Luke heaved a loud sigh. “Many of us were. When the boys and I got back to D.C., the rumors were rampant, but Enzo’s twin sister is a scientist, and she dug and dug until she uncovered the truth.”
“You were right all along, Einstein.” Cassidy said, smiling softly.
Einstein nodded once, his cheeks turning light pink.
“What she uncovered was that secrets that big are worth a lot of money to the right people, so someone sold what they knew to another country. You can imagine how scary it would be to be our enemy at this point. So the country that knew the truth went to our allies, and in turn, various powerful countries created a committee to stop us in the event we were actually successful in creating this virus. Of course, we denied, denied, denied, and fell right into the committee’s trap anyway.”
“The trap was to smoke us out, huh?” Einstein said. “We chose to move the virus to an unknown location.”
Luke smiled at him. “You’re good, kid. Because it was so volatile, only small canisters of it were kept in a dozen different locations throughout the country. Once those locations were compromised - again, because people will always pay for good intel - this global committee decided that we, as a super power, had run our course. It was decided that we were the world’s greatest danger, and so, they let the virus loose.”
“The terrorists got us, but we were shot with our own weapon.” Einstein could only shake his head.
“Didn’t they realize how utterly stupid it would be to allow the virus out?” Cassidy asked.
Luke shrugged and turned to stoke the fire. “We’re pretty sure they had no idea it was zombies. Even if they did, who would have believed it? All they knew was that this virus could leave our infrastructure intact, our farms tillable, our water potable. They understood that we are a large cookie jar and pretty soon, there would be no one left to guard the cookies.”
Roper held up a hand. “Wait. Are you saying the rest of the industrialized world elected to be mass murderers of Americans?”
Luke looked down. “It’s not hard to understand why, Roper. We’ve been a nation less than two hundred and fifty years. During that time, we’ve been in the Civil War, French-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cold War, Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War. We’ve destroyed economies, ways of life, and other religions. We are, in most of the world’s eyes, the greatest evil on the planet. We consume more, waste more, and share less. We have it all and yet, we do so little good.”
“So they opted to exterminate us?”
Luke looked up and nodded. “Yes. That was their plan, but they had no idea the virus would have two legs and mobility. They didn’t know it would create man eaters. They also didn’t know if the antidote would work, so they pulled together a world army to contain us...to keep us here while the zombies eradicated us.”
“Oh my God,” Dallas said, her hand over her mouth. “They’re just sitting out there waiting to take us over.”
Luke touched the tip of his nose with his index finger. “Exactly. After World War I, Germany was divided into fourths, with each ally supervising their section. The United Nations probably has a similar initiative in mind. My bet is someone was going to divide us up and share the loot. That’s the beauty of the virus: Americans are dead…everything else is unharmed. Come and get it. It’s like finally getting the good room when your big brother goes away for college.
As everyone digested this information, Luke held Butcher’s hand and Dallas clutched Roper’s, while all of them contemplated just what this could mean not only to themselves and the group, but to the nation as a whole.
“I don’t have to tell you what this means,” Luke said softly, bringing Butcher’s hand to his lips.
Roper gave Dallas’s hand a quick squeeze. “It means we have one of three choices: we can find someplace else to live, if we could get out. We can stay here and again become a minority in our own country, or we can band with the rest of the gay population and the few remaining straight folks and fight those fuckers for what they did to us and our nation.”
The cabin’s small interior crackled with energy.
“Well,” Roper said, rising. “I, for one, am gonna fight for this country of ours and if those United Nation asswipes step foot on our land, I’ll be right there sending a very gay bullet their way.”
Looking down at Dallas, Roper asked quietly, “Who’s with me?”
The vote was unanimous.
Pick up with book two in the Riders of the Apocalypse series, burning rubber, coming soon to an eReader near you!
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More from Alex Westmore
The Plundered Chronicles
The Pirate’s Booty
Shiver her Timbers
Fire in the Hole
The Timeless Love Saga
Together in Time
The Future of Yesterday
Back to You
The Delta Stevens Crime Logs
Miles to Go
Con Game
Not in the Cards
Riders of the Apocalypse
Ride for Tomorrow
Burning Rubber
Eat Asphalt
The Silver Legacy
Darkness Descends
The Demon Within
Blood of the Demon
The Umbra Mortis Saga
The Death Collector
The Death Committee
The Death Continuum
The Handler
Dead Again
About the Author
Alex Westmore has lived in a haunted house, has a raging empath for a best friend, and eats up paranormal experiences with a huge supernatural spoon. To get closer to the action, she has spent time with Voodun in New Orleans, medicine men in the Southwest, and a Shaman in the Amazon.
Alex is a five-time award winning author of several series, from zombies to demons to empaths, oh my! When she isn’t writing, she’s thinking about writing and imagining where her next great adventure will take her.
Spice up your life! Join Alex on her next amazing adventure…you will be so glad you did. The journey begins at www.AlexWestmore.net.
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Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 1): Ride For Tomorrow Page 32