The Day After: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller

by Bartholomew, K.

  Jeff rubbed the back of his head and glanced quickly at Drake. Thankfully, his friend wasn’t as gooey-eyed as the rest of them, and almost looked to be bearing out the benediction with irritation.

  “But just because our Supreme Leader is safe does not mean we can afford to drop our guards, not even for a second. These are critical times, gentlemen, we gross more than any other state in this so-called union, almost twice as much as the second. There will be plots, you can be sure about that. They will not let us go quietly into the light until they’ve tried every trick in the book, and a few that ain’t.” He paused and if he’d looked a few years younger before, now he looked like he was at death’s door.

  “Doctor?” Drake asked, taking a worried step closer.

  Graft held up a hand to show he was ok, though his voice betrayed the worry he must have been feeling. “Gentlemen, do you know why Washington’s been handling us with kid gloves?”

  “Nukes.” It was stated so simply by one of the large, heavily bearded brutes in a leather vest that revealed a badly misshapen, dull looking flag of the Soviet Union tattooed on his forearm. It did, now that it had been mentioned, sound like the obvious answer, because the United States was indeed known to keep a number of its nukes at the lab in Livermore, a mere forty-five miles due east of San Francisco. Those nukes were, doubtless, now in the hands of California. Talk about a bargaining chip.

  Graft sucked in air. “Oh, of course, if you’ve been watching the news, it would seem the most plausible answer and true enough, we would be in a diminished position without them but,” he sighed and rubbed at his eyes, “it is not the whole answer, nor even a quarter of it.”

  Jeff wasn’t the only one who straightened with that admission. What the fuck could possibly be better than a stockpile of nukes when it came to telling Washington to go fuck themselves?

  “Gentlemen, some years ago, the United States was stupid enough to site a bio-weapons research lab somewhere in the great state of California. Its aim was to create the world’s first super-soldier, one who could walk through fire, thrive at high altitudes, survive hours underwater, withstand bullets, even explosions. Though there are few shortages of volunteers willing to be probed, such an endeavor has proven difficult. Time. Baby steps. One of those baby steps has created a, sort of, halfway super-soldier. A super-soldier with more than a few defects.” One of the younger guys shifted his weight onto the other leg, Drake moved closer. “The last two years, ever since that … man … was reelected, our brilliant and brave scientists have been underreporting their progress, stalling, diverting, deceiving, outright lying whenever necessary. They did it all so well that when the United States brought troops up to our border, they needed a little convincing that we did, in fact, hold a deterrent with the potential to wreak overwhelming slaughter upon them. In order to do this, we had to … give them a little demonstration.”

  The auditorium was silent save for the faint whirring of the air conditioning.

  “Glasgow, Montana, is the most isolated town in the United States. Two months ago, one of our agents dropped by for coffee. A couple hours later…” he left it at that. “The army needed a week to find and put down every single walking bioweapon that began making their slow progress towards the next settlement nearly two hundred miles away.” He shook his head in silent admiration for whatever it was that had been created. “The entire town…”

  Jeff squinted as his innocent mind conjured images of poorly men and women with bad cases of flu and a selfish desire to spread it. Why did none of these people just drive to the next town, maybe find a doctor?

  “Let’s say they’re convinced, shall we,” Graft continued, “and have been made aware that the very moment United States troops cross over into independent Californian territory, we will assume it to be an act of war and shall act accordingly by unleashing upon them a nightmare the likes of which the world has never seen.” This fanatic meant it, completely, his tired eyes momentarily revealing the psychosis that lived behind them. That he already viewed California as an independent country was evidence enough that the man wasn’t right in the head and if nothing else, he was at least delusional.

  “Or, would have…” he continued before turning away, his shoulders visibly hunching and revealing even more his frailty. The silence was filled by the six men making brief eye contact, confused, worried, and then Graft turned back, the weight of the world showing heavily upon his face. “That same agent has been lying low in DC with a briefcase and an order to wait. To wait for that moment when Washington decides to commit suicide, at which time he would go for coffees in New York, Boston, Philly and Pennsylvania Avenue.” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’m told he’s partial to a ninety-five percent Nicaraguan Arabica, five percent Ethiopian robusta blend, black, no sugar, and served with a copy of the LA Times.” Despite it supposedly being a joke, Graft’s lips did not crack a smile. “He was to make the Black Death appear like a minor sniffle by comparison. That was our leverage, the reason we’ve not been attacked and why this fucking stalemate is now into its fifty-ninth day.” His voice had risen to a panic, enough to prompt one of the enormous leather-clad attendees to grasp the nearest bench for support.

  “Doctor, what the fuck has happened?” It was a shock that such a man could sound so high-pitched.

  “Gentlemen, it turns out that ghastly Ethiopian bean wasn’t the only thing to which our coffee connoisseur was addicted because two nights ago we received a cable from our man at the CIA informing us that they’d located and snatched the fool right out from between the fat thighs of a Brazilian honeytrap.” His teeth ground together. “And of course, he was drunk and had been bragging all about how he held America’s future in his hands.” There was a bang, presumably because the doctor had kicked the lectern. “Well, I hope the pussy was worth it because when they started the waterboarding, he bit into his cyanide capsule.”

