit with every punch. Jerry could only blink at the speed and ferocity of the punches. The first stunned him. The second made his knees buckle. The third turned his eyes up in his head and the fourth sent him toppling to the ground, unconscious.

  Deckard stood over him, ignoring his training, which told him to drop down and pummel him into a bloody hunk of barely breathing meat. It wasn’t necessary. Jerry was beaten. With a new sigh, he helped Thuy up and was surprised that despite nearly raped and still bearing the red welts where Jerry had whipped her, she didn’t cling to him.

  That would come later. First, she had to take care of Jerry. Within the Zone there weren’t laws and thus there weren’t courts or civilization as anyone would recognize it. But there was common sense and she was going to exercise it.

  “You are a danger every bit as much as the zombies,” she said, going to one knee and picking up the knife.

  “Thuy, what are you doing?” Deckard asked.

  She looked up, the tip of the knife poised on Jerry’s pulsing carotid artery. “I’m executing Jerry Weir.”

  2—The White House, Washington DC

  Marty Aleman watched as the president came down the stairs to the Rose Garden. “And stop,” he whispered into his microphone. “Touch one of the roses. There you go. Linger on it for just a moment. And sigh. Good. Perfect. Now turn to the podium.”

  The president went to the podium and although the Seal of the Presidency was emblazoned across the front, it didn’t feel the same. His trusted teleprompters had been removed and he felt naked without them. They had always guided him. They had always told him exactly what to say.

  But this was a press conference. A real one. For the last three years, he had conducted plenty of press conferences, however those had always been “orchestrated.” Marty salted the press corps with pre-arranged questions. Usually they were softballs that the President could swat out of the park, but for the tougher ones, he turned to his teleprompters.

  Supposedly, they couldn’t do that today, and the President was sullen and on the verge of a tantrum because of it. He struggled to smile down at the gathered reporters. “I suppose you have some questions,” he said.

  Marty groaned and made fists out of his manicured hands. “Smile, smile. There you go. Remember, you are the President. Now, take Joan’s question.”

  “Joan, how about we start with you?” the President said, somehow managing to sound fatherly.

  She stood, her blonde mane, normally so perfect, was flat and the dark circles under her eyes were obvious. She was finally looking her age. “Yes, Mister President, General Heider’s briefing was a little too brief. He didn’t give us any more information than he did last night. He just repeated himself. Can you tell us, are we in danger here in the capital? Did Philadelphia fall?”

  “Emphatically no,” Marty said. “Tell her that. Good, good. Now, tell her about the 42nd.” The President nodded, making Marty wish that he really did have strings working this idiot’s moving parts as everyone joked.

  “We are in no danger, Joan. We in the White House are on top of this situation, though it is very fluid. Thanks to our friends in the Navy, we were able to extract large elements of the 42nd Infantry Division from Long Island and are using them to shore up the line in Philadelphia.”

  This was a minor truth laced heavily with a terrible lie. The 42nd had been shattered. Of the eleven thousand soldiers it had started with three days before, they were down to just over two thousand exhausted men. Everyone in the Pentagon knew that Philadelphia could fall at any moment and if it did, Wilmington would be next and then Baltimore and that was only twenty miles away.

  “We’re fine,” the President concluded, relaxing a little. “David, did you have a question?”

  “Yes, there seems to be some sort of upswell of citizens taking up arms. Is that safe? All the experts seem to think that untrained civilians running around the country armed to the hilt could be dangerous. If we look at what happened in Rwanda and the Congo, we can see that maybe this would be a good time for moderation, perhaps even a scaling back of the second Amendment.”

  The President’s smile froze and he turned slowly towards Marty. This sort of question was why the Marty hated a free press that thought it was free. It was the stupidest question he had heard in years and had the President any backbone he would have laughed in the man’s face. Mankind might have sprouted in Africa, but civilization had long ago abandoned that continent. The Rwandans and the Congolese were not Americans and had it not been for American citizens coming to the rescue of the army, the black-eyed plague would have hit Ohio by now.

  But the President wasn’t the sort of man who could articulate that sort of thing.

  “Tell him that is a question for another time,” Marty said, dancing around the issue, careful not to make enemies when none needed to be made. “Pick Raj from USA Today. He just gave me a wink.”

  True to his training, the President did what he was told and Raj stood to ask, “Can you tell us what is happening in Massachusetts? Governor Clarren claimed in his own news conference that he’s being attacked by US Army forces.”

  “Ah yes, good question,” the President said, stalling, waiting on Marty.

  “Tell him it’s actually the opposite of what is really happening.” Marty paused to allow the President a chance to repeat this and then went on, “We were trying to relocate refugees, harmless refugees, when we were attacked by them.” Another pause and then, “It’s a tragic situation, but one that we are taking steps to fix. The refugees should be getting through to safer locations any time now and once they do we should have the northeast pretty well battened down.”

