The Apocalypse Crusade 2 (19 page)

The Secretaries of this cabinet and that were all nodding along, looking ready to kill, however the military men were sitting in various degrees of discomfort. Finally, when the silence in the room became strained, one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a four star general named Randal Heider, whom Collins had served under fifteen years previously when they were both with the 1
st
Infantry Division, spoke up. He had been a sharp, fair-minded officer and it was strange to see the slightly halting manner in which he said to the President: “Uh, sir, General Collins actually can’t obey that order. The 42
nd
is a guard unit.”

“So? It’s still the army, and he’s still a general, and I am still the Commander in Chief. At least the last time I checked I was.”

General Heider half-nodded in agreement but also shook his head, so that there was a diagonal movement of his chin. “You are, of course the Commander in Chief, but in this case you aren’t exactly commander of the 42
nd
. Remember, the National Guard is technically under the command of the individual governors of the states in which they are headquartered. If you wish to command the 42
nd
, you must first federalize it.”

“Right,” the President replied. He looked to Marty, and asked: “Isn’t it about time to federalize the situation? People are dying after all.” No one at the table thought it strange that he hadn’t asked his Vice President for his opinion. The V. P. owned his position solely because he had been able to carry Missouri for the ticket during the last election. He had absolutely no role beyond that. The two men loathed each other and spoke only when the cameras were rolling
and
when it couldn’t be avoided.

“Not yet,” Marty replied evenly. The National Guard had barely got moving. Federalizing them wouldn’t make them move any faster and it would just add layers of command on an already hectic situation. This meant that there was still too much room for blame in the situation. “We should see how things play out.”

Before General Heider had only leaned forward slightly when speaking, never letting his elbows come off the table before him, now he stood. “That may not be the best advice, sir. General Collins’ dispositions are dubious at best. The entire eastern side of his perimeter is significantly under-manned. It won’t hold up against any test. His northern line isn’t much better in spots. If quibbling governors are behind this then it’s time someone unified command. General Collins has the man-power available, he just needs the authority to use it.”

“I agree,” Collins said.

Marty glared at Collins and waved a hand at the general, suggesting that he sit down by the move. “We are handling this. The President will speak to Governor Warner of Connecticut when this meeting concludes.”

“I will kick his ass is what I’ll do!” the President declared.

Marty tried not to roll his eyes at the outburst. He crowbarred a slimy smile over the grimace on his face and turned to whisper in the President’s ear. “She’s a woman and remember party unity, Mr. President. It’s more important now than ever. It’s best not to ruffle feathers. Perhaps we can earmark some funds from the highway bill in order to cover the expense required to call up Bowman’s forces.”

Horace Collins listened to political talk with a pain in his gut. They were worried about how they were going to grease palms while people were dying! And yet what could he do besides resign? As tempting as that was, it would only hurt the situation.

“Now, if we can get back on track?” Marty asked, gesturing at the cue cards.

Collins waited on the next self-serving question, but instead he received a simple statement from the President and he didn’t know what to say or do with it. “Everything that can be done is being done,” the President intoned seriously. Collins nodded; though the statement was actually a lie, he didn’t think it would be prudent to argue just then.

The President then looked suddenly grave and announced: “This is a grave situation that we’re doing everything in our power to come to grips with.”

“Uh, yes,” Collins said, uncertainly, not knowing if he was supposed to extend his remark or if he was supposed to remark at all.

“The strength of the American people lies in their determination and courage,” the President intoned. Collins decided just to nod along like everyone else. Then the President asked: “What’s being done to help those stricken with this dread disease?”

At first Collins continued to nod, thinking the old man was still in cue card mode. It wasn’t until someone chuckled quietly that he realized an answer was required. “Oh, yes, the disease,” he said, trying to collect himself. He had to search the labyrinth of his mind and think beyond the myriad of troop movements and ammunition rate usages and of course, the thing that had him scared to no end: the dire situation of his fuel supplies, in order to recall the plan put in place ages ago by some moronic officer who hadn’t lived in the real world where zombies upset timetables and where American soldiers were being killed by panicked citizens.