  Drake punched the bench. “Fuck, do they have the briefcase and … and whatever’s inside it?”

  Graft was quick to wave a placatory hand. “The fool was ordered to keep it hidden until such a time it was needed. Right now, it’s buried in a field somewhere in Virginia, which seems about the one thing he did right.”

  A thousand years from now, some poor son-of-a-bitch farmer would dig it up, think he’s struck gold and instead catch some kind of illness they’ll have forgotten how to cure. Fucking communists thinking only of the here and now, never more than five minutes ahead.

  “Oddly, our back channels have not mentioned a word about any of this, the Americans have so far not tried to make capital on the discovery and neither are they gloating that they so easily foiled our major point of leverage. Though perhaps the most pressing question of them all is that now they are safe, why haven’t they stormed the border? Why aren’t they even now rolling into Sacramento, LA, Frisco and arresting every single one of the traitors? Why aren’t they securing the nukes at Livermore as well as our lab and everyone in it?”

  Once again, the doctor had stumped everyone else into silence. Jeff’s head was aching and he could sense that maybe the new regime was not as secure as he’d hoped. Drake looked like he’d just received the news that his mother had been hit by a bus.

  “The obvious answer, gentlemen, is that we must assume Washington wants us to believe we still hold that leverage, that we still have the upper hand.”

  All this intrigue was way above Jeff’s thinking capabilities and pay grade. Come to think of it, was he even being paid? His head was spinning.

  “The Supreme Leader has demanded an explanation and I’ve tested my brain most severely in efforts to come up with one. The only thing I can reason is that a full-scale invasion now would be too loud and would take too long, they’d have to begin by destroying our airfields, our anti-missile shields, telecommunications…” Graft flapped a withered hand to dismiss such an idea. “Not that we’d make it easy for them, but the minute they started down that road, we’d have more than enough time to destroy th
e lab and everything in it.” He came out from behind his lectern to add more gravitas to his next words. “No, they want what’s in there, which can only mean…”

  “They’re planning on surprising us?” Drake asked, uncertain. “They’re gonna storm the lab, secure it, and then begin with the airstrikes prior to rolling into California with their full might.”

  Graft nodded and betrayed no surprise that anyone besides himself had managed to work it out for themselves. “That was the conclusion I came to, which was indeed confirmed when our source at the Pentagon finally informed us of the intention to storm the lab, kidnap the scientists, test subjects, steal all the hard drives and everything else, in which case they must do it quick, before our agent no longer checking in would rouse suspicions.” If Joe McCarthy wasn’t right back in the fifties, he was certainly right now.

  Presumably, there were six vets of various American wars arranged in a ragged semi-circle, granting the elderly man a captive audience. That elderly man now looked to the man on the far side with the Harley Davidson leather jacket, a symbol of America if ever one existed, bushy black beard, bald head and small, red eyes. “Archie, it’s looking likely that you and your brother will have to destroy the lab.” His head turned slowly from Archie on his right, encompassing everyone, to Drake on his left. “You must all go. See it done.” He rubbed again at his tired eyes. “It will be a huge loss for us, though with our scientists safely hiding in Sactown, we can rebuild. We cannot, however, allow our research to fall into American hands. That would be the greatest disaster of them all.”

  “So, if and when they attempt a stealth operation against the lab,” Archie ran a hand through his obscene beard, “we blow it up,” he shrugged, “preferably with the SEALS inside, and then we blame it all on them?” He sounded uncertain on that last point. “Typical American aggression. We condemn them for destroying our institutions, killing our people?”

  “Maybe get the International Community behind us. And then we’ll have a pretext for separation?” It was his still unnamed brother who finished the rest in a voice that sounded like it’d passed through gravel. Together they looked like a pair of garden gnomes gone wrong.

  “Yes,” Graft confirmed, “we can make capital out of it. Let the world know they’ve committed an act of war, killed several of our most brilliant, and innocent, minds. We can hire some crisis actors and march their families out for the cameras. Beam it around the world.”

  Jeff had kept quiet because he knew when he was out of his depth, but there were too many obvious flaws in the plan to remain silent now. He coughed into a closed fist, prompting Drake to jerk in surprise. “What if your snitch is wrong? Or, more likely, what if the Americans change their minds about coming for the lab? The whole world is in fucking flux right now. We’d be destroying an asset for no reason, not to mention killing innocent people.”

  Drake had half-turned towards him, perhaps apprehensive that the guy he was vouching for was expressing doubts, even legitimate ones, at Graft’s wishes.

  The doctor threw up an arm. “Then either this rotten stalemate persists indefinitely or,” his face clenched and his voice came almost to the point of breaking, “they disregard the lab, march straight in anyway and arrest us all. Either way, I might die having never seen my dreams realized.”

  The other four men were all making sympathetic half smiles, they were fond of Graft, but Jeff couldn’t shake the fear that the doctor was being reckless simply because to do otherwise, to not gamble now, was to risk never seeing his dreams come true. It was a terrible justification for what amounted to a false flag attack.

