Rotter Apocalypse

by Scott M. Baker

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Bazargan.”

  “Please, call me Natalie, Mr. President.”

  Fogel snickered. “I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t call you Miss Bazargan if you don’t call me Mr. President.”

  Natalie became confused. “I don’t understand. I thought you were the President.”

  “That depends on who you talk to,” replied Thomas.

  “What do you mean?”

  Fogel gestured toward one of the easy chairs in front of his desk for Natalie to sit, and he took the other. Thomas propped himself on the edge of the desk. “With the collapse of the government-in-exile in Omaha and the chaos throughout the nation, the presidency is up for grabs.”

  “I’d heard that from the troops at Offutt. I thought that was only a rumor.”

  “I wish it was.” Fogel shook his head. “The sad fact is most politicians are looking out for themselves. The highest ranking surviving official still alive that we know about who is in line to succeed to the presidency is Secretary of Defense Wilson. He was returning from a summit in Europe when the president banned all air travel, and made it as far as Montreal. Some say he’s ineligible to be president because he resides in a foreign country. It’s all moot, though. No one has had contact with him in five months. Assuming Secretary Wilson is dead, I’m the next highest ranking official known to be alive, even though I’m sixteenth in the line of succession.”

  “The problem is, some of the governors have declared the United States dead and buried and are trying to set up their own fiefdoms,” Thomas said. “Shortly after the outbreak and the fall of Washington, D.C., Governor Peters of Texas declared himself the only legitimate government left in the country. Ham operators report that Peters is still in the game, although he’s lost most of Texas and is falling back to Mexico with a handful of people.”

  “Sort of an Alamo with revenants,” Fogel chuckled.

  “Then this past spring, Governor Dean of Wyoming declared himself the most capable official to handle the outbreak. The winter was cold with an unusual amount of snow, and it stopped the revenants. Dean used that opportunity to regroup and organize his defenses. By the time the thaw hit, he had cleaned out most of the state and had set up fortified enclaves throughout the region. He hasn’t declared himself president, but he’s trying to usurp power.”

  “At least Governor Sanders isn’t vying for power,” Fogel chimed in.

  “Who?” Natalie asked.

  “Governor Sanders of Alaska,” said Fogel. He stood and crossed over to the window, gazing out over San Francisco Bay. “She used the winter to her advantage, just like Dean, and shared her information with the Canadians. By the time spring rolled around, the revenants had been pushed out of the north. Sanders and the Canadians have formed a defensive line from the southern tip of Alaska, running east south of Edmonton to the southern tip of Hudson Bay, and then turning southeast to north of Quebec. For six months, they’ve been taking in survivors and using them to reinforce the defense line. Governor Dean, myself, and the president have been doing the same thing. Well, the president was until the government-in-exile became infected. We’ve been organizing, planning, and preparing for months. Showing up when you did with the vaccine to the Revenant Virus is a sign from God that we’ll be successful.”

  “Wait a minute,” Natalie interrupted. “I’m confused. What are you talking about?”

  Fogel stepped away from the window. “Forgive me. I forgot you’re not privy to this. In three days we launch an operation that will take North America back from the revenants.”

  Natalie could hardly believe what she had heard. “Three days?”

  “We’ve been coordinating this offensive for months.” Fogel sat down at his desk. “The Canadians and Alaska will begin the campaign by pushing down from the north, clearing each square mile of revenants before moving on to the next. At the same time, we here in San Francisco, Governor Dean in Wyoming, and other smaller pockets of resistance will initiate their own offensives with the goal of meeting up with the Canadians. Major cities will be bypassed and contained.”

  “Are you abandoning them?” Natalie asked.

  “Not at all. We’ve formed special units and developed tactics to clear out large cities, though the methods are going to be destructive.”

  “Not as the destructive as those used by the Russians,” Thomas chimed in. “They nuked every major city to stop the outbreak. Moscow. Saint Petersburg. Volgograd. That only slowed the spread of the outbreak. The blasts destroyed millions of revenants inside the cities, not those in the suburbs.”

  “The fallout killed thousands of survivors who might otherwise have escaped to Siberia,” Fogel continued. “We’re determined not to make the same mistake, which is why we have a boots-on-the-ground approach to dealing with the revenants. We were counting on the vaccine to keep our losses low, and had given up hope of ever getting it when we lost contact with Dr. Compton after he left Site R. Then you showed up.”

  Natalie swelled with pride for her Angels. “Thank you, Mr. Pres… Secretary.”

  “You’ll be pleased to know that we’ve already used the vaccines you provided to inoculate some of the troops here in San Francisco. We’ve flown copies of the CDs to Wyoming and to Alaska so the vaccine can be produced there and distributed to the troops. It may take a few weeks to produce enough to protect everyone. This will give us the advantage we need to take back our country. It’s a shame Dr. Compton couldn’t be here to see this.”

  Natalie forced herself to keep silent, well aware that Compton wanted to use the vaccine to infect and murder the vampires within their group and, when Robson refused to go along, released four hundred rotters into the underground facility to distract everyone while he escaped. Although it pissed Natalie off, under the circumstances she opted to maintain the fallacy of Compton’s patriotism for the Secretary’s benefit.