He had only glanced at the plan earlier that afternoon during the three minutes he had allowed himself to suck down an MRE. He remembered the MRE more than the detailed Mass Casualty/Terrorism Induced Bioweapons Release Readiness Plan. The MRE had peanut butter and jelly and crackers, his favorite. On the other hand, the readiness plan consisted of bullshit and even if it hadn’t, there was no way Collins could have implemented it. All of his medical personnel, from his medics to his dental technicians, all the way up to his surgeons, were on the line, toting M16s, trying to keep the crowds of people back. So far, the zombie hordes had not been the main problem. Extending the perimeter had made it so that the slow moving zombies wouldn’t be a problem until later that evening.

By then Collins hoped to have enough men in place to stop them, and maybe men enough men to begin the Mass Casualty Readiness Plan.

“Our current focus, Mr. President, is curtailing the spread of the disease. This has been our number one priority. We have 330 million Americans to protect and we will do everything in our power to keep them safe and healthy. The entire compliment of our medical personnel is on scene and working just as hard as the toughest infantryman.” There was no lie in that answer, however he omitted that when he had hoofed it to his helicopter an hour before he had strode past a jumble of medical equipment, probably ten million dollars’ worth, piled taller than his head. In the scramble for men, fuel, and ammo, it hadn’t been considered a necessity and had been heaved out of the back of a truck on a word.

“We will contain this outbreak,” the President read off another cue card. “And we will bring those responsible for this catastrophe to justice.”

“Yes,” Collins replied, again uncertain if more was required.

Evidently it wasn’t. The President nodded suddenly and then smiled, relieved. He stood up and shook Marty’s hand, he then went to the next most important Secretary of this cabinet or that and shook that man’s hand, before continuing down the line. Marty clapped the old man on the back and General Collins was certain he was going to say:
That’s a wrap, everyone
, as if he were a director working on a movie.

Collins had stood when the President rose and was expecting some sort of acknowledgement but he was ignored as the president glad-handed down the line. Even the other military brass kept their distance. Collins was in a no-win situation. Civilians had been killed; it didn’t matter that in most cases there had been direct attacks on his men and that in some cases his men had been overrun or slaughtered. It only mattered that the word massacre was showing up more and more in the media. And, if by some miracle, he managed to contain the situation, everyone knew all the credit would be taken by the President or Governor Stimpson.

From across the table Marty raised his eyebrows as if to say:
Are you still here?

“Why is he being this way?” Collins hissed.

“You mean why is he doing his job?” Marty sneered. “His job is to appear calm and presidential in the face of a terrible event. His job is to make sure the American people feel protected. It’s your job to protect them! So, I think it would be really swell if you could go do that.” In a snap, Marty turned the sneer into a greased smile and went back to schmoozing.

Collins glanced down at his coffee and the faded hummingbirds. The coffee was cold but he swallowed it in a gulp. When he looked up again he noticed that no one would even cast their eyes in his direction. The only person more ignored than himself was the Vice-President, who got up and left alone. A minute later, Collins followed him out of the room. There was a gaggle of self-important suit types at the elevator, but Collins didn’t want to ride up with them He knew his presence would cause all conversation to cease and that he’d be treated as if he was diseased himself. He took the stairs.

An hour later, the film of the meeting in the Situation Room had been edited to make the President come across as courageous, resourceful, and a true leader. It was then disseminated to every media outlet possible. During the hour-long wait, the President forgot about his promise of ordering the states neighboring New York to call up their guardsmen. He spent the time taking selfies with visiting dignitaries and assuring campaign donors in New York City that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. The Vice-President spent the hour calling his friends in the city, telling them to leave as soon as humanly possible.

