Would they frag him? Blow his ass to hell where it belonged? Did they blame him for the endless days of fighting, or the constant retreats? Or the wasted lives? Did they think that the moronic rules of engagement were his idea?
“I'd deserve it if they did,” he said to himself. None of this was his fault in the strictest sense, but it was clear that he had failed his men and his nation. Commonsense told him long ago to ignore the President's orders, only he had been a good little Nazi and went along with the buffoonery instead of doing the right thing.
His division had once been an almost perfect fighting force, trained and equipped with the world's most high-tech weapons, but the “Rules” said: no mortars, no artillery, no tanks, no LAVs, no jets, no helicopters, no nothing. Without questioning his leaders, he had set aside millions of dollars worth of equipment, giving up every advantage in the process, and fought the hordes man to beast.
He still had his guns, however they had the numbers. From the urban agglomeration that was the New York area, it was estimated that twelve million stiffs had come at him. Yes he had guns, however he'd only been allocated just under three million bullets. It didn't take a genius to see the math wasn't going to add up.
Reluctantly, he took his eyes from the men and scanned to the blue skies. “Where the hell is he?” asked the general, again under his breath. His driver barely stirred, having grown used to the general mumbling to himself over the last two weeks as things had gone from bad to hellacious.
Then came the wump, wump, wump of the choppers blades. “Here he comes. Inspection time.” He said this louder, an invitation for his driver to respond.
“Gonna kiss his ass real good, Sir?” Sergeant Bower asked in his thick southern 'Bama' drawl. “You need some lip balm? We may be all out of grenades and fifty cal ammo and such, but we got cases of lip balm and I think this would be a good, heroic use for em.”
“Fuck you Bower,” he said genially, stepping out of the humvee, and checking his gig line—out of habit only. He didn't give a rat's ass what the Secretary of Defense thought of his uniform, or really what the useless son of a bitch thought of anything.
“Yes Sir,” Bower replied. The whipping rotors sent a storm of dust their way and they squinted into it. The sergeant yelled over the noise, “What do you think it's gonna be this time? They gonna make us read them zombies their Miranda rights before we shoot em?”
The general smirked at the comment, because sadly it wasn't so far-fetched with this administration, but when he heard the Secretary's actual request he went cold.
He wanted a hundred picked soldiers for a “secret” mission; this usually meant going to fetch a niece of the First Lady or some Hollywood starlet, however this was different. The men had been picked already.
“What's so special about these men?” Fairchild asked, flipping through the hundred pages: each had a short bio of the soldier and a picture stapled to the top right. “I know some of these men are dead.”
“Not according to the last casualty list you submitted,” the Secretary responded in his flat mid-western accent.
“You may have noticed that I'm dealing with about ten million fucking zombies,” Fairchild replied, intentionally leaving off any honorific. As a favor to himself he had given up on paperwork altogether, and who was there to say otherwise? His boss, Lieutenant General John Hickey, and everyone else in the command structure was no longer one of the living, as it was being politely put—being Dead had too many meanings these days. “Hey, Bower,” he said. “They got you in here.”
“That right?” Bower drawled. “They must want sumptin mighty important done.”
“Yeah, that's right,” Fairchild remarked, his voice becoming fainter with each syllable. Bower was a good man, not an exceptional one. Why on earth had he been chosen for this secret mission? Something wasn't right about this, nor about the way the Secretary's politician's smile stayed fixed just so, and how the men on the list had only two things in common.
Everyone of them was from the deep south and everyone of them was...
“Mr. Secretary, this man is dead for certain,” Fairchild said holding up one of the pictures at random. “But I have a good replacement. That man right there. Bower, what's that soldier's name?”
Bower squinted at the soldier, a man with skin the color of molasses. “That's Jackson. He a PFC, but he's a hell of a good guy, Sir. He's a shooter is what he is.”
“No, not him,” the Secretary said, quickly. “Just the men on the list.”
“That's what I thought,” Fairchild growled. “Bower go take a walk.” When the sergeant left, Fairchild looked long at the politician and then asked, “What's going on?”
“It's need to know only,” the Secretary replied with a warning for the general in his eyes.
“Then in that case, the men on this list...they're all dead. We don’t have what you’re looking for here. So sorry you had to come all the way up here for nothing.” The general began walking away and the politician grabbed him and pulled him close.
“You of all people must see how bad it is from a military point of view. And you know we can't go on like this. Don’t you think it’s time for a change?” Their eyes met and a thousand words were conveyed with the look. The question had been a loaded gun, and the hundred white soldiers the bullets, and there was only one possible target.
“The President is touring the front...what's left of it,” the Secretary said speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “And he's going to need a security force that's been around the zombies, that knows the score, that knows how things have been and how they should've been.”
Fairchild took a step back and watched his men go by—they were so tired from the constant fighting that they looked a little like zombies themselves. It could have been different. The war could've been winnable at the very start. Now it probably wasn't even survivable except by a lucky few.
