by Ricky Sides
Herb was startled by the question, but also confused by the agent’s actions. “Why would he meet with us about disarming the people here, if he knew they planned to nuke us?”
“He may not know. They may not have told him about it because he was here with us and might feel compelled to warn us before he left. Face it, Herb. The government may consider us a liability. We’ve been in contact with the zombies several times. They may figure they can wrap this up nice and neat tonight.”
“Then you all should leave too, and we should warn the public,” Herb said.
“The instant public announcements are made, the government would just move up the launch time. Marx was right about there not being enough time to evacuate. Besides, I have nothing but theories at this point. I can’t prove anything, and without proof, I can’t be responsible for the deaths that would occur when people panic. He was right about that too. Now, you’d better get going. You should be well out of sight of the fireball before the missile strikes, but if you aren’t, remember not to look back at the flash.”
“But, Sergeant, I...”
“Get moving, Corporal. You’re running out of time. For all I know, he may have lied about the timetable, or the government may have lied to him.”
Herb nodded grimly at that assessment, and then he headed back out into the assembly hall. He found Randy beside his gear leaning back against the wall and cleaning his M4 for him.
“Grab your gear and come with me,” Herb said.
Randy got to his feet and snagged his gear as he moved to follow Herb toward the armorer who was working in his supply room.
“Ah, Corporal Bennett, Sergeant Shannon said you’d be along. He gave me a list of supplies for you. You guys must be planning one hell of a fight,” the armorer said. He set a large canvas satchel atop his counter, and then he added two web belts with holsters and army issue Berretta M9 pistols. “They aren’t loaded, but there are plenty of 15 round magazines for the 9mm pistols in one of these bags,” he explained to the men. Then he placed two more satchels on the counter. “Good hunting, guys. Keep it safe,” he said, and then he turned to his other duties.
Herb and Randy equipped the web belts, and then they grabbed the satchels. They were loaded down with gear as they made their way to the Humvee, which they drove to the motor pool. Herb exchanged the fuel cans as the sergeant had advised him to do, and then he filled the empty gasoline jerry cans.
Through all of this, Randy asked no questions, but when Herb stopped the Humvee beside his car, he asked, “Do you want me to get my car?”
“Yes. We have to leave town tonight. The sooner the better. We’ll be leaving the Humvee at my place. Now get moving.”
The two men, working together, managed to transfer their gear from the Humvee to Herb’s truck and Randy’s car in just a few minutes. They each contacted friends that they thought might want to leave with them, only to be informed in no uncertain terms that they had no intentions of going anywhere.
“We can’t waste more time arguing with them,” Herb said in exasperation. “We have to go. The Sergeant doesn’t trust Marx. He suspects they may nuke Athens too. By now, he has probably already told the other men that they are free to go as well.”
Herb changed into his civilian clothing, and then packed several sets of clothes, including his army issue uniforms and boots. By this time, Ox was letting Herb know that he did not intend to be left behind again. Not that Herb would, but Ox was jumping around and barking just to be sure. As soon as Herb finished with the loading of all the gear, he opened the truck door and said, “Get in, buddy, I have no intention of leaving you behind. Ox wagged his tail expressing his gratitude and jumped in the cab of the truck. Then they all went to Randy’s place where his friend packed his clothing and also changed into civilian clothes.
Herb made a final stop before leaving town. At their bank, the two friends withdrew most of their savings and checking account funds, and maxed out the cash advances on their credit cards. “We’re taking a vacation,” Herb told the curious bank teller.
The two men heeded Sergeant Shannon’s advice. They headed west to Florence and then took Highway 20 to the Northwest. They stopped at a cheap motel in western Tennessee around 10:00 P.M. After checking in, the men drove their vehicles across the road and filled them up with gasoline. Herb paid for the fuel with cash, just as he had paid for the hotel room. They would save the fuel they had in the jerry cans for emergencies. The jerry cans were flat sided metal containers that were great for storing fuel or other liquids.
They planned to rest on their beds in the room and watch the news. They knew that if Agent Marx had been on the level, then their home state was about to make the news in a major way. Neither was prepared for what unfolded that night. For that matter, neither was the rest of the United States, nor for that matter was the world. Never in the history of man had such drastic action been taken in the name of preserving a nation.
Herb was surprised when the cable news networks began to issue special breaking news bulletins at 11:00 P.M. They fed the country a version of Agent Marx’s story about the doomed Army Infantry Battalion in Decatur. However, they told it in such a manner as to make the public believe that the heroic forces were still there, fighting against superior odds of zombies. At 11:45, the news broke that the Commander of the trapped forces in Decatur had requested that the government use nuclear missiles to take out the enemy. He reportedly begged the President to avenge his doomed men who were dying as he made the report.
“What the hell is going on, Herb?” Randy asked. “Marx said they were already dead when he talked to us.”
“I think this is what they call a false flag operation,” Herb said. He explained, “By putting out these news stories, they’ll have a lot of people in the country supporting their action when they send in the missiles.”
