Washington Deceased

by Stephen Jones

  “Well, you’re too late. He’s gone.”

  Kevin glanced at Bobby again, who was now turning away from him and shuffling back towards the old man, who showed little concern.

  “What happened? He was fine when I talked to him on email just a couple of days ago. He really wanted to see me—”

  The old man cut him off, his voice strained. “You are what killed him! He heard somebody in the driveway three nights ago and thought it was you. Run out all excited like, came back with a scratch. Said it weren’t nothin’, but it killed him. He’d still be alive if it weren’t for you.”

  Kevin shook his head. “No. I didn’t . . . I wouldn’t . . . he was . . .”

  Bobby had almost reached the porch now, and his grandfather hit him in the chest with the butt of the rifle, knocking him on his ass. “You and your kind poisoned this boy. He should never have left. Now look what’s happened to him.”

  His eyes streaming, Kevin clutched the fence. “Why don’t you just shoot him?”

  The look that the old man turned on Bobby revealed that he had lost his mind. “Shoot him? I’m not going to shoot my grandson. My Bobby. I just don’t let him into the house, is all. We’re fine. Or we will be, once you get the hell out of here.”

  Kevin wasn’t happy about having to drive further through these country roads at night, but anything was better than watching his dead friend try to claw his way up to where his grandfather stood, waving a rifle as if it was a lecture pointer.

  “Goodbye, Bobby,” Kevin said under his breath. Before he returned to the Hummer, he called out to the old man, “Bobby was killed because his luck ran out, Mr Van Arndt – not because he was gay.”

  He turned his back, ignoring the protestations and curses that were hurled in his direction. He was still thankful to climb into the Hummer and slam the door, sealing himself away with nothing but the engine’s reassuring roar. Throwing the car into sudden reverse, he backed down the drive, hit the road and sped away.

  After a few miles, he stopped the car, pulling on to the shoulder from force of habit. He waited for his breathing to slow down and felt a sting on one cheek. He turned on the overhead light and looked into the rearview mirror.

  Three long, fresh bloody furrows raked down the side of his face. He hadn’t even realized that when Bobby had reached out through the fence he’d been that close, and he hadn’t felt the physical pain until now.

  It didn’t much matter, though; he’d already been infected. That’d been three days ago. He didn’t have much time left. Kevin had no idea where to go, but he didn’t want to die in a stolen Hummer, by the side of a forgotten road. He’d find some place quiet, maybe even nice; he’d wait out the end there.

  He decided he didn’t want to go far, because after he turned, he hoped there’d be just enough left of him to go back for Bobby’s grandfather.

  CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

  CLASSIFIED – EYES ONLY

  DATE: 07/05/13

  SUBJECT: ANALYSIS OF JULY 4 LETTER FROM “JAMES MOREBY”

  Background: On July 4, remaining worldwide digital networks and broadcasting systems were flooded with a document (see attached) purporting to be a letter from “James Moreby, President of the United States of America”. This letter – which served as a sort of victory proclamation – claims that intelligent zombies have taken over all parts of the United States except for isolated rural areas. The letter’s author calls himself a former White House janitor who, by virtue of having consumed the brains of the Capitol’s strategists and analysts (whom he refers to as “the greatest minds of our generation”) has gained enough knowledge to declare himself President over a United States in which zombies have faced humans in “the great civil war” and emerged triumphant.

  ANALYSIS: White House employment records do indeed confirm that a James Moreby was employed on the janitorial staff and was likely present in the building during the initial, most devastating waves of zombie attacks.

  We do, of course, note the similarity of names between this self-proclaimed “President” James Moreby and “Zombie King” Thomas Moreby, aka “Patient Zero”, who was supposedly terminated when New World Pharmaceuticals shut down its research facility known as “The Bunker”. Tracing James Moreby’s lineage back suggests that he may indeed be distantly related to Thomas Moreby.

