CANNIBAL KINGDOM

by John L. Campbell

  I+7

  I+5

  I+8

  They all knew what it meant. Each worker reacted with different emotion when the note was applied, from relief that they still had several days to go, to tears, grim resignation or even anger at the inevitability, regardless of their number. Karen had applied her own note first so they could all see it.

  She came to Annabelle last, the woman who had been attacked by the late Terry Butters. An Atlanta native, the woman had been a Miss Georgia in her youth, and even at fifty-five retained much of her good looks, taking care of herself as the years had marched on. Rather than pursue a career in modeling or even film, she’d been drawn to science and made it her life. That and her children, and now young grandchildren, whom she spoke about with adoration, always ready to show off the latest photo on her cell phone. She was a kind, soft Southern lady, and her lower lip trembled as Dr. Fisher approached.

  The sticky note went on.

  I+10.

  A soft Southern lady who was about to turn into a monster. She began to cry again, and all Karen Fisher could do was hold her.

  Moira stood in the patient ward, a long, sterile, hospital-like room where subjects filled the ten beds lined up along one wall. Every patient had been put in chest, arm and leg restraints, “for everyone’s safety” they’d been told. An RN in green scrubs, the ward nurse, sat before a computer terminal at the far end, monitoring their vitals. The physician walked slowly past a desk covered in files and an open laptop, the screen turned away from the patients. The volume was turned down. It was streaming an online news channel, and violent, horrific images flashed constantly across the screen.

  The door to the lab was behind her, the second entrance to autopsy on her left. Down by the nurse was a door that led to a pharmacy and supply room for patient needs, a second that accessed a tiny restroom and another that opened into a larger storeroom filled with unused lab equipment and refrigerators filled with samples. A quick glance at the patients showed that nine appeared to be resting comfortably, but one, ironically the tenth in line, was sweating and wincing as if in pain, eyes open and distant.

  Phase-Two, Moira thought.

  She didn’t go to him, though. Instead she moved to an oversized, pressure-sealed door on the right, wide enough to permit a gurney and handlers to pass through. The card scanner set in the wall beside it displayed a red light to show that it was locked, but Moira tugged at the handle anyway to be sure. She looked out the small, reinforced-glass window set at eye level. The hallway outside was bare and unremarkable, except for the hand of course.

  It was sticking out of a white lab coat cuff, limp and turned upward, just barely visible at the far left. A splotch of red stained the cuff. The rest of the arm and attached body (she assumed it was attached but didn’t know for sure) was out of sight. A presumably dead CDC employee left to lie unattended in the hallway, which spoke to the grim reality of what was going on inside the secured building.

  For a while there had been PA announcements to inform everyone of the lockdown and order them to seek secure shelter. The announcements stopped after a short while. Moira had a few brief phone conversations with other physicians, similarly locked down in other offices and labs, but for the last hour no one was picking up the phone. CDC administrators couldn’t be reached, and there was no sign of facility security. Her driver, a bodyguard provided by the State Department because of her status as a Cabinet Secretary, didn’t pick up. She’d reached that two-star at the Pentagon, but when she’d tried to call back there was no answer. Calls to Washington just rang and rang, except for a single call to the White House where she’d been put on hold for ten minutes before the line disconnected. Moira had even called the President’s confidential line, the cell phone carried by his body man. It went to voice mail.

  Phase-Threes were loose in the building, roaming the halls in search of victims, while people tried to hide behind locked doors. Moira knew that it was only a matter of time (and had likely already happened) before Phase-Threes started appearing among the people who thought they were safe behind those locked doors.

  As would no doubt happen right here within Moira’s group if preventative steps weren’t taken.

  She looked at the dead hand in the hallway again and thought about the information Dr. Wulandari had sent her from Indonesia shortly after the incident with Terry Butters, the results of an autopsy conducted on a Phase-Three subject. Trident appeared to be hatching, the odd, fork-shaped particles all at once birthing some new, unknown organism. The original pitchfork structure became a useless husk and disintegrated, as the new organism (Trident 2.0? she thought) began its own, rapid multiplying, taking root in organs and tissue, concentrating heavily around the brain, heart and spinal cord and forming those protective, mucous sacs.