  “On to other things.” Fogel slapped his knees. “We have news about your missing comrades.”

  Natalie forgot all about Compton. “That’s good.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Thomas. “They were taken hostage by the Deaders.”

  “Deaders?”

  “It’s one of the local gangs that carved out turf for themselves after the outbreak. They’ve been trying to push us out, and don’t have enough firepower to do it. So instead they’ve taken to kidnapping our people and ransoming them back to us for supplies.”

  “You have enough firepower. Why don’t you take them out?”

  “We tried,” Thomas sighed. “The bastards use hollow point ammunition filled with revenant blood. On our first raid against them, we lost ten dead and fifteen wounded who later had to be euthanized.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Tell us about it,” said Fogel. “We’re going to put an end to this once and for all. We have a drop scheduled for later this afternoon where we’ll trade supplies for your three people who were taken hostage. Only this time, we’ll be using troops we’ve inoculated, and will have a surprise for them.”

  Natalie thought for a moment. “Do you need any more guns?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Thomas.

  “Two of my girls are among the missing,” said Natalie. “And we’re already inoculated. I’d like to have a chance to offer some payback.”

  A grin pierced Fogel’s lips. “I think that can be arranged.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Robson glanced around the table at the others in the rectory’s dining room: Simmons and Wayans, Dravko and Tibor, DeWitt and Roberta, and Caslow. There were fewer than the last time they had all gathered for dinner, which had been two nights ago when the group had attacked Price’s camp. Since the raid, they had spent most of their time caring for the survivors, making the supply run to Super Walmart, and burying the dead. Now that the situation had stabilized somewhat, their routine had returned to normal. The lull had also given Robson a chance to consider their plans for the future, which did not present any truly vi
able options. He had appreciated the distraction of the last few days because it had provided an excuse not to deal with this. Robson had to honor his promise to Simmons not to remain in Gilmanton and be a burden while at the same time meet his obligations to his own people and to those they had saved. Every scenario he had come up with had more flaws than benefits. He had decided on their future course of action late that afternoon, and assumed he had made the correct choice because he knew everyone would be against it.

  As the others chatted amongst themselves, Dravko leaned over toward Robson and whispered, “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You’ve barely said a word during dinner.”

  “Sorry,” Robson responded halfheartedly. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  “I understand. If there’s—”

  A knock at the doorway to the dining room caught their attention. Linda stood in the entrance. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “You’re not interrupting,” said Simmons. “We’re almost finished. Is everything okay at the warehouse?”

  “Everything’s fine.” Linda stepped into the dining room. “Robson asked me to come by.”

  Everyone focused their attention on Robson. He motioned for Linda to enter. As she took a seat near Simmons and Wayans, Robson said, “I asked Linda here so we can discuss our plans.”

  “Good idea,” said Roberta. “We need to coordinate what we want to do next.”

  “There’s nothing to coordinate,” Robson said firmly, hoping to preempt any debate. “We’re going to try and link up with the government-in-exile in Omaha.”

  DeWitt snorted. “You mean hook back up with Natalie in Omaha.”

  “I’m not going to lie and say it wouldn’t be nice to get back together with Natalie. We’d all want to see our loved ones again.” Robson made eye contact with everyone at the table. “That’s not the reason I’m doing this. We know there’s a large group of survivors in Omaha. Our best option is to make our way to them where Linda’s people have the best chance of being taken care of properly and where the rest of us can join the fight to take back the country.”

  “Why?” asked Roberta in a soft tone. “Mike, your responsibility now is to those of us sitting here at this table, and to those people in the warehouse who are looking to you for guidance.”

  “I agree,” said Robson, “and the most responsible thing I can do is get them someplace where they can be properly taken care of.”

  “That’s not Omaha,” said Simmons.

  “They’re right,” Dravko stated. “You, me, and Tibor are the only three experienced enough to even attempt a cross country trip like that. And we’ll be taking with us three dozen people who can barely travel, let alone fight off rotters. Even if we headed north to where there are fewer living dead, I doubt we’d make it to Canada without getting overrun.”

  “So what are you suggesting?” asked Robson. “That we give up?”

  “That we survive,” Roberta stated. “Linda, how long will it be before your people are back on their feet?”

  “It’ll be weeks before they their full strength. If you’re talking about being well enough to travel, they’ll be able to do that in a few days,” Linda said hesitantly.

  “Thanks.” Roberta focused her attention on Robson. “We’re going to have a hard enough time surviving the next month, let alone trying to reach Omaha. We have plenty of food and medicine from last night’s raid, so we have enough to keep going for a month, more if we ration food once people feel better. Our best bet is to head north, find a location where we can settle down, and rebuild what we had at Fort McClary.”

  Robson contemplated this for a minute before asking DeWitt, “I assume you agree?”

  DeWitt nodded.

  Robson gestured to Dravko. “And you?”

  “It’s the best choice under the circumstances.”

  “Tibor?”

  The vampire grunted. “I’m with Dravko.”

  “What do you think?” Robson asked Caslow.

  “Me?” he asked, surprised.

  “For better or worse, you’re part of the team now.”

