The next thing was the sound of an engine approaching.
He heard Pepper and Forbes question each other. The engine noise grew louder and then tyres crunched on gravel. Someone new had arrived.
Kevin turned his head, and his sight cleared; he saw car lights, a heavy vehicle like his former Humvee, the doors opening. Four men got out. It was dark and he couldn’t make them out clearly from his vantage on the ground, but he saw they wore some sort of uniforms and were armed.
“That him?” He didn’t recognize the voice.
“Oh, what the fuck . . .” Another newcomer.
Forbes laughed nervously. “Hey, c’mon, we’re just fucking around, we didn’t mean anything—”
One of the new men pulled a pistol and shot Forbes right in the head, a perfect, clean kill.
Pepper cried out and tried to lunge with the knife and the man shot him, another direct head hit.
“Jesus,” one of the men said.
They walked over to Kevin, two knelt down. “Are you conscious?”
Kevin nodded, scraping one cheek on the ground. He tried to grunt.
Someone pulled the duct tape away, while someone else undid the knots tied around his wrists. Freed, they helped him sit up. He tried to talk and had to choke first, then rasped out, “Water.”
One of them ran to their vehicle and returned with a bottle. They tilted it to his lips, and Kevin started to gulp, but felt his stomach contract around the liquid and threaten to repel it. He gasped and sputtered, waited, but the water stayed down.
“You’re Kevin Moon, right? The one who’s immune?”
Kevin nodded.
“Can you hold out your right arm for me?”
He did, although his arm was trembling. One of the men took it, gently, and held up a mag flashlight until he located the place where the zombie had been allowed to bite him. The teeth marks were still obvious, although they’d scabbed over and bruised. “Yeah, that’s him. There’s the control mark.”
“Good. Can you stand?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
They helped him to his feet, and saw the chain that still held him captive. “Oh for fuck’s sake . . . do you know where this key is?”
Kevin tilted a chin towards the bodies of Pepper and Forbes. “Probably on one of them.”
Upright now, with the last light of the sunset and the Humvee’s headlights outlining them, Kevin made out his saviours: the four men wore black jumpsuits with gun belts, and they all possessed a lived-in toughness he hadn’t seen in any of the other soldiers so far. He was thankful they’d rescued him, but also fearful of their obvious strength and the mystery of who they worked for. Two of them searched the bodies of Pepper and Forbes while the other two held Kevin upright.
“How long you been out here?” That was the oldest man; he was built like a linebacker, must have been in his forties, had a thick sand-coloured moustache and piercing blue eyes. Somehow Kevin knew he was in command here.
“Three days. No food or water.”
“Oh Jesus Christ.”
The two searchers returned with keyrings, and went through them until one key fit the handcuff around his ankle and it sprang open. As that man pulled the cuff away, he examined Kevin’s leg by his maglight. “That ankle’s infected. He’s going to need treatment for that.”
“Right.” The commander gave Kevin a slight, reassuring smile. “Relax. You’re in good hands now.”
Kevin shook his ankle, making sure it still worked after three days of being shackled, and he would have fallen had the commander not caught him.
“Whoa, take it easy. We’re going to get you to the medical help you need. We’ve got some food with us you can have now, but you’ll have to eat it slowly or it’ll come right back up. Do you understand?”
Kevin tried to nod, but the movement made his head spin. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a medical facility. We’ve got about a four-hour drive. Think you can handle it?”
“Can I have a little more water?”
One of the men handed him the bottle. He took it, swigged from it, but didn’t swallow all of it. He kept a little in his mouth, swishing it around, working it into a slight froth as he limped over to where the two dead men were sprawled in the grass – and he spat on Pepper’s face. He poured the last of the water on to the corpse, and let the empty plastic bottle bounce off the dead man’s chest.
Kevin asked for a few moments to clean up. They helped him into the house, where he used two precious bottles of water to sponge himself off. He found some old clothes in a bedroom closet that he put on. Flannel and denim weren’t exactly his style and the clothing was two sizes too large, but anything was better than smelling like Pepper’s piss.
It was full night by the time they climbed into the Hummer. Kevin glanced back one last time at the two corpses they’d be leaving behind.
“Let’s get the fuck out of this shithole.”
The Commander clapped him on the shoulder, and they headed out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
TWO OF THE tanks and three of the RCVs made it back to Bolling. The other had been taken out by anti-tank rockets before they’d left the South Lawn. Steele knew she’d gotten lucky, and she also knew the odds were against it happening again.
The intelligent zombies had been concentrated around the White House, and had thinned out as the remaining vehicles rolled out of the area. The undead ranks were sparse afterwards and they made good time getting home through the encroaching darkness. Steele was relieved to see the base was still well patrolled and secure.
As the tanks parked and the rear hatch opened, she bid farewell to LaFortune and Danning; she’d come to like the young female soldier a great deal and had been prepared to offer her a position in the bunker, but Rocky was searching for someone and wanted to continue the fight on the ground. They wished each other good luck. “Guard her well,” Rocky added. Steele nodded.
