by catt dahman
“Four?” Joe Kinney rolled his eyes. A hundred times that number waited outside the gate, begging to be allowed in where they thought it was safe because the National Guard had training and weapons. They stood outside the gate with hollowed eyes and strained voices, pleading for help, and sometimes running away in a group if they saw one of the infected coming toward them. The National Guard set up a shift so that they could take out any of the infected.
“We will take one bitten female victim under twelve and one male under twelve, bite victims only. One woman and one man same thing...bites only.”
“Bites?” a man yelled, “they are gonna die anyway.”
“Stop scaring people, asshole,” someone yelled back.
“We don’t have infected with us; let us all in. We already have said anyone bitten can’t stay here with us anyway.”
Long suppressed a laugh. “Really?”
“My daughter,” replied a woman who came with a child of about three in her arms and pulled up the child’s long sleeve to show a bandage. The crowd mumbled and moved away from the mother and child, angry that she did not told them.
“No infected with you? Really?” Long asked. “Are you so sure?”
“Here,” said a man as he moved forward with a little boy of about nine or ten in his arms.
“Let them through,” Long demanded. His officers kept guns trained on the crowd.
“My kid is bitten then,” a woman yelled, coming forward. Her little girl kept peeking out from where she was held and was obviously fine and faking.
“That’s all the kids we want.”
“Why them? My child at least has a chance; she’s healthy; why take the ones who are gonna die anyway?” the woman demanded.
“Why do you want them?” a man asked.
“I am bitten,” said a woman stepping forward and holding out her bandaged arm to show.
“You stupid bitch. We could have all been infected.” A man spat at her.
McKinney aimed his gun at the man. “Back off, and let her through.”
The bitten woman walked past the rest, and they spat on her and mocked her, but she didn’t react.
A fight broke out in the back of the crowd, but the National Guards didn’t react. Long shrugged, “I guess someone was mad at one of the bitten back there.”
“Here,” a teen said.
“Where is it?”
“My leg. See?”
“That’s a scrape and a cut, not a bite,” Long said, “nice try, but no cigar.”
“I was bitten, Dude. Let me in.”
McKinney aimed for him. “Back off.”
A man took off his work gloves and showed that two fingers were cut off. “They bit me, and I lopped them off myself; don’t know if it were in time or not, but you can decide better than I can.”
“Let him through,” McKinney demanded. The people who came in brought one or two family members as well. He told one of the women in uniform to take those who were culled to the doctor inside the Armory.
“I’m gonna separate a few; if I motion to you, then step over here. If I wave you back, then get as far away from the gate as you can; step way back, at least fifty feet. If you rush my fence or interfere, I will have you shot. Test me if you think I am joking because I am saying this once: If you fuck with my job, I will shoot you dead.”
There were curses and threats.
Long pointed to a man in a wheelchair and a pregnant woman and her two children to step over. He pointed to an elderly couple and a Hispanic mother with two small children.
“Are they gonna kill the weak ones?” someone asked.
Long ignored them. He tried to think. He motioned to a few teens, one or two men and women at the sides of the group. “Any laborers: back fifty feet; nurses or teachers: to the side; electrician: side; plumber and other skills: fifty feet.”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Fifty feet.”
A man laughed. “That’s it then; they will kill those fifty feet back.”
“Lawyers and IRS to the back,” said a man laughing.
Long shook his head. “We aren’t killing anyone here: former military: side; mechanics: side; loggers and rough necks: you have to be shitting me-- only two of you are brave enough to take a chance on that one: side.”
Some men groaned. It was too late although several tried to say they had experience with that.
“Sorry, you have to make a bet and hope you made the right one,” McKinney said.
“Housekeepers, maids: Riiight, no one betting on this one but three: to the side; accountant: no takers? That was a good bet; we need one to inventory. science, literature, and history students: Fifty feet; math or computer students: side; and only one…go figure. Okay, that’s it.”
“Wait….” and they all began to call out what their skills were. Long only allowed one to go to the side from all who called out; the man was a veterinarian. The crowd surged again, and Long’s men shot two before they stepped away.
“I said not to rush us. We are in the same danger as you. Go find a safe place to wait this out, and fight for yourselves. There are guns and weapons to be found; go and do your best, and maybe you’ll make it when we don’t,” Long yelled.
They got the side group herded through the gate. He hated what he just did, but suddenly some bad choices had to be made. He felt sick and stopped by his office to chew more antacids before going into the huge bay to supervise.
The four bitten people were taken to one side where the doctor looked them over and applied a salve and gave them medication before bandaging them. “We hope this will stop the infection, and hopefully, you will be just fine,” he said and smiled kindly. He knew it was still in testing stages, but it showed some use and was their best hope.
“The pain, it’s better already,” the woman said. Her face took on some color immediately. The children stopped crying. The man shrugged and said the deep pain in his arm was better, but the place where he cut the fingers off hurt badly. They all claimed their stomachs, heads, and bodies felt better within five minutes of the medication.
The doctor smiled inside. This was the best news he had in days.
