by Tripp Ellis
“Fuck off,” Duke yelled.
“Duke, open up.”
“I’m busy, dipshit.”
“It’s sort of an emergency,” Earl stammered. He heard Brandi moan. Then she told Duke not to stop.
“It can wait,” Duke grumbled.
“No, it’s like, a real emergency.” Earl glanced around and saw more lurkers were closing in on him. He counted at least ten. He kept banging on the trailer door, rattling the windows.
“Earl, I’m going to give you a beat down.”
The lurkers were getting too close for comfort. Earl snapped up his rifle and took aim. He squeezed the trigger, showering bullets. He dropped one of the lurkers, then another. A few moments later, Brandi pulled open the door.
She had pulled her shorts on, but she was still topless. Her hands were covering her perfect breasts. She clenched her jaw, seething. “Earl, after Duke gets through with you. I’m gonna kick your ass too. I was this close, you son-of-a-bitch.”
Earl’s eyes bugged out. He swallowed hard. He’d never seen Brandi with her top off. He was praying for her hands to drop.
“Quit staring at my tits, you little freak.” Brandi hunched over, suddenly modest. “What the hell are you shooting at anyway?”
Earl pointed to the approaching horde of lurkers.
Brandi squinted. It took her a second to catch on. Then her jaw dropped. “Duke… I think you need to get your gun.”
“Earl, you better run, because I’m gonna shoot your ass.” A moment later, Duke was at the door. He was shirtless, scratching on his belly and wearing a pair of jeans. He had a .357 Magnum pistol in his hand. “This will keep you from knocking on my goddamn door.”
Earl didn’t pay any attention to him. He took aim and fired off another few rounds at incoming lurkers.
Brandi Leigh ducked back inside and put on her T-shirt and boots.
Duke surveyed the incoming horde. “What the hell is going on?”
Earl shrugged. “Something went wrong with the vaccine. They’re infected.”
A sly grin curled up on Duke’s lips. “All right. Target practice.” He trotted down the steps. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit up. Then he strolled toward the lurkers. He wasn’t afraid of shit. He’d been waiting for something like this to go down. He walked right up to one of the infected, put the barrel of the gun to the thing’s head, and squeezed the trigger.
The .357 Magnum was like a cannon. The report echoed like thunder across the field. The lurker’s skull blasted apart like a watermelon, hit with a sledgehammer. Duke busted out laughing. “Goddamn, did you see that shit? I think that was Mr. Wilson. I never liked him anyway.”
The ghouls kept staggering toward them. And more were coming. Growling and drooling. Some of them were contorted with spasms. All of them were singular of purpose.
Duke stepped to the next lurker and blasted another hole. Gooey bits of brain and bone erupted. Duke was grinning from ear to ear.
Brandi rushed out of the trailer with a tactical shotgun. It was a pistol grip Bauer Maybach KSG 12 with a high capacity 30 round drum magazine and a laser sight. It was the ultimate 12 gauge shotgun.
For a girly girl, Brandi handled the weapon like a trained professional. She worked the left side of the field. Duke was blasting away straight up the middle. And Earl took the scraps on the right.
Brandi put the little red dot on a woman’s forehead. It was Gracie Bolton. Or, at least, it used to be. Brandy squeezed the trigger.
KABOOM!
It thundered and shook the earth like a stick of dynamite. Muzzle flash and smoke blasted from the barrel. The recoil kicked Brandi’s shoulder back, but she held her ground.
Gracie Bolton’s head vaporized. One second it was there, the next second it was gone. It burst into a cloud of blood particles.
The trio moved through the field, blasting everything in sight. When the field was clear, Duke had a sullen look on his face.
For a moment, Brandi thought he was upset. “What’s wrong, baby?”
A haze of gun smoke filled the air. Every breath filled their lungs with the smell of gunpowder and the metallic scent of blood.
“I sure hope that wasn’t the last of them,” Duke said. “That was too much fun.”