  Was the original pitchfork structure simply a vehicle to move Trident 2.0 through the body? This new organism was spreading quickly, attaching itself to every bit of tissue, organ and muscle. Was it feeding off them? That would make it parasitic. She couldn’t guess at its purpose, other than the intent of all parasitic organisms; to feed and survive. There was no doubt that she would find the same thing when she cut open Terry Butters. Her scientific mind and human instinct also told her to stop deluding herself; there would absolutely be a Phase-Four, and it would likely be more terrifying than anything that had come before.

  Moira Rusk looked at the dead hand one more time, rubbed the bridge of her nose in an attempt to chase away the fatigue starting to creep over her, and walked toward the row of patients. Time to get back to work.

  -20-

  DEVIL DOG

  Cleveland Hopkins International Airport – October 28

  Death wasn’t so bad, Garrison thought. Except for the headache, and the pain low on the left side of his chest. He heard drums, a rapid, unceasing thumping. Drums? Weren’t they supposed to be angelic trumpets?

  Depends on where you arrive. It was a sobering thought.

  Death was a dark place, as he’d expected it would be, at least at first. He peered into the gloom. Not really black, more of a charcoal gray. Where was the light? There was supposed to be a magnificent, welcoming light.

  Depends on where you arrive, his mind repeated.

  There might have been light somewhere to the left, out of the corner of his eye. If not light, at least a brighter gray than the rest. He tried to go to it, feeling resistance that made it difficult to move. He hissed at what felt an awful lot like cracked ribs. He’d had one of those at Quantico many years before, and knew what it felt like.

  What was holding him back, he wondered? Was it the weight of his sins, preventing him from reaching the light, pulling him back to that other place? Garrison feared Hell, as his upbringing had taught him to, but not to the point where he’d become obsessed with the fear as some people did. Perhaps that was because of his belief that God was a simple, merciful force, and Heaven wasn’t achieved through unswerving service to any particular religious organization, but by being a good and decent man. He thought he was both those things.

  So what were these sins that were weighty enough to hold him back? Some bad behavior as a kid, certainly, but nothing hateful or harmful, more along the lines of mischief and rule-breaking. He’d never stolen anything, and was honest even when telling the truth worked against him, a trait that had made political life and especially the presidency more difficult than it was for many who had gone before him. He’d never cheated in school or dishonored himself as a U.S. Marine.

  A shy academic (a super-nerd, he’d often told him son) his first sexual encounter hadn’t been until college, and it was with Patricia Rand, the woman he would eventually marry. He’d only ever been with her, and it not only satisfied him but was a source of personal pride. He loved her fiercely. She and the Marine Corps cured him of his shyness, but he’d remained an academic, and – in his mind – a bit socially awkward. Not something to earn a ticket to Hell.

  Was it because he’d fallen short on b
eing a good father? Especially the last few years? He loved his kids so hard that sometimes it ached, but between the demands of military command and an increasingly complex political climb he hadn’t been as involved in their lives as he should have been. Was that it?

  Garrison tried to turn toward the light once more and hissed again, the resistance still there. The drumbeat went on. Was it truly drums, or the pounding of his own head?

  He had killed his fellow man. That must be it, something unforgivable. But that wasn’t quite right. He’d been taught about forgiveness. The lives he had taken, in war as a Marine, had been to save his own life as well as others. He’d ordered it done as President, again in military operations, and that had also been necessary to save the lives of innocents. Never hateful. He had never hated his enemies, even thought they had given plenty of reason for him to do so. He’d always had the best of intentions.

  The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Who had said that? He’d also read somewhere that the road to Hell is paved with adverbs, and who had said that? This was some pretty fuzzy thinking for a dead man, he decided. And how had he ended up dead anyway? Were you supposed to feel cracked ribs and headaches when you were dead?

