by Rick Chesler
“I’ve uploaded everything I have so far on the research. Sharing it with your lab there at Langley.”
“That’s enough for now,” the president said. “We’re not sure of DeKirk’s reach, or what he can tap into, but we don’t want to tip our hand in any way if this can help. So no word on the Dyson research or this failsafe to anyone. In the meantime, Agent Winters?”
“Yes sir?”
“I need you to perform an extraction.”
“Sir?”
“Dr. Grey is too valuable to leave unprotected, and…with what we can extrapolate from the tactics and behavior of this army of things…the CDC is a prime target.”
“I agree, sir,” Veronica said nervously. “So send in the National Guard to get her out of there, to a secure location…”
She stopped as he was shaking his head. “You don’t understand. All forces are already engaged, or were pulled to other strategic sites to engage the enemy. They would take too long to redirect, and with these things and the way they spread the infection, less is more.”
Veronica swallowed hard. She met Arcadia’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Grey said. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to spend your time saving, and you must have a hundred questions about why I didn’t do more to stop my former boyfriend, but I just hope you’ll understand—”
Veronica’s tone was icy. “I do. You might be our only hope.”
“Exactly what I was going to say,” the president added, then glanced nervously to something on another screen on his end. “Going to have to cut this short. You two work out the logistics, and Agent Winters, there’s a pilot waiting at Andrews. Take anyone else you need, but limit it to one or two more. Get in, extract Dr. Grey and any research materials she needs, and get back in the air. You’ll be heading to Colorado.”
Veronica nodded. Washington might soon be lost. They were already considering the backup plans, and if that was so, everything had gone to shit a hell of a lot faster than she imagined. She wondered if the alternate shadow government waited in Colorado or if that was too obvious. NORAD could be controlled by the shadow leaders after power was transferred, but it was best done from a more remote location. She just wondered where…
She nodded, and as the president—looking grim and pale—disappeared from the screen, Veronica turned her attention to Dr. Grey.
“I’m sorry,” the CDC Director said again.
“Don’t be.” She met her gaze, and they held it together—a look of shared loss, pain and regret. Veronica finally broke the silence.
“When you think about it, we have to be thankful now we never stopped Dyson, because if not for him, I guess we wouldn’t have any hope right now.”
“I hate to admit it, but you’re right. He was a bastard, but a goddamned genius.”
Veronica matched her thin smile. “Okay, tell me about the CDC headquarters, and let’s come up with a quick plan for extraction. I’ll be there in under two hours unless we hit a snag.”
“Like a dinosaur roadblock?”
“Don’t even joke. Can you survive until then?”
Dr. Grey nodded. “Can you?”
17.
CIA Special Agent Debbie Harris, after leaving the last in a series of briefings—quite possibly the last ever from this president—headed to the roof. She had to make a call on the secure satellite phone, but it was too risky inside the building, and likely jammed.
She had to reach DeKirk and warn him. The CDC…they had something. She’d only overheard bits of the details, but a mission had just been green-lighted. Top priority extraction of someone or some information down there. Too urgent to share over conventional channels. She knew DeKirk was concerned about the CDC, but he didn’t assign it high enough value to merit a first-wave strike.
This was why he had chosen her, why she’d been on his payroll for years, doing nothing except listening. Sure, she occasionally fed his associates information on the CIA manhunt or the investigation into his finances, but that was nothing new for him—he had it covered and was well protected. Her updates had probably just served as entertainment and to confirm how far ahead of his hunters he remained.
This, however, he hadn’t foreseen. It was still a long shot, but Agent Harris wasn’t taking any chances. If the president himself thought this was the highest priority, she had to convey it to DeKirk, and fast.
Rounding a corner, phone in hand, she gingerly stepped past a pair of bodies—guards with nasty bites in their necks and bullet holes in their skulls. She choked back an involuntary rise of bile, then looked up at the nearest full-wall length window as an F/A-18 fighter jet tore across her view. She heard high-caliber machine gun fire from somewhere below, and explosions from outside while she approached the elevator bank, pressed the UP button and continued to stare at the scene outside.
Trails of smoke rising from city streets. Buildings on fire. Giant bird-like shapes in the air, swooping down on motorists and into the midst of crowds. Chased by numerous planes, aerial battles occurred in a surreal, almost theatrical display as more fireballs rocked the city.
She felt detached, beyond it all. Didn’t know whether to smile or choke back revulsion. She had been a part of all this, at first an unwilling part as DeKirk had kidnapped her daughter. That had only been a first step, a bluff, in essence. He’d let her go long before Harris knew about it because by then, he had her. She had divulged national security secrets, a treasonous sin punishable by death. There was nowhere for her to run, and she was his. She had to continue to serve in any way he wanted.
Still, there were rewards. He knew how to offer incentives as well as threats.
A new world order was coming, a grand feast, and those who had proven themselves would earn a place at the table.
Harris gripped the phone tighter and turned away from the horror outside, praying that the end would come swiftly for all those out there who woke up this morning thinking it would just be another day.
She thought of her daughter and prayed that she took her mother’s advice and got to Alaska, the safe zone she had been promised would remain as such…but there was no time to think about her now.