Marty worked the phones as if this was an election night. He firmly believed that the army would have no trouble containing the issue. For him it was
fly-over
country. From the lofty view of his Lear jet—it was government owned but he treated it as his own personal property—that part of the country always looked so empty, as if no one really lived there. He kept up a steady stream of calls, hoping to expand the power and the budget of FEMA so “This sort of thing can’t happen again!” Marty owed favors and turning FEMA into an outreach program of the government would go a long way to paying some of them off. Yes, it would mean another bloated, wasteful bureaucracy, but it also meant jobs for the right people and a slush fund that could be raided when campaign donations ran a little dry.

The Governor of Connecticut, Christine Warner was following the situation just west of her border with a wary eye. She had taken a cue from Vermont and had put her National Guardsman on alert. When she watched the canned footage of the President’s meeting, she wasn’t fooled, as was almost all of America, into thinking the border was secure. According to a map accompanying the meeting there were “elements” of six different infantry battalions on the border. That was completely true and yet many of these “elements” consisted of a squad or less and frequently the soldiers weren’t even in sight of one another.

Still, the Governor was nervous. She knew the President and she didn’t trust him. In his three years in office, the man had proved to be an expert in only two areas: self-aggrandizement and photo opportunities.

Despite the reassurances of the President, the Governor of the great state of Connecticut buzzed her secretary. “Carla, get me General Arnold, please.”

The alert went out rapidly and the men were primed, unfortunately, there weren’t all that many soldiers available. In all of Connecticut, there was but a single National Guard infantry battalion—eight hundred fighting men. This was supplemented by two companies of military police, two more medical companies, and two engineering companies, both of which excelled in bridging rivers but not in battling zombies. Finally, the force was augmented by four companies of state militia. They were ceremonial only, generally only called upon when a parade was scheduled, in fact, two of the companies were comprised of
Horse Guards
and many of the men showed up to formation with their lances ready!

They assembled quickly and the doors to their armories were flung wide. The Governor of Connecticut had no qualms about using heavy machine guns and even mortars to defend his borders. The men geared up; their trucks and Humvees were fueled and the first companies were ready to leave New London by four that afternoon; exceedingly fast by everyone’s estimation and yet by then the first zombies had already crossed the state line.

General Collins’ command post had been overrun while the President was flipping through his cue cards and trying to look “presidential” for the cameras an hour before.

Specialist Melvin Delray, a medic with the 427
th
Brigade Support Battalion was the first to spot the zombies. He’d been leaning back in his foxhole with his mask tilted back on his head, enjoying the sun on his face, when the first of them made its not-so-grand appearance. At a hundred yards, it looked just like a person. It reminded him of his father, being of about the same age and dressed for golf.

“Ah, shit,” Mel-Ray whispered. All his friends called him that and had since he was a boy. The physically closest friend to him just then was PFC Rogers who sat thirty yards away on the lip of his foxhole, doodling in the dirt with a stick. For them, the beginning of the apocalypse had been a dull affair. They had been rushed out to the eastern perimeter hours before, their heads filled with wild imaginings, their bodies weighted down with gear, and their lips beaded with sweat.

At first, it had been terrifying. Their foxholes were spaced a hundred feet apart and in many instances, the soldiers couldn’t see their nearest neighbors. All of them had expected great mobs of flesh-eating monsters to appear at any second and there had been a number of random shootings as panicked men fired at birds or shadows. Sometimes this set off a torrent of shooting from the men up and down the line.

But then the hours ticked away and many began to even doubt there were zombies at all.

“Someone got punked, big time,” PFC Rogers had said an hour before. He had slipped out of his foxhole to visit Mel-Ray and the two had chatted, neither wearing a mask and both with their MOPP coats opened wide because of the heat. A car’s engine had spooked Rogers into thinking their sergeant was coming around for another inspection and he had scurried back to his hole in the ground.

Now, fifteen minutes later, there was a zombie…and another…and more, emerging from the forest across from the line. Mel-Ray slunk down into his foxhole until only his eyes sat above the dirt. He hissed “Rogers!”

