Someone knocked on the door. "Enter," he called. He hoped the eggheads were having better luck coming up with a solution than he was.
It was a soldier, a young sort, not the sort of dull-eyed veteran he was used to ordering around. He could almost smell the kid's unease as he stood there. He turned away from the majestic view of burning Portland and said, "Speak."
"Sir, we just received notification that the President and the rest of the cabinet have been moved underground. Things in D.C. have escalated." The soldiers eyes became impossibly wide.
Fucking part-timers. What was it now? The General turned to see what had the kid so spooked. As he spun around, he had time to glimpse a helicopter spinning out of control, infected civilians and soldiers hanging off of the skids. The pilot was fighting the bird, and it was spinning directly towards them. The General had time to wish for a cigarette before the main rotor hit the thick glass of the skyscraper.
The room erupted in a shower of deadly glass shards, one of which went right through The General's mid-section. He didn't even have time to fall as the helicopter disintegrated and then erupted, spewing fire all over the 35th floor of the second tallest building in Portland.
Much of the wreckage of the helicopter fell to the ground. Throughout the city, dead, unfocusing eyes turned their attention to the explosion of the skyscraper. They watched the flames with impassive faces, their feet moving at a methodical pace towards the place where the latest sign of prey had come from.
All around the city, the living hid in their houses, peering out the windows, waiting for the dead to come calling.
Table of Contents
Also Available From The Vocabulariast
FOREWORD
Prologue
Chapter 1: Zeke
Chapter 2: Mort
Chapter 3: Rudy
Chapter 4: Teach
Chapter 5: Joan
Chapter 6: Clara
Chapter 7: Through a Garden Hose
Chapter 8: Nightsticks
Chapter 9: Dustin and Bill
Chapter 10: Code Red and Endcaps
Chapter 11: The Munchies
Chapter 12: Haldol and Bite Wounds
Chapter 13: Use Your Head
Chapter 14: Speakerphones and 12-Gauge Shotgun Shells
Chapter 15: Old Han
Chapter 16: A Total Lack of Trumpets
Chapter 17: From Worse to Worser
Chapter 18: Pop-Tarts and Paint Thinner, the Breakfast of Champions
Chapter 19: Iceman and Busy Signals
Chapter 20: Never Too Late
Chapter 21: Katie Bar the Door
Chapter 22: Making Stories
Chapter 23: Check-In Time
Chapter 24: Roasted Goat
Chapter 25: Ace is Number 1
Chapter 26: The Shopping Cart of Salvation
Chapter 27: The Mortician
Chapter 28: A Message to You Rudy
Chapter 29: Fixed-Gear Only
Chapter 30: Molly
Chapter 31: Observation
Chapter 32: Boot Camp
Chapter 33: The Last Tear
Chapter 34: Quarantined
Chapter 35: The Long Way Home
Chapter 36: This Old Cell
Chapter 37: Hot Chops
Chapter 38: Hey, Neighbor
Chapter 39: As Day Breaks
Chapter 40: On the Road
Chapter 41: The New Katie
Chapter 42: Friends and Murder
Chapter 43: Til Death Do Us Part
Chapter 44: Swords and Flames
Chapter 45: To Sleep or Not to Sleep
Chapter 46: Becoming Chaos
Chapter 47: I'd Like to Make a Collect Call to Armageddon
Chapter 48: Move Over Rover, the Army is Taking Over
This Rotten World (Book 1) Page 20
