The Apocalypse Crusade Day 4: War of the Undead

by Peter Meredith

  2—10:22 p.m.

  —Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport, Massachusetts

  Courtney stared across the radio and towards the hanger doors, which shook every time a jet blazed down the runway with blue flames shooting out behind. “We’re going to need to rescue them,” she said to General Axelrod. “I know what you’re going to say…”

  “That the answer is no?” he asked. “It’s not that hard of a guess when we’ve already had this discussion. I have my orders.”

  “She’s come through for you twice already!” Courtney cried, slamming her fist down. “What more do you need? A cure? If she could get you a cure, would you let her out?” Before he could answer, she grabbed the mic and hit the send switch. “Deck 1, I’m working on an extraction for you, but we might need some promises concerning a cure or maybe a vaccination for the zombie virus.”

  Axelrod shook his head, the overhead lights glinting from his shining dome. “Promise me you have a cure and I’ll let you out?” he asked in amazement. “What kind of bullshit is that? How on earth am I supposed to believe anything she says?”

  Just as he finished the question, Thuy came back on, asking, “Ms. Shaw are you saying that a rescue is contingent upon me having or being able to create a cure or vaccination?”

  Although the general shook his head, Courtney quickly said, “Yes. The general here is stubborn, but I know I can find someone who’ll agree with me that you and your research is vital.”

  Thuy was slow to reply. She had dropped down into the bottom of the basket again and was leaning against the lone propane tank. “I don’t wish to deceive anyone. My knowledge may prove vital and it might not. First, I should note that a vaccination isn’t possible, at least not in the traditional sense. The Com-cells are not viral in origin. Secondly, I don’t know exactly how the Com-cells were sabotaged, which makes finding a remedy problematic. I can’t guarantee a cure, Ms. Shaw.”

  Courtney’s shoulders slumped and the mic in her hand suddenly felt heavy; she dropped it onto the table. “So, do you believe that?” she asked Axelrod.

  “I do,” he said. “It’s too bad I can’t reward such an honest answer.”

  “Someone will, General,” Courtney said, picking the mic up again. “She said that a cure was ‘problematic’ she didn’t say it was impossible. I’ll find someone above you who’ll make this happen, and if she dies in the meantime, who do you think they’ll blame?”

  Axelrod opened up his laptop, saying, “No one’s going to say, shit. There is already a team going after a cure in someplace called Walton. We received a flash message from the White House about an hour ago.”

  He showed her the message and she gasped. “This says the team is being led by two scientists who once worked at the facility. They’re talking about the people who sabotaged the project in the first place!” She grabbed the mic and practically yelled into it, “Thuy, there’s a team heading back to Walton. Anna and Eng are on it. Supposedly they’re looking for a cure.”

  “They won’t find one,” Thuy answered. “There are some of the original Com-cells, but they’re not a cure. They are molecule specific for cancerous tumors. Not to mention they’ve been unrefrigerated for days now. Their fusarium levels have to be kept at a specific level.”

  “Ask her why?” Axelrod demanded.

  Courtney did and Thuy answered, “The test subjects that were given Com-cells with higher levels of mycotoxins all developed symptoms that were similar to rabies, including the extremes of hyper-aggression. If Anna and Eng try to pass these Com-cells off as a cure, which I fully believe they will, we’re going to have a new problem on our hands. We could have a new outbreak occur somewhere where we least expect it.”

  Axelrod cursed long and slow, “Fuuuuck,” letting the word draw out. He then thumped the table and yelled, “Captain Durr! Find out what’s going on with the mission into Walton. Dixon, see what sort of info you can dig up on…what’s their names?”

  “Anna Holloway and Shuang Eng,” Courtney said.

  The two wouldn’t find out much. Almost seventy miles away, Anna was begging Special Agent Katherine Pennock to: “Please, please, please unlock us.” She held out her manacled hands. “We got the cure for you and we’ve been pardoned. It doesn’t make any sense to try to run away or do anything untoward. We just want to be able to defend ourselves.”

