Jessica was in her own mind as she went over the events that had unfolded. She wasn’t sure whether to be sad or happy that Bryce had shown this violence. In the sick part of her mind, it kind of turned her on. There was something about the way that Bryce had acted, some kind of animal instinct that put her through the roof. She couldn’t wait to see more of this man, and she was definitely going to volunteer for these trips in the future.
Bryce however, wasn’t any happier about killing three men in thirty seconds than Greg and Benjamin. He was actually torn up inside. The police officer had just done his job, in a last-ditch attempt to keep the peace, and Bryce had murdered him.
Bryce knew that it was for the greater good, for his own good and for his family, but it still didn’t change the fact that he had murdered an innocent man.
Bryce did not want to be labeled as a murderer or a killer. Before the outbreak he had never even been in combat. Now, he had been tested in a trial by fire on more than one occasion.
Bryce contemplated the fallout of his actions, and whether or not Greg and his father would trust him entirely after this day, but in the end, he had to stay the course. Bryce had to do what was best for his family members. He had to do what it took to survive, and he didn’t have the luxury of second guessing himself.
Bryce had changed inside since the beginning of the Outbreak, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good change or a bad one, but it was a change nonetheless.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hatchery Compound, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
When Bryce, and the others arrived, Cindy and Victoria came out to see what they had gotten, and Greg blew past them and went inside. Benjamin took a walk out into the woods to be by himself.
Wondering what was going on, Victoria asked, “What’s gotten into them?”
Not quite sure what to tell his wife Bryce said, “We ran into some bad guys again, and I took care of it.”
“What do you mean you took care of it?” she asked him.
“I shot them both, and we packed up the vehicle and came back here,” Bryce replied and left out the part about how he had killed the cop.
Victoria gave him a concerned look, and knew inside that he was not making a significant enough deal about all this death in his life. She sensed that he had something to hide about this particular story as well. She didn’t want to push him any further after such an ordeal, and she was glad that he was back safe, so she decided to leave it alone.
“You guys need to get the car unpacked and come inside. The news has this whole damn thing on the TV, and they have a countdown running,” Victoria told Bryce.
Since both Greg and Benjamin abandoned him, Bryce unloaded the car with Jessica. He grabbed one of the hulking fish food carts from the warehouse building that, due to its weight, Bryce swore should have oxen tied to it, and started to pack it full of groceries and supplies. One cart load at a time, he brought everything to the front doorstep of the crew quarters where Jessica helped Cindy and Victoria put it all in its proper place in either the pantry or the freezer. Victoria and her mother had both thought the guys had went a little overboard with some of the stuff they grabbed, and while Victoria gave Bryce the stink eye when she saw the liquor, Cindy grabbed a bottle of Scotch and slipped it into her jacket.
After a few trips with the cart, Bryce and Jessica had all of the supplies unloaded. They put the gas cans on the cart and wheeled them back to the warehouse, and then they walked back to the crew quarters. Greg and Benjamin had both come in to sit down while Bryce and Jessica unloaded the car.
As Bryce walked into the living room, everyone’s eyes were glued to the TV. On the screen, the cameras were pointed toward a long shot of the greater Phoenix area. The news reporters must have parked their van on top of one of the many mountains surrounding the valley. The screen also had a countdown timer in the top right corner of the screen. It read: 23:43 and continued to count down.
The news reporters all stood around and looked at the valley. They pointed and said things that almost sounded like a joke. Unfortunately, it was not a joke, and they talked about the shockwave, blast radius, and square miles of impact. These were things that should not be referenced when complete US cities were included in the discussion.
Twenty minutes went by quicker than anyone could imagine, and now everyone was unquestionably enthralled in the scenes coming from the TV. There undoubtedly were millions of other Americans who also watched this same broadcast in their own cities. The sickening part of the whole thing was that all the people who watched this broadcast were mentally prepared to watch the mass extermination of millions of other Americans. Not everyone was able to make it out of the cities in time, and Bryce assumed that there were countless numbers of people who would be unable to make the journey, and would simply be left behind. Along with these people, millions of infected also roamed the streets.
The minutes counted down to seconds, and in the end, a final countdown began.
The timer read; 10, 9, 8, …, everyone sucked in their breath, 2, 1. The timer blinked red and faded out. Everyone waited with bated breath.
Another thirty seconds slid by, everyone finally let out the wind in their lungs and looked around the room. Another minute went by, and nothing happened. Five minutes slid by like a wicked snake, which waited to strike.
The group started to get up. Maybe they canceled the launch? The reporters were equally stumped.
Suddenly, the camera panned around and zoomed in on something that flew through the air. The camera spun in another direction, and a second object appeared.
