Welcome to the apocalypse

by Lee Kerr

  That did upset him but at least he still had his two agents to protect him from the mob. They looked quite manly and tough in the front of their land cruiser but squashed into the back of a taxi with him, their ample girths poking through their off-white shirts, he asked the question if either of them had ever served with the current president, or perhaps a previous one. When he found out they were private security and hadn’t been to Washington in years, let alone met the top guy, he resigned himself to the reality that he was a nobody, someone who was lucky to get any sort of escort at all. David had volunteered to go with him that day – and, in truth, he would have protected him just as well, and been far better company.

  He snaps back to life, remembering that he still needs to call David. He looks around the mass of people, wondering who he could possibly ask for a telephone. He settles on the only person he thinks he can trust, the only one remotely likely to help him. ‘Agent Flinch,’ he says, walking towards him, never one to demand someone should come to him. ‘Would it be possible for you to kindly find me a telephone?’ he says, but doesn’t give a reason why this time, figuring someone of his importance would never justify a simple instruction.

  Agent Flinch smiles and nods, before making his way towards one of the many people nearby, who Larry assumes to be communications operatives.

  He smiles back, feeling almost like he has accomplished something. He looks at the many different people, wanting to tell them to get back to work, his one victory giving him the smallest bit of confidence. Inconspicuously, he gazes over at the huddled mass of important people and that woman who is still waving her hands in the air, hitting some invisible target. She says something that he can’t quite understand, something about the next few hours being critical and the toughest decision not always being the right one.

  He sees General Phillips hush her, his energy seeming to keep the group together. He glances over at Larry for just a moment, before looking back at her. ‘We all know that an officially appointed president gives plausible authority to any decision his office makes, and that is what matters right now.’

  He doesn’t make any comment and in fact pretends that he hasn’t heard anything, although he wonders about this official appointment business, considering that Evans is still technically leading the country, even if he is doing it from his grave. All the work and none of the credit – that’s what this sounds like to Larry, and that’s exactly what his mum said when he told her he was going into government. He started local and worked his way up but it was never about the politics, always about serving someone else and making the system work for the little guy. When Larry was sworn into the latest government he realised that he had probably become just a little politically minded, but by this time his mother had passed away, and he and David were clear on why he was doing it.

  He knows that on the day he joined the newly formed government it was still about protecting the little guy, but he never once considered that he would ever become president. He thinks that this is a dark day – 11 other people have died in the attempt and now he’s the only one left. There were so many things in place to stop this from ever happening: those next in line not travelling with the president wherever possible, immense security whenever the most important people were together. When they ticked off five from the list in one attack it was probably the beginning of the end. Maybe it was planned and they had waited for the exact moment when they could cause the most damage.

  Agent Flinch appears with a phone in his hand and Larry smiles: he is about to complete his first small task, one that means so much. He quickly dials the number from memory. He has always been good at remembering numbers, both cellphones and landlines. He wonders how many people bother to memorise their partner’s cell numbers when they can just be programmed and forgotten. He’s never been one to think of an emergency, something where he will have no choice but to dial the number; it’s just that he grew up without these gadgets and their long, identifying digits. He remembers his parents getting their first phone, his first trip to a payphone, and the day he unboxed his first cell. He still has his filodex on the desk in his office, despite his personal assistant having shown him how to use the online phone list a hundred times. He finds something reassuring in doing things the old way; he finds a kind of healthiness and balance in clinging to bits and pieces of the past.

  As the phone starts ringing he feels his victories starting to form into a small pattern, hopefully building into many successes that will lead him out of this place and back to David, which is exactly what he plans to tell him.

  Someone picks up and Larry is about to scream with excitement but then the line goes dead. He looks down at the phone and then holds it up to his ear, before holding it at a slight angle so he can properly see through his glasses as he tries to find the redial button.

  He doesn’t get a chance; instead, he realises Lopez is next to him. She grabs the phone from his hand and throws it across the room; it smashes into one of the large screens. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she shouts.

  He doesn’t look at her or offer an answer as he looks at the flickering screen, seeing that most of Australia is now just a series of cracked lines. He thinks that if she keeps throwing electrical objects across the room at her current rate, then they will be back to pen, paper and maps within hours.

  She smacks him across the chest and then lets out a long scream, clearly frustrated at his lack of fight. It’s enough to bring Flinch back towards him, as the agent holds out his arms, politely fending her off. She pushes him away and it’s enough to make him back off, as he still tries to indicate a truce. Larry wonders if he is genuinely afraid of this woman. He has watched enough encounters between secret service agents and senior government officials to know that they are good at defusing tensions without actually shooting anyone, which might turn out to be a real shame in this particular situation.

  ‘No outgoing phone calls without my express approval,’ she says, as she straightens her blouse and stares at him, clearly expecting an apology from him.