  “You want to defend yourself? Then pick up your damned shield and get back in the corner. I don’t need you to…” A lurking figure to the right caught her attention and she put a finger to her lips. The five of them tensed, hoping the creature would turn away as the last two had. This one kept coming and now the five slunk low in the cubicle they were hiding in.

  There was a pretty good chance that if they stayed quiet and still, it would miss them in the dark. It did not. Although its face was mostly eaten away, its sense of smell was still intact and it turned towards them.

  “Son of a bitch!” Katherine hissed, pushing Anna back and lifting her mop and planting the sponged end of it squarely in the thing’s chest. Jennifer had a mop as well and she too thrust hers at the beast. Straining with all their might, the two of them were able to hold the creature back and keep its attention as Joe Swan went around the side of it.

  He held a length of iron pipe as long as his leg and he swung it Babe Ruth style at the creature’s shredded up face. The blow was jarring, stinging Swan’s hands and yet, the creature didn’t fall. It took two more whacks with the pipe before it dropped and one heavy blow to the crown of its head to kill it.

  “I hate this,” he snarled. “Killing them like this is…is disgusting. It’s not human.” It was barbaric, alright, however they didn’t have a choice. After they had grabbed the Com-cells, they had fought for an hour against the zombies which seemed to crawl out of the destroyed building like cockroaches. It took half their ammo just to fight their way down to the second floor, where things got crazy. Without real walls, the zombies came from every direction, even from beneath the rubble that made up the floor.

  Eventually their ammo began to run dangerously low and Eng had finally drawled, “You’re just attracting more of them with the guns. Maybe you should think of something else.”

  They didn’t have much in the way of options and had settled on this mop-mop-pipe routine. That and a bunch of sneaking around. It had worked, and they were alive. What’s more, they had managed to elude the majority of the zombies, and found an intact window at the end of the building that faced out towards the front entrance and the helicopter beyond it.

  The grounds were destroyed. The heavy metal gate around the property was a twisted wreck and there were gaping holes everywhere from the bombings. But the helicopter was sitting pretty as can be all by itself.

  “Here’s the plan,” Swan said, “you guys make a distraction in the lobby and then retreat here. While you’re doing that, I’ll sneak out to the bird and get it going. It’ll only take a minute or two so once you see the blades going, shoot out the window and make a run for it.”

  The plan seemed perfect, only they hadn’t taken Jaimee Lynn Burke into consideration. She had heard the guns going off and had been afraid. She didn’t like guns. They could hurt her. And she didn’t like bombs for the same reason. Then the bombs and the guns had stopped, but where were the screams and where were the people?

  They were hiding, but she knew they’d come out soon and in her cunning mind, she saw where they’d go. She and her pack had crept to the big black machine and hid, waiting for that exact moment when the pilot would come. He’d jump in his seat and start messing with all the gizmos and dials and all the rest. He wouldn’t see little Jaimee Lynn, who was still black as night.

  And he didn’t.

  Swan counted to thirty after Katherine and Jennifer started shooting and then he ran, bent at the waist, for the helicopter. None of the beasts saw him and with his protective mask clouding up, he didn’t see the littlest ones until it was too late. He had just started the engines going an
d the blades whirling when something launched itself at him, coming from behind him.

  Jaimee Lynn’s teeth sunk into the armored collar. “Fuck!” Swan cried in alarm. He was unhurt, but frightened beyond the measure of his opponent. With the mask and the cramped conditions, he assumed that it was a full-sided zombie and he panicked, opening the door of the cockpit and falling to the ground.

  He had left both the pipe and his M4 leaning against the side of the bird and as he reached for the gun, Jaimee Lynn leapt out of the Blackhawk. The armor had been a nasty surprise, but then she saw the hand reaching for the gun and went for that. Before Swan knew it, she had his trigger finger between her teeth and was biting down with all her might. He punched her twice with his left hand and when she fell back, she did so with his finger still in her mouth.