  What happened?

  He remembered that LaBeau was sick… Who was LaBeau? …and the man got out of the car… What car? …and then…nothing…

  It was so hard to focus, as if his brain was a swimmer doing laps in a pool full of oatmeal.

  Oatmeal. Mom used to make it on cold mornings before school. Maple and brown sugar is my favorite.

  Oh, this was ridiculous! He fought against the pressure holding him back, really put some muscle into it, ignoring the rib that was starting to sing a heated opera. He pushed toward the gray light, saw it brighten, but not as much as he’d hoped. It was still muted somehow. He kept going.

  Heaven or Hell? Come on, Heaven!

  With a groan and a final push he forced himself past the weight of sin – discovering what turned out to be a pair of deployed airbags pinning him to the seat – and emerged to find that he was facing a square of tinted glass smeared with blood. On the other side, hammering its fists against the window in an attempt to get inside and collect Garrison’s soul, was a red-faced devil. It bit at the glass with broken teeth, glaring at him with hungry, soulless eyes.

  Not Heaven.

  The motorcade’s primary and alternate routes might have been cleared initially, but that was no longer the case. Barricades had been pushed aside, police cars that were once parked in blocking positions had been shoved out of the way by bumpers. As the people of Cleveland realized that their city had suddenly become a killing ground, they piled into vehicles and flooded the streets in an attempt to reach safety. Most didn’t know where that was, exactly, just someplace other than here.

  Order disintegrated, and now cars were filling every lane in both directions, causing gridlock. Traffic accidents created additional blockages, and fires were beginning to spark up in places. There were no firemen to put them out, no police to clear the way for their trucks, only frightened people bumping their cars against each other in an attempt to force movement. Horns, shouted curses, fistfights between angry motorists, distant sirens and more than a few gunshots.

  Within it all, the infected hunted the living, each bite swelling their ranks as Phase Threes triggered the Trident organisms in those not yet come fully to term, quickly sending them into an active state. Birthing killers.

  In the CAT vehicle, David King hit the siren and the red and blue lights concealed behind the Suburban’s grille, trying to bully his way through the congestion. It did little good. He was moving at a crawl through a river of cars stopped at every angle, most attempting to change lanes in an effort to get a few feet farther ahead. And although the lights and sirens of law enforcement weren’t making anyone get out of his way, they were attracting attention. Running civilians converged on his vehicle, leaving cars and sidewalks to get to him. To them, the vehicle represented safety, the authorities who would make everything alright.

  They tugged at the locked door handles, rapped on the tinted windows, cried and pleaded to be let in. David wanted to save them, but there were too many; they would swamp the Suburban like an overloaded lifeboat. And as much as his heart ached to see their helplessness and fear, the part of him that shouted the word duty – a principal that had been a driving factor all his adult life – reminded him that his first and only priority was ensuring the safety of the President of the United States.

  He kept the doors locked, continued to nudge through traffic and tried not to look at the faces. When the cries and rapping on glass turned to angry shouts and beating fists, when people tried to climb the Suburban to reach the roof, one young man scrambling onto the hood and raising a brick to smash against the windshield, David reacted. He buzzed down the driver’s window, stuck his gun out and fired three quick shots in the air.

  They scattered, the young man dropping the brick and sliding off.

  David hit the gas, ramming a minivan out of the way and driving up onto a sidewalk, taking out a U.S. mailbox and clipping a sapling growing from a large planter. More people leaped out of the way of the charging SUV, but not all.

  Several drooling civilians with outstretched arms and bared teeth ran straight at the truck and died beneath the bumper and tires. David winced at the thump and crunch but kept going, wishing the siren would drown out the horrors all around him.

