And they had.
“There are similar reports coming in from Moscow, Shanghai, London. . .” General Polinski said.
We can’t keep fighting like this,” President Andrews said. “We’ve already lost half the nation.”
“The Rages won’t wait as the virus decimates the west coast and overtakes the eastern front,” General Polinski said. “We’re out of options.”
“What do you propose?” President Andrews said sternly.
“As I say, we have few options left open to us,” General Polinski said. “The only one that can return the nation to the way it was is to remove the plague from our shores.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?” President Andrews said.
“We should not be afraid to cut off the arms to save the head,” General Polinski said. “We drop bombs. Big ones, small ones, everything we have, in an effort to wipe them out.”
“Are you crazy?” Graham said. “We’ll wipe ourselves out at the same time we wipe them out. A plan doomed to failure.”
“And yet, here we find ourselves,” General Polinski said. “Discussing it. We need to consider this less as a genocide and more as a necessary extermination.”
“Necessary?” Graham said. “Necessary extermination? Did I hear you right?”
“I recommend a wide-scale extermination,” General Polinski said. “Draw our forces through the plains and focus fire power west of this line.”
He drew a line across the map in the middle of the table.
“If we manage to draw them out of the cities around the country, we might reduce civilian casualties,” he said.
“We can’t give up on the people,” Graham said.
“Giving up on them is letting this happen,” General Polinski said. “Giving up on our future. End it now. Cut off the head. And we might still survive this.”
“If there’s anything left to salvage,” Graham said.
He turned to the president.
“You can’t seriously be considering this, John,” he said. “Please. Mr. President.”
“We need to consider the lives that are in danger right now,” President Andrews said, not meeting Graham’s eyes. “The ones we can save, if we only have the courage to do what needs to be done.”
“May God have mercy on our souls,” Graham said.
32.
TWILIGHT had long since descended on the city of Denver, kidnapping the last rays of golden sunlight. All that was left now was the tired red glow of the distant fires far within the fallen city.
The weather had turned into a fury of wind and sprinkling rain as Graham awaited the arrival of the President’s security convoy. He turned and watched the glowing red horizon, lips tightening into a thin line.
He wondered how long the army had been setting the fires, if they had conducted the evacuations properly, if they were even making a dent on the endless horde of Rages. Graham shook his head and sighed, dropping his chin and leaning against a nearby concrete wall.
Graham sighed and leaned his head back, feeling the wind and rain whip his clothes tight against his body. He had been waiting for the past ten minutes, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against the inside of his coat pocket. He was about to turn and leave when he heard the crunch of wheels over asphalt.
The President’s security convoy stopped before him. A door opened and out stepped one of President Andrews’ private agents, urging him forward with a quick command and gesture of his hands.
Judging by the man’s movements, Graham guessed this was not a planned detour. He hurried close, stopping for a moment as the agent opened the back door to usher Graham inside.
When he slid in, Graham was assaulted by the sharp odour of whiskey and faded cigar smoke. He glanced at the opposite end of the limo. President Andrews’ dimly-lit figure lay against the cushioned upholstery. His head leaned against the window. Graham wondered if he was even awake.
“John?” Graham said, frowning. “Are you all right?”
“It’s the end of the world,” President Andrews said. “We might as well enjoy ourselves while we can.”
He banged on the roof of the limo with a fist. The car jolted forward, causing Graham to fall back onto a leather couch.
“John, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Graham said.
“We planned something,” President Andrews said. “A sort of last ditch effort to protect the last of humanity.”
“I thought drawing the Rages into the Great Plains was the last effort?” Graham said.
“It was certainly a part of it,” President Andrews said. “The truth is, we were never going to cleanse these cities to the way they once were. There are too many other distractions, too many other things that would get their attention. We had to remove the normal people to the sticks, and then firebomb the cities. It’s the only way.”
“You can’t be serious,” Graham said.
“Oh, but I am,” President Andrews said. “Never been more serious. This is it, Graham. Our last play. After we sent you off to discover a cure in Nevada, I initiated a series of plans that had been drawn up half a century ago. For a state of emergency such as this. Can you believe that? People were so concerned with the Cold War and the Russians that we created plans of a city, buried deep in the mountains. Only, they turned out not to be just plans.”
“You’re talking about the City Initiative?” Graham said. “But that was only a conspiracy theory!”
“It was,” President Andrews said with a nod. “But that’s the genius of it. It’s just crazy enough for people to doubt, but sane enough for people to actually carry out and build. This is why you’re here, Graham. You and your team failed to create a cure against this madness, but you came a far sight closer to discovering something useful than General Polinski. You’re going to the City and you’re going to help save humanity.”