Steele went through security clearance and found herself alone in the elevator heading down to the underground complex. For a moment, unaccompanied and unseen, she let herself slump; she was exhausted, drained by defeat, burdened by guilt she couldn’t imagine bearing for the rest of her life. She wanted to retreat, to hide, especially from herself.
Instead she stood straight again as the elevator stopped and the doors opened.
Ty stood just outside. “She knows,” he said.
“Oh, Christ. How?”
“She had one of the tank drivers on a private line.”
They walked together through another security check, punching in codes, and continued on towards the heart of the OC.
Steele asked, “Does she know I’m back?”
“No. The guy she was talking to got blown up with his tank. She doesn’t know what happened to you, but . . . I think you need to see her right away.”
Steele stopped. She wasn’t sure she could do this. Her feet wouldn’t move; her lungs barely worked. She forced herself to breathe again, and Ty waited, patient, as she collected herself. Finally she looked up and asked, “Where is she?”
“Still in the Command Center. It’s pretty loud in there right now.”
Steele nodded and pushed past Ty. She walked for another minute before arriving outside the Command room, and she spent those sixty seconds trying to go blank. She was even partially successful.
Ty had been right: she heard raised voices through the closed door.
She opened it and paused.
Delancy was just shouting, “—equal response that will—” But he broke off as he saw her.
The President turned, took one look at Steele, and said, with quiet forcefulness, “Everybody but Steele out now.”
Gillespie and Jones rose. Delancy didn’t. “Madame President, I—”
“Now, Bob. We’ll continue this later.”
This time he didn’t argue. He rose and left the room. As he walked past Steele, he muttered, “Good luck.”
The door closed b
ehind him. Steele stood, rigid, staring straight ahead.
“You know that if the situation were any different I’d fire you right now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is Parker dead?”
Steele nodded. When she spoke, she could only manage a whisper. “Yes.”
“Did he compromise our position?”
“No.” She cleared her throat and said, “He shot himself first.”
The President looked away for a second, struggling with her own emotions. After a few seconds, she turned back to Steele. “Why? If you and Parker had come to me, the three of us together might have found a different way, a real solution. Or I might have ended up agreeing with you and letting you do what you did. But you didn’t respect me enough to give me that choice.”
“I . . .” Steele had no answer.
“Let me explain something: it’s not about me being the only one to make decisions, or to have the power. It’s about the fact that I need all of you who are left operating on top form, and you can’t do that if you’re thinking about your failures or drowning in guilt. If people are going to die as a result of a decision, then I need to be the one to carry that load.”
Steele felt the weight of the other woman’s eyes on her, and the judgement felt like a sentence. She waited, hoping the President would follow through and relieve her of this terrible duty.
Instead, the President asked, “Did you at least learn anything useful?”
Steele nodded. “Moreby’s got intelligent zombies, all right. And not just a few – we’re talking an army’s worth, all combat ready. Some of them seem to be equipped with special bulletproof helmets, so we should assume they have their own research and development teams and manufacturers. And Moreby’s got some kind of cabinet with him—”
“The Well of Seven.”
Steele broke off, looking at the President, curious. “Sorry . . .?”
“Were there seven of them? These people with Moreby?”
She tried to replay the Oval Office scene in her head, mentally counting. “I think so. Yes.”
“The 19th-century Moreby had a group of followers who he practised all his rituals with and called ‘The Well of Seven’. Apparently he’s reincarnated them somehow and plans to make them his puppet government.”
Remembering the former Governor and the others, Steele said, “Wait until you see who they are. It’s like a police line-up of people who probably wanted to kill you even before they turned.”
“The big difference is now they want to eat my brain.”
The President and Steele exchanged a smile, and Steele began to relax slightly. Maybe, she thought, there really is still a place for me here. Maybe the work will help me to forget . . . to stop thinking about Ames Parker.
She heard a scraping sound and saw the President sliding a tablet across the desk to her. “Another reason you should have consulted with me before you rode off into the sunset today: we’ve got a situation developing that we need to discuss.”
“Situation?”
The President gestured at the tablet. “Aaron decrypted some New World Pharmaceuticals communications that indicate they’ve found an HRV survivor.”
Steele had to force her mind back to business; it spun up slowly, like a cold engine on a winter day. The tablet showed an email about a young man named Kevin Moon, and gave coordinates for a location. “Did we get a team out to this location already?”
The President retrieved the tablet. “A little while ago. They found two dead guards. Moon was gone. One of the dead men was found with a bite mark on his arm, and both had been shot in the head. So, maybe Moon really wasn’t immune after all, came back, attacked his guards and took off. But if that’s the case . . . who shot the guards? And why wasn’t Moon found dead with them?”
“We think New World Pharmaceuticals has him now?”
“Landen Jones is missing. He left while we were all preoccupied with the attack. Security topside reports that he took a car and left the base, claimed it was ‘official business’. It doesn’t take much to put that together with the encrypted email and our missing survivor.”