The call. The CDC mission. She had to warn DeKirk, and surely this act would seal in her reward for good. Maybe even elevate her position for such loyalty and fast-thinking.
Come on, she thought. Damn elevator, open already, op—
The chime sounded and the doors opened. Harris smiled and was about to step in when she recoiled in horror.
The elevator was already occupied.
Three women and a man—torn open in all the wrong places, their flesh and clothes ripped apart and all merged into some unholy mass of crimson and other colors, highlighted by protruding bones, the flesh stripped and gnawed on by the other woman in the cab.
Old, bald. Drenched in blood, with ragged bits of raw meat and muscle stuffed into her mouth, sharp teeth sawing the flesh to bits. Her throat was engorged, the muscles swallowing methodically like a python.
Elsa Ramirez lifted her head slowly, and those eyes, tinted yellowish now and swimming with still-unfulfilled hunger, settled on Harris.
She let out a low, deep sigh. The agent knew the call would not be made, but her reward was nonetheless at hand.
Elsa leapt up in a rage, bloody hands and snapping teeth finding their target.
Harris went down, her neck torn open in mid-scream. The phone sailed out of reach and Elsa went to work on the agent’s flesh with unbridled passion and renewed hunger.
18.
Alex fled at the roar of the gunfire, where fighting sounded like it came from all directions. He felt trapped, cornered in a confusing series of hallways and stairs and empty rooms, without backup or support or any other sign of life. He heard snarls and rending noises from inside one room, the door slightly ajar. Peeked in to see a young woman in a smart navy suit straddling over a thrashing man. Under any other circumstances, Alex might have thought something entirely different
, but he heard the wild screams, saw blood spraying as she whipped her head back and forth, tearing at the soft flesh under his chin.
Goner, Alex thought, and backed away, easing the door shut.
He wished he had a gun. Didn’t even have to be anything fancy at this point. A revolver, even a knife. Anything. He had to find someone with a spare weapon, or find a dead body with one still on it.
There. A pair of legs around the next corner, under a blinking red alarm light. The sound had gone silent, but the pulses continued. As he approached the body, he wondered how much of the facility had fallen. Where was his mother, and was she the cause of it all? He had brought her back here against his better judgment. She was his mother, the only link to a past he had regretfully squandered. Since his return from Antarctica, he had wanted to make things right. Somehow, any way possible. He should have seen the signs, should have known it was too good to be true.
The building shook violently and Alex grabbed the wall for support. What the hell was that? He imagined a plane had just been taken down, its wing clipped before it crashed into the base of the CIA building.
Whatever it was, it passed without further destruction. He advanced on the body, coming within yards of the man’s feet. Another step, and in the flashing crimson radiance he could make out more of the corpse. Saw a sidearm—still holstered at the belt, under a dark red stain down the front of the guard’s shirt.
Then suddenly, swiftly, the body was yanked backwards, almost out of sight. Alex leapt back, stumbled and fell hard, grunting.
Whoever or whatever pulled the guard certainly heard that. Alex froze, unwilling and unable to make a move. If he got up, the sound would alert the thing, and if he stayed still, it would surely round the corner and see him—if it didn’t smell him already.
I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m…
He saw the hair first. Bloodstained and grayish-blonde. Actually saw blood dripping off the fine strands before he saw the crazed yellow eyes, the face and neck—with chewed flesh pulled free. He was surprised the head was even still on, with all that damage. Muscles and sinews bitten clean through to the vertebrae. The head lolled to the side, but the jaws still snapped and the tongue circled obscenely through a gash torn from the right cheek.
He recognized the woman from the briefing room. She was Agent Harry or something. Veronica thought she was a bitch, and now…now that bitch had seen him. She leapt over the dead guard who might have been her first meal, and bounded on all fours toward Alex. Her head flopping back on her left shoulder, a horrible hissing sound issued from her throat, rising in pitch.
Alex reared back reflexively, lifted his knees to his chest, and as Agent Harris pounced, his feet caught her in her bony chest. His legs bent back, then pushed hard out, sending her high in the air—
—as gunshots erupted and bullet holes riddled her body from her collarbone up. Her skull split open and splattered the ceiling with gore while she continued her descent and rolled back on the floor, limp and completely dead.
Alex turned around.
Veronica was there, AK-47 in both hands, still aiming down the sights.
“Nice shooting,” Alex said.
“Thank you,” Veronica replied, lowering the gun, “for the assist. Hated her anyway.”
He got up swiftly, walked around Harris, then got to the guard and retrieved the Beretta 9mm just as the corpse started to twitch.
“Damn it, hate when this happens!” He cocked it, thinking Veronica wouldn’t get there in time. Aimed, then backed up, keeping his arm straight and level as the body shifted and the zombie sat up, head swiveling, blood still draining from great tears in his throat and shoulders.
The red lights flashed, the body rose, and still he couldn’t fire. Not because of the horror of the moment or the fact that this was just a normal guy a few hours ago, but because another figure had entered the hallway.