“Duke! These were our neighbors. Our fellow citizens. Hell, I know I personally killed Mr. Warren, Mrs. Price, Eddie Somerville, Holly Logan, Laura Tanner, and Ruby Hickman.”
“Judgmental assholes that called the cops on me every chance they could.”
Brandi sighed. “Well, they didn’t deserve to die.”
“They weren’t people anymore,” Earl said.
Brandi frowned. She stood there, rubbing her shooting shoulder. It was going to be sore as hell in the morning.
“Isabella is dead,” Earl said.
“Ah, shit,” Duke said. “I’m sorry, Earl. I mean that.” And he really did. Duke might have given Earl a lot of shit, but he was like a brother to him.
Brandi’s eyes misted up. She walked over and hugged Earl. “You need to talk, you just let me know.”
“Thank you,” Earl stammered. He had never been this close to Brandi Leigh before. She had never been this nice to him. He could smell her heavenly perfume. Her freshly shampooed hair, with a hint of raspberry. He could feel her perky breasts pressing up against him. It kind of frazzled his brain. That’s why he didn’t notice the lurker crawling on the ground behind Brandi.
Whoever had shot the creature didn’t quite make a headshot. It was still alive, if you could call the thing alive. The creature latched onto Brandi’s calf with its teeth. It clamped down, puncturing her skin.
Brandi shrieked in terror. She tore her leg away and kicked the thing in the head. It snarled at her and crawled closer. She pumped the shotgun, pulled the trigger, and vaporized its head.
She looked back at her calf. Blood was trickling from the puncture wounds. The crimson stream rolled down into her boots. “Mother fucker.”
Duke took a look at the wound and grimaced.
“Shit, baby,” she said. “What should I do?” Her face was pale, and twisted in panic.
Duke shook his head. “Only one thing you can do in a situation like this.” His face was sullen. Everyone knew, from what had happened in the quarantine zone, that a bite meant certain infection. Duke pointed the barrel of the .357 magnum at Brandi’s forehead and cocked the hammer back.
7
“The football,” the president said. “We have to get the football.”
“Where is it?” Steele asked.
The president pointed across the room. USMC Lt. Colonel Norman Walsh was dead on the floor. He was still clutching the infamous black satchel. It gave the president nuclear launch capability wherever he went. Mobile destruction. It also contained detailed plans for the Continuity of Government Strategic Operations Protocol (COGSOP)—should a disaster occur.
Steele bounded across the room and grabbed the 45 pound brief case. But it was handcuffed to Walsh’s wrist. Steele took the P277 pistol and shot off the metal links. Then he took the case and led the team out onto the south lawn, heading toward Marine One.
It was kind of weird holding the end of the world in his hands, Steele thought. But the world was ending around him already. And not one bomb had been dropped.
He ran toward the aerial vehicle with the case in one hand, and the Koenig Haas P277 in the other. The lawn was relatively clear—just a lurker roaming here and there. Steele dispatched them with ease. But each shot was eating up precious ammo. Still, it was fun shooting infected politicians that he had spent years loathing.
Steele hit the manual release, and the back ramp of the CAV unlocked and lowered. The hydraulics hissed and whirred. The president, Susan Norton, Parker, Chloe, and Delroy loaded into Marine One. Steele brought up the rear and raised the ramp behind him.
A lurker clutched onto the ramp as it lifted. The ghoul tried to climb on board, but Steele blasted it in the head. The lurker fell awa
y and the ramp slammed shut.
Outside, dozens were starting to scratch and claw at the vehicle. They could do that all they liked, Steele thought. They weren’t getting inside.
Steele made sure Chloe was strapped in securely. Then he ambled to the cockpit and took a seat behind the controls. The craft was virtually identical to the combat aerial vehicles the Army used. This one had better armor, better countermeasures, a state-of-the-art communication system, and more powerful engines. The extra armor plating made it heavier and less maneuverable. But the trade-off was worth it, in most situations. It was designated the VXR 909, and nicknamed the SkyHawk.
