by Jeff Abugov
They nodded to each other then kicked off to begin the final leg of their trek. They pedaled down the small slope and across the road, drawing the attention of the street-zombies who turned out to be even easier to avoid than expected—or maybe the kids were just getting better at it. They dumped their bikes on the grassy lawn in front of the small structure then raced toward the door.
“Help!” Patrick shouted as he burst inside, then instantly realized his mistake.
There on the ground before him were six zombies in deputy uniforms gnawing on the dead Sheriff’s body. Upon hearing the boy, the creatures left the skeletal carcass and headed toward the new fresh meat.
“Jiminy Cricket!” he shouted.
He flung off his backpack to yank out the large shovel, but it was stuck on something inside. With no time to struggle with it, he swung the backpack in front of him in a semicircular motion, back and forth and back and forth again, knocking the zombies away from him but sadly allowing them to remain undead.
Rhiannon, who had by now slunk off to the side, whipped her shotgun off her shoulder and took aim.
“What are you doing?!” Patrick shouted at her. “You’re just going to attract more of them!”
“No choice now,” said the pixie as she aimed her shotgun right at the boy.
“What are you doing?! Stop!!”
She fired! The spray whizzed over Patrick’s shoulder and into the zombie’s face, one of the fragments cracking straight through its dull left eye.
“He almost had you,” she told him, then turned and fired at the other deputy-zombies who, having been attracted to the sound of her gunshot, were now heading right at her. Patrick raced to the wall and grabbed the first weapon he could reach, a pump-action shotgun, then began firing upon the zombies as well.
The zombies on the streets, scattered across many different roads, heard the gunshots and began to limp toward the building en masse.
The children’s aim was good but not flawless, and they both knew that only perfect shots to a tiny part of the brain would kill these creatures—anything else just knocked them back for a moment, after which they’d come at them again—so they scurried about to maintain a safe distance as they blasted their shotguns like deranged little psycho-killers. Pump! Bang! Pump! Bang! Pump! Bang! Bang!
Patrick was by now standing on a deputy’s desk blasting away like a madman. Rhiannon was not far off as she fired her spray into the right cheek of the last of the deputies. The zombie went down, crashing into the open front door, but there was no way to know if it was actually dead so she went to it and rammed the butt of her weapon into its skull.
“No!” Patrick shouted.
The street-zombies were heading into the building right behind her—and Patrick couldn’t fire at them because there was too much risk he’d accidentally clip the girl with his shotgun’s spray. He leapt off the desk and raced to the door, charging into it shoulder first, slamming it shut as he hit the ground, the wood door knocking the zombies back and severing a rotted hand off one of them. The boy jumped up fast and dead-bolted the door then took a deep, relieved breath.
“Windows!” Rhiannon shouted.
Patrick turned fast to see clumps of the creatures worming their way inside through the open windows. He raced to one while Rhiannon raced to the other. They used the butt of their weapons to knock the creatures back, then slammed the cell-like bars closed and dead-bolted them secure.
The children scoured the room to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
The zombie-deputies and Sheriff lay on the ground motionless, their heads shot up or crushed to bits, sufficiently dead. The zombies on the other side of the windows howled pathetically as they reached through the bars to grasp at the children, but the bars would hold firm. The zombies on the other side of the door whimpered and scratched and clawed and pounded, but they clearly lacked the strength to ever break through.
Patrick and Rhiannon were safe.
But they were also trapped.
Then Rhiannon ran into the twelve-year-old boy’s arms, wrapped her own arms around him, and sobbed like the seven-year-old girl that she was. “I hate this!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Of all the sniper units on all the rooftops, only eight had managed to make it into their respective helicopters and up to the sky, and only one of the eight had been able to make a complete and actual getaway.
The mood inside the chopper was grim as the gang flew home. They were exhausted, beaten, and humiliated. Even Johnny had ceased trying to lighten the mood. There had been far too much loss for anyone to smile.
The harsh silence was finally broken when Sanchez turned to Harve and offered with a trace of a sniffle, “I don’t blame you, Sergeant. Miguel volunteered.”
“Blame me if you need to, Sergeant,” he said softly. “Doesn’t matter to me. Just remember your brother was a good man, and he died bravely and with honor.”
“Si,” she said sadly. “He did. He was.”
She took a towel from one of the supply packs and wiped her face, removing the green alien pus that had yet to harden. “You know, I don’t even blame the pinche bugs who did it. They were soldiers just like us, following their orders, just like us.”
“That’s true,” Frank said as he considered such a notion for the first time.
“But I’ll tell you one thing,” she went on. “Whatever bavoso is in charge of those cockroaches, I am going to find him and take him down. Personally! And this I swear on the heavenly soul of my brother. Their leader will die by my hands.”
“Well look at you,” Johnny said with a smile. “Even after everything you’ve been through, you’re still a firecracker.”
“Honey, you got no idea.”
*****
It was late afternoon when the Bell 407 set gently down upon the helipad. Harve, Frank and Sanchez disembarked to find the Canadian Lieutenant waiting.
“Sergeant Sedar!” snapped the officer.
“Yes sir,” Harve said as he and the other weary grunts snapped a salute.
