Rotter Apocalypse (6 page)

The hot shower and change of clothes had been the best thing to happen to Natalie in the past four weeks, except for those intimate moments spent with Mike. Judging by the reaction of her Angels, she assumed they felt the same. She heard several of her girls giggling in the shower. When a female staffer took them to the store room for a change of clothes, most of the Angels acted like teenagers on a shopping spree, holding the garments against each other and asking the others how they looked. The selection was limited and functional, mostly earth-toned ACUs, or Army combat uniforms, sand-colored t-shirts, and black or tan boots. No dresses, skirts, or heels. Natalie found it strange not to see her girls in what had once been their traditional uniforms. Not that it mattered. For the first time in a year, her girls had the opportunity to wear something other than their well-worn leather pants, white shirts, and leather jackets. Coming to Alcatraz symbolized a break with everything they had gone through previously, although Natalie seemed to be the only one who noticed. They looked like women and not the Angels, and she had not seen them this vibrant since before Site R. When the girls left to be escorted to their new quarters, she was the only one to take with her anything from her past life, asking the staffer if she could have her leather jacket.

Rogers and an enlisted woman in a blue-toned ACU waited for them outside the store room. Rogers stepped forward when he saw the Angels. “How do you feel?”

“Like a new woman,” said Natalie. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me, ma’am. We’re building a new society here, and we can’t do that if we all smell like the revenants.” Rogers motioned toward the woman beside him. “This is Corporal Bechtel. She’s going to show you ladies to your quarters.”

Bechtel stepped forward. “You arrived at a good time. A large contingent moved out of the cellblock two nights ago, so we have quarters available for you inside. I arranged to have you in adjacent cells so we don’t have to separate you. It’s two people to a cell, but it beats the tent farm out on the parade ground.”

“You’ll hear no complaints from us,” said Natalie.

“Great. If you ladies will follow me, please.”

Rogers motioned to Natalie. “Secretary Fogel is waiting to see you.”

“Lead the way.”

Rogers escorted Natalie outside the cellblock, leading her around the northeast façade to the main entrance of the administrative offices at the far end of the building. Upon entering, they took the first right, passed through two offices, and found themselves in the warden’s secretary’s room. Brian Thomas, the chief of staff for Secretary Fogel, sat behind a dented and scuffed metal desk in front of a set of windows that overlooked San Francisco Bay, with Oakland in the distance. He wore the same outfit he had on when he debriefed her—black slacks and shoes, a white dress shirt, and a tie. Natalie assessed him to be in his mid-fifties because of the gray streaking his dark hair along the temples, which accentuated his lean face and brown eyes. She found him to be professional, pleasant, and polite. Upon seeing her enter, he stood and came around to the front of his desk.

“Miss Bazargan, it’s good to see you again.” He extended his hand.

“Likewise.” She gave it a firm pump.

“I see you’ve had a chance to freshen up. I hope everything is to your satisfaction.”

“It’s much better than anything we’ve had in a long time.”

“We do our best.”

Captain Rogers cleared his throat. “I hope we’re not late.”

“Not at all, Captain.” Thomas motioned toward a card table set up in the corner with a coffee pot on top. “Help yourself to a cup while you wait.”

“Thanks.”

“Come with me, please,” Thomas said to Natalie. “Secretary Fogel is anxious to meet you.”

They crossed Thomas’ office to the interior wall. The chief of staff knocked on the door, waited for a response, and opened it. “Excuse me, Mr. Secretary. Miss Bazargan is here to see you.”

“Excellent,” said the voice from inside the office. “Send her in.”

Thomas stepped aside and ushered Natalie into the warden’s office. The room appeared as Spartan as the outer office, with the same plain white walls and dirty floor tiles that had been in place when the prison was shut down back in 1963. Two large support beams ran down the center of the room. To the left opposite the single window and door leading outside sat the Secretary’s desk, an old, scratched up piece of furniture with drips of dried paint scattered along the surface and sides. The only other pieces were three easy chairs, one behind the desk and two in front for visitors, each of a different design with frayed, mismatched fabric. The office appeared as if it had been furnished from an old basement.

When Secretary of Education Fogel stood to greet her, Natalie barely recognized him. Prior to the outbreak, she had seen him on the news quite often due to his being a vocal advocate for improving the country’s declining educational standards. She remembered him as being robust. Now he was thin, although his loose-fitting black suit made him seem gaunter than he actually was. His blond hair had gone gray, and he squinted to see through his glasses. Coming around the side of the desk, Fogel steadied himself on its surface before approaching. Other than the signs of age and exhaustion brought on by living through the outbreak, he seemed in good health and greeted her with a firm handshake.

“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.”

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 viable 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.”