Medora Wars

by Wick Welker

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “No,” Atash said, without hesitation. “Not in person.”

  “Who is he?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is what I’m about to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “It has to do with our final task.”

  “Going to America?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are we going to do there?”

  “We’re going to seize every nuclear warhead that the U.S. owns.”

  Malik paused and stared at the lines around Atash’s mouth, failing to see any humor. “What are you even talking about? That’s over five thousand bombs.”

  “That is just it. We really can do it. We can just walk right into America and do it, just like that.” Atash snapped his fingers.

  “How? Is it because of the false intel I’ve been feeding Mayberry?”

  “I’m not totally certain, but I do know that your President has moved all the warheads into one location, fearing that they would be stolen by us.”

  “So, because he was scared that we would steal all the warheads, he put them all together so that we would be able to steal all the warheads?”

  “Yes.”

  Malik gave a laugh. “What?”

  “We continue forward, cautiously, and with great diligence with our leader. I do trust him.”

  “Does he tell you why we are doing this?”

  “For once, yes, he said he’s finally taking away America’s crutch,” Atash said, using quotation marks with his fingers.

  “But… why would he care?”

  “I do not know, but we’re leaving the country in three hours. Go get the witness ready.” Atash walked out of the small kitchen, past several men working at foldout tables, and disappeared into a hallway.

  Malik found Elise alone in her small room, chained to a stack of cinderblocks. They had to bring in the blocks after she had managed to pry free from exposed copper pipes in the wall. She was lying on the concrete floor, looking up at the single hanging light bulb in the ceiling.

  “Malik?” she said without looking up at him. “Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We are leaving to the States.”

  “Have fun,” she said dryly.

  “You will be joining us.”

  “No, but thanks. I actually kind of like it here now.”

  “I’m afraid I must insist,” Malik said monotonously.

  “Stop talking like some robot. ‘I’m afraid I must insist,’ ” she repeated sarcastically.

  “Would you rather that I come in and beat you?”

  “Yes, actually it would be less painful at this point than hearing your bullshit.”

  Malik walked over to unlock the several padlocks of her chains. “We’re going to the airport in an hour. You can bring with you whatever you want that’s in this room.”

  “I generally don’t listen to baby murderers, Malik.”

  He stopped undoing the chains from the stack of cinderblocks and stared at Elise.

  She propped herself up on her elbows, and looked back up at him. “You murdered thousands of innocent lives on all of those ships, and you killed a small baby in cold blood.”

  “The word ‘innocent’ doesn’t mean anything,” he said.

  “Why do you think that you’re any different with your justification and philosophy than any other genocidal maniacs throughout all of history?”

  He gave her a cold smile and folded his arms. “I don’t think I’m different than anyone. I’m nothing, and so are you, and so is everyone else that has lived or died or is going to die.”

  “How many people have died?”

  “Millions,” he said plainly.

  “And one baby.”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck you,” she added. “I guess I was wrong. You never were a father, because you never could have done something like that.”

  “Oh, but I was. I had a son before. Don’t you see that I’m not that man anymore? That life is lost and gone forever.”

  Elise got to her feet and looked at him, wincing in pain from her large puncture wound on her backside. “I’ve asked you before and I’ll ask you again, what happened to you?”

  “I learned for myself that there is no God. Now pick up your fucking clothes, and get ready, or I will slit your throat right this second.”

  *****

  James Sheffield hadn’t eaten in ten days. He was, however, able to lap water up from a puddle that had formed in the corner of the dark basement room where he was kept. The puddle stayed small in the corner but drained from some unknown broken pipe system within the walls of the crumbling building. He stopped caring about why they decided to stop feeding him. He decided they didn’t really care anymore if he died. They only wanted to keep him in their back pocket if they needed him for an unplanned beheading.

