Lancaster’s stomach churned as he thought about the families of the already dead being torn and rendered apart below him. The bean counters estimated that as of the beginning of this week, the second week of August 2010, approximately fifty percent of the country’s population was dead. Somewhere around one hundred and fifty million people dead and looking to make the other hundred fifty million people dead just like them too.
How many bombs is it going take to us to kill that many people? A thousand? Ten thousand?
His eyes wandered from the Boston screen to the Charlotte screen where the massive explosions were starting. He looked to the D.C. screens and they too were filling with the dust clouds and shockwaves brought on by the massive bombs being dropped with precision onto enormous gatherings of the flesh hungry undead. It seemed that thirty seconds was the delay in the length of life for each city. No more, no less. Each of the cities targeted for “eradication” had a similar story pan out as the day went on. Bombs fell, and the dead were pulverized.
In all, fourteen cities were bombed the first day. It would take the analysts a few days or scouring the satellite photos and reading reconnaissance reports to figure out how effective the bombs actually were.
*****
“So explain this to me again. We dropped how many bombs the other day?” The President asked Lancaster and the group of military and civilian experts via video conference. The aged intelligence officer sat in the back of the room watching it all pan out. Lancaster knew a lot, but even he didn’t know where the President was. On the other side of the screen it appeared that the president was in a nondescript conference room nearly identical to the one he sat in. The President could be anywhere.
Lancaster replied to the highest politician in all his land, “I’m sorry Mr. President, we weren't able to find the exact number due to failures in the communication systems, but we believe it was approximately 500 to 550 2,000 pound MK84 bombs sir. Some of the birds left light and some of the planes were carrying mixed ordnance so the exact number is unavailable. We're trying to get a better answer.”
The President lifted some papers off his desk that had been faxed to his location earlier. It had much of the information the analyst team had just shared. The Commander in Chief didn’t look pleased in the least. He thumbed through the five or six page document as Lancaster and the rest of the group watched on. Even with the grainy video feed he could still see as the man in charge skimmed numbers on the paper he didn’t like.
“Correct me if I am wrong, but you’re saying the bombs only appeared to be approximately what? Thirty percent effective? What exactly does that mean?”
An Air Force general a few seats down spoke up. Lancaster noted that he had three stars on the shoulder of his impeccable uniform. He hadn't skipped out on decorum. ”Mr. President this is Lieutenant General Foster. Thirty percent effectiveness means that of the rough number of estimated targets in a given environment, after visual assessment post-bombing, compared against visual assessment pre-bombing, about thirty percent of those potential, available targets appear to be destroyed.” Lancaster noted that this Foster guy appeared knowledgeable. Well spoken too. He watched as Foster organized piles of papers on the large conference table they were arrayed around. Everything seemed to have a place in front of him. He was meticulous.
“So one hundred walking dead in a pretty, green city park pre-bombing, seventy walking dead still moving around after?” The President asked easily, already knowing the answer.
“Correct sir,” Foster replied.
The President's face went sour, and he sighed. “That’s damn terrible. How could the bombs be so ineffective?" The President picked up a stack of photographs and rifled through them. He held several up for them to see, "I can see on the follow up pictures there are holes in the streets ten feet wide. How could they get up and walk away from that?”
Foster replied once more, “Well sir to be honest it’s pretty easy to understand when you look at it scientifically. Bombs typically kill with mixture of shockwave pressure and shrapnel. As we know, these things are only killed by fairly large scale trauma to the brains, and the likelihood that the bombs would send lethal shrapnel into the brains directly and consistently is fairly low. The pressure created by a bomb explosion as well typically kills living people by rupturing organs, and as you already know, these things have no need for their internal organs. If I may speculate sir, I'd suggest that the targets have their bodies riddled with shrapnel, and are liquefied on the inside in many cases, but if we don't hit their brains dead center, all we're doing is poking holes in them or throwing them around. I would like to point out sir that a thirty percent destruction rate is actually fairly good. It may not seem like it right now, but if you look at page four of the document you’re holding, we’re estimating that the bombing runs three days ago destroyed somewhere between one and one point three million targets. Not to mention crippling injuries. They might not be dead, but I’m sure we took the legs off a large portion of the targets, and that'll help our ground forces considerably.”
The words ‘destroyed’ and ‘targets’ had replaced ‘killing’ and ‘the dead.’
The President flipped through the document as the gaggle of aides surrounding him did the same. They all digested the information and murmured amongst each other, waiting to see how the President would react. It reminded Lancaster of parrots.
“Where do we go from here?”
“If I may, sir?” Foster asked the President politely.
“You may General, go ahead.”
“Sir, it is my strong belief we as a nation are beyond the tipping point here. We have lost this country’s urban areas already. Bombing them now to make them easier to recapture I believe is futile and a waste of our country's dwindling resources, both civilian and military. We already have so many other problems to deal with in the rural areas in regards to maintaining the nation’s ability to survive past this summer. Frankly I think we need to turn our efforts away from military actions such as this week’s bombings and shift to a more defensive and preparatory tactic. We need to build fences, secure croplands, sources of fresh water, and critical manufacturing facilities. The missions need to be fortify and secure sir. If we continue to commit to more bombings in the near future, they need to be done in such a fashion that they are supporting our efforts to make it through this summer and winter sir. I’ve drafted a document detailing everything. My office can send it to you if you’re interested in giving it consideration.”