“I tried before,” Graham said. “What makes you think I’ll succeed this time?”
“Because this time you won’t be coming up with a cure for the virus,” President Andrews said. “You’ll be creating a weapon.”
“A weapon?” Graham said. “But how—?”
“Get to the City, and you’ll see for yourself,” President Andrews said. “This things goes much higher than you realize.”
He handed Graham a notebook an inch thick.
“Here’s everything we know about the City, and the plans we have for it,” President Andrews said. “This evening a helicopter will come to pick you up from your house. Make sure you’re ready.”
The President reached over and opened the door. It had turned blustery, and the wind almost wrenched the door from the President’s hand. At the end of the short drive Graham could see his house.
“Take this,” President Andrews said.
He handed Graham a small pistol.
“Stay safe and be strong, Graham,” President Andrews said. “The country will need you. This was meant to be the time when humanity soared. It’s hard to believe it’s come to this. Instead of a great beginning, we’re faced with the end. Shoved in our faces by the very stars we had hoped to reach.”
“None of us could have foreseen this,” Graham said. “None of us could have prevented it.”
“Maybe,” President Andrews said. “But it didn’t help that I was so gung-ho about the whole venture. It might have happened anyway, but there can be no doubt I sped up the procedure.”
President Andrews slapped Graham on the back as Graham stepped outside. The wheels spun and the car convoy took off amidst screeching tires.
Graham realized he hadn’t even had the time to say goodbye.
33.
“THE CITY?” Beatrix said. “Sounds more like a prison than a haven.”
“It’s the only safe place there is,” Graham said.
They had packed their things, what they could carry in any case, and were sat in the kitchen waiting for the helicopter to arrive.
“This City Initiative,” Graham said. “We can�
�t be certain it will work for long, but it might give us enough time to come up with a solution. Society is burning by its own hand, all because we couldn’t stop a menace that came inside little green space rocks.”
“What are the odds, that of all the hundreds of billions of worlds out there, this one blue marble would be the place these space rocks chose to land?” Beatrix said. “It’s just not fair.”
Graham looked out the window, above the red burning embers of a dying society. The gorgeous pin prick patterns of stars. Something tickled in the back of his brain, the ghost of an epiphany, a fluttering of the butterfly wings of insight.
Then, his eyes caught on something, floating like on the smooth surface of a pond, a small green light. A meteor? An asteroid? No. This object moved slower, a satellite in orbit.
Graham watched it sail overhead, quiet and calm.
That was when he saw the shadows on the horizon, lurching demons from the deep.
“Grab your bag,” Graham said.
“What?” Beatrix said. “Is the helicopter already here?”
“No,” Graham said. “But the Rages are.”
34.
THE RAGES were out there. They could hear them, but they could not see them, only fragments—a shake of foliage here, a tumble of rock there. They were everywhere, and they were nowhere. And running through them, like wraiths out of hell, were Graham and Beatrix, as fast as their feet could carry them.
A helicopter was coming for them, but would arrive to discover an empty house. They needed to get somewhere where they could signal the helicopter, for it to come find them in their new location. But where?
The top of the hill! Graham thought. If they could get there, he could use his torch to flash at them, and fire off a few bullets if he had to—anything to get their attention.
Beatrix screamed. Too late. The Rages were on them already. A wall of them, with clawing hands and wild eyes.
“This way!” Graham said.
He pulled Beatrix to one side, leading her away, down an alley. They ran. They were not natural runners, but moved effortlessly compared to their pursuers. They got to the end of the alley, and Graham turned, making his way around the corner without checking the way.
It was a mistake.
The Rages had Beatrix. It happened in a flash. Graham lost his grip and slid along the ground.
“No!” Beatrix screamed. “No!”
The Rages paid no attention to her screams. They didn’t care. They tore into her with half a dozen mouths, crunching like ripe apples.
“Bea!” Graham shouted. “Bea!”
She looked up at him, the Rages’ surrounding her on the floor in a graphic, disgusting display. Her face was calm, restrained.
“Go,” she said. “Make it count. Get out of here! Go!”
She didn’t allow herself to scream until Graham was half a street away. Graham still heard it, tears stinging his eyes, running down his cheeks. He ran.
Make it count.
35.
GRAHAM STARED at the pages with empty eyes. His candle had become a pool of wax on the desk’s surface, a stub of a wick protruding from it like a sad blade of grass. He stared and waited, all too familiar with the pounding on the door, the violence that never seemed to grow tired of itself despite the time he’d been there.