Steele had flown a CAV a few times before. Most always out of necessity. During his first tour in Syria, his unit participated in a covert op to neutralize a high value enemy diplomat. The rooftop insertion went bad when a sniper took out both pilot and copilot with one shot. It was an earlier generation CAV that had no ballistic glass in the cockpit windows. The designers assumed all enemy fire would be coming from below. So the bottom of the craft was heavily armor plated. When your pilot gets shot, you learn quickly how to take off and land. Especially when under enemy fire.
That was the first time Steele had flown, outside of a simulator. He had damn near crashed into the neighboring building. But somehow he managed to get the CAV out of there and get his squad home.
Steele could get the craft off the ground—though it would pitch, roll, and yaw more than he liked. As long as he didn’t have to land on a rooftop, or put it down in between a narrow row of trees, he’d be okay.
He took a moment to familiarize himself with the controls. Then he powered up the massive Hughes & Kessler engines. They were putting out an insane 3 million pound force of thrust per engine—and there were four of them. The engines were powerful enough to put Marine One into a near Earth orbit. And that was by design.
The International Space Ring was still under construction. It was supposed to be completed in 2045, but numerous delays pushed the estimated completion date to 2052. As it stood, it was a third of the way completed. Eventually, the ring would completely encircle the earth at a distance of 250 miles above sea level. The goal was a sustainable community, suitable for medical and scientific research. It would also serve as a hub for deeper space exploration.
So far, it had been fundamental in establishing the moon base Endeavor, and the Mars outpost Aries. It was a joint multi-nation project, which seemed like a good idea at first. But put a colony of scientists and researchers in space and they quickly develop their own ideas about government and autonomy.
The colonists declared themselves a sovereign nation. They threatened to sabotage the Ring and send it to a flaming death in the upper atmosphere if a treaty wasn’t signed. Too much money had already been spent to let that happen. It was the first successful revolution in history where not a shot was fired, and no blood was spilled.
The treaty didn’t relinquish any nation’s claim to their portion of the Ring. But instead declared the space station as belonging to the common heritage of mankind. The treaty was signed by all participating nations in 2035. The United States, the UK, France, Belgium, China, Japan, Russia, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand.
The main stipulation of the treaty was that the ISR was to be used for peaceful purposes only. No military activity whatsoever. And all weapons were prohibited. This prohibition was extended to devices that were capable of launching Earth-based nuclear weapons by remote. The ISR Congress didn’t want the station to become an emergency operations center for participating governments to launch a global thermonuclear attack.
But still, in the interest of national security, it was agreed by the president, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Marine One should have the capability of traveling to the ISR, if need be.
“Get us to Joint Base Andrews, Major,” the president said.
Steele applied thrust to the engines. Marine One lifted off and wobbled over the south lawn. It rolled and yawed. Everyone aboard was extremely nervous. It seemed like it was going to spiral out of control and crash into the Executive Residence. But after a moment, Steele managed to level the SkyHawk out. “Sorry. I’m a little rusty.”
Steele elevated Marine One vertically until they were high over Washington. There was chaos in the streets below. Steele thrusted forward and proceeded south along the Potomac and east to Andrews Field. It was a short flight. When they arrived, Steele could see Air Force One on the tarmac below. He circled the base once to make sure it wasn’t a hotbed of infection. Then he set the SkyHawk down. The landing was a little abrupt, but not bad.
On the ground, everything looked to be in order. Steele unbuckled his safety harness and climbed out of the cockpit. He grabbed the football and moved to the back of the SkyHawk. Steele pressed the ramp release, and the heavy door disengaged. The hydraulics whirred as the ramp lowered, and Steele marched down to the tarmac. The rest of the group followed behind him.
Steele was greeted with a salute by USAF Lt. Colonel Alvin Hunt, 89th Airlift Wing. The 89th provided logistics and support for the global Special Air Mission. They maintained and operated Air Force One.
“Is the base still secure,” Susan asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Hunt said. “We had a few initial outbreaks. But fortunately, we handled things quickly and discontinued inoculations.”
“And you are certain there are no infected on the base?” the president asked.