The President asked a question quickly, without hesitation, “What kind of bombing action would support your strategy General? Give me an example.”
“Sir, at this point it is my firm belief that we need to make the cities that are overrun by the dead islands. Cut them out surgically like a cancer. I think we need to bomb surface roads and bridges to prevent the exit of these things and give the suburban areas nearby a chance to move into more rural locations where we can support them. Population centers are lost sir. We need to make safe what we can, while we can, with what we have at our disposal.”
“Your ideas are duly noted General, thank you for your suggestions. Have your people send your plan to my aides and we'll look at it. Right now we’ve got several plans to go over. In the meantime let’s continue with this plan for one more run on our tier one cities. I think there’s little harm in one more large scale bombing run to thin. Thirty percent more eliminated while we sort this out will come in handy at some point. Ladies and Gentlemen thank you."
And so the next week was decided.
*****
Air Force Lieutenant General Foster rested his head on the thin white pillow in the bed he had slept in since the world came crashing to a halt. The thin mattress gave his old warrior’s back little support, but such was the lifestyle he’d chosen so long ago. No sense complaining about hardship when a hard life was the one he’d chosen. His small bedroom was more of a cell than a place of rest. The only difference between the room
he now lived in and a convict's was which side of the door the lock was on. Like the old warrior he was, once he’d achieved a safe place to rest, he fell into the comforting embrace of deep sleep.
Foster’s dreams since the world came crashing down were strange. Before the end of the world he would dream almost exclusively about the things that were happening in his life that day, or that week or that month. If he was struggling with what to make for dinner the next day, he’d dream about grocery shopping. If he and his wife had just made love, he dreamt of resting in her arms, spent, sated, and sweaty. If he had just chewed one of his assistant’s asses out, he’d dream about doing it different ways.
Not anymore. Foster dreamt of dead relatives, and memories long since forgotten. He dreamt of shooting and killing the dead. Just that very morning one of his men commented that he too had been dreaming of similar things. Strange coincidences previously laughed at were now considered seriously. When the dead walk the earth eating the living, the impossible becomes very malleable. Reports were being turned in daily by people who analyzed their dreams now.
Foster’s dream that night started out with him resting in his home in the D.C. suburbs. He had a nice house. Not ostentatious or excessive, but a nice home his military salary afforded him in good neighborhood. In the dream Foster was armed with his service pistol, his finger extended straight alongside the trigger, and he was walking about in his living room looking for the zombie he knew was there, somewhere. The pale orange light cast by the street lamp just a dozen yards outside his front bay window turned the interior of his house into a toxic environment. Normally his curtains were pulled shut, but for some reason they were cast open, illuminating the room in the caustic electrical glare. In the distance, he heard something moving upstairs. He moved through his living room and began to walk carefully up the carpeted staircase. He'd done the carpet installation himself just a year before the first attacks.
At the top of the long series of steps Foster stood silent, listening to where the noise might still be. Still unaware he was in a dream he felt his heart race. He thought it was strange that the temperature upstairs was so cool. Normally in August his house was an oven upstairs. He needed central air, but he couldn’t afford it just yet.
Foster’s ears twitched when he heard something come from the end of the hall in his son’s bedroom. His mind bolted like a racehorse out of the gate as he tried to remember where his son was. Was he alive still? Was he in school still? Would he be just getting home from baseball practice? He couldn’t remember, but he knew there was something ominous in the home, and it was his duty to protect his house and his son. Where was his wife?
Foster pushed the bedroom door open and stepped inside, his pistol sliding back and forth in the air searching for a dead body to shoot in the head. His weapon’s sights froze on the form of his teenage son resting in bed on his back, flipping through a bible. Foster thought it was strange his son was reading a bible.
“Hi Dad. I’m glad you came up. Do you have time to talk?”
Foster’s mind wandered in the dream, confused. He suddenly couldn’t remember quite why he was even in the room in the first place and the memory of the living room was already gone like a morning fog lifted. The pistol in his hand was gone. Foster smiled, already unaware that he'd even had a gun in the first place, happy to see his son. The Air Force man pulled out the desk chair across from the bed to have a seat. “I have time for you Leo, where's your mother?"
Leo answered with an unsure lift of his slight shoulders. He was still lanky, and growing into the adult's body that he would own for the rest of his life.
"What’s on your mind pal?” Foster asked his son.
“Well Dad. I guess I’ve been thinking about what I would do if I knew people were making mistakes?” Leo said, never taking his eyes off the well worn bible. Dimly, Foster couldn’t recall Leo even having a bible, let alone a used one.
Foster tried to think of what his own father would say. “Well I guess you’d have to help them right? Show them the error of their ways and help them make the right decision.”