Lastly, a third object appeared behind the first one. The objects streamed toward the valley with incredible speed.
The flying objects curved upward and then stayed in a downward slope, the speed of them blurred the edge of reality.
Within only a matter of a few seconds, three separate detonations occurred across the valley. Although, three bombs weren’t nearly enough to blanket the entire 1,200-square mile area, they would be significant enough to kill just about everything. The light was blindingly bright, which caused all of the reporters to protect their eyes and turn away. The camera was left to face the detonation, and within just seconds, the blast radiated outwards and destroyed everything in its path. A few more seconds went by as the blast radiated upward, and then the TV went blank. The TV studio, which broadcasted the event, was wiped off the face of the planet, and killed all active transmissions.
Greg quickly grabbed the remote and flicked through the channels as he tried to find one that still recorded the destruction. He found a small regional news station that still broadcasted. The news anchor confirmed that the major cities in the Phoenix area had been impacted, and likely destroyed. The news anchor also said that they had gotten reports that most of the principal cities and metropolitan areas in the continental United States had been hit as planned.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Top Secret Fall Out Shelter, Location Unknown
James Ryan, a United States Secret Service Agent, hadn’t even been in the White House for an hour when the order was given to evacuate the president to the largest bunker in the United States. The rest of the heads of government would join them, along with all the support staff that would be necessary to operate the government from a secure facility.
James and the others had boarded Marine One with the president and his family in tow and made it to the bunker safely. Only a few hours after they had arrived, the president had been forced to give “Operation Eradication” a go and seal the fates of millions of Americans.
James had felt particularly sick about this “last stand” approach that the president and his advisors had sold themselves on as being their only hope. James’ girlfriend was still not entirely out of the blast zone in California and here he was about to hide in a bunker with the president. When he had last spoken to her, she had been stuck on the highway in an attempt to flee.
The day rolled by as the timer for Operation Eradi
cation counted down. James and his group of Secret Service men had all been posted at the doors to the situation room where the president and his most trusted staff all plotted and planned.
When the timer got close to the end, the president put the final touches on a speech he planned to give to whomever still watched after the bombs fell.
Before the timer ended, however, James got word over his radio that there were infected inside the bunker. James’ heart sank. He knew that there was no place to run, because they had already run to the most secure place in the country.
Even though he knew what his fate was, he still had to protect the president for as long as he could. He called the other men and women from the Presidential Protective Division over the radio and told them to create a defensive position around the situation room.
Within a minute, all of the Protective Division men and women were located at the entry hallway to the room the president was currently in.
Inside, the president prepared to give a speech to whatever was left of the United States of America. The president knew that this was the end, and he knew that America needed a morale boost more now than ever before. He knew that in one final blow, the entire U.S. government was about to end. The president, vice president, speaker of the house, and several other people in the line of succession were all locked inside the same bunker.
Sure there were additional people in the line, but who knew where they were, or if they were even alive still. The immediate need of the government was to get as many of the high-ranking officials to safety as possible. Of course, now that had failed as well.
Inside the room, James heard the president as he gave his speech.
“Citizens of America,” James heard the president begin, “Today we have tested the strength of our great nation in an unfathomable way prior to this virus outbreak.”
“Our country is on the verge of collapse, our greatest cities have been annihilated, and our government is failing. I make this broadcast from what was once the most secure location in the country. Now, outside this room, my trusted Secret Service men and women are desperately trying to hold off a horde of infected in what will most definitely be a last stand,” he continued.
James heard the gunfire start to erupt down the hall, and the screams of his fellow agents as they were torn to pieces by infected.
Inside the room, the president talked louder to overcome the sudden outbreak of fighting, “I am giving this state of the union address to express my deepest sympathies to the families of those who have lost loved ones in the last week and especially in the last hour as our nuclear arsenal was used on domestic soil. I need every American to know that even after I am gone, and the rest of the government of the United States of America is gone as well, that you must stick together. If you stick together, and stay strong, you will survive this plague! The heart of America is in its people, and as long as Americans fight this pandemic, America will survive through its people.”
James could not hear exactly what was said, because the gunfire was getting closer to him, but he thought he heard the president talk for another minute or so in which he explained that the remnants of the military would be under the control of the highest ranking member of the line of succession, and that at this time, they were unsure of who that was.
James could see the infected as they came toward him now, they were only a matter of feet from him, and he made a last-minute decision. He grabbed the last few men that guarded the door with him and yanked them into the room with the president and his staff.
The president, still on the air, hesitated only a moment in acknowledgement of the end, but picked up where he left off.
