Alan Dale - Death Nation's Army 01
Page 10
Like Norman Alexi said, the NWO didn’t even have to pull the trigger themselves. They allowed an accident to eat the problem away instead.
First much of Asia fell and then the spread carried over to Europe, Africa, before finally seeing the Americas fall. A casual observer would say it wouldn’t make sense to see continents fall so fast especially from a half world away and with time to spare.
This was true if the leader of the entire planet screened all information from spreading outside the scrat walls. So many died because so many didn’t know what was about to bite them.
Draco continued to bet on his good fortune by having members of the NWO army corral numbers of scrats for a few security experiments of their own.
Having inoculated the Utopias’ residents and the cities themselves, the NWO tested the effectiveness by putting a small handful of scrats outside the walls of each city to see if they would come toward their domain. To the delight of the Order executives it wouldn’t be until the 23 or 24 day when signs of the effectiveness of the aerosol deterrents and inoculations would begin to wane. So each resident and military personnel were to be given a small shot every three weeks and the aerosol, it was decided, could be better put to use by spraying a small mist on a daily basis as a failsafe. For those first few months, the only scrat put down within a relatively close distance to any given Utopia were the ones the NWO had placed there to test. Otherwise? All was well amongst the elite.
As far as the rest of the world, the scrat menace continued to take control. With the aid of the NWO taking other captured scrats within larger populated city limits, the spread was early perpetuated with the help of the elite army.
Many Utopias held tight as large masses of displaced lower class persons tried to appeal to the glorious cities for help. Most were either gunned down or eating by trailing scrats. Eventually, with nowhere to turn for help outside of their own, the rest of the populace began to bunker down within various gated communities or high-rise buildings with the lower levels blocked off. Many urban settlements would stock up inside one selected building and either blow out the stairwells or block them off with mass amounts of furniture and hope to hold out.
At first many lives appeared to be spared as they made themselves unavailable for scrat consumption and they would soon be buoyed by the obvious bonus the world would soon learn:
Scrats don’t eat, scrats will die.
As the scrat population began to waste away, the hopes of the people rose and they hoped to just ride it out until the many hordes waiting for them on the other side would wither and fall away.
But, then of course, the NWO was also very aware of what was taking place as well.
Draco decided a well-armed NWO army was choice.
Yet, a well fed scrat army was just as effective and cheaper to maintain.
Thus began the NWO feeding campaigns. Many of the hidden contingents were not easy to find until their moles within the revolution – now calling themselves the Dead Nations’ Army (DNA) – began reporting some of the safe havens’ locations after distress calls for food and water replenishment and artillery and arms restocking came over the Underwave. It was thought the DNA believed their secrets were being picked up on the encrypted shortwave broadcasts. If only they knew the truth.
So either by luck, their own eye, or the help of their inside men and women, the NWO began their worldwide purge of the thousands of bunkered in communities all over the planet. Their objective? Feed the scrats, keep them alive, and kill the revolution.
The last phase of the world’s evolution had been set into motion. Most experts believed it would take no more than two years to see a scrat populace completely overcome those living outside the Utopias. Yet, the DNA was underestimated and the war between scrats and humans was in its fourth year. Yet, the signs of the end turning the final corner appeared at the ready. The DNA’s weapons availability was relegated to using outdated artillery and any use of aircraft was essentially non-existent with the Order owning the skies.
Yet, the DNA had indeed done a solid job of setting up shops mostly in deserted prisons, thanks in part to their effectiveness of keeping inmates in. As their officials learned, it did a darn good job of keeping scrats out as well.
Their facilities were being used for weapon making and many farms would be created in small plots of lands inside the individual walls. Most materials shipped to the different communities were looted from old shopping centers, convenience stores, and strip malls untouched by NWO sweeps. When it all started, almost each state, republic, territory, across the world had at least two DNA stations set up. Those number were now dwindling due to attrition due to scrat an NWO engagements and natural causes.
