"Five," came the tannoy.
Andrew smiled once at Hope, turned and ran through the back opening, leaping high as he exited the Galaxy, his arms spread like a bird. He fixed his gaze on the Bulldog dragging along behind them knowing he had to slam himself into the front of it. His thoughts flashed to his family, it felt good, it felt warm, bringing a smile to his lips.
Blade had the tracks on the Bulldog locked yet the screaming Galaxy pulled it along like a sledge over the tarmac creating a high pitched squealing. He kept a close eye on the wheel rack under the right hand side of the colossal aircraft trying to get a glimpse of Bruger, uncertain if he was still there or had slipped off and been missed by him. He ran options through his mind as to how to get out of the mess he was in. The red mist that had caused him to blindly follow Bruger had evaporated leaving reality behind. Then his brow creased as his eyes picked out something strange, there was a man flying through the air streaking towards him, his arms spread wide like a bird.
#
The pilot of Stealth Three released the long silver tube that contained the anti-matter device at an altitude of just under 5,000 feet and banked the aircraft away to the west. The tube would strike the ground in just under three minutes, the ignition would be immediate, all of this was known, what was not known completely was the result as the anti-matter was unleashed. He opened the throttles to their maximum and made a silent prayer, home was calling and he wanted to be there. "Base this is Stealth Three, the package has gone and I am homeward bound."
"God Speed," replied President Nelson.
#
"Noooo," screamed Hope. "Andrew.”
Saphire took the distraught child as Anderson and The Preacher ran to the edge of the tail ramp just in time to see Andrew slam into the front of the Bulldog.
Blade found himself laughing, it was so surreal. Hell it was god-damn funny. A flying man was about to slam into the front of his Bulldog. The smile remained as Andrew crashed into the bonnet, he had timed it perfectly, releasing the detonator arms three seconds out so that when he struck, the two L109A1anti-personnel grenades filled with RDX explosives erupted, shattering the winch and releasing the cable anchoring the Galaxy to the runway. The fragments from the steel shells erupted in every direction, many flew through the open viewing panel through which Blade was looking, the smile still on his face. It remained there as multiple shards sliced through his brain and the lights went out.
"Two," warned the tannoy on the Galaxy as it lurched free, the cable tying them to the Bulldog blown free.
"Lift off," yelled the air-load marshal into his throat mic. The rear doors closed as the four huge Rolls Royce engines poured on the power sending the nose up to a forty five degree angle as the first set of wheels left the ground. The back sets were still on the tarmac, Bruger was still perched on the left hand set.
"Everyone hold on,” yelled the air-load marshal as the vibrating giant left terra firma. One hundred and forty miles north, a long silver tube struck the ground near Sheffield.
"Help me," yelled Bruger as the wheels on which he was perched began to swing up into the housing above him. Lunging upwards he grasped a strut as the wind drag caught him leaving him hanging on for life half in and half out of the wheel housing with the hydraulic flap closing upwards. The huge muscles he had developed through training and steroids had created a massive body that weighed in at close on 300 pounds, his biceps were monstrous yet they were finding it impossible to drag the Fort Warwick leader up into the housing and safety. As the engine roar became a thunder storm in his ears, he growled as he flexed his biceps for one last pull. Those inside the climbing goliath never heard the sound of ripping flesh and splintering bone as the hydraulic flap closed into place, never saw the thin streams of Bruger’s blood flying away in the slipstream.
"Mr Anderson we have The President on the comms for you," announced one of the air marshals, handing the SAS man a head set.
"Mr President, I'd like to thank you on behalf of all of our people on the Galaxys, I know this must have been a difficult decision after the episode with the cruise ship.”
"I think we all have to focus on the belief that in Hope we have an answer to this misery, Mr Anderson and that God has seen fit to smile on us.”
"I hope in time Sir that we will be able to return and carry out further rescues," probed the SAS man.
There was a long pause, for a moment Anderson wondered if the connection had been broken but......he was certain he could hear breathing.
