by Rick Chesler
Suppressing a grin, Remington spun around and sought out the other target—the first monster’s mate, flapping up heedlessly toward him.
Have some more, he thought, arming the next missile. Game of chicken? It only took a second, but time seemed to slow down as he felt drawn into the thing’s ancient implacable gaze and had a moment’s wonder at what vistas it had once seen, and the long eons it had perhaps slept, waiting for this day, when it would be destroyed by a technological marvel invented epochs after its birth.
This day, this instant, Remington simultaneously launched the missile and banked upward, then accelerated.
He felt the explosion, the shockwave rocking the rear of the aircraft. He stabilized, checked the radar and saw the blip gone, even as he turned and caught a glimpse of smoking wings fluttering into the sea.
Grimly content, he flew back around, heading for the carrier, which now seemed eerily quiet.
“Alabama, this is Cessna 1104,” came a new voice on his comm. “Anyone out there? We are coming in, low on fuel, and need to land soon.”
Damn it, Remington thought. Forgot about that nut job. He grabbed the radio.
“Cessna 1104, do not approach. I repeat, turn back. I am ordered to escort you from U.S. airspace. This is the last place you’d want to be, anyway, take my word.”
“Please,” came the response. “I’m carrying an elderly passenger, and we don’t have fuel enough to make anything but the Florida coast. Unless I can try to land on the Alabama.”
“That’s a big fucking negative,” Remington shouted into the mic, executing another flyby. He saw no activity, just bloodstains and one grouping of those human types who appeared to be feasting on a body. Where were all the others? Inside already?
His heart sunk. Then it was already too late.
Thinking of all his comrades, his friends for the past tour or more, some of them, he could almost hear the screams of terror and pain from below.
The transceiver crackled again. “Did you just shoot down a pterodactyl?”
“Yeah, two of ‘em, and…listen, you might want to turn back unless you want the next one of those birds to crash into you.” He could see the Cessna now, flying low, heading over the cargo ship—that silent interloper—and approaching the carrier.
“Sorry, I can’t, and by the looks of things, the Alabama isn’t a viable return for you either.”
“What do you know about it?”
“More than you would believe. If the zombies are already on board, then the ship is lost, the men already turned.”
Zombies.
“Jesus. Zombies?”
“You believe me, don’t you? You’ve seen it.”
“Who is this?”
“My name’s Alex Ramirez. Radio ahead to D.C., or whoever you can get on the line. I need to land, I can help, but I need to be on the deck. Ask for CIA Agent Veronica Winters. She can confirm all this.”
Remington flew under the Cessna, then up and around again, leveling off and doing a pass over the cargo ship.
He checked his missiles. Shit. None left, or I’d take out that freighter, orders or not. He scanned the deck and saw nothing; it looked for all intents and purposes like a ship on autopilot, aiming for a path around the Alabama.
“Goddamn it. All right.” He ascended and caught up to the Cessna, then slowed to keep pace, leveling and looking to his right, into the cockpit where he could see the young man, and confirmed the elderly woman sitting next to him.
“I’m your escort. Don’t leave my side until we land. If you deviate one inch, I’ll blow your ass out of the sky.”
“Gotcha.”
“I will be calling ahead, verifying your story with that Agent Winters, and ordering a quarantine team and a squad of soldiers to greet you. You don’t exit the plane until ordered to do so, and when you do you come out with your hands up. Both of you. Again, if you deviate…”
“Yes yes, you’ll blow us to smithereens. Got it.”
“Great. Welcome to America, kid.”
He leaned back, shut off the channel and tried to raise HQ. One last glance at the smoking wreckage of the Alabama’s control tower, then back to the freighter, continuing now unabated.
He had some really bad news to deliver, and if this was just the first wave of the attack, they had a lot to do to get ready.
9.
Fifteen minutes after the two planes left the smoking ruin of the USS Alabama, the freighter, as if remote-controlled, arced around the immense defender and its now undead crew. On the carrier, a row of zombies stood along the deck’s edge, ex-marines and others, rocking slowly as they sniffed the salty, humid wind, staring off toward the Florida coast.
The freighter continued for a few more miles, reaching within twenty miles of the shoreline where Miami glittered in the sun’s sinking rays. The ship traversed the serene waves, until the first drone aircraft zipped overhead and dropped its payload.
A second later the warhead detonated right on target—slightly off the freighter’s bow, at a sufficient distance calculated to tear apart its aft hull, shattering its engine compartment and leaving it dead it the water, where it would sink with its cargo hold exposed and visible…for the second drone which passed overhead moments later.
The Reaper drone gathered its visual data and relayed them back to Washington, then veered slightly southeast—and readied its own payload.
Two warheads, launched with inhuman precision and cold indifference.
The missiles separated and streaked toward their shared target—the center of the USS Alabama.
The silent figures stood impassively on the immense dock, uncomprehending, unaware of their fate. Just watching with dead eyes and ravenous hunger that would never be sated.
10.