“What?” Rogers replied, in a bored voice. The single word was very loud; to Mel-Ray’s frightened mind, it almost seemed like he screamed it. Mel-Ray didn’t answer, he just pointed.

“Holy shit,” Rogers whispered and then slid down into his hole so that Mel-Ray couldn’t see him. When he came back up his mask covered his face and his coat was buttoned to the neck. His weapon was at the ready as well.

That seemed like a smart idea and Mel-Ray, his hands shaking like crazy, fumbled his mask on and then gloved and buttoned up. Next, he grabbed up his M16 that had spent the afternoon leaning against the side of the pit, and popped up like a jack-in-the box ready to spray bullets everywhere. The zombies were only halfway across the weed field in front of him; fifty yards away.

Mel-Ray was itching to start shooting. He had never been a marksman and had fired his weapon a total of six times in his two-year career in the National Guard: four times in basic training and then once in each of the successive years. He had barely qualified with the M16 and he had always told himself that he was a medic and a healer, not a dog soldier with more courage than brains.

Now, he was itching to start blasting away, even though, if her were honest with himself, he was scared shitless. The zombies were faster than he expected, charging across the field in an ugly, hunger induced quick-march. And worse than that was there just so many of them! He didn’t bother to count them, there were simply too many to put a number to and this was just the first wave. He could see the shadows in the forest shifting and the trees swaying and he could hear the snap of a thousand branches breaking under the steps of a thousand more zombies. He was close to pissing himself.

“Do I pop the smoke?” he asked PFC Rogers. He was louder now and his voice warbled in his fear. The zombies had sensed them, though how he didn’t know. It didn’t look like they could see. Their eyes were black as tar and looked gummed over, and yet they were undoubtedly heading right for the foxholes.

Rogers was way ahead of him. He held up a smoke grenade with two yellow lines on it; yellow meant
enemy spotted
. He pulled the pin and heaved the grenade at the onrushing zombies. It landed at their feet and began hissing out great plumes of a grey-yellow smoke. For Mel-Ray, the smoke was anticlimactic. What they needed were real grenades!

The zombies were momentarily distracted by the smoke; they paused, turned their heads with their noses in the air as if sniffing and then came on again. “Do we shoot?” Mel-Ray asked. He outranked Rogers and yet he was feeling distinctly “civilian” at the moment. Their orders were to shoot only if fired upon or attacked bodily. Right there with zombies…actual fucking zombies, heading right at him the orders seemed outrageously stupid. He couldn’t just sit there and wait until the zombies climbed down into his foxhole with him.

And what good was the foxhole anyhow?

Mel-Ray only then realized that the foxhole wasn’t any sort of protection. It would trap him and when the zombies came up they’d bury him alive in it under their disgusting bodies!

“Oh God!” he cried, losing all control. He threw the M16 out of the hole and tried to scramble up after it, only the mask gave him tunnel vision and the rubber gloves were slick. He kept slipping down the side of it and with each successive attempt his panic threatened to overflow the tiny dam he had built for it in his mind. He had his back to the monsters and when someone up the line began shooting, he pictured the zombies right on top of him.

A scream broke from his throat as he flailed with his limbs. More by accident than design, his boot caught a root and he pushed himself out of the hole. The black gun was right there inches from his hand when he heard a thump behind him. Foolishly, he looked. One of the faster zombies had charged right up and had fallen into the foxhole. It was disgusting: black blood or snot drained from every orifice, half its face was eaten away as were the fingers on its left hand. They were nubs with black ends, like little burnt sausages.

With guns beginning to fire all around him, Mel-Ray turned his tunneled vision around to look for the fallen M16, and for a second, it seemed to have disappeared in the tall grass. His heart shot into his throat and again he flailed his limbs about, trying to come upon it by feel. First he found a stick, and then a rock, and then…there it was!