“Most people are asleep now,” Randy pointed out.
“Yes, but you can bet all the networks will be running these broadcasts wall to wall tomorrow.”
At 12:00 A.M. local time in North Alabama, Minuteman III missiles struck Decatur, Athens, and Madison. At the same time, they hit Nashville, Tennessee and a rural area of Kentucky. The area adjacent to Lake Anna Virginia was also targeted as was Tunica, Mississippi. The American government had done the unthinkable. They had targeted millions of their inhabitants with nuclear weapons in an effort to save the rest of the nation.
Herb and Randy sat in stunned silence after that. Neither man had living relatives in the affected cities, but both had just lost friends and homes in Athens. They lay down in their beds and tried to get some sleep, but it was a long time coming, and when it did, they were both plagued by horrible dreams brought on by survivors’ guilt. Though neither man had said it, both felt they should have warned the people of Athens, although they knew that Sergeant Shannon was probably right. Such a warning would most likely have resulted in the government altering their timetable.
***
Around the world, airports began to turn back flights originating in America. The aircraft were permitted to refuel, but their passengers had to remain aboard. When they were ready to take off, the pilots were ordered to return to the United States.
American ships at sea were turned back with their cargos and passengers undelivered. Some were turned away at the point of the guns of naval forces.
American troops, stationed overseas were being recalled. All bases were put on alert, and the government dealt with the very real threat that other nations might take it upon themselves to finish what the President had started and launch all out nuclear war on America in order to prevent the spread of the parasites. The only thing that prevented that attack from happening was the very real threat of nuclear winter, if the country was carpet bombed by nuclear missiles. That, and the fact that the United States would have certainly responded with every weapon in their nuclear arsenal. That scenario was mutually assured destruction, so no other members of the nuclear club took that action.
Part 2
Apocalypse now
Chapter 12
The journey
“Should we go back?” Randy asked Herb the next morning as they sat in a small town restaurant and had breakfast.
Herb stopped eating and looked up at his friend. Speaking in a quiet tone of voice, he said, “There’s nothing to go back to, buddy. No, we shouldn’t go back there. It’s radioactive. What we need to do is get to that cabin and hunker down, because I don’t think this is over yet.”
Herb didn’t need to be concerned about being overheard. The big screen television hanging in the corner of the establishment was tuned to the news and most of the customers present were watching the coverage and shaking their heads in horror as they learned more about what had happened the previous night.
As a result of the events the previous night, most of the other nations of the world were recalling their embassy staffs. One departing ambassador from the nation of France lamented the fact that he had visited the Nashville zoo just days ago and everything in the city had seemed fine to him. He didn’t mention that there had been an incident when his wife’s poodle had gotten in a fight with a stray cat outside their hotel while being walked by one of his staffers.
As the two friends were finishing their meal, they learned that an accusation had been made that the government had tipped off the National Guard in Athens, Alabama. The unit based there had reportedly pulled out in advance of the missile strikes. The White House Chief of Staff quickly addressed that rumor when he claimed that the unit had gone to reinforce the Army Infantry Battalion in Decatur, Alabama. When that statement was challenged because the unit had been seen driving west on Highway 72, the politician said that it would have been necessary for them to detour around Highway 31, which was still covered in zombies and was impassable.
“At least the guys made it out,” Randy observed. Then he added, “What do we do now? I mean, I know we go to the cabin, but then what?”
“We offload our supplies and go get more while we still can,” Herb replied. “That’s not going to be easy either. The nearest town is a good thirty minute drive from the cabin.”
“We should have warned the others,” Randy said.
“We tried convincing our friends. Where did that get us?”
“We didn’t tell them about the nukes,” Randy said.
“They wouldn’t have believed us until it was too late. We would have just ended up getting arrested, and then where would we be, buddy?” Herb shook his head. “No, we did the only thing we could to ensure our own survival. We didn’t owe it to anyone to throw our lives away on a hopeless task.”
Herb got up and paid for their meal while Randy went to the bathroom before they resumed their journey. It was time to go. Randy needed to get his mind off what he felt they should have done. Herb had his own misgivings, but he knew he was right. Not even their good friends had been willing to leave their homes, based on what they had told them. Telling them about a nuclear missile strike would have seemed outlandish in the extreme prior to last night’s events.
As a precaution, Herb had left Ox beside his truck to guard their supplies while they ate. The animal greeted him when he got to the truck. “Bad, dog,” Herb admonished the canine when he saw a pile of defecation on the parking lot next to the driver’s door of a cream colored sedan. He had just gotten the big dog inside his truck cab when the owner of the parked car stepped in the feces as she got into her auto.
Herb winced as he thought of what that would do to the carpeting inside the lady’s car, not to mention her home when she arrived, but he said nothing because he wanted to avoid a scene in the parking lot. He and Randy were transporting enough weapons and ammunition to cause significant problems for them, should they have an encounter with law enforcement officials.