Langley, Virginia
After two tense hours of reviewing evidence, scouring satellite feeds, disseminating mission information and reviewing her former debriefing with the joint chiefs, military planners and the president’s chief of staff, Veronica finally took a seat, along with the rest of the room as they watched the drone mission unfold in real time.
The smoke was still clearing from the bombing of the freighter, but on the split screen she watched with a numbness spreading throughout her body as the missiles took out one of their own—the majestic USS Alabama, sinking one the greatest assets of their own navy.
She watched in what should have been abject horror as the carrier split and the fiery halves tilted and sunk, extinguishing the billowing flames.
“Two hundred sixty lives lost,” someone said, and Veronica knew that at last they all realized the extent of the contagion, of what they were up against. Those figures on the deck…nothing remained of what they were or had ever been. Their families would be told the truth: that they had died valiantly defending the homeland, and their bodies could not be recovered.
Veronica shook her head. “I still don’t understand the enemy’s tactic,” she said, breaking the silence as she shifted her attention to the other screen and the debris field around the sinking freighter.
The Chief of Staff cleared the obviously large lump in his throat. “They got us to take out one of our own largest defenders, and opened up a path right now that we’ll need to seal in. I’d say that was pretty fucking brilliant, as far as tactics go.”
“Yes, but those resources—two pterodactyls and how many zombie soldiers lost?”
“Obviously they hoped to retain the air power, hadn’t counted on our skilled pilot’s fast reactions, but as for the foot soldiers…they can make more of them, and fast. An unlimited supply, if what you claim is true.”
“Can we get a closer look at that freighter’s wreckage?” Veronica asked, trying to peer through the smoke and the blurry image sent back by the drone.
“Working on it,” someone said.
Veronica took a breath and glanced at some of the other screens in the room, including the largest one, over her right shoulder, displaying a map of the southern/eastern
US and full of color coded lines and dots and symbols, indicating flight paths, vessel coordinates and locations of naval and Coast Guard blockades.
One of the techs came running in from another room. “Sir, we have a call coming in from pilot Major Casey Remington. Priority One. He’s escorted the Cessna into Miami’s auxiliary landing strip and is asking for support. Asking to speak with Special Agent Winters.”
Veronica stood up. She had been following the approach with apprehension. She had told command that despite her relationship with Alex and his mother, it was inadvisable to let them into the country, and especially so after she was patched in to Alex and heard the details—something about a rapid escape from Grenada, from a suspicious facility and miracle cure. It all seemed too obvious, and yet—his mother had no symptoms. Still, they could check her out, quarantine her and Alex there and wait.
The Chief glanced briefly at Veronica. “No time. Change of plans. The president heard the situation and wants them delivered to our CDC branch in Langley. There’s a biohazard team standing by. So tell Major Remington to transfer this Ramirez and his mother to his plane, refuel, and get back here ASAP.”
Veronica winced. “Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea to bring them here. Miami could work just as well.”
“Sorry, but we don’t have the facilities, and we don’t have you. We need your expertise in figuring this out, and in debriefing her. Grenada? We looked into it, and it’s completely off the radar. Whatever they’re working on there might be connected to all this, and right now Mrs. Ramirez could be the only one who can give us clues. You know her, and so you can do the debrief and get us some intel.”
“After making sure she’s not carrying the prions,” Veronica muttered.
The Chief nodded and turned his attention back to the main screen. He mumbled something to his aide, who fiddled with the controls and enlarged the view of the freighter wreckage to cover the whole screen.
He stood up along with half the room, everyone jostling to get a better view.
“What the hell?”
Veronica craned her neck, moving to see around a couple of analysts. “Oh shit!”
The water was littered with broken crates and smoking flotsam, but the crates that had opened had spilled their precious cargo. Cargo that now floated on the waves, floated for them all to see, drifting in mockery.
Hundreds upon hundreds of stuffed animals.
Veronica’s voice dropped. “Birds?”
“Fucking penguins,” said the Chief of Staff, who sat heavily in his chair.
“A diversion,” Veronica said. “Jesus. All that…was just a diversion?”
She looked back to the screens of the blockade tactical positions along the eastern seaboard—and now saw multiple contacts breaking off from the stalled positions of incoming vessels. They streamed through softer areas and made a break for the coast.
11.
Undisclosed Bunker Site
William DeKirk watched the screens through the slots between his fanned fingers. With heightened senses and his brain in hyper-activity mode, he took it all in, feeling like he was a computer, calculating thousands of permutations each second for every action he saw, like a chess-playing computer plotting a dozen moves in advance for each one of his opponent’s possible moves.
He watched the same screens Veronica was looking at, but from an opposing tactical standpoint, rooting for the little red bogies, urging them on, but knowing deep down that there was very little doubt as to how this ended.
The enemy had to stop each and every one of those intrepid little invaders, and DeKirk only needed one of them to get past the blockade and unleash its infectious cargo.
He liked his chances… He liked a lot of things these days.