  Caslow was uncertain how to respond. “I agree with Roberta. It’s better to hunker down and ride this out.”

  “I knew he would,” Tibor whispered loud enough for the others to hear.

  “I know I don’t have a say in this,” said Simmons. “It’s your best option.”

  “Yeah,” Wayans said. “It’s the only friggin’ way you’re going to survive.”

  “What about you?” Robson asked Linda.

  She lowered her head. “I don’t have a say in this.”

  “Yes, you do. Do you think your people can handle traveling and setting up a new camp?”

  Linda raised her head to meet Robson’s gaze. “Honestly, no. One encounter with rotters and most of them will be killed. And they don’t have enough strength to build a compound. But what choice do we have?”

  “Then it’s settled. In two days, we’ll head out and find ourselves a new location to set up camp.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Snake rubbed his calloused hand across Doreen’s cheek. She tried not to focus on his face. She didn’t know what repulsed her more, the greasy dark hair, the three-day growth of stubble, or the tattoo of a rattler than ran from one cheek, over his forehead, and down the other. When he leaned forward, Doreen almost gagged. Between his diseased gums and the front teeth rotted away by habitual crack use, his breath smelled as bad as a rotter. Like Sandy and Sergeant Batchelder to her right, she rested on her knees, her ass sitting on her ankles and her wrists handcuffed behind her back, which allowed Snake to tower over her.

  “You’re the prettiest hostage we’ve ever had in here.” Snake slid his grimy fingers through her long red hair.

  “You say that to all of them,” said Snake’s partner, One Eye, from the doorway. He stood in the opening, his AR-15 slung over his shoulder, his patched-over left eye facing them as he kept watch down the hall.

  “This time I mean it.”

  One Eye chuckled. “You say that to them, too.”

  “Come on, baby,” said Snake. “How about giving me some before the transfer?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “That’s what I had in mind.” Snake clutched her hair and yanked, raising Doreen onto her knees, her face inches from his crotch.

  One Eye moved away from the door and unslung his AR-15. Coming up behind Snake, he slammed the stock between his shoulder blades. “Cut that fuckin’ shit out.”

  “Screw you. I’m just having some fun.”

  “You know the rules.” One Eye shoved his face into Snake’s, shifting his head slightly to one side so his good eye locked onto Snake’s. “None of the hostages are to be harmed in any way. That was the deal with the Rock. We send back damaged goods, and they stop paying ransom. You want to fuck up this arrangement on the Boss, go ahead. Let him break your legs and throw you out of the compound so the deaders can get you. I ain’t gonna be deader food so you can get your rocks off. Clear?”

  Snake averted his gaze. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” One Eye stepped back. “Now, guard the door. I’m going to the loading dock to see what the holdup is.”

  As Snake walked away, Doreen sat on her ankles. She glanced over at Sandy and Sarge to see how they were doing. Sarge made eye contact and nodded his approval. Sandy winked. The three of them had held up pretty well considering they had been hostages for two days.

  It began during the escape from the rotters on the Golden Gate Bridge. They had been ahead of the others when the living dead swarmed the group. Sarge ordered them to keep moving forward, telling them that was what Pandelosi would be ordering the others to do. They made it to the banks of San Francisco without incident only to be ambushed by five members of the Deader gang. Their captors disarmed them and brought them to an apartment complex a mile south of the bridge off of Baker Beach. The complex had been fortified with a makeshift wall of Jersey barriers and
chain link fences, with an old school bus parked across the entranceway serving as a gate. They had been escorted to a windowless room in the basement and had remained there until an hour ago. No one had bothered them during the duration of their captivity, at least until now, which had suited Doreen fine. The only contact came from those who had brought them their breakfast and dinner, and then Snake and One Eye who had arrived an hour ago to prep them for the transfer. With luck, they would be out of here in a few minutes.

  * * *

  Natalie crouched in the back of the tractor trailer by the sliding door, holding the M-16A2 in her hands and placing the stock on the floor to steady herself. Ari, Amy, Stephanie, and Josephine gathered around her, in addition to one hundred soldiers from Alcatraz who had been inoculated with the Zombie Virus vaccine.

  The voice of Jim, the truck driver, crackled over their headphones. “We just pulled onto Lincoln Boulevard. We should be at the Deader’s compound in a few minutes.”

  Beside Natalie, Captain Endo, the platoon leader, spoke into his microphone. “Copy that.”

  The soldiers readied their weapons. Each of the Angels had a look of determination on their face, although Natalie could detect traces of fear in their eyes. She understood their trepidation because she felt it, too. They were used to battling rotters. This would be the first time they would go into combat against humans. Thankfully for the Angels, the plan to attack the compound was simple. These prisoner exchanges had gone on for so long that security had become lax. In the beginning, the Deaders had examined every truck before allowing it inside the compound. Since Fogel hadn’t wanted to do anything to endanger the hostages’ safety, he had never used the transfers to launch a rescue mission, and over time the procedure had become so commonplace that the gang stopped checking the trailers. Endo planned on using that trust to his advantage. Once inside the compound, the unit would secure the area, take down the Deaders, and rescue their missing people.