  When Moreby “died” in 1803, obituaries noted that he passed on with “no issue”. However, we can follow James Moreby’s heritage back to 1654, and an ancestor named “Amos Motherby”. Motherby is a figure of much speculation within occult scholarship; he claimed, in 1672, to have discovered the secret of preserving a man’s “Essential Saltes” – physical immortality, in other words.

  More than a few scholars have noted that “Amos Motherby” is an anagram of “Thomas Moreby”, and have suggested that they are one and the same. In the case of our subject James Moreby, the spelling of Motherby seems to have been altered to Moreby by Ellis Island officials when his distant kin emigrated from Britain to America in 1803. Perhaps coincidentally, this is the same year that Thomas Moreby reportedly “died” or, more accurately, disappeared.

  Given that James Moreby may be a direct descendent of Thomas Moreby, and that James Moreby would have been one of the first of the intelligent zombies, we believe it is safe to assume that there is a direct tie between the two Morebys. James Moreby is probably a puppet ruler whose strings are being controlled by Thomas Moreby.

  If this is the case, it suggests three things:

  1) Landen Jones was lying when he claimed that New World Pharmaceuticals had terminated Moreby

  2) Thomas Moreby is also currently in the White House and

  3) Gaining the White House may indeed have been Moreby’s goal all along.

  Although Moreby was brought to America (or, more specifically, to New World Pharmaceuticals) supposedly for research purposes, there were rumors at the time of Moreby’s transfer that indicated that Moreby had arranged the transfer himself. If Moreby’s plan has always been world domination (as we must assume), then it would follow that placing himself in power in Washington would have been of paramount importance.

  New information has recently come to light that supports this theory in other ways. Before he disappeared, Thomas Moreby formed a secret cabal called “The Well of Seven”. This group was composed of high-ranking members of British society (including politicians, physicians, scholars and architects), and their purpose seems to have been the practice of occult rituals under Moreby’s direction.

  According to records on file with the British Museum, these activities came to a head on October 7, 1803, when a mob broke into a cellar of a brothel and found Moreby and the Well of Seven sacrificing Moreby’s nineteen-year-old wife. The girl did not survive, and most of the members of The Well of Seven escaped. Moreby was carried by the mob to a vault beneath All Hallows Church, Blackheath, where he was reportedly interred alive. Later, the members of The Well of Seven were either interred – or interred themselves! – together nearby, beneath a large stone circle.

  If we accept that supernatural forces are in effect and Moreby wields some control over these forces, then it’s not ridiculous to assume that Moreby plans to somehow resurrect this Well of Seven and install them as his government, operating under President James Moreby.

  REPORT PREPARED BY:

  Marissa Cheung, Deputy Director and C.I.A. Analyst

  Chapter Ten

  AFTER JUST FIVE days of working with Ty Ward, Steele had to admit that the President had been right about him.

  He was surprisingly adept at organization and detail. At one point, when Steele had complimented the ease with which he set up a complex spreadsheet, he told her that he was planning on upgrading their network down here. He was at first shy with some of the Congressmen, but he loosened up as he got to know them, and by the end of the second day he’d sent a representative from Tennessee packing after he’d demanded to see the President immediately. Steele saw him grin as the man str
ode off, and she knew he’d do just fine.

  She was less confident, though, about other aspects of what she saw happening in the OC.

  Search-and-rescue teams had managed to locate a few more survivors hiding out in parts of Washington, and they now had 36 senators and 162 representatives. The largest assembly room in the complex, the auditorium, held ninety-nine seats, and the senators had claimed that for themselves, noting that it wasn’t big enough to hold all the representatives. Left with little choice, the representatives had decided to go digital, and Ty had set them up with a discussion forum. Steele had logged into the forum and saw that a variety of bills were already being bandied about, everything from aid packages for virtually every state with a surviving Congressman to legislation that would make it illegal not to carry guns. When Steele saw a discussion about whether women should have any right to choose when “the survival of the very human race depended on their wombs”, she had to shut the computer down and walk away.