Sighing, he licked his lips. He would have to call down for more food soon. The hunger, while temporarily in check with a host of enzyme blockers and neurotransmitter dampeners, stirred regardless. His stomach rumbled and his mouth watered.
Focus. There would be more than enough time to give in—occasionally—to the primal need and allow himself to gorge, to feel the bloodlust and satiating pleasure of tearing into the freshest possible flesh—live flesh—devouring the living amidst their screams. He had tamed that primitive urge for now—focused it, made it bow in service to the larger picture, to the ultimate feast.
The world would soon be his.
This ancient life form—well, it would have its wish. Its evolutionary paradigm would be fulfilled, despite its chaotic chemistry, despite its self-destructive nature. DeKirk had tamed it and given it the means to achieve its destiny—and his.
He watched, taking in the little dots of red, those that engaged the blue ones, those that skipped by on the way to softer targets, those deemed low priority risks. Not the big cities, but smaller, softer locations. Nevertheless, they were real places where real people lived. Real America.
Perfect targets, ideal footholds on the climb to conquer the nation.
His fingers tapped at keys to call up an overlay to the screen’s real-time events: a projection based on his modeling program layered in with each team’s mission.
Red lines streaked ahead from their points of origin. A good portion of them fizzled and winked out, expected casualties, while others dashed through unabated, touched down—and spread a crimson tide that gushed out in all directions, streaming faster toward the nearest populated center, then expanding and expanding some more. From the south and northeast, from the Mid-Atlantic, it was unstoppable once it began, expanding across the country until America was bright red.
DeKirk’s saliva poured out now, dripping onto the keyboard until he noticed and pushed it away, licking his lips and swallowing.
Maybe he would call for an aide right now. Everything was going so perfectly, he could afford a little snack.
Besides, he thought, it wouldn’t do to be distracted by hunger when the moment came, when the grand revelation and master stroke of his plan would finally be revealed, when he would announce his presence and his position.
The world would fall to the undead and undying.
12.
National Harbor, just south of Washington, D.C.
The Jefferson family strolled along a boardwalk constructed on the bank of the Potomac River. Peter Jefferson and his wife, Pamela, had a tough time convincing their two teenagers, Sandi and Aimee, to forgo their usual Caribbean trip to visit the nation’s capital. Even now, walking past a row of touristy shops along the water’s edge, it was clear the girls weren’t thrilled with the decision.
“I sure wish I were lying on a nice hot beach right about now,” Sandi said.
Peter raised his hands in a come-on-now gesture. “We’ve gone to the Caribbean every year for the last five. It’s time to mix it up a little! And you know, with our last name, we must be related to one of the founding fathers. It’s time to pay homage, am I right?”
“No.” This from Aimee, the younger of the two by a year, who somehow managed to hear what was going on, even with her ever-present ear buds.
Sandi took over. “If we’re direct descendants of Thomas Jefferson, then how come they won’t put us up in the White House instead of staying at the Holiday Inn?”
“Well, I wanted to keep our vacay low-key, without all the paparazzi and media attention we’d have if everyone knew our true family heritage.”
Pamela Jefferson looked out across the water, laughing softly to herself while Sandi went on.
“Yeah right, Dad. And that might not be so bad, anyway. Nothing ever happens around this boring old place, unless some nut job tries to jump the White House fence. I mean, look at this place, it’s so tedious, there’s—”
The water in the middle of the river began to roil.
Mom pointed. “Hey, there’s something!”
“What?” Dad asked. The whole family looked out over the river at the disturbance.
“I don’t know, it looks like something’s coming up.”
Aroun
d them, other people were stopping along the river to stare at the commotion. The leading edge of a ripple created by whatever was rising from the river reached the concrete seawall, gently splashing against it before reflecting back out into the river again. More fingers pointed toward the watery upheaval.
Suddenly, a wall of water surged forward from a central point, much larger and more forceful than the initial ripple. This was a wave, several feet high, barreling toward the river bank.
“I see a fin!” Aimee had actually removed her ear buds. Mr. Jefferson’s eyes narrowed as he looked to where his daughter pointed. Indeed, a sail-like fin sliced through the water’s surface, coming straight at them on the concrete river bank. His wife looked around, as if to see if she could find an indication that this was some kind of tourist attraction or publicity stunt for…for what she didn’t know, but something, right?
Instead, as the first water was pushed up and over the seawall to rush up against their feet, she looked back to the river and watched as what was now clearly a gigantic animal of some sort rose higher from the water. Instinctively, Peter Jefferson began herding his family to one side, not knowing what they were facing but sensing it was best to stay clear.
“Look out!” a nearby tourist shouted to a kayaker on the river. The man in the tiny boat had been taking pictures of the boardwalk area and turned around too late to stop his kayak from being overturned by the approaching beast. Shouts of terror erupted from the onlookers as a giant mouth opened on the aquatic sportsman.
Even from this distance, the Jeffersons could see the teeth in that mouth. But that was not the worst of it.