#
In the heart of the UK, near Sheffield, a silver canister struck the ground. The resulting explosion was like no other explosion created by man that had ever taken place. There was no eruption of orange and red, no dirty billowing mushroom cloud soaring skyward. What did happen was worse, for it was like nature’s worst fury as the very air erupted into a violent boiling storm of pressure that grew in seconds to staggering proportions. Buildings caught in the ever expanding eye were flattened, cars were flung for hundreds of metres as if made of balsa wood and the very soil from the ground was stripped and flung skyward. The sub-atomic particles of the released anti-matter created a reaction far greater than the hypothesis developed by the Americans, its power, speed and range developing on a biblical scale as the thundering shock wave of reaction rolled away from the nucleus at Sheffield at twice the speed of a stealth bomber. This was a problem.
Six minutes after turning west, the Stealth bomber was just under ten miles high and moving at just over a thousand kilometres an hour towards the United States of America, the shock wave of the anti-matter bomb reached it thirty seconds later. The pilot felt waves of violent tremors and knew immediately it was not turbulence. "Base this is Stealth Three, I think we under estimated our package.”
#
"Mr Anderson there is something you need to know,” sighed the President, the knot in his stomach causing his voice to falter.
Anderson remembered an earlier conversation. “Is this the final solution you spoke of?”
"It is, and I......I have to explain that we did not take this step lightly.”
Anderson felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. “Tell me.”
And the President did just that, he told the stunned SAS man of the theory of anti-matter, how they had harvested enough to mesh with a bomb that would take out an entire continent. He told him of the call from Stealth Three and of their reasoning. They believed that it would only be a matter of time before Bruger brought his chaos and his Mutants to the States and they could not, would not, allow that to happen.
Anderson listened in a stunned silence, Tom, the Preacher, Bull, Hope and all close to him watching the colour drain from his features. Without a word he pulled the radio set from his head and let it slip from his fingers to the floor. On unsteady legs he stumbled to the rear of the Galaxy and pressed his face against a small viewing window. Twenty eight thousand feet below him and thirty miles behind was the outline of the United Kingdom but even from that distant viewpoint he could see a swirling mass, like a tornado spreading out from its centre, growing by the second until there was no outline to see. The UK had been destroyed.
"Are the bad people gone?” Hope's voice broke into his thoughts.
Anderson turned and swept up the child pulling her close to him. "Yes.......yes the bad people have gone," he assured moving away from the window. There seemed little point in telling her that so had all of the United Kingdom thanks to the decision taken by President Nelson. Thanks to the final solution.
Epilogue.
In the inky blackness of one of the wheel housings of the Galaxy, a slither of light pierced through the joint of two floor plates of the giant craft’s cavernous hold. That light glinted onto a pair of eyes that reflected both rage and pain. The pain Bruger was experiencing was from having had his right foot severed at the ankle when he had failed to haul himself up quickly enough into the wheel housing. The blood flow had been stemmed by the leather thong taken from the two v
ials from around his neck and used as a tourniquet. The vial holding the white lightning had been opened and a pinch snorted into the crazed man’s nostrils to ease the pain, the rest being kept for future analysis for Bruger was already planning ahead, planning for a new ‘Vanquish’ in a new country. “This isn't over," he growled then started to chuckle as a song came into his mind, a song he quietly, and tunelessly, began to sing.
"Oh, say! can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.”
The End?
Read on for a free sample of Bad Day for The Apocalypse
June 5: St. Joseph
Chapter 1
Raindrops pounded the restaurant windows in windblown sheets as Nikki Holleran cleared Table Six; the few cars in the parking lot, half of them owned by employees, occasionally invisible in the torrent. Three tables of customers dotted the dining area at Hooligans in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was Friday, 7:30 p.m. Prime dining time. Tonight, nothing. No crowd, no hum of conversation, no line of people at the door, no lucky ones holding pagers waiting for a table to open. Just a young couple, two locals drinking beer at a table next to the bar and high fiving each other over the ball game on TV, and a fat businessman eating a porterhouse in Nikki’s section.
