Something about her seemed different – her eyes glinted with intelligence, even humour. He held up his hand for her to see. “Look – I got this weeks ago from a woman in Oklahoma. A dead woman. And I’m still not infected.”
The older man exhaled heavily, moving his rifle barrel towards the truck. “Just shut up about that already and keep walkin’—!”
“Hold on.” That was the woman, who took Kevin’s hand and studied the shallow bite marks. “These have completely healed over.”
“Right. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
She examined his face, her eyes settling on to the three furrows left there by Bobby. “What about those?”
“Also more than two weeks old. From another infected.”
“Any fever? Delirium? Chills, sweats?”
“No.”
She locked gazes with him, and Kevin felt a glimmer of hope. The quiet soldier hissed, “Oh, fuck me, LaFortune, you don’t actually buy this shit, do you?”
“That’s Sergeant LaFortune to you, Private. Do I need to write you up again?”
He drew himself up to attention, but kept one lip curled as he threw back, “No, Sergeant, you don’t.”
LaFortune returned her attention to Kevin’s hand. “Those bites on his hand are healed, and he doesn’t look sick to me. If he’s telling the truth . . .”
Kevin’s response was low but urgent. “I am.”
She studied him, and finally nodded towards a tent set up by the side of the freeway. “I’ll take him to Command, have the doc go over him, and we’ll see.”
The other three soldiers were plainly irritated, but backed off. “He’s all yours, Sarge,” said the blonde kid. As they strode away, Kevin heard the tall one laugh and add, “Just don’t be surprised when we make you march to the truck after this cocksucker turns and bites you.”
LaFortune stopped, turned back and glared at them. “Hope you boys all like peeling potatoes, because you just earned yourselves some extra kitchen duty.”
Three sets of jaws ground together, but they remained silent.
LaFortune turned back to Kevin and they continued walking. He was shaking now from relief. “Thank you.”
“What’s your name?”
“Kevin Moon.”
“Well, Mister Moon, if you’re right, you’re the most important man in the world. And if you’re not . . .”
She pulled her own holstered pistol and pointed it squarely at Kevin’s head, and his relief froze.
Right then, he wished more than anything that he’d stayed in the little farmhouse with the lacy curtains and the shelves of jams and jellies.
[CIA transcript of speech given by James Moreby, 24 July]
My fellow undead citizens –
I send greetings today to those of you who have only recently joined us, via virus, death, rebirth and consumption. More and more of you are coming to consciousness, swelling our ranks with undead vigour, and we will soon be an invincible force.
I must first commend the work of my associate Marianne Willson. She has been instrumental in helping us to realize our great dream of a truly evolved society; she has spread self-awareness and intelligence wherever she has gone. However, we still have far to go, as the human resistance continues to thwart our progress. Thanks to Marianne’s valiant efforts, every hour new brothers and sisters rise again to join us.
I also want to address rumors of a working human government, located somewhere near Washington D.C. Let me assure you, my hungry kin, that I am personally hard at work locating and exterminating this paltry, pathetic attempt at coordinating human combat efforts. Our forces remain in control of all important areas of this new nation’s Capitol, and we are completely confident in our ability to retain that control. We anticipate crushing this human administration in days, if not hours. Let me assure you that I will taste their leader, and I will take this so-called leader into myself. The human end will be painful and bloody.
It is also with tremendous pride that I announce today the formation of a great new civilization. It is time for us all to cast off our old identity, and claim our resurrected heritage. We will henceforth no longer be the United States of America, for that land is a dead thing, buried under the weight of its own failures and destined never to rise again. We instead will embrace who and what we are, and from this day forward let us be known as the first nation of the New Zombie Order.
A great society will unfold here at last, bringing with it something the world has never seen before: a place where all citizens are truly equal, where none are poor or cold or alone. Even now we are beginning work on our human internment and breeding camps, which will ensure that none of us go hungry. I can feel and think through each of you, and we are like one great host; we are truly legion. We will grow and evolve and, in time, we will even reach back out to the stars, finding new worlds to consume and bring into our great fold.
The future belongs to the New Zombie Order and, from this day forward, the New Zombie Order is us.
Chapter Sixteen
AARON GILLESPIE LOOKED like shit.
He sat at the head of the table, facing Steele, Ty and the President; his eyes were sunken, his jaw stubbled, clothes wrinkled. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in weeks, and while Steele knew she would never trust him again, a part of her worried for the man.
“Aaron,” the President said, “you called this meeting, so suppose you get on with it. What’s going on?”
“This . . .” Gillespie had a laptop on the table before him. He turned it around to face them, and they saw a frozen image on a video player: it looked like a woman in a cell made of cement blocks, seated on a bench, while a muscled, bearded man stood over her.
“Yesterday a group down in San Antonio captured Marianne Willson.”
Steele thought back for a moment, and then said, “Marianne Willson . . . she was Moreby’s cohort, wasn’t she?”