Other people who came in had head injuries, broken bones, and scrapes. There were some so badly dehydrated that they were hooked to an IV to hydrate them quickly, and their wounds were checked and cleaned. None were infected. The rest were cleaned, given clean clothing in many cases, water, and food, and urged to rest.
“I feel like shit having to send the rest away and shooting at them,” Long said.
“I know, me, too. But we can’t take many more; we have…what ten extra beds? We may need those, and we could be over run in here with them. Better to save some than to risk them and us as well.”
“I wonder if that protocol they sent will save those people? I’d hate to have saved them and given them hope, and then have to shoot them.”
“It’s the first hope they’ve given us.”
Long sighed and asked, “What else do we need to do?”
“Relax.” They walked over to see the doctor scribbling on papers.
“Anything?” Long asked.
“They report that the pain and other symptoms are easing. Other than that, this is a waiting game while we administer the second doses and wait and see.”
McKinney grinned. “See? It’s all good news. We are gonna beat this; it’s all going to be good from here on out.”
9
Lights
Although the President’s legal aids, cabinet members, and other special advisors knew all about the medicine for the virus, the President didn’t know everything until right then: He didn’t know that the medical protocol sent to many National Guard and military stations was somewhat on the right track in that the medications did relieve some symptoms.
It was simply a numbing agent that lasted a long while, internalized the infection, and delayed the change into a zombie, or in science-speak, a personality and moral deficient, contagious cannib
al, or an Anthropophagus Sociopathic Advector. Most still called them Reds and Dead Red Zeds.
Or zombies.
All hail, George Romero.
Alan called it false hope and delay.
He also found out right then that the doctor blamed for the infection, Henry Diamond, might or might not have been developing super weapons on the side for the highest bidders but also developed a vaccine that he was testing now.
And he wasn’t in Europe as people said, and North Korea didn’t start the infection. It was all Henry Diamond’s fault who was in the US, and, shock, he started it in the United States.
The good news was that Diamond’s inoculation seemed to prevent the inoculated from catching the infection from a bite; the bad news was that they were, in turn, contagious via saliva and body fluids. It was so convoluted and complicated and impossible to fathom that a man engineered this to prevent a war. He, thus, caused the death of the world and was now working on making everyone a hybrid zombie, or Anthropophagus Sociopathic Advector (he called them, of all things, demons and Angels, (the distinction being if they were “good” or “bad” people). It literally hurt the President’s brain to try to get his mind wrapped around the concepts.
Diamond explained about the ones he inoculated who were called Angels this way: “It isn’t a vaccine. It still causes the basics. They are a third species. They are like Angels in the Biblical terms: they weren’t humans but a separate species of warriors. They will fight zombies because those are the enemy to the Angels.
Since they can be eaten and will be, the zombies will attack them and feed on them, just like humans. They have a common enemy with us, but no, they’re not humans as we have previously defined the word. Redefine the word human.”
“I played around and found a way for a mixture to inherit it instead: one that can win against the zombies. You may view me as a mad scientist, but it’s all that’s left. They have some of the prions, but they are mostly human, seventy percent. They are a means to an end: to give humans, us one last chance to win.”
“It simply is fine to be an Angel. Have we not had enough wars and hatred based on prejudice? It was the only thing left to do. I don’t want them to win, and we can’t win alone. Angels are out there, and more people will volunteer every day because…see…they can do the same job and be themselves, but they don’t fear infection. Instead of humans vanishing in two years, we will have a battle going for a long time, and we have a chance of winning, but the world be inherited by hybrids.”
He said the zombies were capable of reproduction although that was impossible. Right? And the inoculated were capable as well. This was madness.
The President’s advisors threatened him. They claimed that he would be relieved of duty if he didn’t comply, but he suspected it might be a bullet that relieved him. In fact, he was sure he would be shot on the spot if he declined their advice.
He cursed them before he did as they asked.
In some ways, it made sense to destroy with immense fire the hearts of the cities, which were overrun with Reds and newly turned zombies. Put out the big threat, and the rest would have a chance.
In years to come, people would change their minds and say the bombs saved what and who were left. Well, they did if one could excuse the fact many healthy people were killed in the cities where they hid.
The bombs did kill many healthy people, destroyed supplies and resources, and caused massive injuries. It released radiation and dust into the atmosphere that would affect the weather, plants and trees, animals, and humans for decades. The shape of the United States was changed forever as the sea reclaimed land areas and mountains fell; nothing was left untouched.
Those people in Washington and New York City were vaporized and burned while fireballs and firestorms raced outwards, melting glass and incinerating everything for miles. Even those who were sheltered in bunkers and below ground in subway tunnels were crushed and burned by the massive explosions. Sky rises collapsed with the other buildings to form mounds of steel and concrete rubble with no way of getting around them as they were just jagged mounds of debris that would allow rats and cockroaches to reign in the new kingdom of the vermin.