He had been careful, had counted his rations, had decided how to survive this. But right at that moment, having re-lived his final moments with Beatrix, he felt no desire to live. He had hung on to his promise to her for three weeks.
No one had come. There had been no rescue.
Graham was alone.
There had been nights when he had wondered if he should just open the doors to end the relentless pounding. Other nights, he screamed and shouted until his throat was hoarse.
Graham had no more words to write. His tale was done, everything he could think of to pass on.
Nothing in his mind could conjure a solution to escape and find help, to make Beatrix’s words mean something. The failures of all his memories made his eyes drift over to the gun beside his pack. He stared and wondered about the bullets cozy inside their charge with a weak temptation to just end it all.
Would he? Should he?
He had failed the world, had failed their planet, and the countless populations of far flung nations. He had failed John, Beatrix. . . Everyone.
But in the back of his mind was Beatrix’s unrelenting voice:
“Make it count.”
Graham pulled himself to his knees with a groan. He reached for his gun, unfired, unused, ever since John had given it to him. But every gun had its day.
Beatrix’s death would not be in vain. Everyone’s death would not be in vain. His failures would not have been in vain. He could still fight. He could still survive.
Graham shook the weariness from his bones, facing the barricade with a steely-eyed gaze.
“Make it count,” he said to himself. “Make it count. Damn straight.”
His hands shoved the gun behind his waistband. Graham snapped off extended limbs of the furniture, fashioning them into weapons. He moved the barricade piece by piece.
Graham had once felt a debilitating fear for the sound, but now all that remained was a strange calm that coiled his muscles. His heart was slow and steady.
Graham reached for the door knob. The door pane had long ago begun to splinter under the weight of the Rages.
Groans and snarls from a dozen throats squeezed through the cracks. Rows of teeth doused in black ichor, bodies half-decomposed and eyes that stared and saw nothing but something to rip apart. Graham sucked in a deep breath, steeling himself.
The door swung open and slammed hard against the wall behind it. The Rages collapsed at the unexpected space and Graham saw his chance, teeth parted to unleash a powerful war cry. He threw himself into the fray, arms swinging, glass shattering, blood spilling.
Graham joined the Rages with his own rage. He looked death in the eye and swung.
Make it count.
36.
SIX. That was how many of them there were. Six.
Graham leaned his full weight against the rail of the staircase, panting hard. His mind spun with lack of oxygen.
Six Rages. And he had defeated them.
The groaning he had heard had sounded loud in his ears. But there hadn’t been nearly as many as he had thought.
Graham wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He pushed away from the rail with a grunt. He peered down the stairs, ears perked for any sign of Rages.
Graham threw a final glance at the door of the penthouse and trudged away, his veins filling with energy, the way only a free man could feel. His feet pounded in an uneven rhythm down the staircase, arm out and holding his gun in front of him.
The walls reached the last of the sunset sky, massive and daunting. Graham stared at their faces with cold determination and a tight hold around his gun. Behind them, he could see the faint glow of life among the incoming darkness of the night. Above, the black canopy remained as it had always been, dark and studded with stars and galaxies that had once fascinated him, made him crave to touch them.
He wanted to meet every one of them.
He looked up, and made out a single satellite traversing the planet above, disrupting the stillness with a soft green glow, watchful and silent. Graham felt that familiar strangeness overcome him, an epiphany he had been unable to place, and still couldn’t. Except that this was not over.
He would go to the City and begin again. Eventually they would find those who were responsible. . . and make them pay.
* * *
To instantly receive the free novella Beneath about an apocalypse rising from deep underground, sign up for Charlie Dalton’s free author newsletter at charliedalton/beneath.
* * *
That marks the end of this series (for now!). In the meantime, I’m working on a bunch of other stories you’re going to love. Make sure to sign up above to find out more.
&n
bsp; Make a difference
Reviews are the most powerful tools in my arsenal when it comes getting attention for my books. Honest reviews of my books help bring them to the attention of other readers.
If you’ve enjoyed this book I would be very grateful if you could spend just five minutes leaving a review (it can be as short as you like) on the book’s Amazon page. You can jump right to the page by clicking below.
US
UK
CA
AU
Thank you very much.
About the Author
Bestselling author Charlie Dalton writes fun, thrilling, action-packed adventures. His characters are clever and fearless, but in real life, Charlie is afraid of pigeons without a flight plan, dark recesses, and airplanes (just how do they stay up there?). Let’s face it. Charlie wouldn’t last five minutes in one of his books.
Stay up-to-date with my Facebook page.
Copyright © 2019 Charlie Dalton
All rights reserved.
After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set Page 76