Still, when the DNA engaged an NWO force in any battle it was usually a lopsided loss in the favor of the Order. Some wondered why the NWO didn’t just march in and destroy the DNA outposts one by one. Draco’s point of contention was not to deplete his own forces when he had another one working for them for free. On top of that, Draco always preferred to have most of his army intact, because, quite frankly, you just never knew what could happen next.
He was right.
Feed me…
I am feeling something. But how can I feel, I am dead, but not dead, to be called dead, right?
How can I feel? Should I feel, what do I feel?
Feed me…
I feel the need to eat. I need to eat you. Or is it ‘I’ that needs to eat you or is it more? Is it more than I; is our passenger what carries the hunger and our vessels that deliver the meals? Is it something to enjoy when I insert a part of your arms, legs, face, chest, torso, neck, into my mouth and chew as the blood dribbles down my lips, over my teeth, and down my throat. I don’t sigh in ecstasy. I don’t even taste.
None of us taste any of you and yet we still crave every single inch of every single other one that is warm of the flesh.
Or can we taste you? We forget sometimes…
We want to devour you and we still don’t know why.
But ‘it’ knows. It has to know. If ‘it’ does not know, how do any of those damned warm, living ones, know? Do any of them know what this really means?
I have been with this since the beginning and have eaten without tasting many of the flesh. Some have even risen from my assault to later walk beside me and dine along with me as we took your wonderful tongue out of your lovely head.
And ate…
Things are changing. I don’t, we don’t and none of you know why either. If you think you know it will just mean you know even less.
Feed me…
Before it’s too late.
Sadly, it may already be.
It’s time to eat again.
I am being called to play cordial host and feed my guest. I didn’t want this to happen but it is and I must adhere to the new way of our world and the natural course this new player is destined to take.
The world’s a stage and that stage comes in the form of a menu.
We won’t even need our order taken and we will simply eat the entrees, the appetizers, and the rest.
You are what we seek without any more than one simple reason:
We need you, need to devour you, and keep ourselves full.
Sounds so much like my life when I was warm. Then we didn’t use our teeth.
Now? Now, we do…
I’m coming…
Bridjett Alexi joined the DNA, first known as the Unified Nations Army, only months after last seeing Shad. She was so prepared to fight an enemy she could see, predict, and understand.
A few years later she was playing the heroine in an epic sequel to a George Romero film.
Sitting outside of the cell block at DNA Pontiac, in her patented gold and white representing her allegiance, on a relatively clear and cool day, she listened to the growls of the scrats in the distance. Then the movements on the other side of the electric perimeter became louder and she sighed as she witness two scrats move with their normal shambling speed
toward the entrance. Within seconds, two pops of a sniper rifle could be heard from the courtyard tower, looking down and out of the prison ability and both scrats went down in a heap.
Seconds later she looked just a few degrees north and saw another shape moving, this one a bit more confident, more upright, even if there was a little drag in its movement. One could easily mistake it for misplaced DNA personnel but the growl and screech of a searching, hungry scrat changed that possible perception immediately. Again another pop of a rifle and the third scrat was put down.
Yet, in so many ways it had been so close to being potentially mistaken as one of us from a far.
What happens when they get too close?
It became more and more clear every day these indeed weren’t our parents’ zombies.
They moved slow here, faster there, and yes, even with that blank look on their faces, there belied a more determined, raw, intensity.
She and many like herself asked themselves if the NWO truly knew what they unleashed. Had they known its full growth capability?
Had they known where the cocktail’s place would end up on the evolutionary food chain?
Shuddering at the thought of what could still be in store for the world, Bridjett turned and walked back toward her room in the cell block.
It was at that moment when she realized this was far from over.
She then knew she had to do something she never believed she’d have to. But after what happened earlier that day, the look on her brother’s face…it became clear.
I need to talk to Shad.
Within minutes, Bridjett was back in her room and asleep before hitting the pillow.
For the first time in years she dreamt of better days between her and her brother, hoping of maybe more still potentially to come…
To be continued…