The New World

by Toby Neighbors

  He ran to the bathroom and grabbed a few toiletries and threw them into the gym bag with his clothes. He slung the bag over his shoulder and returned the kitchen. He opened the pantry and found hardly anything worth taking. He grabbed a box of saltine crackers, a couple cans of soup, and a bag of potato chips. He crammed them into a plastic shopping bag and slid the water bottle into its carrier on the frame of his bicycle. He was choking up from smoke inhalation and he knew he had run out of time. He threw the locks on the front door and steered the bike out into the cool, fresh air of a beautiful East Coast spring afternoon. He could hear the fire now and after he had pushed the bike out into the parking lot, he turned and looked back. Flames were shooting out of the third story windows and smoke was billowing into the sky. Everything he owned was in that apartment, but most of it was worthless now anyway. All of the suits he had bought, maxing out his credit cards and wiping out his savings, his computer, his books from law school and college. He felt amazingly poor to have so little to lose in a fire; so little to show that he had been alive and thriving on planet Earth, a place that felt fantastically small now. He remembered the poster of the solar system from his fifth grade class. Mr. Ingram had been a really good teacher who loved science. The planets were shown in scale, with Earth about the size of an English Pea, Jupiter the size of a softball, and the sun so big it was off the chart. He looked up into the clear blue sky and sighed, he had to make some plans. If he was going to get PARKS, he didn't want to die out in the open, suffering from exposure to the elements.

  He also needed to find out where the survivors were, if there really were any survivors. He felt tired, his body stiff, but he didn’t feel sick. His father hadn’t said anything about feeling sick either, but for some reason, he didn’t think that he would die. In fact, he couldn’t imagine that. The fire had gotten him moving, but it had also triggered an instinct for survival. And if he could survive, if some small percentage of people were somehow immune to PARKS, then he would find them. As he pedaled his bicycle through the abandoned, vehicle clogged streets, he felt his muscles loosen, felt the cool air blow across his skin and through his hair. He felt alive and full of hope. What he needed now was a new place to call home while he made plans for the future. He steered his bicycle toward the White House.

  ***

  There was no one anywhere between Daniel's apartment complex and downtown D.C. Daniel felt certain that if there were people anywhere, there would be people at the White House. For months now he had been planning to go on the White House tour but had been too busy. He felt a little ashamed that he didn't know more about where his president lived; in fact, he had been working for three months nearby as part of the United States Senatorial staff, but that was small potatoes to the people in the big white mansion. Daniel had to admit he had dreamed of being president, not that he really thought it was a possibility, but more of an elaborate daydream during the time he had been finishing up his law degree. He had imagined coming to Washington and being recognized as the reclusive genius who would be propelled into politics because the country needed him. It didn't matter that no teacher in high school, no professor in college or law school, had considered him anything more than an average student. To Daniel it was very much like golf; you could go to the course and shoot 119 on a par 72 and a week later watch golf on TV and think that with a little practice you could probably be on tour. It was part of his human nature that felt there was nothing beyond his reach. He realized suddenly how petty and self serving his dreams had been. But from the looks of things on the deserted streets of D.C., he was going to need that resourceful, can-do attitude.

  He was tired, his pedaling sluggish by the time he reached the front gates of the White House. The lawn looked pristine and the gate was closed, but Daniel couldn't see anyone at the gatehouse. He rode the bicycle right up to the gate and shouted to get someone's attention. There was no answer. He ducked under the wooden barrier and made his way into the guard shack. It was empty, but the buttons were clearly marked. He pushed a button and the gate swung open on well-oiled hinges. He returned to his golf cart and continued on toward the White House. He felt like a child sneaking into his parents’ bedroom. His father had kept guns in their closet and his mother had been very strict about not allowing him into their bedroom without her specific invitation. Even at night when he had a bad dream, he would stand at the doorway crying until his mother called for him to come in where she was sleeping. He had broken that rule once in junior high, when a buddy dared him to find his father’s handgun. With his mother out, he had tiptoed into the room and found a 9 mm automatic pistol in his father's nightstand drawer. He had waved it at his friend, who stood in the doorway. Then a wave of fear and panic had broken over him. He had returned the gun to the drawer and hadn't snuck back in his parents’ bedroom since. Now he felt that same nervous tension, like he was somewhere he didn't belong and would be in trouble when he was caught.

