by M. Lorrox
Eddy snaps the bracelet off June’s wrist and puts the entire thing in his mouth. He crunches down on all the beads at once and swishes the thin broken glass and powder around, wetting the dehydrated blood with his saliva and cutting his cheeks, tongue, and lips with the glass. When he starts to feel the first tang of the rush, he leans over June and puts his mouth on hers, spilling the concentrated blood—and glass, and saliva—into her mouth. His eyes are closed, tears stream down his face, and he snorts for air between his tremoring cries.
It’s the first time his and her lips ever touched. All Eddy can think about is her opening her eyes again.
When he finally releases her, and she still doesn’t move—or breathe—or show a pulse—he collapses by her side. He screams and squeezes his fists white until he’s out of breath, then he drops his hands and eyes to the floor and sobs.
Much to Korina’s surprise, Jambavan beats her to the end of the bridge that crosses over the Potomac River. Now, they’re on the small island that is home to the Jefferson Memorial, and they can run alongside the highway. She sprints past him and makes a bee-line for the bridge on 14th Street, to cross the Tidal Basin and the Washington Channel to get to downtown DC.
Jambavan follows just behind her. They run under overpasses and across standstill traffic. When they cross the last short bridge, Korina again cuts across roads—heading straight toward the museum where the kids are.
When they cross under a row of trees on an intersecting street, Jambavan has a thought. “Shouldn’t we stay in the shade?”
She hears him, but keeps running and doesn’t respond. No time. I’ll be fine.
Inside what General Riley has named the Pentagon Field Command Center—the series of tents set up in the parking lot of the Pentagon as temporary headquarters—he slams his fist into the table, smashing the skin of his knuckles as he yells into the radio. “What do you mean you’ve LOST L’ENFANT PLAZA? Over!”
“There were too many zombies focused there; they broke through our lines and are continuing along the metro and above ground. Over.”
Riley tosses the radio and sends it bouncing across the desk. “Goddamned mother fucker!” His eyes are ablaze, darting all around. He exhales and nods with decision. “Captain Rickman! Get the Army Research Laboratory to prepare the LAZoRS for deployment in DC.”
“Yes, sir.”
Riley grabs the Command Center’s telephone handset. He lifts it above his head as he turns toward the radio technicians and systems operators inside the tent. “Patch me to the President.”
Sadie is holding Eddy beside June’s body when Charlie walks back into the incinerator room with his battle-pack. She glances up at him, then drops her head back to Eddy.
He looks at his shattered family and tries to slow his breathing, to calm himself down. He fails. He bends down, picks up the bundled blanket that holds Rusty’s remains, and gently stows it away in his pack.
Eddy looks at his dad with fury in his heart. “She’s dead! Not a drop of blood left in her!”
Charlie raises a hand and walks toward his son. Tears still hang and drip from Charlie’s chin. “Eddy, we have to get out of here. We’ll take June with us.” He stands and shoulders the pack, and it presses against the shrapnel in his back. He closes his eyes and breathes through the pain.
Eddy jolts up with his fists at his side. “This is so fucked up! Why did this happen to her! It’s not fair! FUCK!”
Sadie stands up and grimaces. Yow, gotta get that shrapnel out... “Earlier, we found what looks like a tunnel and railway that leads away from the lab. It might be a way out.”
Eddy turns around to face her. “Are we going to get him? That doctor, Melgaard?” Every muscle in his body strains with his anger. “I’m going to kill him!”
Charlie nods. “Son, I’ll help you do that, but we have to catch him first. Your mom and I are injured, and we have a lot of shrapnel in us. You should carry June.” He motions to the hallway. “We’ll take Enrique and support his weight between us.”
“AHHH!” Eddy screams out some energy.
Sadie puts her hand on his shoulder. “Focus, Eddy. We must get moving.”