Human flesh melts at 147 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures rose to 35,000,000°F in the blast epicenter. All paper, glass, plastic, wood, bone, skin, asphalt, metals, and water vaporized. Metal, rock, and glass melted and burned away or trickled away in lava-like streams that would make the landscape look alien.
Further away from the blast, a person might find a destroyed, burned out jewelry store with puddles of glass, precious metals, and precious stones partially burned and left as a worthless coating on the filthy floor.
All the work taken to design the pretty baubles vanished, and if anyone in the future wanted to mine for the precious material and if it were indeed ever again as precious as food and water, he would find streaks of gold, silver, rubies, and diamonds.
Miami and the water around it vaporized. A ball of fire, with temperatures approaching 20,000,000°F, blew across the ocean, slamming over the land within seconds after the detonation, burning everything in its path with winds rising to three hundred miles an hour.
Beaches melted into glass-like compositions and then burned away to leave nothing. The land shifted when the ocean took back its claim, and the tip of Florida and the Everglades no longer existed. The temperatures then plummeted to freezing all over Florida.
In the ocean where one of the two bombs hit, the water simply vanished into steam, carving out a huge crater two hundred feet deep and two thousand feet across at the bottom of the sea.
Many miles out to sea, dead plant life, dolphins, fish, and squid floated, some of them rotted, and some of them were eaten by other fish and birds that were poisoned by the flesh. For miles, no life survived the shock waves, the heat, or the radiation.
Houston was hit by two bombs, which killed at least three million outright, leaving millions more to burn and die of radiation, injuries, and exposure. A radioactive cloud rose twelve feet into the sky, stuck there, and fell back to earth as poisoned particles. Buildings fell and burned for miles beyond where the bombs hit, and tornadoes covered the land in destruction and firestorms The temperatures plummeted to freezing all over Galveston which had vanished as the sea took back the land.
In New Orleans, the sea rushed to reclaim the city and the oceanfront areas where cities once stood. Louisiana’s tip, or the boot’s tip, went underwater.
In time, if scuba divers were able to dive in those places, they would find unchanged sharks and slightly altered fish, darting about in ripped-open high rises and flitting through the remainder of the palm trees.
The zombies were prevented from coming in from Mexico because the top of country was destroyed.
Atlanta, Tampa, Birmingham, Mobile, Jackson, Shreveport, Dallas, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago went up with less radiation and more fire and rubble, leaving the land cratered, windblown, and burned away in concrete and metal twisted pretzels. A few jewelry shops were looted, but one couldn’t eat a gold ring, shoot a platinum watch, nor soothe a wound with a diamond.
The Eastern sea front was so greatly knocked out that most of the land was under water.
From the massive blast areas, themselves a hundred miles in radius, sturdy buildings were flattened for ten miles further, and glass shattered for thirty. The craters were almost a thousand feet deep and seven thousand feet across.
If in the open, the average-sized Zombies (and people), even fifty miles from the epicenter, were tossed as a velocity of one to two miles per second, which obliterated their bodies.
El Paso, Amarillo, Tucson, Phoenix, and Seattle were destroyed, as well as Denver, Salt Lake City, Little Rock, and Memphis. Red River, Milan, and McAleister were also leveled with lesser bombing since they provided most of their own destruction once the ruination was started.
California, unable to take the incredible, multi-bomb-per-city destruction and dam
age done to San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the Valley shuddered; the area west of the San Andreas’ Fault slipped right off of the continent, submerging burning cities. Only those who ran towards the east when it all went bad survived the destruction.
Because of the compacted high populations of those places (Hannah’s father would have said they were packed in the cities like rats), a large part of the population was infected with Red so much so that it made Solly and Ron excited with more theoretical variables. The concussions and fires destroyed millions of the infected. Ron and Solly knew that meant, over the course of mere hours, those two were what saved a small percentage of the United States citizens.
The final outcome, which could be argued for by both sides, didn’t make what the President had to do any easier for himself; bombing his own country was sickening. When he left his little coterie some time later, he wouldn’t look like the youngest, most handsome President ever elected, but a pale, hollow-faced man with wrinkles on his face, grey in his hair, shadows under his eyes, and a good thirty pounds lighter.
He felt like a failure.
The fact that he alone had the password for the failsafe where they were hidden didn’t excite him nor depress him. After killing millions, he didn’t blink after he locked away the bunker and typed in the code that would blow it to a billion pieces, along with his advisors. He was long gone, both physically and emotionally, when it exploded. For a few hundred miles, he whistled the theme song from the Andy Griffith Show; then, one day, when he awakened, he didn’t whistle, but he couldn’t say why.
He had nightmares in time, but his mind was so unable to grasp any information that he wasn’t able to really consider the nightmares or if they meant anything. The nightmares didn’t scare him in the daytime, nor did he think about them.
If anyone asked where he was going, he didn’t know what to say and didn’t think about it, and yet, he carefully hid from zombies and looters and went the same way at all times, towards a specific destination. Any one who saw him and his dead-looking eyes darted away in fear, but not a one could identify him although everyone knew what the President once looked like.