  General Phillips appears from nowhere, as he walks towards her and coughs.

  She looks at him and then back to Larry. ‘No outgoing calls, Mr. President.’

  Larry nods back at her as she turns and walks away, telling everyone else to get back to work, which is all that is required to make everyone else focus back on their monitors and other various duties that he doesn’t yet understand. He thinks that maybe he should be the one who is issuing these orders, but since he hasn’t got himself up to speed he thinks it best to let her carry on.

  Phillips soon takes her place, standing next to him but looking a lot more pleasant. Larry thinks he is a genuinely happy fellow, the sort of person who would be ruthless at work but then go home and entertain the grandkids with the best of them. He taps Larry on the arm and guides him towards one of the large screens. Against a background of America and Canada are many flashing lights, which seem to change between red crosses, green dots and black skulls. He notices that the black skulls are the most numerous, and since they don’t look very positive he wonders if it’s even worth asking the question as to what they signify.

  Phillips points to the very top of the map, drawing an invisible circle. ‘Alaska think they can go it alone,’ he says. ‘They always think they know better, always want to play by their own rules. What do you think about that, Mr President?’

  Larry thinks about this for a moment, wondering how any of what he sees here is even possible, not understanding how any form of order and organisation can still remain.

  Phillips celebrates his absence from the moment by slapping him on the back again, which he has to admit is starting to annoy him. ‘Nothing to say yet? Well, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of this commander-in-chief business pretty quickly. Best you just listen to the advice you’re offered and let us worry about the finer details.’

  Larry quickly shakes his head, entirely disagreeing with that abdication nonsense. He doesn’t
really want to sit in the chair but he also knows that if he is given a task to do he will always follow it through as best as he can. He remembers an online personality profile he once did: according to his results, he was someone who always wanted to be perfect. To him, if a job was worth doing then it is worth doing right. He looks at the General and then touches him on the shoulder, focusing on the map. ‘Alaska wants to go it alone? Is it doing them any good?’

  Phillips pauses for a moment, frowning and then smiling, seeming to take time to genuinely think about this. ‘Actually, they seem to be repelling the beasts to the point where they are withdrawing and moving back into Canada. But this is probably because of how much white stuff there is in Alaska, which is giving them a slight tactical advantage.’

  Larry smiles. ‘Well it looks to me like we need some snow across the entire land.’

  Phillips laughs, sending a deep and booming echo across the room. ‘In the middle of summer, I hardly think so.’ He looks at the screen and then back to Larry, before grabbing him and pulling him towards another screen. ‘Let me show you some more and see if our new president can make any other useful observations.’

  Larry tags along, having no choice but to move with the general. He catches a quick glance at Flinch who gives him a purposeful nod in return. He smiles back at him and, for now, he completely forgets about home and David, and how they so meticulously planned to meet their end together.

  *****

  Larry really needs to go to the restroom. There have been many times in his career where he has been in such vital meetings with the cabinet, the president and other very important people and he has desperately needed to go, but has had to hold it. Otherwise, he would risk missing out on crucial decisions, or looking like a weak, old man who can’t keep it together. But it’s getting really painful and since he’s the president now he wonders if anyone would be able to stop him, or if anyone would dare to make a bold decision in his absence. He looks around at the different doors, but he can’t see a restroom sign anywhere, which is perhaps because this place was built so hastily that they didn’t have time to put the signs up.

  He’s thankful to be sitting down and even though he’s in the main chair, still the guy in charge, it is helping relieve some of the pressure on his ageing bladder. He looks around at all the coffee cups spread across the desks that surround his chair. He didn’t drink all of them – they’re his predecessors’, still stained around the rims with the marks of sipping lips, some with cold liquid still floating at the bottom. Where there isn’t a cup there is a folder, full of desperately important information for the commander-in-chief. Right now, Larry doesn’t think any of this ‘Highly Confidential’ information could be more desperate than his need to release bodily fluids, but people still keep coming up to him with yet more information. He wonders when they are going to run out of paper or ink and what they will do then.

  He looks down at these folders that he has arranged like a hand of cards. He used to love playing poker, and every time a new folder is handed to him he reads the title that’s printed on the brown cover, before he sorts it into what he believes is the correct place in this rather complex hand. The problem is that they all seem so awfully important, all containing details of yet more terrifying events that are unfolding, which means that he doesn’t seem to have any that you would call a crap card. He has also noticed that he’s getting far more folders than he is giving back, yet no one seems to be bothered about this, either.