A tremor shakes through Eddy’s body, and he huffs out more rage. He bends down and carefully places June’s body across his shoulder, then he stands, gritting his teeth. Charlie bends down and picks up his katana, and then the wakizashi. He hands the short sword to Eddy. “Don’t forget this.”
Eddy snatches it from Charlie’s hand and slips it into the saya strapped to the shoulder strap of his bag. Then, he pauses. He bends down and picks up the bowie knife that used to belong to Sophia. It still has his own blood smeared across the blade. He holds it up to Charlie. “I’m going to kill that monster with this. I’m going to fucking cut him into pieces with this knife.”
Sadie takes a fast breath and is about to speak, but Charlie waves her down. “He’d deserve nothing less.”
Sadie nods, then she finds the cavalry sword and sheaths it. She limps outside to Enrique.
Charlie takes a step toward Eddy, leans in to him, and whispers, “We’ll find Melgaard, and when we do, we’ll gut that fucking bastard together and bathe in his blood.” Charlie snarls through his teeth, “DEAL?”
Eddy answers through gritted teeth. “DEAL.”
Katlyn helps a chaperone and a young vampire back to the bus. When they get on and start to walk down the aisle, Frank grabs Katlyn’s arm.
She turns around. “Everything okay?”
He motions for her to lean in closer. When she does, he whispers into her ear, “Zombies attacking in the metros, here in the district. Knights are headed to us on foot.”
Katlyn pulls her head back enough to look into his eyes. He’s not kidding. Oh shit. “So, we wait?”
He shakes his head. “We still have to get out of here, and the traffic is going to be insane. We should try to start back.”
“But the knights?”
He sighs. “We won’t get far, and they’ll find us. Don’t worry about that. But you should be ready in case…”
“In case what?”
He looks in the large, curved mirror above the aisle to other eyes watching him, and he motions for her to lean in again. When she does, he whispers, “If things get ugly, we’re going to have front row seats.” He motions behind him to the kids looking out the windows. “You’ll need to keep some order in here.”
“Right.” She stands up and grabs the announcement microphone. “Chaperones, do we have everyone accounted for? …Excellent. We’re going to start making our way back to the hotel. For our return trip, I’d like all the chaperones to take the window seats, and let all the young ones sit in the aisle; we’re going to play a game!”
“Yay!”
Skip looks at Katlyn. Something is very wrong.
She notices his gaze and falls into his eyes, gulping her heart back down to her chest.
A wounded Charlie, and a more wounded Sadie, support a severely wounded Enrique. Eddy carries June’s body, and they all make their way to the tunnel at the edge of the facility.
Earlier, Sadie and Eddy saw a computer control terminal next to thick security glass. Beyond the glass were two funny-looking vehicles on rails. When they arrive now, the control terminal is dead, one of the vehicles is gone, and the only door through the security glass is locked closed.
Lights inside the remaining vehicle are on, and luckily, the security glass stopped shrapnel from the explosion from reaching the vehicle. A three-foot-long section of pipe sits on the ground below a radial fracture pattern at head height.
Charlie pauses in front of the glass. “Sadie, take Enrique, I’ll smash it.”
He passes the squire to her, and she groans. Charlie bends to pick up the pipe, and he groans. Standing again, he grips the pipe at one end and imagines Melgaard’s face in the fracture pattern for an instant.
The next instant, he howls and smashes the pipe into the glass with every ounce of energy and strength he can muster. At the impact site, the wall of security glass bows out an entire inch before it shatters. The section of wall in front of him collapses in one large sheet and crashes to the floor.
Charlie squeezes the pipe so hard that his fingers are white. He stares and breathes, and after a moment, he remembers himself. He tosses the pipe behind him and helps Sadie with Enrique.
They find that the six-seater rail-car has extremely straightforward controls: a single lever can be pushed or pulled toward labels that read FORWARD or BACKWARD. The seats face the lever, and the front of the vehicle points away from the facility and down a long and dark tunnel.