Leo nodded like that was the answer he expected his father to give. “What if they were unable to make the right decision? What if you couldn’t get them to change their mistake but could correct the mistake and tell them about it later? Like, what if you found out Mom wrote a deposit slip wrong but you were already at the bank?” Leo asked, finally taking his eyes off the book.
Foster smiled at his fifteen year old. “Leo that’s easy. Mom wouldn’t care, and that’s an easy mistake people make all the time. I'd fix it and let her know later.”
“Okay that’s a bad example. What if one of your fighters is about to bomb the wrong target based on bad intelligence? You can change the target on your own immediately, or you can let the bombs fall and hit the wrong place. What would you do then?”
“There are protocols for that Leo. But I’m able to call off the strike, change the targets and reissue commands if need be. Last thing we want is to kill innocents or to destroy a structure that doesn’t need to be destroyed.”
Leo chewed on this information for a good long time, digesting it. “That makes sense. Dad can you promise me something?” Leo looked at his father with hope in his eyes. He looked five years old again, and wanting a puppy for his birthday like his life depended on it.
“Of course.”
“If our bombers are ever going to hit the wrong place, make sure you stop it. I like knowing my dad helps innocent people from getting hurt.”
Foster smiled, happy to see his son be so compassionate. “Of course.”
Foster opened his eyes in the real world. His room was black, save for the red glow emanating from the alarm clock on the tiny bed stand next to his head. His skin was still prickly from the chill in Leo’s room in the dream. He lifted his arm and looked at his watch. Five hours had gone by in a blink.
Foster liked dreaming about his son. He just wished he hadn’t died ten years ago in a car accident. There was something positive to be had out of all these strange dreams after all.
*****
Foster sat with two Air Force technical Sergeants inside a command and control room deep inside the same government building the conference with the President was held in. It had been two weeks since the President had ordered an additional bomb run on the cities that were declared overrun. After several day long and grueling meetings via the video conferencing equipment, the President and his advisors declared that the idea of sealing off the cities was not the tactic that would serve the country best. He ordered weekly bombing runs on the cities nearest large military installations to give the forces that could be mobilized a chance to reclaim them. In the President's mind, winning the morale of the nation by taking back the cities was a goal that the government couldn't be seen walking away from.
Cities in the northeast, furthest from the largest of bases were abandoned. Boston, Hartford, Portland, Manchester, Springfield, New Haven, New York, and a dozen more were all left for dead. Foster couldn’t imagine the death toll in the cities, let alone the rural areas surrounding them. There would be no government assistance for them anytime soon. New England was forgotten, left to rot in the late summer sun.
Foster watched feed after feed streaming in with the two Sergeants. They observed, recorded and reported the information coming in. The two young men sat distracted, taking notes and interacting with the disintegrating world outside only as often as absolutely needed. It was very late in the day, and the repetition of bombing runs and the overall downtrodden and lethargic mood of the survivors in the bunker as a whole had caused hope and morale to steadily decline. Even Foster felt ambivalent at best about the mission he had been tasked with.
The older General hadn’t slept a wink in weeks. His gray eyes were bloodshot, and no matter how much he shaved, his face always looked shadowed and sunken. His dream in his house with his son had continued to recur to the point where it had become more of a nightmare. His son'
s request to him was now a challenge. The dream was a declaration to Foster that night after night, he couldn't escape. Foster felt deep inside that the dream was a subconscious reflection of his distaste for the President’s decision to continue to bomb the cities. His son kept asking him, night after anxious night to do the right thing and save lives. Foster knew these bombing missions were not saving lives. He knew the explosions obliterating increasingly smaller amounts of the walking dead were having no impact on the likelihood that anyone would survive the rest of this calendar year. Sure, the cities were becoming less dangerous with each fallen bomb. That wasn't the problem. The issue was that not enough resources were being dedicated to the support of the nation to survive the collapse of the infrastructure. Too much was being wasted on simply killing the dead.
“You look sullen Foster,” a leathery older man’s voice said to him from a few feet away.
Foster’s heart stuttered. He was surprised the source of the voice had gotten so close to him, so quietly. He turned and saw the Department of State official named Lancaster. Lancaster was a spook. Ex-CIA possibly. He was one of the men that dealt with the government's problems that no one was made aware of. His name and paycheck didn’t appear on any payroll that the public saw. He didn't exist in any official capacity. Foster was creeped out by the man.
“I’m tired Lancaster. Don’t you have a house to haunt?” Foster said, not hiding the disdain he had for the DOS string-puller.
“Ha. I hate to break it to you Foster, but we’re all ghosts now. We’re just haunting an empty world. How’s the pogrom going? Hitting some large piles of our greatest nuisance?”
Foster sighed before replying, “Well. We’re hitting stuff but the return numbers are terrible. We’re wasting fuel like there’s no tomorrow. Sad thing is I’ve already said that if we keep wasting fuel like this, there won’t be a tomorrow. Waste of time. We're polishing the silverware on the Titanic when we should be using the tables to build more life rafts.”
Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) Page 14