  The world was ending and it felt like business as usual. And of course the parties still fought.

  The President’s party was ahead by exactly one senator and three representatives (one member of the opposition party had already broached the subject of conspiracy), but she wanted a wider majority for key pieces of legislation. She’d even had one meeting with her Vice President in which she’d tried to persuade him to do away with the two-party system altogether. “Bob, there are so few of us left now,” she’d argued, “doesn’t it make the most sense for us to band together, at least until we’ve recaptured some of what we’ve lost?”

  Delancy had chuckled and said (his drawl thicker than usual), “It probably does, but that doesn’t mean it’s goin’ to happen.”

  Steele had other concerns about Delancy than just his old-boy morals. He had missed two meetings recently, and one senator who’d complained to Steele told her that his alibi – a long lunch with Ames Parker – hadn’t checked out. Yesterday, she’d secretly followed him after he’d left the President’s office; he’d met up with Marissa Cheung and together they’d disappeared into a large food storage area. Steele had waited nearly an hour, tucked into a dark tool storage alcove across the hallway, but they hadn’t re-emerged and she’d given up. She couldn’t imagine that Cheung – who’d been rumoured to be a lesbian – would have any sexual interest in Delancy, but she couldn’t imagine anything other than an affair that would take so much time in a food locker.

  Today’s schedule was centred on a meeting with the intelligence and military heads to discuss the Moreby situation. Steele knew the President would try to force Ames Parker into taking action, whether he thought his troops were ready or not. Contact with the west coast was getting sketchier, Canada had sealed its borders and was refusing any communication with the US, and Moreby’s puppet President was continuing to flood the Internet with victory messages.

  Steele agreed: They either acted quickly, or they might as well settle into a life spent forever with powdered eggs, concrete walls and artificial lighting.

  She entered the conference room where the meeting would take place; she was fifteen minutes early, but wanted to check on the set-up. Ty Ward was already there, going over arrangements on a tablet computer.

  “How’s it going?” Steele walked to the table but didn’t sit; she knew Ty had a seating chart, and she intended to comply with it.

  “Okay,” he said, swiping at the screen. “Just making sure everyone got the documents.”

  Remembering, Steele pulled her phone from a pocket and brought up the files; she’d downloaded them an hour ago, but only glanced at the contents. Now she saw Marissa Cheung’s earlier profile of Moreby, some military analyses from Parker and some recent updates on the situation overhead.

  “What do you think of Marissa Cheung?” Steele asked, trying to sound casual.

  Ty shrugged. “Efficient. Smart. Dedicated. But . . .”

  “But?”

  “She’s got something going on with Delancy.”

  Steele nodded. “The President’s noticed that, too. But I don’t think it’s an affair.”

  Ty grunted and said, “Well, considering that Delancy’s old enough to be her thoroughly non-Asian father . . . and have you taken a good look at her face lately?”

  “Yesterday, I noticed she looked a little under the weather.”

  “I saw her this morning, and she looks a lot under the weather.”

  Steele remembered the security protocol she’d helped Gillespie set up when they’d first come down to the OC: new arrivals were stripped and thoroughly examined for any open wounds. If any were found – no matter how solid the story behind the wound’s origin – that individual was held in quarantine for seventy-two hours before being released into the underground population (or terminated and taken topside for cremation). Congressmen and cabinet secretaries had groused and complained as they’d been forced to shed clothing and ordered to lift their arms, but when the former Secretary of Homeland Security turned after twenty-four hours in quarantine and had to be shot, attitudes changed.

  Steele knew that Marissa Cheung had undergone this ordeal with the rest of them. “There’s no way she could have HRV. You were the last person to come down here, and we know you’re not infected.”

  “Hey, let’s hope it’s just a cold. Hell, if we’re really lucky it’s morning sickness.”

  The door opened and Bob Delancy blustered his way into the room, effectively putting an end to the conversation. Steele suffered a moment of mingled amusement and disgust as she imagined Delancy being a contributing factor to Cheung’s morning sickness.