  That’s it, Larry decides. He thinks enough is enough and he resolves to go to the restroom and then ask for everyone to come together to give the president an update. He’s especially intrigued by the increasing number of black skulls stretching up the west coast, which was the only untouched place until this morning. The east coast fell early, except for Washington DC, which one of the presidents, Blackmore, he believes, decided would be held at all costs as a strong symbol for the people – the city that houses the power of our country remaining intact. He doesn’t know whether he should be thankful to Blackmore or not, since on the one hand it is the reason why he and David have survived so long, with their house in a suburb on the outskirts of the city. However, had Washington fallen already then none of this would be a problem for them. He eventually decides that this is a moot point because what is done is done, and besides Blackmore isn’t around to hear his thoughts anyway: having chosen to ensure Washington remained heavily defended, he was then stupid enough to fly out to an aircraft carrier to rally the troops.

  Larry and David had both sat at home in stunned silence when the press showed the carrier sinking off the coast. The president and the remaining members of his secret service detail had tried to escape to the shore before being pulled under. Thankfully, there were only a few images of the actual assault and the press were quickly silenced, as per the NATO agreement that the general public, as much as humanly possible, should not see what it was that was attacking humanity.

  Of course most people knew about the lurkers, as they were eventually named. These attackers quickly became humanity’s newest and biggest threat. At first people thought it was some sort of virus but that turned out to be a distraction to keep the authorities busy, which worked rather well. What followed was an endless series of poor decisions by government agencies, and when the real attacks happened the planet simply wasn’t prepared enough.

  But all that has happened has actually made Larry even more determined that he will make the right decisions when they matter, although it would have been helpful if David was here so he could bounce some ideas off him. He looks back around the room, trying to spot some allies in the desperate muddle of white shirts and jumbled information. He looks back over to Agent Flinch and gets the same nod as always, reminding him that he is still here, has still got his back.

  After a final sweep of the room Larry concludes that he really is alone. He decides to call Flinch over and to ask him to make a journey into the unknown to get David. He stands up, stepping down from his throne, now very clear in his mind that two heads are better than one. He heads towards the young man, resolving to find the restrooms, and also ensure his partner is brought to this safest of places, although he’s not sure how easy that will be if the enemy is still outside. That’s the art of delegation, he tells himself, remembering that it is other people who will need to worry about the details of his commands.

  He hasn’t yet made it to Flinch when the USA screen starts bleeping and the West Coast suddenly turns into a sea of red, as skulls replace every one of the major cities from San Francisco to San Diego. He starts to hobble his way over, knowing he will have to wait a little longer to relieve himself. ‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

  ‘Ah, damn it, we’ve just lost L.A., which means we’ve lost the whole goddamn West Coast,’ General Phillips says, walking up to him, shaking his head. He taps a few buttons on a device in his hand and the big screen suddenly changes to show a map of Los Angeles, all divided into the newly formed districts. A prolonged battle had been going on in Los Angeles for days and the districts were supposed to make defence easier. They were based on key geographical barriers and all lined with various explosive traps, so if one district was lost the enemy couldn’t just walk into the next one without meeting a new line of defence. Larry doesn’t know much about war but when he first heard about this he thought it made sense, and for a while it had seemed to work, meaning that survivors could easily be moved to a numbered zone that was deemed safer and not just wherever they wanted to go. Admittedly, at the start of the attacks the United Kingdom and Japan had done a good job of that, but since they had much smaller geographical areas and far fewer people to organise, it had probably been easier for them and that’s why they lasted longer.

  He knows something about how people behave from his years in urban planning, so he thought President Wilson was onto a winner. It was a shame he never made it past day four because Larry thought he might just vote for him, if things ever returned to some sort of
normality. At that point, just over a week ago, most people were convinced that humanity would prevail. You only had to look at all the years of Armageddon-related movies, dealing with threats from alien invasions to zombie hordes, to be reminded that there is always some resemblance of the human race left to rebuild, and they always need a government to lead the planet’s recovery. He looks up at the screen; he knows that things are different in this real life version. This isn’t like some movie but rather a documentary from hell, meaning nothing is likely to work out with any resemblance of a happy ending.

  ‘Attention everyone,’ General Phillips shouts out from somewhere above. Larry looks up to see he is standing on a table and surveying every corner of the room, clearly waiting for everyone to fall silent. ‘We just lost the West Coast.’

  He hears a lot of gasps around the room. A few people fall to the floor, while others stand firm, clearly determined to continue. The people down here have probably been at this for days, having little sleep, with not a lot to motivate them, which is something Larry hadn’t given much thought about until now. He had freely accepted his disposal-from-office order from the last president. He and David had both accepted defeat and run away to let fate do whatever it felt appropriate. He simply hadn’t realised just how many people were still putting up a fight; putting on a brave show for the American people and the rest of the world.

  Phillips holds up his hands, calming everyone down. ‘It’s night-time there and as we know, that’s the best time for them to attack. By the looks of it our troops have put up a brave fight. We got a lot of survivors out, but Fort Hope and Fort Valliant were both destroyed.’