  At the next corner he hauled the big vehicle left, accelerating up a cross street that the fleeing vehicles had not yet decided to try, empty except for an abandoned police unit and a couple of cars racing in the other direction toward the traffic jam. David keyed the radio handset and started calling again; the USSS mobile command center called Shotgun, Air Force One, the Beast. No response from any of them, and the airwaves were almost silent now except for the occasional frantic voice within the static, voices that didn’t answer when he tried to contact them.

  He slowed at an intersection, weaving around a car accident and more running figures, then shot across. He had to get out of this city. Each passing minute brought him closer to the point where the streets would be so gridlocked that any hope of escape would be lost. He’d already seen enough to know that he didn’t want to be in downtown Cleveland when that happened.

  He switched frequencies, hoping that the satellite link would make the connection, and called Secret Service headquarters in Washington.

  Because of Fate’s sense of humor, he got through at once.

  David wanted to shout, “Where the hell have you guys been?” Instead he gave his ID number, his duty assignment and a quick brief of the situation. “I’m enroute to Hopkins International,” he concluded, “the last known destination for POTUS.”

  “Confirm, Sierra-Three,” said the communications officer. “Be advised that per its GPS, Stagecoach is stationary out on the flight line of Hopkins. Unknown if Devil Dog is aboard Angel, but Angel is also stationary.”

  Not good, David thought, slowing again and forcing his way through a gap between a pair of cars, scraping metal. He didn’t look at the faces in those cars, either. The President’s limo was at the airport, but Air Force One was still on the ground. By now he should have been aboard with the pilot putting the big plane in the air, standing it on its tail as he rocketed for altitude, dropping a string of anti-missile flares in his wake as the protocol demanded.

  The communications officer returned. “Sierra-Three, be advised that Bank Vault has been initiated. There is a team in the air and inbound to Devil Dog for extraction, two Blackhawks and one gunship. ETA ten minutes. If you’re there when they arrive we can get you out, too.”

  And if not, you’re on your own, the voice didn’t have to add.

  “Copy that,” David said, “I’m en-route.”

  The Suburban took a hard right, squealing its tires, David alternating between the brakes and accelerator as he wove through vehicles along Rocky River Road, rubbing cars with
a screech of metal and moving far out onto the shoulder when he had to. There were running figures here too, and his meager consolation was that only the savage, drooling ones crunched under the Suburban. Black smoke from unseen fires temporarily blotted out the sun. Bloody figures chased after the fleeing, often pinning them against cars and walls and taking them apart in a frenzy of hands and teeth.

  He forced his way across Brookpark Road, aiming for the on-ramp to the Berea Freeway, but angled right at the last second, speeding toward the airport’s outer fence and a closed gate blocking a frontage road. The briefing for all agents told him that would take him to where the President’s plane sat isolated from the rest of the airport. He hit the gate at speed, blowing it aside, then nearly had a head-on collision with a military Hummer with gunner standing in the turret racing out of the airport.

  You’re going the wrong way, asshole!

  In the distance, David could see the two, enormous white birds. He pushed the accelerator to the floor.

  The Beast, heavy with armor, rocked from side to side as dozens of bodies shoved against it, hands clawing at metal and glass. In the rear passenger compartment Garrison Fox rubbed his eyes, his thoughts beginning to clear. Crash. Airbag deployment. Not moving. Up front, the driver had somehow slipped his seatbelt and was now attacking the bulletproof screen, smearing the glass with drool. Beyond him, through a badly fractured windshield, Garrison could see what had stopped the big Cadillac so abruptly. The car had plowed into one of the airport’s runway vehicles, a pickup with a set of aircraft stairs mounted in the rear. The truck was caved-in on one side, mated with the now-wrinkled hood of the limousine from which steam was escaping.

  Not going anywhere.

  Bloody, snarling faces pressed against the windows on both sides, fists beating against the glass and tugging at door handles. Despite their contorted and horrific expressions, Garrison recognized many of them; a couple of staffers, the co-pilot and a flight steward from Air Force One, several Secret Service agents. Others he didn’t know. Between their bodies he caught a glimpse of more bloody figures running across the tarmac toward the limousine.