Stepping out from elevator doors a few yards away, shuffling aimlessly ahead, sniffing the air as if seeking departed prey, or fresh meat, his mother turned her head, and found him.
She licked her blood-stained lips and crimson-chipped teeth, and ran.
#
Alex shifted the gun’s aim. Only partially aware of the guard rising up now, getting to his knees, snarling, drooling. He could sense the hunger but despite the proximity of the threat, his brain could only react to the other threat: his mother racing toward him, arms outstretched for a last grisly embrace.
“Mom, no!”
Gunfire behind him, a grunt to his side, along with a sick, splattering sound.
“…not your mom, not her…” came a distant voice.
Alex didn’t hear it fully, didn’t comprehend. Or perhaps he did, but on some other level altogether.
What he did next, he did not do out of reflex, self-preservation or even mercy.
He did for another reason.
“Love you…” he started to say, but had the words snuffed out as he pulled the trigger.
Three times. Two of the shots missed, the third punctured his mother’s forehead and dropped her at his feet.
He stared at the body, face-down. Not twitching, not moving.
So at peace.
He didn’t even hear Veronica slide to a stop behind him. Didn’t see the gun pointing at the guard, then his mom, then Agent Harris’s body, sweeping the hall for other threats.
Didn’t feel her touch his shoulder or next, her body pressing against his back then wrapping her arms around his chest.
Didn’t hear her whisper apologies in his ear.
He turned away from his mother, sliding fully into Veronica’s embrace.
Held her tight in the flashing lights that seemed to pulse in slower increments. Held her until another exterior explosion rocked the building and rained dust and debris on their heads.
“We better move,” she said into his ear. Gently. There was no other way. Nothing else to say. She held him close, tense, ready to prevent him from turning around again for another look.
“You did the right thing,” she whispered. “The only thing.”
He nodded, feeling a tear slide against her cheek. His or hers, he wasn’t sure, but he knew Elsa had found her way into Veronica’s heart as well these past few months.
He swallowed hard and nodded. Pulled back and looked into Veronica’s eyes. He needed something, some hope to cling to now, something to fight back the terror of what was happening here, and outside—and who knew where else in the world?
“I started this. We…” he glanced over his shoulder despite her attempt to stop him. “We started it.”
“No,” Veronica objected. “If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone or something else. DeKirk had a thousand options for how to release this hell upon the world. He just wanted to get back at you because we did our best back there on that island. But if using your mom hadn’t worked, he would have infiltrated the CDC some other way. He was too many steps ahead of all of us.”
“So what do we do now? Is there any hope?”
She didn’t answer at first, just held his gaze. At length, she nodded.
“Yes. You’re coming with me.” She broke the embrace, slung the gun over her shoulder and took his free hand.
“Where?”
“Well, first, we’re fighting our way out of this building. Then we’re going to get to a vehicle, and then race to Andrews Air Force base…”
Alex paled. “Driving? Out in that war zone?”
“Yeah, sounds easy, doesn’t it?”
“Then what?”
“Tell you on the way. Come on, move it.” She squeezed his hand. “And don’t look back again. We have a shot at this, but I need you focused and in control.”
Alex took a breath. “I’m with you. I have scores to settle.”
“You will.” She steered him around the bodies and toward the elevator. “Trust me, you will.”
19.
William DeKirk swallowed the last of a still-twitching meal, hungrily che
wing it into digestible pieces and then ingesting them wholesale in several giant gulps. After wiping his lips on a piece of his last meal’s shirt—a green golf polo—he sat back down in the great leather swivel chair. His hunger momentarily satisfied, he returned his attention to the screens, the giant monitors all split into multiple scenes, varied locations and news feeds.
It was all going so well.
Baltimore was a smoking ruin. It looked like a mob riot had spilled out from the stadium and now overran the city. So many people…zombies, he corrected himself. He sensed their need, the driving power behind the ancient force.
Atlanta was a war zone where a line of National Guard forces, including a pair of tanks, tried to hold off a countless mass of zombies, ragtag but powerfully fast, some cut down but then replaced just as quickly. There was air power—helicopters and a few F/A-18s, but they were unwilling to fire on the populated regions yet. Which was just as DeKirk expected. They were circling, trying to zero in their efforts on the dreadnought—which, as DeKirk hoped, was drawing their attention and leaving the infection free to spread even faster elsewhere.
The dreadnought, he was sure, could also hold its own. It was nimble, fast and so damn big that not much could bring it down. It was crunching through residential and commercial areas, preventing a full scale attack upon it for fear of harming civilians.
Sure, it wasn’t born a carnivore, but the hunger and bloodlust had been instilled in it from the prions all the same, and its sheer destructiveness was more than sufficient for DeKirk’s purposes.
He had the advantage. The pilots and the military would be too cautious. Unprepared and unwilling to do what had to be done. Waiting for commands that were too long in coming. The only way they could win, the only way to stop the spread of the infection, would be to firebomb the afflicted areas. Maybe even nuke selected cities.
No way. The president was a wild card, but even he wouldn’t take such drastic action. At least not at first, and by the time his advisors warned him that there was no other option, it would be too late. The spread was inevitable, unstoppable.