  Three hundred miles north, Sergeant Ross would have laughed if he had heard the answer the President gave. The refugees hadn’t budged, while he had progressed only about fifty yards into the tree line and was fighting for his life against a counterattack that was being pressed home as if he were fighting veterans instead of the “untrained civilians running around the country,” as that douchebag from ABC had put it.

  General Platnik’s ruse of broadcasting a separate LZ had worked long enough for Ross to gather the twenty-six remaining troops of the first assault into the thinnest perimeter. They had fought like the Bulldogs they were until the second assault force landed. They had pushed into the tree line and towards the closer buildings, only to be hurtled back as the Mass-boys turned on their heels and raced back.

  The fight was stiff and the call of “Medic!” rang out on both sides. Ross found a niche between two downed trees where he could shoot and move, rolling from one firing point to the next. He fired single shots only, but was still burning through ammo at a scary rate. With the enemy sometimes only yards away, there was no way to disengage and no one but t
he medics had the balls to run ammo.

  Ross had just slapped in his last magazine when a huge grey monster roared almost directly overhead. The F-15 was so low that Ross felt the skin on the back of his neck burn from the heat of the twin engines as he was diving beneath the logs.

  And then the CBU-87’s started spinning in the jet’s wake, releasing its submunitions. It had been dropped so low that only half the bomblets were jettisoned before the CBU streaked into the ground in a tremendous fireball. The explosion felt like it turned Ross’s brains to mush and as he lifted his head, he had to wonder if he was seeing things.

  What was left of the forest in front of him was on fire as far as he could see and there were people in the flames. Some were charred corpses and some were crawling with their heads on fire.

  Chapter 10

  1– 9:40 a.m.

  —Baltimore, Maryland

  Even with her badge and credentials, it wasn’t easy for Special Agent Katherine Pennock to get into the Baltimore Zone. She had to resort to lying and throwing around the President’s name as if they were best friends and, of course, she had to recite the tiring line: “He likes ‘em young and blonde. It’s embarrassing, but it is what it is.” For some reason, that seemed to work like a charm.

  Once she was in the Baltimore Zone, no one gave a crap about the President or what he liked. Things were fast becoming tense as the line holding southern Philadelphia slowly caved in and the sound of the artillery seemed to be getting closer and closer. She was still within shouting distance of the checkpoint that she had passed through when the Exxon-Mobile Storage complex across the river from the Philadelphia International Airport was hit by an errant shell.

  Even from forty-five miles away, it felt like an earthquake. Her driver, a nervous Virginian with a single eyebrow that stretched almost completely across the low bulge of his forehead, shared a look with Katherine. Then they both turned to stare northeast, where a smudge on the horizon quickly grew as the fire in the complex sent flames and smoke miles into the sky.

  The Virginian then looked back at the checkpoint as if to say: There’s still time to go back.

  “We aren’t going back,” she told him and then checked the map. “Stay on this road until it becomes Caton Ave. Then after a while it gets kind of wiggly and you’ll want to somehow veer left.”

  The Virginian didn’t want to veer in any direction except for back to his own state. He had heard bad things about Baltimore even before the shit had hit the fan and now a thousand eyes were glaring down at his Humvee. With the coming of the sun, people had thrown back their curtains and weren’t too happy with what they saw: mostly empty streets. The only traffic were military vehicles either speeding north crammed with men or military vehicles trundling slowly by with loudspeakers attached to their roofs.

  Since dawn, these came around once an hour spouting the following: “Stay indoors! The city is in a state of lockdown under the lawful orders of the President. Do not attempt to flee. Await further instructions.”

  The one plus to all of this was the open streets. The Virginian wanted no part of the city or the mission and he hauled ass down Canton, illegallywent up a one-way street and then screeched to a stop at the next major intersection.

  Katherine struggled to keep her bearings. “You don’t want to be lost in this city,” she said.

  No, he did not. With the power out and the dark buildings and all the angry faces, it didn’t even feel like America.

  “Take a left here and then your third right,” she told him. In a surprisingly short time she found the burned-out store and the lone, forgotten RV. Katherine pulled her Glock 22. “Watch my back,” she told the Virginian as she slipped out of the Humvee, angling towards the big camper, her gun sighted on the back window.

  It had an empty feeling, so when she knocked on the door, it wasn’t a shock that no one answered. The one door was unlocked and she crept in with her gun poised, fully expecting to find a few corpses, but the place was empty. While the Virginian crouched behind his Hummer with his M16 pointed out, she went through the camper from one end to another.

  She found out who the owners were: Charles and Leticia Martin from Denver City, Texas. She got the info on the Silverado, its VIN and tag number, and she saw that all the food had been taken. What she didn’t find was a single clue that anyone else had been there. Under normal circumstances, she would have impounded the fifth-wheel and gone through it with a fine-tooth comb.