When everyone is situated—and Charlie and Sadie ease themselves into their seats while the shrapnel again cuts them—Sadie pushes the lever, and the car starts to move.
After a few moments in the dark tunnel, which is lit only by the lamps of the vehicle, they round a corner and can see light up ahead. It’s coming from a bank of red lights arranged in a circle. The car automatically slows as it approaches the lights, and it becomes clear that the lights are on a wall that stands directly in front of the vehicle. The rails do not turn away—the tunnel appears to end.
Eddy clears his throat. “Now what?”
No one responds.
A mechanical receiver is centered in the ring of lights, and the vehicle continues to slow until it only inches toward the wall. When the front of the vehicle interfaces with the receiver on the wall, the vehicle stops.
The ring of lights flash. -CLANK!- A sound from behind turns everyone around.
-Click, click, click, click, click, click…- A thick steel wall rises out of the ground a foot behind the vehicle and ratchets its way to the ceiling.
When it stops, the ring of lights go out, and the vehicle is walled-in on both sides.
The ring of lights turn green, the vehicle moves backward—away from the lights a few inches—and the wall in front of the vehicle ratchets down and into the floor.
Eddy blows a puff of air out in relief.
Charlie stretches his shoulders forward and cracks them. “Come on!”
-Throom!- The wall is gone, and the vehicle starts moving again, now up a slight hill. -Click, click, click…- The wall ratchets up behind them as they accelerate upward.
After a minute, the car levels out again, and they see light once more. As they get closer to it, they can see that a vehicle like theirs is stopped ahead.
Eddy grits his teeth and looks at Charlie, who nods toward his battle-pack and his sword. Eddy retrieves Ketsueki Seishin and hands it to him.
Their vehicle slows as it approaches the other one. Charlie doesn’t wait to come to a complete stop; he opens the door and jumps out. He rushes up to look in the first vehicle, but it’s empty. He jogs ten paces toward the light, then turns around. The rail-car stops behind the empty one, and Charlie jogs back to it.
He gets his gear, then he helps everyone out.
Past the cars, they round a slight corner. It’s curved only enough to prevent a straight line of sight into the tunnel, but plenty of light bounces off the brick wall. Beyond the curve, there’s a steel, one-way turnstile passageway that only allows exit, and beyond that, there’s a pair of strong floodlights against a wall.
Before they cross through the turnstile, Charlie pauses. “Check that you haven’t left anything—we won’t be able to get back through.”
Enrique, woozy and light headed, mistakenly thinks that a joke is appropriate. “I think I left about two quarts of blood. Anybody have some to spare?”
Everyone ignores him.
One at a time—or in Eddy’s case, while he carries June—they cross through the steel turnstile. On the other side, there’s ten more feet of tunnel before it ends at the wall with the flood lights. Below the lights, there’s a single door.
Sadie supports Enrique, while Charlie grabs the knob and opens the door fast—still hoping to catch Dr. Melgaard. Instead, he catches a face-full of sunlight, and he’s momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness. His eyes adjust, and he looks out and sees a park.
Past the door, there’s sun and lots of it, with very few trees for shade. Sadie steps with Enrique next to Charlie, so she can peer out as well. They both look for one thing and one thing alone: Dr. Melgaard. Unfortunately, they don’t see anyone that looks like him.
Damn. Charlie tests the door’s knob; it’s locked, and the door only opens from the inside.
Enrique coughs. “Can I see?”
Sadie helps him into the doorway.
“I think I know where we are, it’s called Gravelly Point. We’re a few miles north of Reagan National Airport.”
Charlie looks out the door again. He can see the Washington Monument in the distance, past a river. “We’re still in Virginia then, right?”
Enrique nods.
Charlie glances down at him. He’s awfully pale. “Alright, let’s get you sitting down.” He helps Enrique over to the wall, inside the shade of the tunnel, then helps him to the ground.
