His voice was deep and theatrical. Despite his circumstances, he was able to summon a powerful tone. It made his audience think of fathers, and coaches, and priests, and, yes, sometimes presidents. Though ruffled and unjacketed, he was not diminished. His voice reminded everyone that they were dealing with an arch-politician. With a master.
“I have done everything for you,” Burleson boomed toward Nolan. Kesha could see the sting hit Nolan’s face almost like a blow.
Burleson turned toward the crowd.
“And I have done everything for you.”
Burleson looked out into the sea of faces before him, silently, for a long time . . . almost as though he were daring them to speak.
“I have given my life to the service of this state,” Burleson continued. “Everything I have done, I have done for Indiana. For its people. For you.”
Burleson strode to the front of the personnel carrier, ready to work the stage.
“Our state is not perfect,” Burleson said. “No place is perfect. We have not achieved an ideal condition. But do you remember what it used to be like here? Think about how far we’ve come. When I took over, we were a triple-A franchise at best. Now we’re in the big leagues! I brought you the Super Bowl. Hell, I brought you a Super Bowl championship! I brought you the NCAA. I brought company after company after company. And yes, one of those companies was BP! I’m not ashamed to say it! I brought you jobs! I brought as many jobs as I could. I will admit to that today, tomorrow, and with my dying breath. You can put it on my tombstone. I did everything I could to bring Indiana jobs!”
The crowd began to applaud. Mostly just a few confused golf-claps, but it was a start.
Burleson turned to Nolan. And Kesha. And Steven and Madison.
Kesha could see the hate rising within him.
“What did you have before me? What would you have without me? People like this . . .”
Burleson pointed at Nolan and the trio of teenagers.
“These sorts of people . . . you know the ones . . . they want to tell you that what I’m doing is wrong. They want to criticize everything. To Monday morning quarterback. These sort of people should stay out of Indiana. All they do is find something to complain about.”
Burleson turned back to the crowd.
“What would y’all have without me? Without the things I’ve done? Think about it . . . what would you have?”
Suddenly, Kesha found herself climbing onto the side of the personnel carrier. She pulled herself up until she was next to Nolan. Then she faced the governor.
“The best people in the world!” Kesha screamed—looking first at the governor, then up at Nolan, then out to the crowd beyond. “Don’t you see that? You have the best people in the world. That’s what you have. You’ve told Hoosiers for so long that the only good thing about their state is that it has jobs. They’ve started to believe it. But it has more than jobs. It has the best people in the world.”
“Young lady!” the governor interjected. He took a menacing step toward Kesha, but Nolan stepped between them. He stared down at Burleson, crossed his arms, and shook his head no.
“It has the best people in the world,” Kesha said again, looking out at her father, then—miraculously—finding the red-haired lady with two children who had offered her water the night before. “Don’t you see that?”
The governor narrowed his eyes at Kesha.
“Young lady, don’t ‘the best people in the world’ deserve jobs?” Burleson barked from the other side of Nolan.
“They deserve to be protected from zombies,” Kesha said. “That’s what they deserve.”
Suddenly, there was a commotion at the side of the stage. A member of the Inlaws biker gang had pushed his way up to Big Red. He was speaking excitedly into Big Red’s ear, and gesturing down the street.
Big Red nodded. Then he looked up at Nolan and slowly mouthed, “Meridian and I-70.”
“The zombies are inside the city,” Nolan announced to the crowd.
They were more than inside the city. They were closing on downtown.
“Listen to me!” Nolan added. “We don’t have much time left.”
31
If Burleson had had time to properly reflect on the situation, he would have been sickened by the indignity of it all. Forced to defend his actions publicly to a teenager and dumb-jock policeman who did odd jobs for him. While standing on top of an Army truck, for god’s sake! The indignity! The sheer indignity!
Yet Burleson, blessedly, had only an instant to think, and so largely dismissed these dark ruminations altogether.
If people thought a big group of zombies was coming, they would want inside the Green Zone. Then they would want protection and food that Burleson could not possibly provide. Soon they would demand these things. It would look like chaos. Hell, it might actually be chaos. It would be apparent to everyone that Indiana needed help. Then the dreaded F-word. Federal assistance. And then all his efforts would have been for naught. The dream would die.
No.
These people must disperse. They must go home. They must handle the zombies on their own—handle their problems without complaining, like Hoosiers always had!
The electricity would come back on soon; it had to. Then the Internet. Then the television stations. It would all return. And everyone would go home and sheepishly wonder what they had all been so upset about.
Burleson knew that everything ended. Earthquakes eventually stopped their shaking. Tidal waves receded. Hurricanes dissipated into tropical storms, and then into thunderstorms, and then into drizzle.
This would be over soon, Burleson’s brain screamed. And when people around the country turned their televisions back on, they needed to see—they must see—a state that had handled things. That had had no breakdown of order. That had got on just fine.
And if these people—these horrible . . . citizens—would just leave the barricades, then it would all be fine.
But James Nolan—that Judas!—stood in his way.