“This sucks.”
Nikki looked up from a plate of half-eaten cheeseburger to find Tammy leaning against the back of the booth, the top of her uniform plunging low. Nikki hated the Hooligans waitress uniforms. She wore hers buttoned high, keeping herself in check, but the waist was much too snug for her figure to fit anything but awkwardly in the tight uniform. Tammy wore it expertly.
“The rain?”
“The rain, the two guys in the bar who call me Jugzilla every time I walk by, all the people who were smart enough to call in sick tonight. Everything just sucks.” Tammy was 23, a fifth-year senior at nearby Missouri Western State Community College and hated everything through a seductive smile. Nikki’s tips were good because she was a good waitress; Tammy’s were better.
Nikki scooped the dirty silverware from the table and dropped them into a bus tub. The bus boys had called in sick tonight; all of them, which is understandable because bussing tables is the worst job at a restaurant. Americans, given the knowledge someone else will clean up after them, soil everything they touch.
“There weren’t many people in my summer class today, either,” Nikki said. “And half of them looked confused. Not hangover confused, it’s like they didn’t know why they were there. Something must be going around.”
“Well I’m not catching it. I don’t have time to be sick. I have my midterm next week,” Tammy said, slowly standing straight. “Oh, those assholes are waving at me. I gotta go. If you hear a scream, it’s one of them.”
Nikki wiped the rest of the discarded curly fries and great spots of ketchup from the table into the bus tub with a damp rag, and worked her way back to the kitchen. She slid the tub on a wire rack next to Benny, the assistant manager at Hooligans, who worked the dishwasher tonight out of necessity.
“Tough night?” he asked, smiling as he pushed the tub into the stainless-steel steaming monster, and slammed the door. The regular dishwashers had called in sick as well; two of the wait staff, too. That left Benny to man everything, and he did what he needed to do. Nikki liked him. For an assistant manager, he was a nice enough guy. Friendly, fair, and newly married, so at least with Benny, every waitress’s boobs were their own. Nikki returned his smile.
“Tough for all the wrong reasons,” she said.
“We’re just lucky the weather’s shit. If we got slammed. Whew. We’d be in trouble.”
“What do you think’s going around?” she asked, grabbing an empty tub. “It’s summer. It’s not like it’s sniffle season.”
Benny shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “H1N1? Bird flu? Swine flu? Brown bottle flu? Some guy on MSNBC today claimed the UN let loose the zombie virus to curb the world’s seven billion or so population.” He paused and grinned again. “But you know how they are at MSNBC.”
Nikki nodded even though she didn’t know what he was talking about, but she did know if a wave of illness caught the attention of the talking heads on cable, there might be something to it.
“Did the news report talk about symptoms?”
Benny opened his mouth, but his words didn’t have the time to come out.
“Benny,” Tammy said, stomping into the strangely quiet kitchen, and slamming a black plastic drink tray hard on a prep station, the front of her black and red uniform soaked with beer. “One of those fucking rednecks at the bar grabbed me, and when I shoved him away he laughed and poured his beer on me. If I have to go back out there I’m going to kill both of them.”
“Christ,” Benny whispered, shaking his head. He didn’t know what would be worse to deal with, drunken rednecks or a pissed off waitress. It didn’t matter; he had to deal with them both. “All right,” he said, gently grabbing her by the shoulders, although he knew deep down the people at corporate HR would have his ass for that. “They’ll be gone in two seconds. Do you have any other tables?” She shook her head. “Okay, just calm down back here. I’ll take care of this.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders, cracked his neck, and walked out of the kitchen.
Nikki watched as Tammy’s shaking hands fumbled with her purse that hung on the wall next to the time clock. “You okay?”
Tammy nodded as she pulled out a prescription bottle of pills. Nikki didn’t have to ask; it was Ophiocordon. Seems like everyone took Ophiocordon nowadays. “Yeah. It’s just jerks like that. There’s no reason for them.”