Gillespie nodded. “Correct. In his big speech, Moreby claimed she was moving around the country spreading the HRV strain that creates intelligent zombies. Well, this group that got her filmed an interrogation and sent us a copy. I think you’ll find this part of it most interesting.” Aaron hit a button on the laptop and the video began to play.
Now Steele could clearly see that the woman on the bench was dead; she was middle-aged, but with the gaunt, dried skin and gummy eyes of the living dead. She wore an incongruously pretty dress, although its once-cheerful floral print was now rendered ghastly by extensive blood splatters. Her hands were cuffed before her, and were chained to shackles on her feet.
The man who stood over her asked, “What can you tell me about Moreby?”
“He’s our king.”
“Is he James Moreby, the President of the New Zombie Order?”
“He is . . . and he is not.”
The bearded man gritted his teeth and took a threatening step forward. “Give me straight answers, you dead bitch.”
Marianne smiled up calmly. “That is a straight answer, but I’ll see if I can phrase it in a way you’ll understand. Thomas – Moreby, that is – was rather badly damaged when we escaped from The Bunker. Rather than continue on in that slowly decaying form, he summoned his descendent, James Moreby, and placed both his consciousness and his virus strains into the newer, more intact body.”
“How did he do that?”
“Our weak flesh may eventually rot and perish, but there’s a way for the intellect to continue after physical death. In fact, he’s about to bring back his Well of Seven in a somewhat similar fashion—”
“Who’s the Well of Seven?”
Marianne seemed to go blank for a second, then she looked up coyly at her interrogator. “He wants me to tell you that it’s only a matter of time until he finds out.”
“Until he finds out what?”
She turned her pale eyes up to the camera, and the camera operator took that moment to zoom in. Steele felt a chill at the thought that Moreby was somehow addressing her dire
ctly through Marianne and the camera lens. “Until he finds out where your President and her lackeys are hiding. And when he does find her, he will cut her skull open and eat her brain with a silver spoon.”
“Yeah?” The anger in the interrogator’s voice was palpable; when the camera zoomed back out, the man was nearly dancing in his fury. “Well, let me give you a message to send back to your King of Shit—”
He abruptly pulled a pistol and shot Marianne through the head. Dark gore splattered the cement block wall behind them, and the nearly headless body fell forward out of frame. “Let’s see you resurrect out of that, bitch,” the bearded man said, before turning to the camera, holding up his still-smoking pistol, and exclaiming, “Long live the U.S. of A.”
The video ended. Gillespie pulled the laptop back, turning it to face him again.
“So,” Ty said, slowly, rolling it over in his mind, “the zombies have some kind of . . . mental telepathy or something with Moreby?”
Gillespie said, “I think the British were right when they called it a ‘hive mind’. Moreby can share their senses and direct large groups of them. The intelligent ones, I mean.”
“And,” the President asked, “do we have any idea yet of how many of them there are now?”
Exhaling slowly before answering, Gillespie said, “Enough to form armies.”
“Thank you, Aaron,” the President said, dismissing him.
Gillespie folded up his laptop and rose; however, he stopped before leaving the room and said, “Oh, about that thing with Delancy—”
The President cut him off. “We’ll get to that later, Aaron.”
When he still didn’t move, Steele repeated, “Thank you, Aaron.”
Frowning, he left.
Steele turned to Ty, but nodded towards the President. “So, Ty – which one of us is going to try to talk her out of this plan to retake the White House now?”
Ty looked pale and hollow-eyed today, and Steele suspected he’d been drinking the night before. She wondered if she’d need to watch that in the future; even shaking his head slightly seemed an effort. “Not me.”
The President surprised Steele by saying, “It’s more important than ever now. If we can take both the White House and Moreby, we can really cause them some pain.”
“I thought they didn’t feel pain,” Steele said.
“C’mon, Steele – we know now that Moreby’s the head. If we cut that head off, they’re going to feel something.”
Ty shifted in his chair, troubled. “Are we prepared to lose Ames Parker in this attack? Because it’s a possibility, you know.”
The President didn’t hesitate to answer. “Yes, it’s a possibility. But General Parker is our only real shot at this. There’s really no other way.”
Steele saw her boss’ determination, and she didn’t argue the point further.
“I might be right, you know,” the President said, and for a second Steele wondered if Moreby was the only mind-reader on the planet.
From:
General Ames Parker
To:
Colonel Scott Harkins
Sent:
MON, Aug 5, 10:13 AM
Subject:
Depot Inventory Query
Colonel Harkins, can you provide an inventory of what you’ve got on hand there at Letterkenny? I’m specifically interested in RCVs and any other armored vehicles. Be prepared for a major requisition to come through later this week; I’ll also need all the troops you can spare.
Chapter Seventeen
THEY ENDED UP spending more than three weeks preparing “Operation Oval”.
Ty’s computer skills proved invaluable. He scrounged half-a-dozen monitors from storage or unused offices (as well as routers and cables), claimed an unused room that was large and provided with plentiful sockets and cable, and created a command centre. They’d have cameras attached to both drones and soldiers, so that the President and her immediate staff would be able to follow the course of the attack as it happened.