  Daniel approached the front doors cautiously. Still, no one seemed to be there. He knocked and waited, not really expecting an answer. He tried the door and to his amazement found it unlocked. He left his bicycle in front of the White House and went inside. He was awed at what he found: there were men in suits and military uniforms lying on the floor, their bodies stiff and still. He called out, but no one answered. He walked through the oval shaped Diplomatic Reception Room and turned left and continued down the hall toward the Palm Room and the press corps offices. There were more dead people, but not as many. In the West Wing of the White House, he found a few more bodies but still no living persons. He went upstairs and searched the empty corridors until he found the Oval Office. But there was no sign of anyone anywhere who had not succumbed to the PARKS virus. He hadn't really expected the president to be sitting at his desk, but he had figured that the Oval Office would be the one place people might be, if there were any left. He had begun to fear that he was the lone survivor, even though logic told him that there was nothing special about him. If he was immune to PARKS, others would be, too. If he wasn't, then nothing really mattered anyway. He returned to the central part of the White House and searched the rooms, including the private residence of the president and his family. There was no one, but with evening coming on, Daniel felt that he should settle in for the night.

  He returned to the front of the White House and retrieved his belongings. He leaned his bicycle against the South Portico staircase and carried his sack of food and his gym bag inside. He wandered, through the White House hallways, looking for survivors and awestruck by his surroundings. Eventually he found his way up to the second story and made himself at home in the Lincoln Bedroom. The electricity was still on, and Daniel figured the food in the kitchens would still be good. He found sandwich meats and bread and made himself a sandwich. He ate while he channel surfed, but nothing was on the local or national news networks. A few channels, obviously still controlled by automated computer programs, were on the air. After a while, with his stomach full and the large home of the president as quiet as a tomb, Daniel felt fear creeping up his spine. He knew there was a lot to do, but the reality of the dead men and women downstairs kept him locked in the Lincoln Bedroom. He bolted the door closed and cursed himself from not retrieving some of the weapons from the soldiers downstairs. After a while, with all the lights on, he managed to doze a little. By dawn he had finally settled into a peaceful sleep that lasted until midmorning.

  When he finally climbed out of the big bed he was sleeping in, he made himself a mental plan. He shaved and showered, something he hadn't done in a few days, and decided that he was as safe here as anywhere. He had three major priorities: first, remove the dead bodies; second, secure the White House; and finally, find the communications center and begin searching for survivors.

  Chapter 3

  Removing the bodies turned out to be more work than Daniel had anticipated. It took quite a while to find a cart large enough to move more than one body at a time. He finally found a large laundry car
t that was obviously used to remove the table linens from the official state dinners. The cart was basically a heavy duty frame with fabric sides, all attached to a sturdy wooden bottom with wheels. It took all his strength to lift the bodies of the soldiers and Secret Service men, many of whom outweighed him by 50 or 60 pounds. But by early afternoon he had managed to get all the bodies he could find out of the White House and into the courtyard between the Palm Room and the Carpenter's Shop. He would have to bury them, but he needed to secure the White House first and that would be daunting task.

  Luckily, the windows were sealed shut and probably bulletproof. He worked the ground floor, starting in the West Wing, through the residence and finally the East Wing. He pulled all the curtains and blinds, making sure no one could get in without either picking a lock or breaking the door, both of which should be rather difficult—this was the White House after all. After he felt certain that his new residence was completely locked, he fixed himself another meal, this time cooking one of the many steaks he found in a large cooler. It briefly crossed his mind to move a majority of the food to a freezer, but he was just too tired.