  Under these circumstances, she had to hope that no one would come by and steal the entire thing.

  “Okay we have some good news,” she told the Virginian. “The couple who owns this left sometime before dawn and they have not come back.”

  “How’s that good news? They could be anywhere.”

  Katherine walked around the Hummer, saying, “Yes, but most likely they’re outside the Zone.” This perked the Virginian up and he jumped in the car like an over-eager dog being offered a ride. “Let’s go to the nearest roadblock.”

  He drove straight to the beltway and found the first checkpoint. He was so keen to get out of the zone that he nearly got shot when six soldiers leveled their rifles at him. “What the fuck, you numbskulls? It’s me, Bill Bramlett from Bravo Company.”

  “Oh sorry, Bramlett. Who’s the chick?”

  Katherine rolled her eyes and advanced with her FBI credentials and badge on display. “Special Agent Katherine Pennock. Have you seen these two people?” She held up a pair of 8 x 11 pictures of Anna and Eng, and then the smaller pictures of Charlie and Leticia that she had taken from the RV’s refrigerator. The soldiers on the other side of the wire craned their necks forward and all shook their heads.

  “Thank you,” she said and headed back to the Humvee. Bramlett began to splutter questions, clearly thinking that he would be allowed to cross back into the safe area. “Not yet,” she said. “We need to find where they crossed.”

  Defeated and glum, he dragged ass back to the Humvee, and when he drove to the next roadblock he wasn’t nearly as excited as he had been. The next roadblock was the same as the first and Bramlett looked like a lost puppy when he drove to the next. Here the reaction to the pictures was completely different.

  Now, one of the main reasons Katherine had decided to join the bureau was that she could tell in a flash when someone was talking out of their ass, and these six soldiers were lying. Bramlett, who hadn’t caught the lie, mumbled in his Virginian drawl and started heading back to the Humvee. Katherine didn’t budge. One of the men’s eyes had gone wide at the sight of the pictures and another had glanced at the sergeant with a question forming on his lips.

  “Hold on, Bramlett,” she said. She waited with an eyebrow cocked, staring coldly from one soldier to the next until things got uncomfortable. That discomfort was another admission of guilt. It wouldn’t hold up in court, but she didn’t need it to. She turned for the Humvee and heard more than one sigh of relief. When she returned with her laptop she heard curses. “Do any of you know the penalty for lying to a federal investigator?”

  The sergeant set his face. “We ain’t lying.”

  “That wasn’t the question. The penalty for lying to a federal investigator is up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine…per offense. Now, who knows what the penalty is when your lie helps a wanted fugitive to escape arrest? I’m talking about aiding and abetting the people who are guilty of mass murder on a scale that dwarfs what Hitler did. Anyone care to venture a guess? No? They’ll put you in the chair for that and that’s if they don’t line you up against a wall, first.”

  Some of the soldiers went pale and some shuffled their feet, but they all looked at the sergeant who took a step back. “M-Maybe I should take a look at those pictures a little closer,” he said in a hoarse whisper, holding out a hand. He pretended to study them closer. “I think I was mistaken before. We did see these people. The old lady was having a heart attack and we let them through to go to that hospital. And that’s the truth.” The others
nodded and Katherine didn’t doubt it for a second.

  “And all four got through?” she asked. The six nodded in unison. Her stomach sank a little. “When?”

  “Just a little before sunrise. They were in a truck with a big bed. It was white. We brought them to the hospital. I swear that’s all we did. We thought that the old lady was having a heart attack.”

  Katherine waved him to silence. “Let us through,” she demanded, curtly. As she ran back to the Humvee, she reached for her cell but then saw that it wasn’t getting any service. “Shit! Do any of you have a sat-phone?” They only had a radio. She cursed again and could only hope that she would get lucky and that someone at the hospital would have a working phone.

  They did, but it wasn’t lucky. She called the FBI office in DC and was shuttled up the chain of command as each person either didn’t believe her or couldn’t verify who she was or was too busy to even listen. These were the excuses they made, but she knew that chasing rumors and taking chances were, for the most part, career killers. If they didn’t pan out, and they rarely did, someone would be blamed.

  Eventually, her call was kicked upwards far enough that her name was recognized by the one person she didn’t really want to talk to: the Associate Executive Assistant Director for National Security, John Alexander. “Is this the Katherine Pennock who was supposed to brief the got-damned President of the United States?”

  “I technically found a replacement, one that seemed far better suited for the task since she…”

  “And is this the same got-damned Katherine Pennock who is now absent without leave and is currently conducting an illegal investigation within the got-damned perimeter of the of the Baltimore-Zone?”

  Katherine took a deep breath before answering in the hope of maintaining a calm voice. “I prefer to think of it as ‘extra legal’ since…”