  “Fuck!” he screamed, his shocked mind split between the horrific pain and his need to turn the gun on the beast and kill it before it did something really bad to him. In his shock, he didn’t realize that he was infected or that his finger had been bitten off. He tried to grab the gun, but his bleeding hand wasn’t cooperating. His grip was wrong and it was only when he looked down that he saw his finger was gone completely.

  He was still staring, his mind reeling, when Jaimee Lynn thrust the gun aside and went for the man’s underbelly, discovering to her utter fury that he was armored there as well. Recovering himself a little, Swan used the M4 to bash her aside, but two more of the zombie children were on him, trying to tear him open with their teeth.

  Swan wasted two full seconds forcing his middle finger into the trigger guard only to find that they were too close to get the gun pointed properly. Luckily for him, the little zombies were just discovering that his armor made him impervious.

  To Jaimee Lynn, he was like a turtle in its shell. It was aggravating and, more out of fury, she snatched up the pipe Swan had set aside and brought it crashing down on his head. It bounced right off his Kevlar helmet. Although she was only nine and not the biggest of nine-year-olds, she had an unholy strength about her. Still, it wasn’t enough to even scratch the helmet. But it was enough to stun Swan for all of a second, giving her time to hit him again and again and again.

  By the fourth hit, Swan seemed to lose the ability to control his body and he fell back, staring up at the whipping blades of the helicopter as Jamie Lynn dove in at his exposed neck.

  3—10:41 p.m.

  The Situation Room

  The President watched Swan’s death on a live feed, with his lip curled and his jaw set. “So much for a cure,” he said. He hadn’t believed there was one anyway. In fact, he didn’t know what to believe about anything. How could he with all the lies flying around him?

  “Should I recall the drone,” one of the officers from Homeland Security asked. There were three of these officers. Supposedly they were loyal to him. Supposedly. Only time would tell and it was almost time to discover where everyone really stood.

  “Yes. Send it to Wilmington. I’d like to give those other drone operators a rest. They’ve been flying for hours, right Marty?”

  Marty Aleman felt his politician’s smile freeze in place. “They switch out the operators, sir. I’m sure they’re doing fine.”

  “Is that right?” the President asked, staring so hard at his Chief of Staff that Marty was afraid to move a muscle. Somehow the President had changed. That morning, he hadn’t been able to answer the simplest question from a fawning press, now he was his own man, and it was terrifying.

  Being his own man didn’t make him a good man or even a smart man. He was directing phantom armies in a battle that had already moved on, and Marty didn’t need a background in military sciences to know that the President was worse than an amateur. He was an inept amateur with God-like powers and an inflated view of himself.

  And now he suspected the truth that he’d been lied to over and over again. He hadn’t said it yet, but Marty knew and it made him want to get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness. The president had never been a forgiving man, however. Even when he was Marty’s puppet, he had carried grudges over the smallest of slights—of course back then, the penalty for angering the President had been being sat near the bathrooms at state dinners.

  Now, he had real power and there were real consequences. Marty began to squirm under the President’s stare.

  “So, when do I get to tour the lines?” the President asked. It had been almost two hours since he had come up with the idea and he had heard three different excuses: not enough pilots, not enough fuel, not enough advanced notice for the pool reporters.

  It had been this last excuse that tipped off the President. The White House correspondents had been begging for any scrap of news. Hell, they mobbed him anytime he went to take a leak. “I went by the press room and they all tell me they’re ready. In fact, they’ve been ready for ages.”

  “Th-the Marines are…need more time to-to-to get the fuel for the helicopters. R-Remember, you wanted five of them?”

  “I remember. Let’s go talk to Heider about that.” Without waiting, the President breezed right past Marty and into the waiting elevator. Feeling like a whipped child, Marty hurried after. Once in the elevator, the two stood in brittle silence. It felt like the air had the structure of thin glass and any word would shatter it as well as any sense of sanity Marty had left.

