Origins of the Outbreak (23 page)

She stepped forward and scooped up the thirty pound piece of concrete.
The creature was almost on top of her when she swung it upwards from low to high and impacted wit
h
it
s
face. The force of the blow made it stagger backwards. Melanie raised the statue above her head and brought it crashing down into the zombie's skull. It crumpled and she dropped the statue.

She jerked her door open and climbed in the driver's seat.
“Don't mess with Mama Bear's cubs!” she said as she slammed the door.

Caitlin already had Caleb buckled in and was working on Ashley by the time Melanie's hands stopped shaking enough to get the key into the ignition.
She turned the key and the big Triton V8 roared to life.

“Hold on!” she shouted and backed out of the drive.
She laid down ten feet of rubber as she peeled out, trying to get away.

Near the end of her street she saw Kasey.
The girl was covered in blood and was clearly no longer among the living. She suppressed a sob and drove past her as quickly as she could, hoping the children didn't recognize her.

She pulled onto the main street that left the installation and saw the devastation that her husband's unit had undergone.
  Their wheeled Stryker vehicles had been shoved out of the way or simply pushed over.  The force of the horde combined with the vehicles’ high centers of gravity made them easy pickings for the determined creatures. The Expedition barely cleared the space between two of the military vehicles, but she made it through and Melanie pulled onto the highway.

She headed west.
Her plan was to drive as far away as possible until the scrub became sand and there was no one around. They'd be safer where there weren't any people to turn into zombies.

It was crazy, absolutely insane.
Saint Francis had told her where to go.

The Last Chance
, 9:20 p.m.

“Are you sure about this?” Major Thomas Cullen asked his co-pilot/navigator.

“Tom, I've checked the grid five times.
We need to call this in.”

“Yeah, I know.
I was just hoping that we were wrong.”

The lead pilot made a visual check out his window at the long wing that stretched off for what seemed like miles.
The U.S. air Force B-2 Spirit, commonly known as the Stealth Bomber, had taken off from Whiteman Air Force Base outside of Kansas City three hours ago and had been ordered to loiter in a giant looping pattern over Missouri.

The crew was told that they had only one munition on board, a MK/B-61.
Neither Tom nor Derrick knew what that was, so in between the vague mission brief and takeoff they'd looked it up. The MK/B-61 was a 300 kiloton thermonuclear bomb. They'd been ordered to fly circles over America's heartland with a nuclear bomb in the bay.

Among the peculiarities of the mission
were the facts that they had no destination directives, they’d been ordered to fly no lower than 45,000 feet and each had been issued loaded side arms. The entire thing was strange and now they'd apparently been given inaccurate drop coordinates for a live nuclear weapon.

“Making the call now.”

Tom tapped a few keys on his radio and then said, “Whiteman, this is Spirit of Washington, over.”

“
Go ahead, Spirit.
”

“My navigator has checked the grid coordinates that were sent to us for the live drop of the munition that we're carrying.
There must be a mistake, those coordinates are over Texas.”

“
Spirit, I've been directed to link you to another frequency.
”

“Um
… Okay, Whiteman
.
Standing by.”

“What the fuck is going on, Tom?
What do they mean they're switching us to a different frequency?”

“I don't know, man.
This whole thing is crazy.”

The radio emitted a burst of static and a new voice came over their headsets, “
Can you boys here me?
”

“Uh, yes
.
This is the crew of the Spirit of Washington, over.”

“
Tom, Derrick, this is the president.
”

The two pilots exchanged glances
.
“Yes, sir!
”
Tom replied.

“
Listen to me, boys. I know that you don't want to do this. I've put you both in the position to go down in history as the saviors of our country, quite possibly of the entire globe.
”

“Uh, I'm sorry, sir.
I don't understand,” Derrick said.

“
There's a terrible disease sweeping through central Texas. Three days ago, this thing didn't even exist, now more than two million people are infected. One hundred percent kill rate. The illness is spread by people who act like rabid animals and there is no cure.
”

“Do you mean the zombie virus, sir?” Tom asked.

“
Yes, that's what the news calls it. Every team that the CDC has sent to investigate has disappeared and we believe that they’re dead, so we don’t really know what we’re dealing with.  We had hoped that the Army would be able to stop it, but Fort Hood has been overrun and the infected own everything from Austin to Waco.

“
We've lost some of the most capable ground forces that we had in a little over 36 hours from initial contact. The only way to end this before it destroys all of us is to drop that bomb and wipe them out.
”

“I can't believe that you want us to nuke American soil, sir,” Tom stated.

“
I don't want you to, son. Why do you think you've been up there so long? I've agonized over this and the only thing that waiting has accomplished is that it allowed the creatures to spread even farther.
”

Tom considered what he was being asked to do.
“This isn't a training run, is it, sir?”

“
No, Major Cullen. This is real and we're all counting on you to do your job.
”

“Sir, m
y
jo
b
is not to drop nuclear weapons on America!” Tom practically screamed into his microphone.

“Tom, what are you doing?” Derrick asked his pilot.

“Standing up for what's right. This is bullshit and I ain't gonna do it.”

“
Major Cullen, this is a direct order from the President of the United States. You will drop your ordinance on the grid that was given to you or you'll go to jail.
”

Tom thought about his wife and kids.
They'd understand that he couldn't let himself become a monster. “Then I'll go to jail, sir.”