“No. I’m not going to have you hang this on my men. And I don’t want anyone thinking this is about race. I'll do it,” he said, putting his hand on the butt of his gun and caressing it lightly.
The move wasn't lost on the Secretary. “Are you sure? He'll have a security detail.”
“Will I be able to carry my gun?” When the Secretary nodded, Fairchild added, “Then it'll be no problem.”
It wasn't.
Two days later, just behind the lines where his men lived and died, the secret service agents faced outward not seeing the danger that was so close. The President was twitchy and nervous at the proximity of so many zombies and was easily distracted. No one noticed as General Fairchild slid his pistol from his hip holster and used it to give his few remaining men a real fighting chance to at least save themselves.
Chapter 17
Sarah
Danville, Illinois
When the military left Danville the first time they left a town, which had once been thriving, on the brink. It wasn't just the food, it was the attitude the soldiers had displayed. It left no doubt that they saw the people as little more than servants in the best of cases and slaves in the worst.
Sarah's parents had their vast larder pared down to a week or two of food, and they were some of the lucky ones. A few people were arrested for resisting and had everything taken from them. And while an unknown number of women were rumored to have been raped, two other people were actually shot.
With all the killing in the world, those two deaths caused reverberations out of all proportion. Thousands of people panicked and fled the town, thinking incorrectly that they would find things better somewhere else. Among those that stayed a strong majority felt the overwhelming need to fortify the town and all remaining fuel was used to operate a bulldozer night and day, digging what was in essence a huge moat around Danville. They even redirected the waters of the North Fork River into it, making a tremendous muddy mess out of the eastern side of the city.
And then they sat around passively waiting. Nothing in their staid, dull lives had prepared them to do an
ything else. Within a few days the moat proved its worth when the first real wave of zombies came at the town. The alarm sounded and the men went off, while the women, save for a hearty few, watched from the eastern buildings.
The firing went on for a long time as the men were slow to catch on that only headshots were effective and hundreds of rounds were wasted in a time when every shot counted. Eventually the moat was breached in a number of spots and the farmers fled to their homes, where they proved far more effective. Firing down from second floor windows where they were safe allowed them to aim with far greater accuracy, and though a number of homes were broken into and some two dozen townsmen were slain, the town lived to fight another day.
“Was everyone checked for bites last night?” Denise asked at breakfast the following morning. In order to pool their dwindling recourses, Gary and Denise Rivers, had moved into their daughter's much smaller house. It was easier to heat and had only two entrances to defend in case of an emergency and one of these was blocked with a now useless refrigerator.
They were eating cold oatmeal with only a spoon full of sugar to sweeten it. Since the army had left, their meals had been dreadfully bland and Gary sighed with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Yeah. Johansson and Cargrave went around after the fight. Found a couple.”
“Who were they?” Denise asked taking a small nibble of the grey paste.
“Please,” Sarah said, shaking her head. She didn't want to know who they were. The list of dead and missing in her life was beginning to grow in length and just then she'd rather just believe her friends were alive someplace else; someplace nice.
“Well what did they do?” Denise demanded. “We can't have people turning into monsters smack dab in the middle of Danville!”
“Trust me, it was taken care of. In a respectful manner.”
The room went silent as the two women pondered what a “respectful manner” entailed and in the silence the dread bell began to go off again. Denise's mouth started to quiver; she stared down at her bowl and said, “You better get going, dear.”
He had only just opened the door when someone ran by and yelled, “The army's back. Hide what you can!” They didn't have much to hide, so it only took a few minutes, and that was all the time they had.
“What is that noise?” Denise asked hurrying to the window and peeking out. “Oh my lord! They have tanks. Why would they have tanks?”
They found out moments later as a loudspeaker began issuing orders: “Residents of Danville, remain indoors. Resistors will be shot. Remain indoors until further notice. Anyone on the street will be shot as a resistor. All weapons must be placed just outside your front door. Anyone found with a weapon indoors will be shot.”
This was repeated up and down the street.
Gary had gone upstairs to get a better look around and he came down in a sweat. “They've got four tanks and all sorts of armored humvees. They...” A tat-tat-tat of machine gun fire began. It ended quickly and everyone stood frozen, listening for more. Gary swallowed hard and asked, “What do we do?”
“Put your gun outside!” Denise cried.
“But they'll take it,” Gary said, clutching his shotgun with both hands, like a toddler with a toy. “We'll be defenseless.”
Sarah felt her insides cave as she said, “They won't. I know the commander. Um, he uh...we have an understanding.”
Her father seemed puzzled by this. “What sort of understanding?”
“Just put the gun outside,” Sarah said, going to sit down at her kitchen table. She didn't think her legs would hold her up for long. “And hurry. They seem trigger happy and I couldn't stand for anything to happen to you.”
He did and then the three sat at the kitchen table with their oatmeal hardening in front of them. The tanks systematically went down each street, stopping at every house where their presence made the people feel small and vulnerable. When they finally came to Sarah's house and a knock sounded at the door each of the three took a great fearful breath. “Come in,” she said and her voice cracked.