  He hadn’t seen another person for the same amount of time that he had been left without food. There were no voices on the other sides of the cement walls and no footsteps that could cast shadows from beneath the door. His thoughts flashed back and forth between how long it would take him to die and if he would ever see his family again. It was when he was in between one of these rants that the door to his room opened, revealing a single silhouette of a man holding a box.

  “Hello?” Sheffield said softly with his voice cracking from thirst. He sat up from where he was lying.

  The person stepped into the dark room and placed the box on the ground in front of Sheffield. “James,” a soft voice answered.

  “What is…?” Confused, Sheffield swallowed, and grabbed at the box, hoping for food.

  “James, you’re going to leave from here. You will be set free, but you must do something,” the man spoke clearly.

  Sheffield dragged the cardboard box toward him and opened the top flaps. He fumbled with his fingers, felt a plastic wrapping of some sort, and pulled out what felt like a candy bar. Ferociously, he tore open the candy and chomped down on chocolate, stuffing the entire bar in his mouth as he chewed.

  “There is some food and money and also…” the man trailed off as he saw Sheffield reach his arm once more into the box.

  Feeling with his fingers, Sheffield noticed several cans and other small plastic packages, but then stopped when he felt something warm and soft. “What the…” He probed more when suddenly the box moved and a small cry came from within.

  “You must take the baby home with you,” the man said, turning toward the doorway. “I’ll leave this door open. You can leave out the back door at the end of the hallway. No one will see you if you leave in the next fifteen minutes.” He walked out of the room and looked back at Sheffield. “Good luck, he is very sick.”

  Chapter Twenty One: Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

  After Stark had flipped the switch in the Bunny, the five-tank caravan of men and women armed with magnetic weapons stopped breathing for several seconds, hoping. The hunger in their stomachs was masked by the fatigue in their muscles. Their minds could only focus on the ravenous horde of human beings just outside the power plant gates. It took several seconds, but a low frequency vibration thumped underneath their feet, rattling streetlights, and rocking parked cars. Stark saw the horde slowing their movements and coming to a complete standstill. The horde stood still in the open streets.

  “What?” Jacobs said, holding his hand to his brow as he looked out at the sea of motionless people.

  “I wonder….” Stark muttered under his breath as he got out of the Bunny and walked out toward the parking lot where the horde had stopped.

  Dave and Michaels followed after him. They saw the entire perimeter of the power plant completely absorbed by a motionless mob of hundreds of thousands of the infected swarm.

  “It’s so quiet. How can that many people not make a single noise?” Michaels said.

  “I think—” Stark stopped when the entire surrounding horde all at once fell to the ground. �
�Whoa…” He stopped walking and held Michaels and Dave back with his arm. All men, women, and children collapsed onto the streets and toppled over cars. Hundreds of bodies fell from the small shops and homes that surrounded the power plant. They fell simultaneously and remained motionless.

  “Holy shit!” Jacobs yelled, running out to Dave and Michaels. “We did it!”

  Stark looked out at the streets that had become carpeted with bodies. “It worked!” He yelled out. “I did it again!”

  Dave quickly shot a glance to Michaels, motioning to Stark with his eyes. “So, you weren’t sure that it was going to work?” he asked.

  “Just, never mind that. It worked,” Stark said, ignoring Dave and Michaels’ stares. “I wonder how much of the city it affected. If we were able to get a pulse coming from the entire power grid, the whole city of infected could have been… they could’ve been completely knocked down.” Stark started back toward the tank caravan parked outside the power plant and pulled out his satellite phone. “I’m going to tell the President that we’ve got some good news,” he said with enthusiasm.

  Douglas ran out and joined Michaels, Dave, and Jacobs as they all walked together toward the parking fence gate that led out to the streets of the fallen bodies. “Let’s go check them out,” he said, sprinting past them.

  They ran up to the edge of where the infected had fallen. Hundreds of half-naked men and woman were splayed about, sprawled on top of car roofs, and hanging from fences with their mouths open and with their eyes gazing toward the sky.

