CANNIBAL KINGDOM
Page 37
Donny nodded.
“I’m making you commander of base defense, and I’m going to need you and your team in the field, out there where you can clean up the remaining resistance inside the perimeter and make the base clear for arrivals. You up for that, Captain?”
Donny looked to his troops. Sgt. Stipling and Cpl. Woods nodded, and Private Akins gave him a thumbs-up and a smirk.
“We’ll get it done,” Donny said.
Rowe smiled and nodded. “I have no doubt of that.”
“General, one thing.” Donny jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “With your permission, I’d like to put that into service. Might make things go a little more quickly.” He was gesturing toward the big Stryker with its lethal, thirty-millimeter Bushmaster.
Rowe’s grin broadened. “Go kick ass, Captain.”
Garrison Fox stood with his wife to one side of the fully equipped studio here in the mountain. Patricia’s arm had been properly set and was in a cast slung across her chest. The Army surgeon believed she would regain most of not all of her movement once it healed. Their children sat at the back of the room.
The President was in a clean and pressed suit and he was freshly shaven, but his face still bore the cuts and bruises of his ordeal. He would allow no attempt to conceal them, and besides, no amount of makeup would ever hide the deep sadness in his eyes. But that sadness was tempered by determination.
Patricia plucked a piece of lint from his jacket and smoothed his lapels. “You’re very handsome.”
Garrison looked into her eyes and whispered, “I love you. I thought I’d lost you.”
“It would take more than the end of the world to get rid of me, Garrison Fox. I love you too.”
He kissed her, then held her at arm’s length. “Time to start putting this country back together,” he said.
“And you’re the man to do it.” She stood on her toes and gave him another kiss, this time a soft one at the corner of his mouth that never failed to make him smile. And then the smile faded, his eyes taking on a resolve with which she was both familiar and proud.
“Mr. President?” An Army tech with a clipboard was standing a polite distance away. “We’re ready for you, sir.”
Garrison nodded and followed the man to a podium in front of a blue curtain and flanked by American flags, waiting as the tech clipped a small, black mic to his jacket and tested a bristle of larger microphones. Set in the face of the podium was the Seal of the President of the United States.
The tech moved to a professional-sized, studio television camera and put on a headset. “Sir, we’ll be broadcasting on all available radio and television frequencies, as well as streaming live.”
Garrison cleared his throat. There were no tele-prompters, no paper speeches or notes atop the lectern, only his freshly scarred hands. This would be straight Garrison Fox. The red light atop the camera turned on, and the tech gave him a cue.
“My fellow Americans…”
-END-
Photo © Linda Campbell
John L. Campbell was born in Chicago, but has lived all over the U.S., and attended university in both North Carolina and New York. His novels include the Omega Days series, Cannibal Kingdom, two collections of short horror and suspense, and a horror novella based on actual events. Under the pen name Atticus Wulf, Mr. Campbell released the supernatural/historical thriller A Judge From Salem and his apocalyptic novella, A Cruel and Bitter Nothing. His short story Courageous Little Philomena’s Wondrous Bait was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A member of both the International Thriller Writers and the Horror Writers Association, Mr. Campbell is active on the horror and comic convention circuits, and resides with his family in New York where he is continuing his work on the Omega Days series, as well as other projects.
Visit him online at johnlcampbell.com,
Facebook.com/JohnLCampbellAuthor,
and twitter.com/OmegaDays