  That sanity was strained to the breaking point when the elevator doors opened and Marty saw that the lobby was filled with people. Among the dozens of Secret Service Agents, there were a smattering of congressmen and reporters with their cameras running.

  “Mister President! Mister President!” they shouted, jostling each other, stepping on each other’s toes, and talking over each other: “What’s the big news? Are we winning? Has a cure been found?”

  The President finally saw them as Marty always had: they were dogs begging for scraps—and he was their master. He raised his arms for silence. “I have some very grave news. There has been a coup attempt against me.” He paused to allow the gasps so as to increase the tension, just as Marty would have suggested. “Yes, treason has been committed by some of my closest advisors, including…” He pointed at Marty Aleman.

  Marty froze, his eyes huge, his mouth unhinged and open. He knew he had to do or say something to fix this, only this was live. He was without his usual scripted remarks and rehearsed looks. He didn’t have his talking points memorized and he didn’t have his carefully researched rebuttals that he always loved to snap out of thin air.

  The best Marty could do was shake his head and say, “I n-never…”

  “Careful Marty,” the President said, his face grim. “Everything you say will be used against you in your trial. You might be forgiven for lying to me, but I can’t forgive you for lying to the American people.”

  “Trial?” Marty said, going light in the head. He could hear his pulse: whah-whah-whah racing in his ears.

  The President nodded sadly, wisely, like a father who was being forced by an unruly child into doing his duty in not sparing the rod. “Yes, a trial. You…” He pointed at a Secret Service Agent. “Arrest this man on charges of treason.”

  The agent hesitated and shifted his eyes to his superior. They had known that “things” were being kept from the President. For the good of the country, they had been told—and they had believed it. They knew him almost as well as Marty Aleman. They knew what a weak, self-absorbed and useless man he was.

  But he was also the President and they were sworn to protect him. The agent in charge nodded, reluctantly. Marty was dropped to his knees, frisked and handcuffed, all with the cameras rolling.

  Feeling the moment, the President went to stand over Marty. “Give me the names of your co-conspirators and I will try to be lenient with you.”

  Marty Aleman was undone. No lie in the world could get him out of this. He could only try to mitigate and manage the fallout. “Carlton Francis, the Secretary of Defense. General Heider, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. George Cook
, the Secretary of Homeland Security.” He knew the President suspected them already.

  The press gasped as one, while the President shook his head, his eyes closed as though hearing the names pained him, though secretly he was glad. He hadn’t wanted to torture Marty, but he would have to get those names. “And what about General Phillips?” the President asked.

  Phillips was in up to his neck, but Marty knew that out of all of them, he was the most vital. The outcome of the war teetered on the knife’s edge. It was still winnable, but only if a real leader was in charge. General Phillips was that leader, and he was irreplaceable.

  “No, not General Phillips. He was just following orders.”

  “Like a good little Nazi?” the President demanded in a voice that echoed like thunder in the near silent building.

  In spite of his predicament, Marty appreciated the question and the way it was delivered with righteous indignation. It was a party staple to castigate opponents as Nazis, but in this case, it wouldn’t work.

  “No sir. He was following orders like a good American soldier. Heider told him to report only to himself, but didn’t tell him why. General Phillips had no clue about any of this.”

  The President stared hard into Marty’s eyes, a sneer twisting his lips. “Maybe, maybe. Or maybe he’s the real leader of the coup? Doesn’t he command the army? The actual army? The army that should have won this a long time ago? I see what is going on. He let this drag out to undermine me. You all did. But you didn’t just undermine me, you also undermined this great country and I won’t stand for it a second longer.”

  He suddenly turned and walked a few feet away, snapping his fingers at the lead Secret Services agent. “Have Phillips arrested,” the President said to the officer in a whisper. “Him and his staff. And Platnik. And Axelrod. And whoever is supposed to be running the 3rd ID. They’re all in on this.”

  The moment felt like something out of The Godfather. It was a “cleaning house” sort of moment in the President’s mind, while in actuality he had just cut the head off of his military and like most things, decapitation generally leads to death.