  “Wow,” Jacobs said, nudging a man’s cheek with his boot. “It actually worked.”

  Michaels looked at Dave and gave him a weak smile. “Maybe we are getting out of this city alive.”

  Dave was about to respond but saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He saw a toddler that was standing alone out in the middle of the mass of people. The child looked from left to right and then over at them. The child’s face was too far away to see but they heard a single cry from his lips.

  “Hey, whoa, there’s a normal little kid out there!” Jacobs yelled and ran out to the street, jumping over a heap of bodies that had stacked in a street gutter.

  “Wait a minute, you idiot!” Douglas yelled after him, putting his arms out to stop Michaels and Dave from running after Jacobs.

  Jacobs, ignoring Douglas’ voice, jogged over more bodies, weaved in between crashed cars, and climbed up and over a mound of bodies that had accumulated from where they had earlier fallen from a building. As he approached the child, he didn’t notice the twitching arms, and fluttering eyelids around him.

  “Wait a minute…” Dave said. “Jacobs!” he yelled. “Get your ass back here!”

  Jacobs made it to the child and scooped him up into his arms. As he turned to make it back to the parking lot, he stumbled as a large woman in only a bra and tattered jeans suddenly got up onto her hands and knees in front of him. Reflexively, he kicked her in the mouth and leapt over her, carrying the child in his arms. Before he could kick at a different woman in front of him, the child reached his mouth up to his neck, and sunk his teeth deep into the muscle, drawing out a large spurt of blood that oozed down his fatigues. In a panic, Jacobs dropped the small boy, and then clutched at his neck, with both hands, breathing rapidly.

  From fifty feet off, they watched as Jacobs fell down, and became surrounded as the people of the horde arose, one by one. The same mass of bodies that had fallen to the ground was now standing up on wobbly knees. They clung to building walls and floppy fences. Jacobs disappeared in the massive crowd as all of the infected made it back onto their feet.

  “That shit did not work,” Michaels said, grabbing Dave’s arm, and tugging at him as she moved back toward the shock tanks.

  “Everybody, get back!” Douglas screamed into his radio. “They’re all waking up again! Make sure every tank is charged!”

  They ran back to the tanks where Stark had hung up the phone, stepped out of the Bunny, and saw Dave and Douglas running up the parking lot toward him. Before he could ask, he saw that the masses of infected were standing back up again. “What?” he said under his breath. “What the hell happened?” Stark yelled out as the Douglas and Dave ran up to him with the rest of the squad surrounding the Bunny.

  “You tell me, Dr. Stark,” Douglas said, changing the battery in his EMP-57. “This is your game.”

  “I’m, I’m not sure. I don’t know why… I don’t know how they could possibly have been affected by the pulse and then…” He looked over Dave’s shoulder at the horde. “Maybe the pulse wasn’t strong enough.”

  “All right, listen up,” Douglas yelled out, “everybody needs to get in their original formation, except the ground teams. They need to line up protecting the tanks as we charge the generators and get ready to get out of this city.”

  “Wait, we’re leaving?” Stark put his hand on Douglas’ shoulder, who looked down at Stark’s hand and stared back at him.

  “Dr. Stark, we are leaving Mexico right this minute. We’re going to tunnel our way out of here.”

  “But we don’t know what has happened here, you can’t just make a unilateral decision. I’ve got to call the President. You’ve got to call… whoever it is that is giving you orders.” Stark felt like an idiot not understanding an ounce of military protocol.

  Douglas gave him a smirk. “Yeah, I’ll give them a call, and they’re going to tell us to get the hell out of Mexico.”

  “Wait, wait hang on. Look out again,” Michaels interrupted and pointed out toward the infected.

  The horde was moving again but not in a typical, chaotic frenzy. There were small eddies of movements that rippled through the crowd and then dissipated as a new cluster of motion erupted in another section of the horde. Instead of an unrelenting wall of human bodies approaching them with every moment, the crowds were calmer, and expanded slowly with small and searching footsteps.