On his way back to Sadie at the door, Charlie looks at his son. Eddy stands motionless, with June draped across his shoulders. His eyes stare at nothing. Charlie continues to the door, then frowns at his wife.
She frowns back. “Now what? Call for help?”
Charlie shakes his head. “Oh. No, I’ve got it covered.” He unbuckles his belt and slides off a small, black tactical pouch. “Before I left for the Pentagon, I asked a friend at the air force base to monitor this GPS beacon. I told her to send a medivac copter to it if it pings.”
“Good thinking, but what friend do you have in the air force?”
Charlie takes the device out of the pouch and flips a little switch on the side. A small LED light flashes on and off, slowly. “She got you on the phone earlier, her name is Winters.” He tosses the beacon about ten yards out of the tunnel and into the sun-soaked grass. “Now, we wait… By the way, who’s watching Minnie. Is she with Skip?”
Sadie nods while her eyes play hide and seek with Charlie’s. “I sent Captain Sarkis to bring them back.”
“Bring them back? Where’d—”
Sadie points out across the park and across the Potomac River to DC in the distance. “They were downtown on the field trip, remember? But hopefully they’re back to the hotel by now.”
The tour bus is trying to exit the museum’s parking lot and merge onto Constitution Avenue, but traffic is in a standstill. Ideally, the bus would turn left, but right now, Frank will settle for moving in any direction except backward. Occasionally, the traffic creeps forward, but there’s never an opportunity for the bus to force its way in, let alone occupy the next lanes over while it makes the wide turn it will require.
The kids sing and play a knee and hand slapping game while many of the parents and chaperones send concerned looks back and forth to one another. Jennifer and Tommy are seated across from Skip and Minnie—Minnie demanded it.
Jennifer holds up her phone and gets Skips attention. “I can’t get a call through. The carrier says they’re overloaded.”
Skip pulls out his phone and tries to call June. After a moment, he hangs up and shrugs. “Same here.”
She looks out the window at all the traffic. “What do you think is going on?”
“I guess just that Pentagon thing.”
-whap!-
Skip and others look forward. Frank slapped the steering wheel, and he now swats at a driver that inched forward past his bumper. The bus must now wait for the traffic to move an entire car-length for another opportunity. Hopefully the next person in line is more helpful.
Skip sighs and looks at Jennifer. “At this rate, we’ll be here all night.” He nudges Minnie. “Let me past you for a second.”
She squeezes her body against the back of
her seat, crushing Valentine in the process.
“Stay here with Tommy and listen to Jennifer. Okay, Minnie?”
She nods. “Okay.”
Skip makes his way to the front of the bus, interrupting every pair of children playing the game across the aisle. When he gets to the front, Katlyn stands and gives him a hug.
“Nobody’s letting us in?”
She shakes her head. “Everybody’s crazy to get out of the city.” She mouths the word ZOMBIES.
He nods. I bet the zombies at the Pentagon are making everyone freak out. “I’d want to get out of here too.” He looks over his shoulder at the bus full of kids and sighs. “We can’t just stay here.” He looks back at Katlyn’s shining eyes and loses himself for a moment.
“Skip?”
“I’ll get out and stand in the lane. I’ll explain we’ve got a bus full of kids, then we can at least be crawling home instead of sitting here.”
“No, there’s—”
He places a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t need to go very far. It’ll be fine.”
She looks at his chin for a moment, then back at his eyes and nods. He’s so brave.
Skip takes another few steps and leans down to talk to Frank. “I’ll get out and block the lane so you can merge.”
Frank turns to him. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Skip shrugs. “Yeah, but it’s an idea. I’ll wave you in when you’re clear.”
Frank glances in the mirror to Katlyn who is watching. He sees her nod. He shakes his head in disbelief. “Alright. Don’t go too far now.” He opens the door, and Skip steps out.
He takes a few steps to the edge of the avenue and looks in both directions at the endless line of cars. People start honking at him. He ignores them.