They flew drones over Washington, studying the resulting data. There were still thousands of zombies mulling aimlessly around the South Lawn. They’d have to clear that mass to move in ground troops.
“No missiles. No rockets or hand grenades,” the President told them at the beginning. “We need to maintain the integrity of the buildings.”
“That’s going to make it harder,” Parker said.
Ty brought up another problem: even if they managed to use aircraft or ground troops to terminate the thousands of infected, what would they do with the bodies? They’d need hundreds of men just for disposal.
“Maybe not . . .” Parker was making a note as he spoke.
The President asked, “What are you thinking, Ames?”
“I may have the best of all possible worlds. Give me a day and I’ll come back with a plan.”
Parker didn’t wait until morning. He called a meeting with the President, Ty and Steele late that night and laid out his plan.
“RCVs.” He looked at them expectantly.
Ty thought for a moment, and then said, excitedly, “Right! Route clearance vehicles!”
Parker nodded.
Steele asked, “What are we talking here?”
“RCVs are special armoured vehicles that were created largely for mine clearance and securing roads in overseas conflicts. They’re designed to withstand driving directly over mines.”
“But,” the President said, “we’re not talking mines here . . .”
“No. But look at this.” Parker turned his tablet screen around to show them a photo of a vehicle that looked like a cross between a bulldozer and a dune buggy. The driver sat up high in a completely enclosed cage, and all sides were heavily plated. Something that looked like a thick version of a bulldozer shovel was attached to the front. “This is the Husky. Again, designed for mine clearance in a combat situation, but—”
Steele got it and looked up at Ames. “—with that front plate, it could clear out zombies, too.”
“Right. The Husky’s fast and manoeuvrable. It could push through waves of the infected pretty well, back them up against something, and a few rounds would finish them off in nice neat piles.”
“Okay,” the President asked, “how many of these things do we have, and where are they?”
“Letterkenny Army Depot up in Pennsylvania was producing them and shipping them off to the Mideast, but they’ve got a dozen on hand. The Depot is still well-guarded and in good shape, and they’ve also got a few Bradley tanks. They’re ready to wade in.”
Ty said, “I saw a train of those Huskys over in Iraq. They move pretty fast.”
Parker nodded. “As soon as we are ready to go, they can probably get a caravan of the RCVs and Bradleys down here in half a day.”
“So,” Steele asked, “what’s the rest of the plan?”
“Clearing the South Lawn below the White House is Phase One. Once we’ve accomplished that – and hopefully we can get right up to the Rose Garden and the Oval Office – we position the vehicles to create our perimeter and get some emergency fencing in place. In Phase Two, we use trucks to bring in ground troops who will clear out the buildings, which obviously won’t be as congested; I’m thinking a dozen in the liquid Kevlar suits can handle it. Phase Three is a final clean-up crew and units stationed around the West Wing to secure all entry points. Phase Four, we set up video crews and we film a bird with the Presidential seal on its side landing on the South Lawn, and then following Madame President as she steps out and moves into the Oval Office.”
“Ames,” the President said, fixing him with an intense look, “be realistic: even if we can re-take the West Wing – and I think we can – how long can we hold it?”
The General shrugged. “I wish I knew. A lot of that depends on Moreby, and he’s still a big question mark. We just don’t know enough about him. I’ve heard him described as everything from ancient sorcerer to charlatan who
was once a janitor. Now Gillespie has told us that Moreby may have some sort of mental control over the infected, especially the intelligent ones. We don’t even know if he can be killed in the same way the rest can.”
“That’s a lot of questions,” Steele said.
“Madame President . . .” Parker trailed off, apparently struggling with how to phrase something. “We need answers from New World Pharmaceuticals. If Gillespie can’t or won’t provide us with the intelligence we need . . .”
“It’s time for Landen Jones to provide some real intel.” The President turned to Steele and Ty. “Let’s see if we can’t put a little fear into Landen to loosen him up a bit.”
Steele smiled, anticipating an assignment she’d actually enjoy.
They waited until lunch was served and the mess hall was full of senators and representatives and staffers. Jones was there, chatting up several members of the Senate Committee on Health. Steele entered, accompanied by two of the biggest, baddest soldiers Parker had been able to round up.
“Mr Jones,” Steele said in a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the room, “I need you to come with me.”
Jones had flashed his trademark smile, glancing at his companions as if to say, “Okay, who put her up to this?” When the senators didn’t respond, Jones turned to face Steele. “What’s this about?”
“I’m here at the request of the President.”
Jones looked at her for a moment before nonchalantly turning away. “You’ve got no authority over me, Steele. If she wants to see me, she can set up an appointment time like everyone else—”
Steele flashed a look to the two soldiers with her, and they took a half-step forward, to where they loomed over Jones. Although he didn’t react, Steele was secretly amused to see the senators all inch away from him. “All right, sir – we need to talk about possible conspiracy and obstruction charges.”
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