Perhaps Burleson had underestimated the burly policeman. It was fun to keep a pit bull on a leash—made you feel like a big man, sure—but now that dog had turned cur. Turned on its master. So it was time to pull the choke chain . . . or maybe just put him down forever.
The situation hung on the edge of a knife. Where was Huggins? Where was his support staff? The governor felt naked. Alone in the world up on that improvised stage.
Burleson wracked his brain for something to promise Nolan. Something to bribe him with. But what was left? The giant seemed incorruptible. Beyond reason. (It came down to the same thing.)
Then a miracle.
Then something astounding.
An offering from the universe that seemed to tell Burleson that God was still on his side.
“I don’t know who’s in charge right now,” Nolan was saying. “But it’s not this man next to me. An army of zombies is inside the city. Thousands of them are headed this way, and they want to eat us. It doesn’t matter who’s sitting in the governor’s mansion. What matters is saving lives. We need to get everybody outside the barricades inside. We need that to happen right now.”
Nolan drew his heavy Ruger revolver. Then—miracle from on high!—he turned it around in his hand and held it by the barrel, offering it to the crowd.
“I’m not threatening anybody,” Nolan said. “I’m not telling anybody what to do. I’m asking you—all of you—to do the right thing. There’s one bullet left in my gun. Anybody who wants it can come take it. I’m not going to stop you.”
Burleson smiled.
If you wanted to be royalty, sometimes you had to kill a king. But if you were already royalty . . . and you wanted to stay royalty . . . well, sometimes you had to kill a usurper.
Burleson moved without hesitation, without thought, and most certainly without compunction—leaping across the stage in one fluid movement. Nolan was looking out into the crowd. The crowd was looking at Nolan. Only the black girl—what had Nolan called her, Keesha?—opened h
er mouth in alarm as he careened forward.
Burleson gripped the weighty revolver with both hands and wrested it from Nolan’s fingers in a single deft motion. Burleson stepped back and raised the gun at the giant policeman. Nolan did not cower or raise his hands to defend himself. He merely looked confused.
“I am in control here!” Burleson barked. “I am in control!”
And he pulled the trigger.
The gun thundered. It seemed to Burleson that the thunder did not stop, but went on and on. The recoil from the weapon bruised his hands, but he was feeling no pain. He was too pleased with the result.
Burleson had blasted a hole in the giant man’s side. A huge, gaping wound that began to spill healthy red blood almost immediately. Nolan gripped his abdomen, went weak in the knees, and fell forward off the personnel carrier to the concrete below.
Kesha screamed. Madison screamed. The rows and rows of refugees in front of Burleson screamed or staggered backwards.
The governor looked down at the gun in his hands. He threw it to the ground.
The scene plunged into anarchy. The guardsmen and police drew their weapons, but were unsure at whom to point them. The biker gang appeared especially alarmed. A few of them took handguns out of their belts. The crowd began to roil like an angry, boiling soup. People ran in every direction. They ran forward. They ran backwards. They ran into other people and knocked them down.
Burleson felt eerily calm. He had killed the usurper. The Judas was gone. The weed had been picked from the orderly garden. Now he only needed to reassert control.
“I am the governor of Indiana!” Burleson shouted above the uproar. “We have entered a state of martial law! I need everyone to remain calm and follow orders. I will tell you what to do!”
The crowd did not respond. There was still too much confusion for anyone to hear him.
The sound of the Ruger continued to echo in the governor’s ears. He looked down and saw Nolan curled like a sleeping baby on the ground. Several people had run to his aid. Burleson’s daughter stared on in horror, still atop the shoulders of a lanky boy. (That would be the next step, the governor thought. He must win her back. But all her seditious words . . . he had lost her and not even known. He must be more attentive to his family in the days to come. Or, at least, to the family members he cared about.)
“Arrest her,” Burleson called to the police behind him. He pointed to the black girl holding her hands to her mouth in horror.
The policemen acted as though they could not hear. Burleson himself could not hear. The crowd was yelling. All was chaos. And the report from that giant revolver . . . it had faded to a distant din, but Burleson could still hear it ringing. Damn him if he couldn’t. Maybe he needed to get his ears checked when all this was over.
“People, please . . .” Burleson tried, addressing the crowd in a gentler tone. “You must listen to me. I know what is best.”
The bikers to the side were now all holding weapons—some of them held several. They pointed their guns and knives toward the governor. To his glee, the governor saw that the National Guard and police now had targets. They took aim at the bikers.
Yes! This was what he needed—Burleson realized. Chaos. Utter and total chaos. And violence! A large shootout would be optimal . . . as long as Burleson survived it. No official record was being kept of these events. No notes were being taken. And he didn’t see a single video camera anywhere. Who was to say what had happened, or what people would remember? It would be rumor and hearsay. All of it. There had been some shooting, sure. A big shootout. And yeah, the governor had apparently shot a guy, but so had a lot of people. Maybe the governor had been defending himself. It had been hard to see.