“The President wants to see you, Sergeant.”
“Me?”
“Way to go, Sarge!” shouted Frank as he slapped his friend on the back. “He’s probably gonna give you a medal for what you did back there!”
“Not now, Frank,” Harve hushed then turned back to the Lieutenant. “Should I clean up first, sir?” Harve asked. “I mean, he’s the President of the United States. And even if he wasn’t, he’s a great man. Look at me, I’m filthy.”
“The Commander in Chief didn’t specify now or later, soldier, so let’s assume he doesn’t want to be kept waiting. Let’s go.”
“Yes sir.”
“Wait, sir!” Sanchez interrupted, then handed the Lieutenant the alien-rifle that hung from her shoulder. “I brought this back from battle. Maybe someone can find it useful or helpful or something.”
“Nice work, Sergeant,” said the Canadian as he flung the weapon over his own shoulder, then turned back to Harve. “Sergeant.”
The Lieutenant moved off and Harve followed. Frank and Sanchez mumbled good-byes then headed off in opposite directions toward their respective quarters. Johnny, having put his bird to bed for the night, raced out and followed after Sanchez. He couldn’t help notice that she seemed to be wobbling as she walked.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked sympathetically as he strolled alongside her.
“Si,” she answered, and Johnny could tell that she was lying.
“Listen, if you need someone to talk to –”
“I’m fine, Captain.”
“Johnny.”
“Captain,” she insisted.
“Captain Johnny?” he offered with his charming smile.
“Dios mio,” she exclaimed as she came to an abrupt halt. “Are you still hitting on me? Even now?”
“No, I promise,” he said sincerely. “I was when the day started, I admit it, but this is a genuine offer to lend an ear, nothing more. Scout’s honor.
Although to be perfectly honest, I’ll probably take another shot at you once you’re done mourning.”
She glared at him, then couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “You know, for someone who tries so hard to come off like a jackass, you can be kind of sweet.”
“A bit of a mixed message, but thank you.”
“How’s this?” she began. “For now I just want to be alone, but gimme some –”
Then she collapsed into his arms, unconscious.
“Even more of a mixed message,” he said to himself as he held her.
*****
Northbank’s St. Vincent’s Medical Center was the largest hospital in all of Jacksonville, and it was packed beyond capacity. The lobby itself had become a mere extension of the intensive care unit that no longer had space for the critically wounded. Soldiers lay moaning and screaming on gurneys, their bodies ripped open and bleeding as they awaited someone, anyone, to provide treatment. The understaffed civilian medical team raced from one casualty to the next to determine which of the critically wounded was the most dire, and it was a constant, heartrending decision for them to make.
“Yet one must wonder why only America has been targeted,” said the anchorman on the TV on the wall. “And where the aliens will attack next.”
This was the chaos into which Johnny ran as he carried the unconscious Sergeant Sanchez in his arms.
“Somebody! Help!” he shouted.
“In Europe,” the anchorman continued, “The public responded negatively to their nations’ reenactment of the draft. Protests abound in Germany and England while the French have turned to riots.”
“Anybody?” Johnny continued. “Please!”
A haggard young doctor approached quickly, removing a pair of plastic gloves and throwing them into a bin marked hazard without breaking stride.
“I got this one!” he yelled to his coworkers as he put on a fresh pair of gloves.
“We were walking back together,” Johnny explained. “Some might say I was harassing her but I believe she liked it—then all of a sudden she just passes out.”
The doctor took a quick look at Sanchez and groaned. “Not again. Orderly!”
“What’s wrong with her?” Johnny asked.
Two orderlies arrived with a stretcher—the hospital’s stash of gurneys having been depleted long before. Johnny gently laid Sanchez upon it, and the young doctor noticed that some of the green blood had rubbed onto his shirt.
“Oh damn,” said the doctor who immediately proceeded to examine the pilot’s exposed skin—face, ears, hands.
“What’re you doing?” Johnny said. “I’m fine.”
“We’ve had a lot of soldiers coming in with these same fatigue issues,” the frazzled doctor told him. “Fainting spells, loss of consciousness, complaints of feeling weird or strange—and all splatted with alien blood like your friend here.”
“What is it?”
“We don’t know. An allergy, a virus maybe. But look around. We don’t have the manpower to deal with it so we’re putting anyone who’s had direct contact into quarantine.” He ripped open Johnny’s shirt to examine his chest to see if any of the green pus had seeped through. “I think someone sent a sample to the CDC in Atlanta to find out—I hope they did, I don’t know, I got my work cut out for me here. Okay, you’re clean.” He carefully removed Johnny’s shirt from his back and tossed it into the hazard bin, then realized that the orderlies were still there, awaiting his instructions regarding Sanchez. “Oh right, you guys. Yeah. Get her into quarantine with the rest of them.”
The orderlies hustled off Sanchez in one direction while the doctor darted off in the other toward another wounded warrior, and the TV anchorman droned on.
“But nowhere is it worse than in China where a historically subjugated people take to the streets against a government in lack of an army to protect them.”
“Her name is Anita Sanchez!” Johnny shouted at the orderlies. “Take good care of her! There’s something special about that one!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Vampires?” Peyton asked incredulously.