Steele looked at the President, saw the puffy bags under her eyes, knew she was sleeping only a few hours every night, and yet she felt both admiration and envy at the fact that the woman still functioned better than everyone else. “Well,” Steele said, hoping she didn’t sound as unsure of herself as she felt, “even if that is what happened . . . is that necessarily a bad thing? I mean, New World still has the best research resources and the capability to mass-produce any cure or vaccine they come up with, right? Even if some other team found a cure first, we’d still have to farm out production to NWP, wouldn’t we?”
The President’s slight smile boosted Steele’s confidence. “That’s exactly right . . . which is why I think they’re up to something else. They certainly were with Moreby.”
“Right. So . . . what do we do? Try to get this Kevin Moon back? Do we even know where they might have taken him?”
“I’ve got something else in mind. Congress just passed a bill to funnel resources to NWP. I’m going to let that stand . . . but we’re going to make damn sure those resources never actually reach them. That’s where I’ll need your help.”
Steele rose. “Whatever I can do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go wash some blood off.”
The President didn’t say anything until Steele was halfway out the door, then she added, “Oh, and Steele – I’m sorry, but you just can’t work the pantsuit like I can.”
BULLETIN FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Contact: Ty Ward, Chief of Staff
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of General Ames Parker, Joint Commander of the United States combined military forces. General Parker, 61, died during combat against the forces of James Moreby’s New Zombie Order.
General Parker was
Chapter Twenty-Five
TY STARED AT the bulletin again, mentally writhing over the inadequacy of the words, unable to even complete the last sentence. He knew he should just finish the goddamn thing with Parker’s Wikipedia bio, vet it with the President, and then send it out . . . but it just didn’t feel right.
Of course none of this felt right. Parker dead. The human forces defeated. Ty in charge of reassembling the military forces.
And then there was the phone call to be made.
He pushed the tablet screen with the barely begun press release aside and picked up Parker’s phone. Push “1” – it was all he had to do. Well, that, and tell Parker’s family that their centre was gone.
He’d tried out different ways of telling them in his head: I’m so sorry, but . . . I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news . . . This is going to be hard . . . It is with great sadness . . .
“Fuck it,” Ty muttered to himself. Get it over with. Just do it. Say it. Don’t overthink this.
He pressed the “1” and raised the phone to his ear.
The number went through, and the call rang on the other end. And rang. And rang.
Ty was on the verge of hanging up when the call was answered. On the other end, a frantic female voice came on. “Ames—?”
“Hello. Is this Mrs Parker?”
In the background he heard young voices shouting and muffled poundings. “Yes. Who is this? Where’s Ames? I need to speak to him right now – we’re locked in the basement and they’re in the house upstairs, the soldiers are gone or dead, it’s just me and the kids—”
Ty’s throat tightened and he shut his eyes. “Mrs Parker, my name is Ty Ward. I’m acting as Chief of Staff in the President’s office, and I’m so sorry to have to tell you that . . . Ames is dead.”
“No!” There was a choked sob. “No, no, no . . .” Another cry farther away from the phone came over the line.
What was he supposed to do or say next? Ty wondered what training policemen and real military leaders had for these situations. “Mrs Parker, you should know
that he died a hero, on the battlefield—”
“But that doesn’t help me. I knew something was wrong when he didn’t return the calls – I’ve left a dozen over the last few hours. If he’d gotten them, he would have done something, something to help us . . .”
“Did you say the soldiers who’d been protecting you are gone?”
There was a brief blurt of static, and then Ty heard her say, “—all gone. I think some of them have already . . . come back.”
After a second, Ty said, “Mrs Parker, stay where you are and I’m going to try to get help.”
“Okay. Please, tell whoever comes to hurry – the way they’re pounding on the basement door, it can’t last long . . .”
The poundings in the background were louder, and one of the youthful voices screamed.
Ty said, “Goodbye, Mrs Parker,” and severed the connection. He clutched helplessly at the phone. The truth was there was nothing he could do. Even if he could find a squad willing to leave the safety of whatever the nearest base was and make their way through treacherous country, they wouldn’t reach Parker’s house in time. They’d probably end up losing their own lives in the attempt, and right now they didn’t have enough lives on the human side to spare.
He had to let them die, even while a part of him itched with the (irrational) thought that Parker would have done something to save them . . . even when he hadn’t been able to save himself.
Trying not to imagine Ames Parker’s wife and children backing away into the corner of a dusty basement as the hungry dead shambled down the creaking stairs towards them, Ty pulled the tablet computer and the keyboard over, erased what he’d already done, and retyped:
It is with deep sadness that we report the death of General Ames Parker, who died earlier today in combat during a human offensive against the forces of James Moreby’s New Zombie Order. Effective immediately, the acting Joint Commander of the United States Armed Forces will be Ty Ward. A decorated veteran of the Iraq War, Ward is dedicated to restoring the human forces of the United States, and will begin preparing new strategies and offensives with all major commanders.
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