Yes, the governor thought. By seeding a few careful rumors over the next few days, he could make it look like self-defense. Hadn’t Nolan been holding a gun . . . and pointing it at the governor? Or at the crowd? Perhaps the governor had saved lives. Hell, he’d come out of this looking like a hero. Which, of course he was. Of course he was. . . .
Burleson glared back and forth between the grizzled bikers and the nervous guardsmen, waiting for one of them to shoot. Willing them to shoot. Using his mind to call forth the carnage and death that would wash his sins clean (or, at the very least, hide them in a tidal wave of blood).
Then something happened.
People began to look up.
At first—through hubris, habit, or simply bad perspective—the governor thought they might be looking at him. He was still standing atop the carrier, after all. Yet on closer inspection . . . no. They were looking past him, up into the sky. The din from the Ruger that had never left his ears grew louder, then louder still.
Confused, Burleson also turned and surveyed the heavens.
An armada was waiting.
The sky behind the capitol building was full of helicopters with American flags on their sides. There must have been fifty or more. Burleson was no military man, but even he recognized the large variety they presented. There were transport helicopters, observation helicopters, and ones that were clearly designed for kicking ass—with two big Gatling guns on either side and missiles mounted underneath.
As Burleson watched in confusion, the unarmed copters began to hover in the air above the Green Zone. A few of them descended as though they might touch down. The armed helicopters, however, continued straight south, over the assembled crowd, and down into the city’s south side.
Almost immediately, they began to fire their weapons. In instants, it was a war zone. The rapid-fire ka-chunk-ka-chunk-ka-chunk of the Gatling guns mixed with the skreeeeeee of missiles being launched. Then the deafening explosions began to ripple across the city. Glass windowpanes in nearby buildings shattered. The carrier on which the governor stood shook with each new explosion. Great plumes of smoke and fire erupted up into the morning sky. Wood and building materials and dirt and body parts rained down. Very old body parts. (At one point, the governor ducked to the side as a human hand, black with rot, careened past him like a Frisbee.)
The armed helicopters gradually moved south, farther away from the center of the city. They continued to fire their weapons, yet it soon became sporadic. The rain of debris stopped. The governor looked behind him, up toward the capitol building. The largest helicopter he had ever seen had just landed on the open street just south of the capitol. Its giant twin blades slowly stopped rotating and came to a halt. Uniformed, armed soldiers were emerging from its giant belly. A small Jeep drove out. Some of these fresh soldiers were already speaking with the exhausted police and National Guard troops. Burleson saw Huggins talking to a group of soldiers and gesturing emphatically down the street to the barricade. A senior-looking soldier in military fatigues and a beret looked at Burleson’s position and nodded.
For the moment, the crowd had quieted. Burleson climbed off the personnel carrier and headed back toward the capitol at a trot. He had to make this right. He had to explain himself. He had to do . . . something.
All around the city, the helicopters continued to descend. Some of them bore Red Cross markings on their bellies. Were they bringing medicine and food? Why? Burleson had not asked for either. He had the situation under control!
The lawn of the capitol was crowded with fresh soldiers. Helicopters were landing everywhere they could fit. Burleson approached the senior-looking military man in the beret. He extended his hand in greeting. It was still sore from firing the Ruger.
“Governor Burleson?” asked the man in the beret.
“That’s me,” Burleson said, shaking his hand.
“Brigadier General Arthur Belden,” the soldier said. (Burleson realized the beret had a star on it.) We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for almost twenty-four hours. Do you still have your emergency phone?”
“It wasn’t needed,” Burleson announced proudly. “We have not required—nor have we asked for—any assistance from the federal government. We are perfectly capable of handling the situation ourselves.”
The general narrowed his eyes at Burleson. Then he peered down the street to where the crowd stood watching the helicopters perform mop-up.
“We could tell you’d cordoned off a safe zone by the capitol,” the general continued. “That was good. We were just waiting for you to let the people inside. But you didn’t. There came a point when we’d be too late to help. So we had to roll out. Good thing we did, huh?”
“Entirely unnecessary,” Burleson retorted. “We had the matter well in hand!”
“Uh-huh,” the general said skeptically.
“We did not ask for federal assistance,” Burleson stammered. “The record will show this!”
“Uh-huh,” the general said again.
Then he turned toward the three BP tankers parked at the steps of the capitol building.
“What’s that?” the general asked jocularly. “Your personal heating oil, maybe?”
Burleson raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak. Suddenly, Huggins burst forward through a nearby crowd of soldiers.
“I’ve already told them, Hank,” Huggins said, blubbering, crying. “The jig is up. I’ve told them about the compounds you let BP put into the water. I’ve told them about what the report said it could do. That it could reanimate dead tissue. I’ve told them everything!”
Burleson was aghast. Another Judas! Was no man loyal?
Burleson prepared himself for the worst—whatever that was—but the general in the beret was smiling. He was smiling like it was a joke. A joke!
“Yeah . . .” the general began. “So I guess I ought to tell you that this outbreak is happening all over the world . . . not just in states that sell their waterways to BP.”
Zombie, Indiana Page 28