She wrenched open the childproof cap, dropped a white oval tablet into her hand, popped it into her mouth, and swallowed hard. Seconds slunk by before Tammy gasped, and her body tensed. One of the side effects of the newest anti-depressant Ophiocordon; it gave women an immediate orgasm, then tapered off to simple euphoria. Nikki heard it did something like that to men as well, just not as sudden, not like she cared. Out of all the side effects modern pharmaceuticals carried, like diarrhea and the occasional hallucination, an orgasm wasn’t too shabby. Nikki sometimes wished she suffered from some kind of depression.
“If he’s outside when I go home,” Tammy said, shaking the sudden wave of ecstasy throughout her body, “he’s dead.”
“They all get what they deserve, Tammy. Just focus on that,” Nikki said, gently patting Tammy’s hand, and walking toward the dining area. “I still have one out there, but I think he’s about done. Hopefully we’ll close early, and get out of this nightmare.”
“Can I get you anything else, sir?” Nikki asked the fat businessman, although given his nearly spot-free plate that once sported medium-rare porterhouse and baked potato, she would have felt a little guilt at helping him die slowly with dessert. The man shook his head. Something about his demeanor worried Nikki. Sweat beaded across his round face, his skin was waxy and white. Good God, she thought. A heart attack would just top off this night.
“I … uh…” wheezed past his lips in great blasts, his breath pinching Nikki’s face tight.
Christ. What’s that smell? She coughed, the taste of vomit in her mouth.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her left wrist over her mouth.
“I’m … I’m …” he heaved. “Oh, God. I don’t feel so good.”
“I’ll get the …” manager, Nikki tried to say, but the blood stopped her. Tendrils of thick, crimson liquid shot from the man’s nostrils. He coughed, the rancid, sweet smell of death brushed over Nikki, a clot of blood splattered across his plate.
“Benny,” she screamed, backing away from the table. “Benny. Benny. 9-1-1. Oh, my God, 9-1-1. Benny, 9-1-1.”
“What the hell?” came from behind her from one of Tammy’s rednecks Benny hadn’t been able to make leave. “What the … holy shit.”
“Heh… heh… help me,” the businessman hissed, grabbing for Nikki’s uniform, blood now running from his nose like hi
s face was a dam about to break. A red spot grew in his left eye and popped, sending another red river pouring down his cheek. Nikki screamed and stumbled away from the man’s grasp.
“What the fuck?” Tammy’s redneck whispered, backing away from the bleeding man who had fallen to the floor, and crawled toward Nikki.
“Do you have a phone?” Benny screamed at the redneck.
“What?”
“Do you have a God damned fucking phone?” he screamed again, grabbing and shaking the man’s Toby Keith concert T-shirt.
The man nodded.
“Then call the cops,” he hissed. “And if you ever harass my waitresses again, I will personally kick the shit out of you.” Benny rushed to Nikki, pulling her away from the bleeding customer, and sat her in a booth. “You’re going to be okay,” he said, and turned to the redneck. “You got someone?” The man nodded. “Then tell them to send an ambulance here now. NOW.”
“That was some fucked up shit,” Tammy said, finishing a beer. “Did you see all the blood on the carpet? No way am I cleaning that up.”
Nikki sat at the bar with Tammy, the lights low, the storm outside off somewhere to the east. Police filed through Hooligans, taking blood samples, food samples, and statements from the few people there. Nikki just wanted to go home. She saw a man bleed like he’d been hacked by Freddie Krueger, and drop over a booth table in a fat wet slap. Then he stood, pushing himself up from the table, and stumbled around, like he was dumb in every sense of the word. The EMTs put the man on a gurney, but his legs and arms moved like he was still walking. And he didn’t make a sound, not even a moan. The EMT said the man wasn’t dead, yet. No amount of beer with Tammy would change any of that.
“Did you even see it?” Nikki asked.
“No,” Tammy said. “I got there for Benny saying ‘if you ever harass my waitresses again, I will personally kick the shit out of you,’ though. That’s manager of the year stuff right there. I will nominate him.”
Bravo Two Zombie (Book 3): The Final Solution Page 32