  “The situation is indeed still in flux but this could be the one act of aggression we’ve been waiting for.” Graft made a small concessionary nod to Jeff. “It seems the Americans are still deciding what, if anything, to do about us, though however they choose to commit themselves, they know they must do it quick because our agent checks in every Sunday at ten in the morning precisely.” It was Friday night. He turned back to the two enormous brothers. “Rig the lab and the moment you see or hear the doors crashing in, SEALS landing on the roof, blow it, and take as many of them as you can with the building. The Americans will know it was us, of course, but we can fool the rest of the world and use what few allies we have to apply pressure, get more neutral countries to be sympathetic towards us, and if, as I hope, they are indeed foolish enough to attempt this, to take this juicy piece of bait, then we’ll ensure there’s a big enough mess to have the whole world believing them to be the butchers they truly are, deaths of their fellow so-called countrymen, and this will be our pretext to finally make our dreams a reality.”

  Jeff’s head was truly spinning. Again, he felt it necessary to risk the group’s ire because it seemed there was nobody else willing to challenge Graft on what was almost certainly madness. “What’s stopping the Americans from coming straight in after we blow the lab?” It seemed, at least to him, that once it was done there’d be nothing holding them back. A slight hitch in this brilliant, yet reckless man’s plan.

  “Absolutely nothing,” he confirmed with a worrying nonchalance, which pretty much said everything, “and when the people of California wake the morning after, they will find themselves immersed in a scenario that will make the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 appear like a kindergarten quarrel by comparison.” Graft’s eyes went glassy as he stared into nothing. “I was there at the time, you know, as a twenty-year-old idealist who was convinced that Fidel was God Himself.” His eyes were still glassy. “I met him, you know. Oh, my, what a man. But he knew that sometimes in this life, gentlemen, you have to take risks in order to get what you truly want.”

  Jeff felt the blood rush from his face, his skin went numb and he felt suddenly very cold.

  “You will all meet here at four in the morning. Your transport will be ready.” Graft nodded and flapped a hand toward the door in an apparent dismissal. The company began to shuffle out. “Gentlemen,” Graft said, suddenly louder than before, “you cannot politely ask for secession. If you want it, you have to take it. What we’re about to do will be remembered.”

  It had been Durrant’s idea to grab ‘a beer’ after the meeting with Graft, but after only thirty minutes, the tabletop now resembled the bar at Bagram after a night’s leave. Neither was it a large table, and Jeff didn’t like the way he was sandwiched between Archie and Miles, the two short but very large brothers who said they’d been explosive ordnance disposal specialists back in Iraq. Certainly, the younger brother, Miles, who was wearing a vile black leather vest that stunk of gas, was proud to show off his burned, twisted skin that covered the entire length of his left arm, from shoulder to wrist.

  “Got this in a BBQ accident when I was fifteen,” he laughed at having misled everyone, his brother rolled his eyes, evidently used to hearing the joke, “never handle burning coals in a shell suit. The fucking nineties, dude.” Evidently, he’d been a fashion disaster his whole life.

  Drake, Baker and Durrant laughed, Jeff smiled politely. After the intensity of the last hour, it was good to be out drinking with a group of guys who, for better or for worse, at least shared an aim. For the short term, anyway.

  Jeff was still unable to get over what he’d heard in that meeting. That Graft was a psychopath could not be doubted, a man who would likely be dead within a few short years anyway, and so was willing to risk nuclear war, or worse, just so he didn’t leave this world without seeing at least a part of America change from one economic system to another. It was madness, sheer fucking madness, his plan, his reasoning for it, as well as his ideology which, now that Jeff had spent a mere few hours around some of its proponents, could see that it seemed to rely an awful lot on wishful thinking, on the hope that things would just turn out right. A lot of people were about to get hurt and all for what amounted to something that was little more than a fairytale. Jeff turned his beer glass, took a sip, considered what Drake had said. Everybody’s guilty! And if this was indeed a war then people,
his own countrymen, would have to die and that, perhaps, was necessary. It wasn’t an easy thing to so meekly go along with, but one thing Jeff did possess was trust in Drake, his war brother. Horseman would not lead Jeff down a rabbit hole.

  “There’ll be some transitioning and it’ll probably take forever. You can’t just separate and expect life to carry on as normal, especially not when the jilted party’s trying to fuck you up at every chance.” It was Durrant who moved the discussion towards more intelligent matters. Jeff hadn’t pegged him as the quiet one, necessarily, but when around some of the other characters present, the bland, unassuming ones tend to go unnoticed. “Take for instance the water. Southern Cali gets over half what it needs straight from the Colorado River Aqueduct. The bastards have already shut it off and we haven’t even pulled away yet.” He was a tall, slender man with just enough muscle to make him appear useful but not too much to weigh him down. He wore a black hoody with the hood down in favor of a bandana, which since the meeting he’d donned to cover the man bun that was still tied up so that now there was a bizarre lump at the crown of his head. The bandana was also black with a scattering of red emblems, of which only the hammer and sickle was recognizable. It was the kind of thing a guy could get away with wearing in San Francisco, but not a great deal many other places.