He stood in the living room of his new quarters, the posh penthouse suite of Jacksonville’s Omni Hotel, and he could not believe what he was hearing, nor understand why he was hearing it.
“Yes, vampires,” insisted former First Lady Laurel Addison.
“Come on.”
Despite his ill feelings toward her late husband, Peyton had always been fond of the woman, his only friend during his lonely tenure as vice president, and he had always sensed that there was a depth to her that most others just missed. So what was all this about? Had the loss of her husband caused her to snap? Had the revelation of alien invaders been too much for her? Was it something else entirely? Whatever it was, he felt obliged to humor her—he owed her that much.
“They’re real, Peyton,” Laurel went on. “I should know, I’ve been killing them since I hit puberty.”
“A second ago you said they couldn’t be killed.”
“Well, only by me,” she explained. “Well, people like me. Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter of a—it’s complicated. The point is that they exist, and they want to help us. And you more than anyone know that we need help.”
“Is this because I didn’t make it to Michael’s funeral? I’m really sorry about that, but I’ve got this extermination-of-mankind thing to deal with and –”
His well-meaning condescension was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Come!” he barked.
Harve entered timidly, straight from the helipad, still grimy and sweat-drenched from battle. “You wanted to see me, Mr. President?”
“Yes, Sergeant. Come in.”
But Laurel wasn’t ready to give up. “What will it take to convince you, Peyton? You want to meet one?”
“Oh sure, why not?” groaned the Commander in Chief. “It’s not like I’ve got something more important to do.”
“Bring him in!” Laurel shouted through the open doorway then turned to Harve. “Sergeant, would you mind getting the drapes? Not the inner, sheer ones but the outer, thick ones.” She reached into her purse and tossed him a roll of duct tape. “And then seal them tight please. Very tight.”
“Um, yes ma’am,” answered Harve who still had no idea why he was there.
Secret Service Agent Denison, now in his Marine major fatigues, wheeled in a cart on which laid an elegant walnut casket.
“Okay, let’s see that vampire,” Peyton said as he looked at his watch.
“Wait for the Sergeant to finish please,” Laurel replied.
Not another word was spoken as they waited for Harve to complete his task. “It’s done, ma’am,” said the Sergeant as he put the tape on the coffee table. Laurel nodded to Denison. Denison knocked thrice on the casket, then took a step back.
The casket top creaked open. A moment later, Julius sat up so slowly that one could almost hear the Gothic organ music that wasn’t playing in the background. He remained sitting, silent and motionless, a stunning specimen of a man in his denim jacket and dungarees, then ominously turned to Peyton.
“Hello,” he said.
“Um, howdy?” Peyton replied.
The President didn’t even see the man hop out of the coffin but there he was, standing right before him, grasping and shaking his hand.
“My name is Julius, and it is a tremendous privilege to meet you, General,” he began enthusiastically. “And when I address you as ‘General’ it is not to be disrespectful. It is merely because as a politician you are crude and inept, but as a military leader you are in the league of Charlemagne, Hannibal and Alexander.”
All awaited Peyton’s response as he rubbed his chin and tried to make sense of the bizarre theater being played out before him.
“So he’s good looking and sleeps in a coffin. Doesn’t prove anything,” the President said at last.
“Touché, sir,” the vampire said with a smile.
“Tell him, you m
onster,” Laurel urged.
“No words could convince him.”
“Then why’d you have me—then what are we doing here?”
“That is to say it can only be shown,” Julius said as he turned to Harve. “My good Staff Sergeant, if you’d be so kind, draw your sidearm and point it toward me.”
Harve had fulfilled the First Lady’s request to seal the drapes only because it had been the polite thing to do—but there was no chance that he was going to obey this strange fellow. There were only two people in the room who could give him orders—the Marine Major and the great man himself—so he turned to the President for guidance. Peyton merely shrugged and nodded, seemingly at a loss himself, so Harve drew his pistol and pointed it at Julius.
“I will now attack you, Staff Sergeant,” the vampire began. “And you must defend yourself. If you don’t attempt to kill me, I will most certainly kill you.”
Once again, Harve looked to his Commander in Chief.
“Fine, I dunno, kill him. Is this going to take much longer?”
“Please, General, indulge me but a moment more,” Julius said, then looked behind him to be certain that no one was there. “Are we ready, Sergeant?”
Harve unlocked the safety and cocked his weapon. “Sure.”
With dramatic flare, Julius raised his arms up and outward as if a bat. He hissed and revealed his long, pointed fangs, then transformed to mist and flew straight toward Harve. The startled noncom discharged his weapon but the bullets whizzed through the mist only to riddle the wall behind it with holes.
Before anyone could see it, too fast for the human eye to even comprehend, Julius was behind Harve, his powerful arms wrapped around the big man to keep him in place, his fangs a mere inch from the Sergeant’s neck vein.
The vampire waited but a moment to allow the point of his demonstration to sink in, then he released the Sergeant from his clutches with a proud and confident smile. He patted Harve on the shoulder to commend him on a job well done, retracted his fangs and straightened his denim jacket. “Et voilà!”