In a rush, he snatched it up and had the safety off and fired off three round bursts even before he had it aimed at anything. Six bullets went into the dirt at his feet before he brought the rifle to bear on the zombie in the pit. His first pull of the trigger sent bullets into the wall of the foxhole, the next three tore out the guts of the zombie and the third skipped over the mound of dirt.

The zombie in the pit shrugged off its crippling wounds and was still trying to get at Mel-Ray, but he wasn’t worried about that one anymore. It was the other zombies that were only steps away that had his complete attention. He “aimed” again, meaning he fired from the hip, and of the three bullets fired in the burst, one clipped the elbow of a zombie, which didn’t seem to notice. The next burst sent two slugs into the chest of another. It staggered but kept coming.

The next pull of the trigger did nothing at all. Their guard unit still used the old 20 round magazines and Mel-Ray was just realizing why the regular army had fazed them out: he’d run out of ammo after only six seconds.

Mel-Ray’s panic roared straight through his body right down to his fingers—they went stiff and unfeeling. Two seconds went by before he found the catch to release the spent magazine. It started to fall and, for just long enough to lose more precious seconds, he remembered his training, the main of which consisted of the idea to never to lose an item of military hardware since the cost would come out of his paycheck. He caught the magazine with his left hand and was trying to fumble it into his chest rig with wooden fingers but, no matter what, it wouldn’t slide into the little compartment with the others.

With a cry, that was half frustration and half gut-piercing fear, he threw the magazine away from him and, with the zombies almost within arm’s reach, he turned and fled.

It was no Olympic sprint. Weighed down as he was with so much gear, all he could manage was a stumbling trot. He was slowed even more because he was trying to load his gun at the same time. He also ran with his head half-turned back, because he was sure the zombies were right on his tail.

And they were. Dozens and dozens. The line of soldiers had barely slowed them down.

The zombies were relentless. They came on without tiring which was the opposite of Mel-Ray who was sucking in great gasps of air through the micro-filters of the claustrophobia inducing mask. After only a hundred yards, he was lightheaded from lack of oxygen and was beginning to stagger among the leaf-hidden logs and the mossy stones and the muddy ruts that were strewn across the forest floor. A trip and a stumble were followed by a low hanging tree limb snagging his mask and turning it forty degrees on his head, blinding him.

He screeched in fear, a breathless: “Huhayy!”

There was no getting the mask back on correctly, not with a fresh magazine in one hand and the M16 in the other. Without thinking, he tossed aside the full magazine, pulled off the mask, and threw that away as well. The clean, fresh, air sucking into his lungs was glorious and partially revived him, allowing him to keep ahead of the zombies until he burst into the staging area where General Collins had set up his Command Post.

After all the shooting and the smoke and the growling zombies, the Command Post was eerily quiet. When he had first marched through it at noon, there had been at least a hundred men in sight working on all manner of things, but now there were just a few MPs standing guard and some faces peeking nervously from some of the tents. Mel-Ray could hear voices from the tents; murmurs mostly but also sharp voices barking orders.

The closest MP was shaking and had been within a hair of shooting Mel-Ray when he first came rushing up. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked in a muffled voice. The MP was garbed properly in his MOPP gear and, for a second, Mel-Ray pitied him.

“Zombies!” Mel-Ray cried.

“How many?” the MP asked in fright.

Del-ray paused long enough to look back. There was no sign of his friend Rogers or any of the other medics who had been placed on the line. There were only zombies emerging from beneath the shadow of the trees.

“A lot,” was all he said. Along the edge of the clearing were a few dozen Humvees. He ran to the last in line and jumped in.

Before he could start it, the MP yelled, “Hey! You can’t leave. That’s desertion!”

“It sure as hell is,” he said and punched the starter. Mel-Ray gunned it out of there. He drove west until he hit the first black top going north. Without a single break, he drove straight to Canada, thinking he would find a place to hide up in the woods, thinking he would put as much distance between himself and anything that even remotely looked like a zombie.