The president spoke extremely fast now, “Remember you are citizens of the United States of America, be strong, be smart, and help your neighbors! Stay in your homes and board up the windows if you can’t get out. If you can get out, try to make it to a military base outside the containment zones, or if all else fails, a rural area.”
Suddenly, the door burst wide open as the weight of the infected slammed against it. James and the remainder Secret Service agents ran up, surrounded the president, and shot wildly at the infected.
Soon, after a fierce battle raged on for only a matter of seconds, James and the others ran out of ammunition.
The cameras continued to record the entire time, and were focused on the president, as he stood in the center of the last Secret Service agents alive.
James heard the slide lock back on his sidearm, and he threw the handgun at the nearest infected, which struck him in the face. The blow to the face only enraged the infected man, and he charged at James with the determination and ferocity of a linebacker.
James pulled out a Wilson Rapid Response knife and flicked it open with lightning speed. He bellowed a war cry and dove straight at the infected man.
After the other agents saw James jump into the fray with a knife, the last two agents did the same thing, with whatever weapons they could find. One agent swung his rifle with all his might, and clubbed the infected back.
James rushed at the tall, infected man and hit him head on. He pivoted to the right as the infected bowled past him, and just as he was past, James tripped him and stuck the blade of his knife right into the thing’s skull.
The infected man fell like a freshly harvested tree and it was lights out for good.
James quickly grabbed his knife and jumped at the next infected and got caught in the struggle as another one grabbed at his feet. James went down hard and smashed his head on the ground. As stars danced at the edge of his vision, he spun around and stabbed the infected woman who tried to bite him through his shoe.
James scrambled backward, back toward the president. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his best friend get mauled by three infected. He knew at this point that all hope was lost. In reality, he knew before they even came through the door that all hope was lost, but this set things in stone for him.
James scampered backward on his ass and finally got to the president, who had cowered behind the podium. Upon seeing James, the president attached to him like a toddler would hold on to his daddy.
James tried to push him back to keep fighting the infected, but it was too late. The moment that James stopped taking the fight to the infected, the infected brought the fight to him.
They were on him in an instant, he screamed out in agony as they bit into his flesh. He looked up to see the president in tears. He couldn’t hear anything though, because his own screams were too loud.
***
Back at the hatchery, Bryce and his family watched as the president scrambled around on the floor with tears on his face. The camera had fallen over and they were forced to watch the entire scene play out. Nobody at the news agency had bothered to pull the plug on the broadcast, because they were obviously all too enthralled as well.
The president found what looked like a bullet that lay on the ground, and then scrambled to find a gun. He grabbed a gun out of the hands of his last agent, who stared at him with glazed-over eyes as his intestines were exposed to the fluorescent lights, and chambered the round.
The president put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger just one time, the only shot that he fired. The shot rang out like thunder in the room, and the President of the United States left a spray of blood and gore on the Presidential Seal behind him.
The camera recorded the scene afterward as the blood and brains slowly slid down the Presidential Seal and the body of the president was consumed by infected.
Finally, someone in the news studio figured that they should stop the footage.
The anchorman came back on the screen and wasn’t quite sure what to say. He stared blankly at the camera. Someone behind the camera must have signaled him, because he suddenly slipped out of his trance and started to talk again.
“Folks, I’m not entirely sure what to say about we just witnessed, so I am just going to say this,” he said, “The president is right, we need to band together
if we are going to survive this plague, because we just witnessed firsthand what it is capable of. We need to help each other, get over our differences, and come together for one last stand. This is no longer the survival of our country; this is the survival of the human species.”
That was all he said, and he got up from his chair and walked away while the cameras still rolled. About thirty seconds of dead air later, what looked like a director or producer stepped into view of the camera and sat down.
“We are going to shut down the cameras now to be with our families. The infection hasn’t reached our city yet, but we are going to get prepared. The best advice I have for you now is to run, hide, and pray. In that order,” the man told the viewers.
He got up got up and walked away as well and shortly after that, the transmission ended.
Bryce and his family sat in front of the TV in complete shock. They were all totally blown away by what they had witnessed. There were no words that could explain what had happened on the screen, and what had happened to them in the real world.
In less than a week, Bryce and his family had been uprooted from their homes, lost half of their family members, and had been forced to watch the destruction of one of the greatest nations in the world, by nuclear weapons and a mystery illness that had caused the death of their leaders.
Bryce had no idea where to go from here, but he knew to stay the course. His worst fears had come to fruition, and for once, he was glad he had seen the writing on the wall.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hatchery Compound, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
The Extinction Pandemic: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Hatchery Compound Book 1) Page 12