  Fifteen minutes later, a dozen people were seated around the table, discussing the latest reports on Thomas Moreby. Steele had been shocked by Marissa Cheung’s appearance today: she was pale, sweating, hoarse. Whatever she had, it was obviously not a cold or a pregnancy. Steele decided that as soon as the meeting was over, she would confront Aaron Gillespie with her concerns.

  Ames Parker had led off with good news. “Our first experiment with an unmanned drone strike proved extremely effective. An MQ-8B Fire Scout armed with Viper Strike glide bombs successfully opened a path through the insurgents surrounding the White House. The path closed again within seconds, but we now believe it would be possible to combine drone strikes with armoured vehicles and ground troops to create a victory for us.”

  “So,” Delancy asked, “we can retake the White House?”

  Parker took a beat before answering, “Yes.”

  Steele understood the meaning of Parker’s hesitation, and asked, “But can we hold it?”

  The General raised his hands. “Depending on what kind of casualty numbers we sustain in the initial assault, we’re probably looking at being able to station around fifty troops in the area.”

  “Against thousands of zombies,” Steele added. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Delancy butted in, turning to Aaron Gillespie. “What about this Moreby? Do we think a bullet through the head will kill him, like it does all the rest?”

  Gillespie glanced at Cheung, but she seemed focused on just staying upright. Her breathing was shallow, face sheathed in sweat. Instead, Gillespie looked to Landen Jones. “Landen would be the likeliest person here to know the answer to that.”

  Landen spread his hands and smiled, feigning innocence. “Aaron, really . . . we’ve been over this – well, pardon the bad pun, but we’ve been over this to death. Your information on Moreby is quite clearly better than mine. If I knew something special about how to kill Moreby, I’d tell you. Believe me, I don’t relish the thought of spending the rest of my life in a cave any more than the rest of you do.”

  Gillespie shot Jones a hard look, which Jones returned. Steele thought that if either one had touched alcohol, they’d have been in a fistfight by now.

  Ty Ward jumped in, tapping his tablet. “I believe we were also going to discuss the possibility of setting up defensive perimeters that could be slowly expanded. General Parker, perhaps yo
u’d like to take that . . .?”

  Steele liked Ty more all the time.

  “Of course,” Parker said, with his usual disciplined poise. “We’ve got approximately two thousand linear feet of portable chain-link fence panels. It’s not designed for permanent use, but should buy us enough time to dig defensive trenches and to . . .”

  Parker continued talking about permanent fencing and lookout platforms and electrified enclosures, but Steele was no longer listening. She was looking at Marissa Cheung.

  Cheung’s eyes had rolled up into her head.

  Before Steele could react, Cheung’s head fell forward, hitting the conference table with a heavy thud. Parker broke off in mid-sentence, staring. Silence fell around the table for a moment, before someone asked, “Miss Cheung . . .?”

  The President and Steele both stood. So did Gillespie, seated immediately to Cheung’s right. However, while Steele and the President both moved towards the unconscious woman, Gillespie backed away.

  The President started to reach out to help Cheung, but Steele grabbed her arm, holding her back. “Steele, what are you—?”

  Steele cut her off as she stepped in between the President and Cheung. “I’m sorry, Madame President, but I can’t let you do that.” Turning to the rest, she shouted, “Everyone, please clear the room immediately.”

  As chairs scraped and feet pounded for the exit, Steele drew her gun.

  The President was still behind her. “What the hell are you doing, Steele? She needs help . . .”

  Steele wasn’t listening. She stepped up to the unconscious woman and placed the Glock’s barrel against the back of Marissa Cheung’s skull.

  One second . . . two . . .

  Marissa Cheung’s head jerked up. Her eyes were milky, and blood-tinged foam flew from her snarling lips.

  Steele fired. The bullet went through Cheung’s head and lodged in the thick wooden table. Cheung dropped again, truly dead this time.

  “Oh my God,” Steele heard someone breathe out behind her.