“Positive,” Hunt said. “I’ve got men securing the perimeter. We’ve examined the flight crew thoroughly. They’re clear. Air Force One is fueled and ready to go.”
“Good work, Lt. Colonel,” the president said. Then he turned to Steele and put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Major Steele, you’ve gotten us safely this far. I am eternally grateful to you. This country owes you a debt of gratitude.”
“Thank you, sir.” For an instant, Steele thought this was where they were going to part ways. Thanks for your help, take your chances on the base.
“I’d like to appoint you my new military aide, if that’s alright with you?” the president said.
Steele hesitated a moment, surprised.
“Of course, you’ll need your team to accompany you.” The president grinned.
“Sir, he hasn’t been properly vetted,” Susan said, her face tense with concern.
“It would be an honor, sir.” Steele glared at Susan.
“I consider any soldier with a Medal of Honor properly vetted,” the president said.
Steele gave Susan Norton a smug grin.
“What’s your security clearance?” Norton asked.
“Top Secret SCI, ma’am.”
Susan clenched her jaw.
“More than enough,” the president said. “He’s got Yankee White clearance now.”
Yankee White was slang for a background check on personnel working with the president or vice president. Category One clearance was an extremely rigid process which dug into every aspect of your life. Steele had been through the process before, when he was vetted for the Medal of Honor. The Pentagon checks candidates rigorously, diving into personal behavior, disciplinary actions, political leanings, even nasty divorces. They wanted to avoid embarrassment at all costs.
During World War II there were 464 awards. During Vietnam the number of recipients averaged 29 per 1 million soldiers. During Syria, that number had dropped to less than one in 10 million. These days, it wasn’t an award they handed out unless the stars aligned perfectly. Steele knew all too well that many deserving soldiers were passed up for the award based on some bullshit reasoning.
Steele had a buddy nominated posthumously for a selfless act of valor. His buddy had thrown himself on a grenade to protect his squad. But the evaluation committee had determined that the soldier was already dead, and his valiant action was simply an involuntary muscle movement—despite witness testimony to the contrary. As if a dead guy could get up, run 10 feet, and leap on a grenade. At least, that sort of thing was impossible bef
ore infection.
Hunt led them across the tarmac to the plane. It stood majestic, like the nation it represented. The azure blue paint covered the front of the plane and tapered to a strip that ran back to the tail. Below the stripe, a thin line of gold, then a strip of white, and the underbelly was sky blue and chrome. It was the same design that was first approved by Jackie Kennedy.
The aircraft was a modified Hughes & Kessler 747-12A. HK had bought out Boeing and completely redesigned the internals, and technology, of Air Force One—but the exterior looked the same. Emblazoned on the tail was the American flag and the call numbers 32000. A large Presidential Seal was painted up front. Johnson was the first president to use the new craft.
Secret Service agents and Marines stood guard near the steps. The president nodded and climbed the steps to the main cabin door.
The plane was massive, with two main decks providing 4000 square feet of passenger space. The front of the aircraft was essentially a mobile White House. It had sleeping quarters, a bathroom, shower, and a private office. There was a conference room, a telecommunications center, and a medical annex. There was even an emergency operating room and a pharmacy. Two galleys prepared meals and could feed up to a 100 people at a time.
Standard protocol was for a cargo transport to carry helicopters, motorcade vehicles, and anything else the presidential entourage may need.
Once aboard, the president greeted the pilot, Colonel Kevin Caldwell. The two shook hands and smiled. Caldwell had been piloting Air Force One since the Gibson administration. He and Johnson had gotten along well.
“Mr. President, this is Lt. Colonel Bruce Romero, our new copilot,” Caldwell said. “He’s a helluva pilot and a decorated war hero. We’re lucky to have him.”
The president shook Romero’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Great to meet you, sir. It’s my honor to serve.” Romero’s voice had a little jitter to it.
Steele watched the introduction. Lt. Colonel Romero looked pale, and tiny beads of sweat misted on his forehead. Perhaps he was just nervous to meet the president for the first time.