Two soldiers came in pointing mean looking assault weapons at the three and right behind them came the colonel and now his nametag was visible: Williams. He spoke pleasantly, “Good morning. Don't get up, enjoy your breakfast.”
“Are you going to take my gun?” Gary asked quickly.
The colonel's eyes went to Sarah first and she found that she couldn't look him in the face. “That all depends,” he said, slowly. He then raised his eyebrows to one of the soldiers who had come in with them.
The man read aloud from a piece of notebook paper, “By command of the military governor in compliance with Executive order 7249. Section one: In order to fairly and properly defend the people of Danville, all weapons and ammunition are to be turned over immediately. They will be redistributed as warranted by circumstance.”
Sarah's father gasped and began, “That's outrageous. You can't take our guns! Our second amendment rights...”
Williams held up a hand and cut Gary's words off with the simple gesture. “I can actually. Forget the executive order, those tanks out there say I can.”
“You'll leave us defenseless!”
Colonel Williams sighed and nodded. He pointed to the two soldiers. “Wait outside please,” he ordered and when they had left he went on, “I wish it weren't so, but the cold reality is that many of you will die. Hell, all of us may die for that matter. It's a sad truth. Our lines were broken in four spots and most of my men are dead or run off. The remainder, about two-thousand are on an island in the Illinois river, fortifying it as we speak.”
“But how are we supposed to live?” Gary demanded. “Taking away our guns is the same as murdering us!”
“Right now I have to look out for the greater good,” Williams replied. “Communications with my superiors have ceased, we're no longer supplied, and every major city is categorized as black. That's the paradigm in which I have to base my decisions. America has fallen. That's the truth. And even if I let you keep your guns, you'll all die, very soon. This town is essentially defenseless and now that the army has failed, there's nothing between you and close on a million stiffs. From my point of view it makes no sense not to take what can be saved and leave the rest.”
The room went quiet at the news and from outside screams could be heard. Sarah listened to them and they sunk in, going right to her heart; they were the screams of Mrs. Hayes, one of her neighbors. The sound made her oatmeal want to come back up.
She swallowed hard, forcing the sensation of nausea from her mind and then stood. With a forced smile she went to the colonel and put her hand out and he took it. “Thankfully, the colonel and I have an understanding.”
Her father had been ghost-white and staring blankly, now he came alive. “That's what you said before, and I ask again, what sort of understanding?”
Williams glanced down at Sarah and then put an arm around her. “Nothing nefarious I assure you. I am somewhat smitten with your daughter and I can't stand the idea of something happening to her. Somehow she was able to pick up on it.”
“Somehow,” Sarah agreed with a barely repressed shiver. The colonel's hand had slid down her back and now he was gently massaging her ass. “And you'll bring my parents with us back to this island?”
“How could I say no?” he replied. “Though I have to warn you, I'll expect a lot out of you on a daily basis.”
“You won't be disappointed,” Sarah said, agreeing to become his whore.
Chapter 18
Ram
Baker, California
Slinging his M16 across his back and raising his hands, Ram moved toward the barricade of cars, and as he went he was forced to step on rotting bodies. They carpeted the road two deep and just to the side was a sharp edged drainage ditch where bodies were piled in the hundreds. As gingerly as possible, Ram stepped on the ones in the road and still they shifted and squished beneath his feet, letting out horrid yawns of putrid gases that had his head feeling light.
; “That's close enough,” a voice from behind the cars said. Ram felt the world begin to spin and he stumbled forward gagging against the smell. The men behind the barricades made threats, and still he staggered on until he had his hands on the passenger side window of a four-runner.
Across the car from him, pointing a short-barreled shotgun was what he at first thought was a large chubby hispanic. Then Ram' eyes began to focus and he saw that it was a man who didn't seem to belong in the heat of that desert. He was sumo wrestler, right down to the odd ducked haircut.
“What, are you bit?” the wrestler asked in such a thick accent that it took a moment before Ram realized that it had been a form of English. He started to shake his head and the sumo was pushed aside by a much smaller man. He was white, but with such a deep and permanent tan that he was darker than Ram.
“You bit?” he asked.
Ram shook his head and said, “No, it's the smell. You know you gotta move these bodies or you're going to get some diseases.”
“We ain't worried about no diseases much. It's the fucking zombies that we worry on. So what you got to trade? We got all the guns we can use. It's the bullets we need. You got any? Or alcohol. Or some good food. Not just rice and beans, and that crap. Something good, like some Pringles. But mostly we need bullets.”
“Bullets? No, I got a girl.”
The man tilted his head like a puzzled dog. “A girl? What do you mean? To trade? You wanna trade a girl?” he pulled back from his side of the car and yelled to his right. “He wants to trade us a girl.”
Another man squinted from between two of the piled cars and said, “That's fucked up, mister. We don't buy and sell people. You can just take that shit somewhere else.”
“No, you don't understand me,” Ram said. “I want to get rid of this girl. She's, uh...she's getting passed around, if you know what I mean.”
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