  He ate his steak, by far the choicest piece of meat he had ever had the pleasure to cook, with a bag of potato chips and a bottle of Coca-Cola. He was surprised at the variety of gourmet and junk food stored in the White House. Daniel didn't even realize a person could still get Coke in a glass bottle, but, then again, the President of the United States wasn't just anyone. And apparently, the most powerful man in the world had very common tastes when it came to food, but Daniel could appreciate that. He had similar tastes himself.

  After his eclectic meal, he went looking for a way to communicate with other survivors. To Daniel's mind, the White House should have the most sophisticated communications system anywhere, and while that would give him great means to reach people, perhaps all over the world, it would also probably be incredibly complex and hard to use. Still, at this point, his best chance would be to stay in what seemed to him the most likely location for people to seek help.

  He made his way downstairs, to the underground and undisclosed rooms of the White House. His mind marveled a little as he walked down a hallway with thick carpet and works of art lining the walls. The first room he came to was marked security. He opened the door to a fairly large room absolutely filled with monitors. It was obvious that the monitors were live feeds from security cameras all around the White House, both inside and out, and around the entire property as well. Most of the monitors were labeled, such as Oval Office, State Dining Room, or China Room. He noticed that even the bedrooms had cameras, all except the president's master bedroom. The monitors themselves were extremely high tech. They looked like common panes of glass, but they lit up with high definition images, even of the rooms that were dark. The pictures on the screens were so vivid they seemed almost three dimensional.

  In the center of the room was a large console with large monitor screens at least 75 inches from corner to corner. There were controls in front of the screens and large leather chairs at each station. Daniel sat at one of the chairs and looked at the controls. There was a computer keyboard and several toggle switches. The main control seemed to be some sort of joystick. Intrigued by the controls, Daniel pushed the joystick forward. The image on the screen moved forward, not as if the camera were zooming in, more like the camera itself were moving forward. Daniel frowned, how could it be possible for the camera to be mobile? He pushed the joystick to the right and watched as the camera seemed to turn in a complete circle. The image was of the Rose Garden, and Daniel pushed the joystick until the image was of the doors leading to the presidential secretary's office. There were stairs directly in front of the camera, only three, but enough to trip up the camera, but Daniel pushed forward anyway. The image moved steadily until the doors were directly in front of the image. He couldn't imagine how the camera had moved seamlessly forward. The image hadn't even risen as the camera had entered the porch of the West Wing. It must be on some type of cable, he thought. Odd that I can’t see the line the camera is suspended from, though. He pushed forward again, expecting to be stopped, or to see the camera bump into the door. Instead, the image flickered and he was suddenly inside the presidential secretary's office. Now the truth dawned on him, as if a cartoon light bulb had suddenly flashed into existence over his head. The image he was looking at was a composite made up of all the cameras in and around the White House.

  Daniel was totally in awe of the system that enabled him to be anywhere in or around the property. He sat for hours experimenting with the controls. At the flick of a switch he could move suddenly to key areas of the Presidential Mansion. As darkness fell, he found the controls that allowed the cameras to switch from sunlight to artificial lighting to low light and even night vision and infrared. He spent most of the night in the security room, searching all of the property and even discovering that he could turn the other large monitors so that he could watch several places at once. It was around 4 o'clock in the morning when an urgent beeping alerted him to the presence of people approaching the front of the White House.

  Daniel sprang up, suddenly excited and nervous, as two men walked up to the doors. The men wore blue jeans and large green jackets that looked like military surplus. They carried large rifles and had pistols strapped to each thigh.

  “Hey,” yelled one of the men. “Anyone at home this fine mornin'?”

  Daniel couldn't tell if he was more shocked by the fact that his composite video feed had sound or at the obvious disdain that the men were showing. Who shows up at 4 a.m. acting so crazy? Daniel thought. In his mind, an image of his uncle Joe flashed like an old film movie. His mother's brother had often been known to pull outrageous stunts such as this when he had spent the night binge drinking. I'll bet those guys are hammered, Daniel thought.