As the woman left the parking lot, she drove past a stray dog that barked at her car and chased it a few yards before giving up and walking down the side of the road. Herb thought the Chow mix looked malnourished.
He saw Randy exit the restaurant and head to his auto. “You have your map, just in case we get separated?” he asked his friend as he was about to enter his car. “We should get to the cabin in a little over two hours.”
“Hey! Did you see that?” Randy asked.
“What?” Herb replied.
“A hawk just crashed into the roof of that house and fell off into the yard,” his friend said as he pointed to a house across the street and a few hundred feet to the south.
“Nope, I missed it. We’d better get going,” Herb said.
“Looks like the people in the house heard it crash and came out to see what happened,” Randy said as he was getting into his car. Neither man saw the addled hawk fasten its beak into the arm of the man that reached toward it to try to assist the animal. With a savage shake of its head, the bird tore a chunk of flesh out of the man’s arm. The man jerked away from the bird and ran back inside his house to get his wife to help him stem the bleeding. A moment later, the hawk took to the air once more. Later that night, the man developed a raging fever and began to cough.
Two miles down the road at the motel where the two friends had stayed the previous night, one of the cleaning ladies, who had stepped in a spot where an animal had urinated, also developed the cough and fever, as did a lady who drove a cream colored sedan.
A bit over an hour into their drive, Randy phoned Herb to say that he was going to have to pull over at the next service station they saw.
“What’s wrong?” Herb asked his friend.
“I’ve got a bad tire. It must have a knot in it or something. It’s bumping badly and getting worse.”
“Okay, I know this road pretty well. I think the next place we could stop to get that problem fixed is about two or three miles down the road.”
“I hope I can make it that far,” Randy said.
“Don’t you have a spare?” asked Herb.
“Yeah, I’ve got one, but it’s one of those little donut tires, and the one I need to replace is on the front.”
“Damn,” Herb said.
“Yeah, that means it would drive like crap, and I’d probably have to slow down a lot.”
“Okay, let’s back off the speed a bit now and try to limp on down the highway to the service station,” Herb replied.
The knot in the tire got progressively worse as Randy drove along the roadway, but he managed to get the vehicle to the service station.
Ox growled when they stopped and Herb opened the door. “What’s wrong, boy?” Herb said to the animal who was staring out the left corner of the windshield at the corner of the building. Herb turned his head to see what the animal saw and froze in position. He saw several crows around the body of a cat. They were feeding on the animal.
Before Herb could stop him, Ox jumped out of the truck and barked at the crows as he charged them. The birds took to the air and flew away.
A man came out of the service station to see what Herb needed. “What the hell?” he said when he saw Ox running back toward Herb and the remains of the cat on the asphalt. “Did your dog kill the cat?” asked the man.
“No. You can see he has no blood on him. Ox chased away the crows that were feeding on the carcass,” Herb responded.
“I guess old Tom finally passed on. He was getting long in the tooth,” the man said sadly. “I’ve been feeding him for years. He was half wild.”
“Do you run this place?” Randy asked.
“Yes, I do. What can I do for you today?” the man asked.
“I’ve got a bad tire. It’s the passenger side front. I need it replaced.”
The attendant squatted down beside the tire and read the size. “That’s going to be a problem. I don’t have one in this size. I do have one that will fit the rim, but it’s one size smaller, so your car will pull to the right a little.”
“That’s better than getting beat to death by the bumping,” Randy said. He negotiated the price, and then he and Herb took turns
using the restroom while the man swapped out the tires.
Randy paid for the tire replacement and both men topped off their vehicles with fuel.
After the two men left the gas station, the attendant picked up the body of the cat and took it behind the shop. He dug a small hole and buried the animal. Later than night, he developed a cough and shook with chills as his fever climbed.
Fifteen miles down the road, Herb pulled over at a gun shop. Randy pulled in beside him and got out of his car. “How’s the tire handling?” Herb inquired as he got out.
“That guy was right. It’s pulling to the right.” Randy shrugged. “It’s still a lot better than that bumpy ride.” Then he asked, “Why’d we stop here?”
“I need to see if they have any .22 ammo. I’m short on that, and never had the chance to get more.”
“Okay, you want me to stay outside?”
“No, you come on in with me. Most shops these days have a limit on the .22 ammunition. They sell 100 rounds per day, per person. So if that’s the case here, you can make a purchase too.”
Inside the gun shop, Herb saw that the manager was having a slow day. There wasn’t a soul in the store. The old man at the counter was busy watching the news that was reporting outbreaks in Huntsville, Rogersville, and Priceville Alabama. Additional incidents were reported in Fayetteville, and Lynchburg Tennessee.
“Excuse me, sir,” Herb said to get the old man’s attention.
“Oh, hello there. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. Can you believe what’s happening?” the old man said with a shake of his head.
“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Herb responded.
“I never would have thought I’d see the day when we were attacking our own cities,” the grizzled old man replied as he rubbed the graying scruff on his face. “What can I do for you gentlemen today?” he asked.