“
This is a mistake, Tom. Your family, everyone's family will be killed by these things if we don't stop it now.
”

“I can't do it, sir.”

“
Very well, return to base and I'll find someone who will.
”

“You heard him, plot a course for Whiteman.”

Derrick nodded and brought up the navigational display. His headset crackled, “
Derrick, this is the president. Key your mike once for no, twice for yes. Do you understand?
”

He looked over to the pilot, but he obviously hadn't heard the transmission.
He tapped the transmit button twice to indicate that he understood the instructions.

“
Good. Listen, this isn't a game. Are you willing follow my orders and save your country?
”

He answered with two quick bursts.

“
I need you to take control of that bomber and drop that nuke on those creatures before this spreads over the entire country. Can you do that?
”

Two bursts from the microphone.

He steeled himself for what he knew he had to do. He and Tom had gone to school together and been the best man at each other's wedding. It wasn't fair that he was in this position, but he'd seen the news – hell, he’d seen plenty of movies. The president wasn't exaggerating, if they didn't stop this now, it would be too late and then little Ming wouldn't have a future. She'd end up dead or as a zombie. That thought replayed through his mind several times and he allowed it to fuel his courage.

In one fluid motion Derrick
unholstered his pistol and placed it against the base of Tom's neck, barrel pointing up towards his head. He squeezed the trigger and Tom slumped forward over the controls, blood pouring from behind his face shield. He didn't even know what had happened.

Derrick pulled Tom back from the instrument panel and keyed his microphone, “This is Major
Yamoshi. I'm in control of the Spirit of Washington
.
Altering course now.”

He typed in the grid coordinates that they'd been given while the president commended his patriotism and valor.
The Stealth’s autopilot banked the plane in a wide arc and straightened out on a southern course.

“Can it, Mr. President,” he cut his Commander in Chief off.
“This is a one way mission. I'm doing this for my family and for the future of our world. Promise me that Tom Cullen will be remembered as a hero, not someone who didn't follow orders.”

“
That sounds awfullyfatalistic, son
.
Stay at the altitude that you were directed and you'll be fine.
”

“I could never live with myself
after this. I love my country, sir.”

He turned off his radio and dropped the bomber to five thousand feet.
They'd never be able to find the stealth plane now. No last-minute change of heart on the president's part. Derrick was committed to keep his nation safe.

When the Spirit of Washington arrived over Belton, the pilot dropped it to a thousand feet off the deck and released the nuclear bomb.
The munition automatically calculated for its height and detonated ten feet from the ground. Derrick and Tom were vaporized instantly.

Twenty miles away, young Beth lay in her bed.
She'd cried herself into a near catatonic state. Her boyfriend was dead, no one had any news about her mother and her father had left to stand guard at the road leading into town almost nine hours ago; he was probably dead now too. Her mind recognized the change in light, but she had no clue what happened to her when the blast's overpressure liquefied all of her internal organs, killing her and ending the pain that she felt as the world collapsed around her.

Adam and Debbie actually had a few seconds of warning to signal their impending doom.
They sat on their porch swing listening to the sounds of the whippoorwills off in the trees around their property. Duke whined and barked towards the northeast moments before the shockwave hit their house in Florence. Adam tried to block his wife from the blast, but it was no use against that kind of pressure. All three of them were killed by flying debris and buried under the collapsed farmhouse.

Day Four

The Leftovers
, 8:14 a.m.

In the middle of a wide open field near Gatesville, Kenny looked through his periscope at the wasteland outside. All night long, firestorms had raged across the area. The old truck was a total loss and had exploded around midnight as he and Carol lay huddled together expecting to die.

Now that the foliage was burnt away, he was able to see four bodies less than a hundred yards from the entrance to his survival pod.
Kenny didn't know – and would probably never learn – if the bodies were zombies or scavengers who'd somehow learned of their location and were going to attempt to break in.

For now, he was thankful to be alive with his beautiful wife.

Gary and Amanda watched the sky come alive in oranges and reds as fires roared through Waco far to the south. When he'd told her that he lived north of the city, he'd forgotten to tell her that it was all the way in Hillsboro, nearly thirty miles from the town that he was sworn to protect.

Carrie had been able to sew up his wounds.
She'd thought that the thug missed his intestines, but she couldn't be sure for a few days, so he was in a wait and see status.  She didn’t want to, but if he got worse, his wife was going to have to open him up and find damage. She'd also been able to set Amanda's arm, but didn't have the capability to do much more than stabilize it and hope for the bones to grow back together over time.

Michael and Janine were ecstatic to have someone closer to their age in residence under their father's imposed exile.
He promised the children that it would only be a few days until they could safely make the determination whether things were going to be alright and if they could leave. The kids made do and played video games, content to not go outside anyways.

Hundreds of miles to the west, Melanie continued to drive.
They'd seen the bomb light up the night behind them as fires and lightning danced across the gigantic mushroom cloud that stretched thousands of feet into the sky. They'd pulled over and watched the show in awe.

Several miles after they started
driving again, Ashley said, “Daddy isn't going to meet us, is he?”

“No honey, he's not.
Your father protected all of us so we could get away.  Daddy is with Jesus in heaven now.”

“Oh, he must be having such a fun time!
”