  The icy wind of fear blew across his neck as if there were an open window letting a draft into the room. Those men had guns, lots of them, and they didn’t seem to be too concerned about public property. He raced back upstairs to the armory where he had stashed the guns of the dead soldiers and agents. He pulled out two of the pistols, and then ran upstairs to the Truman Balcony overlooking the main portico. He unlocked the door and stepped cautiously outside.

  “Hey,” he shouted, his hands gripping the handles of the pistols so tightly his knuckles were white. “You gentlemen go home, or find a place to sleep it off.”

  “What-da-know, Billy, someone’s home at the White House,” said the first man.

  “Tell President Oswald Aiden Peterson that two of his constituents are outside and would like to see him,” the man called Billy said. His voice was steady, not drunken like his companion. There was more than anger in what he said, it had an insane quality that made Daniel’s blood race.

  “The president isn’t here,” Daniel said, trying to stall the two men. “If you want access to the White House you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “No access tonight, huh, Billy?” said the first man.

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to make our own access.”

  There was the sound of gunshots, splintering wood, and ricocheting metal. Daniel dropped low and moved to the edge of the balcony he was on. Peering over, he could just make out the man named Billy holding his rifle and aiming at the door to the formal, 1st floor entrance.

  “Damn, the door’s metal,” cried the first man.

  “Yeah, well the windows ain’t,” growled Billy angrily.

  Inwardly, Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been sure the doors would hold, although he should have known the front doors to the White House would be reinforced. He could see the man named Billy moving toward the windows. Daniel held his breath until the cracks of gunfire rang out into the stillness of the night.

  When the bullets hit the glass, there were odd pinging sounds, like a wooden spoon being drummed on a large stock pot. There was also a cry of pain, and the other man, not Billy, fell to the ground screaming. He wa
s holding his thigh and it appeared to Daniel that there was blood spilling out from around the wound.

  “Ah, Billy,” cried the man. “They got me! I’m hit.”

  “Shut up, fool,” said Billy angrily. “No one’s shooting at us. It’s just a ricochet from that bulletproof window.”

  “It’s hurting and bleeding something fierce. My whole leg’s going numb.”

  “Shut your mouth, and stick your finger in the wound. Don’t you know nothing?” Billy’s voice had become a little shaky. Daniel’s heart was racing. He could see the men clearly in the security lights and there was so much blood.

  “It’s getting cold, Billy, you gotta help me.”

  “He needs a tourniquet,” Daniel yelled. “It looks like it might have hit an artery.”

  “Shut up, damn you,” yelled Billy.

  Then the gunshots rang out. The gun Billy had was obviously military issue, it rattled off shots in what seemed to Daniel like an endless stream. He couldn’t help but think of the strings of firecrackers his father used to buy. Twenty, fifty, or even a hundred little poppers, their fuses all tied together. As a boy, Daniel had been so excited about those pyrotechnic bundles, but once they had begun exploding, all Daniel had wanted was for them to stop. The noise was so loud it had frightened him. He felt that same fear, only now there were chips of concrete flying up into the air and he could feel the thumps in the balcony floor as the bullets slammed into it. Daniel hunkered down, covering his head with his arms, the guns in either hand pointed haphazardly into the air.

  Soon the shots were over and Daniel could hear the man named Billy reloading his rifle. The other man was talking, but Daniel couldn’t make out the words, his own ears were ringing. He thought briefly of hanging his arm over the edge of the balcony and firing down toward the two men, but knew as soon as he thought it that it was a stupid idea. He had shot plenty growing up; in fact, he used to spend lonely afternoons at an American Legion baseball field, shooting beer bottles on the bleachers with an air rifle. But this was insanity; with the human race on the brink of extinction, he wasn’t going to try and kill the first survivors he had come across. He was at the White House for this very reason. He knew people would come here. He just needed to be more prepared to deal with people for whom law and order had died along with almost everything else.