  Dave saw several people at the front of the horde feeling up and down a pole of a chain-link fence that surrounded the power plant’s parking lot. He saw one entirely nude man who was rubbing the metal up and down with his hands, and pressing his stomach fat through the chain-linked wires.

  “What are they doing?” Dave said while squinting.

  “Eating Jacobs,” Michaels replied.

  “No, they’re not… they’re not coming after us. They don’t even seem to notice us,” Stark said.

  “I think I see a woman chewing on the fence.” Douglas looked at Stark, who was also fixated on the horde. “Dr. Stark, have you seen anything like that?”

  “Um, no, no this is new behavior to me.” In his mind, Stark vividly remembered the infected Colonel Houser picking up a scalpel and shoving it down his throat, slicing his own tongue in half as it went down. He found himself suddenly missing Dr. Beckfield as he saw a man stumble into the parking lot, pick up an aluminum can, and bite down on the side. “No, this is… I don’t know what this is.”

  “Everybody, just get into your positions, with ground units at the front as we prepare to mobilize the tanks,” Douglas said.

  “Hey! One of them is coming over here!” A soldier’s voice shot out of a tank. They saw the same thin man who had now just finished swallowing the aluminum can shuffling over broken glass and body parts through the parking lot. The man’s eyes moved methodically, surveying the broken windshields, and open doors of the several cars that crashed days before.

  Without saying a word, Stark walked out toward him with his EMP-M9 drawn, as Douglas screamed at him from behind. Ignoring him, Stark walked into the middle of the parking lot and approached the single infected man, who starting rubbing his hands up and down a parking sign beside a car. Stark positioned himself opposite the same car, lifted the EMP-M9, and fired it at the man. At first, Stark thought the man was falling down from the pulse but realized that he had just slipped on some shattered glass, and started clutching at the sign to prevent from falling over. The infected man got back to his feet and moved hi
s tongue up and down the sign, completely ignoring Stark.

  “Oh, no,” Stark whispered, backing away as Douglas came from up behind him.

  Douglas also lifted his EMP-57 at the man and fired with no effect. “What?” Douglas looked at Stark, and then back at his gun, checking the battery charge. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t think the blast, the, the pulse we sent through the city was strong enough.”

  “So what in the fuck does that mean?” Douglas said impatiently.

  Stark kept his eyes on the infected man as he bit down on the side of the sign.

  Douglas walked up to the infected man, removed the long blade strapped to his back, and brought it down briskly at the side of the man’s neck. The blade sliced deep into the tissue and ruptured vessels that leaked with blackened blood. Douglas brought the blade down once more into the man’s heart and looked back at Stark. “So what in the hell does that mean, Stark?”

  Stark could see Beckfield’s tiny eyes looking up from the hospital bed, taunting him. “I’m not sure yet. Let’s just get back to the tanks. I’ve got to make some calls.”

  “Calls? You’re going to make some calls while we’re surrounded by millions of infected people in the middle of Juárez city, who have just become resistant to our only weapons?” Douglas asked.

  “Just… get your men together. Maybe we can retreat into the building?” Stark said softly as he walked back to the Bunny. “They suddenly don’t seem very aggressive…” he added as he sauntered off.

  Dave saw Stark walking back toward them with Douglas standing in the distance, staring at his back. “The hell is going on over there?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t know, but there’s some reason Douglas just had to hack that guy down after they both used their pulse guns on him. Something is seriously wrong,” Michaels said.

  Douglas’ voice suddenly scrambled over all their radios. “Come in all units, everyone needs to take out their back-up gunpowder firearms, and have their shoulder blades ready to use. It looks like our pulses may not be effective anymore. I want all tank teams to remain in place inside each tank. All ground teams will retreat back to the loading bay of the power plant. I want all tanks to assemble in a line pattern in front of the loading bay. Everybody, move now!”