Winchester Undead (Book 2): Winchester: Prey (21 page)

CHAPTER 46

Groom Lake, NV

February 17, Year 1

The two civilian leaders walked back to the quarantine under armed guard in case they somehow suddenly died and turned, which was a bit ridiculous, but so was everything else in the way of the new world. Cliff walked back to his office with the intention of drafting a plan to check for and defend against any Chinese assault forces. With everything that had happened, Cliff hadn’t given serious thought to the possibility of invading parties already in CONUS before the civilians brought it up. Cliff frowned at the thought of his oversight before he was interrupted by his phone ringing. He pushed the speaker button. The extension showed to be from the radio hut.

“Cliff, you need to come in here. Someone asked for you by name and said he was a part of Lazarus.”

For a fraction of a second, Cliff’s eyes widened in surprise before he regained control of his emotions.

“Copy that, en route to you.”

Cliff stood and walked briskly out of his door towards the radio hut.

Moments later, Cliff burst through the door and walked straight to the airman who had called him. Without speaking, Cliff took the headphones off the airman and put them on his own head. He turned to the airman and said, “Why don’t you step out for a smoke?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Why don’t you step out and try picking up the habit?”

The rest of the men in the room looked at Cliff with puzzled expressions. In the past few weeks, they had never seen Cliff act so strangely or speak like that to anyone.

“In fact, why don’t all of you step out and see about starting smoking.”

With a number of raised eyebrows, the four other men stood and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind them. Cliff checked to make sure he was alone before he keyed the radio mic.

“Lazarus Four, go ahead with your traffic.”

“Lazarus Six clear copy. Four status and package report, over?”

“Lazarus Four secure site three with zero package, one and two confirmed lost, all others presumed lost.”

“Lazarus Six copy and secure in site seven with one package, package nine in hand.”

Cliff’s lips curved to a very slight smile. “Clint, open channel. We don’t have time for this anymore.”

“Cliff, why are you at three? You were assigned one.”

“They didn’t follow the plan and were overrun. Three was overrun too, but I was able to secure it. What is your current count?”

“Just the two of us, including package nine.”

“I have zero copy from anyone else until you. I think nine is now promoted to one.”

“I agree. My board shows green for sat link. Do you have anyone to witness?”

“Yeah, quite a few. Give me ten-mikes to get them set up. What freq?”

“Primary freq, channel one. We’ll take the prime spot since it appears to be just us for now.”

“Roger. Ten mikes from … three, two, one, now.”

“Copy, counting.”

Cliff stood and walked out of the door to find the airmen near the door and very obvious about acting like they weren’t trying to listen. Cliff ignored that transgression for now. “Get Wright, get the civilians out of quarantine, get everyone even if you have to wake them up, and come to auditorium two. You’ve got five minutes.”

The airmen stood still for a moment and then quickly left down the hallway towards the rest of the facility. Cliff stood still for a moment, his hand resting on the butt of the pistol holstered on his right leg.
Guess I’ve got to get my shit together if we’re going to swear in a new President of the United States.

Bardwell Lake, Texas

Clint walked to the women’s dormitory, where he and Amanda had been living together for the past few weeks. The computer system had experienced a serious malfunction, and it took Clint three weeks to break into the system and run the recovery diagnostic. Without computer access, Clint had no way of knowing which facilities were still in service. Even with a working radio and SATCOM systems, he didn’t have the frequencies memorized and needed access to the system. Over the past three days, Clint had reviewed the SATINT imagery from the SeeMe system and what he found was devastating destruction across most of the United States. Worse yet, all the facilities except his and Groom Lake showed to be offline, most likely with no survivors. He didn’t have the chance to investigate what happened to all the other facilities. That would have to wait. First, he had to complete the primary objective he began back in December.

“Amanda, I made contact with Groom Lake. They’re setting up a satellite video link between our facilities. You need to come with me.”

After gaining computer access, Clint was confident that Amanda was the last survivor in the Presidential line of succession, but he didn’t tell her, because he wanted to make contact with the only other remaining facility that appeared to be operational first.

Both of them walked to the video room, which had video cameras pointing at three different walls with three different printed backgrounds. One was the background of a photo of the Capitol Building, another looked like the Oval Office, and the third was just an American flag. Clint chose the background of the American flag and stood Amanda in the middle of the background in front of the camera. Taking her hand, Clint faced Amanda, “I’m about to swear you in as the current President of the United States. I made contact with another from my team located at the bunker in Groom Lake. He was supposed to be at the bunker in Denver, but said they were overrun and both the President and the Vice President are dead. All others in the Presidential line of succession are missing and presumed dead.”

Amanda laughed at Clint. “What about the President pro tempore or the Secretary of State or even the Attorney General? I’m really far down that list.”

“You’re number nine with the current administration. As of right now, my team believes you are the highest-ranking survivor. If we’re going to succeed, we need someone to be the President. We need a leader to rally survivors and to take our country back from the dead.”

“But I’m no President. I didn’t have the first idea what to do or where to begin to run this country before the attack, much less now that society is all but lost.”

“That’s why you have me. Together we will succeed.”

Amanda kissed Clint on the lips. “Well, if you’re going to make the President, we better get started.”

Clint looked at the digital clock on the wall before leaving Amanda standing in front of the wall print of the American flag so he could activate the cameras and start the broadcast.

“We have three minutes, so try to look Presidential.”

Amanda looked down at the ACU pants and brown t-shirt she was wearing. She wasn’t even wearing a bra and she felt like a fraud, like a child picked to be the class leader for the day before passing the duty on to someone else.

Clint opened a drawer and removed a laminated piece of paper. Long ago, he’d memorized the words printed on the paper, but since he had a little bit of time, he read through them three more times before returning the paper to the drawer and walking in front of the camera with his lover.

The light in the ceiling behind the camera turned from white to red, and the monitor next to the camera showed Clint and Amanda on one screen and a small auditorium full of people on the next.

Clint looked at the clock on the wall again before clearing his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present Amanda Lampton, the Secretary of Agriculture and the highest-ranking living member of the Presidential line of succession. If you would raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

“I do solemnly swear. That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
”

Clint shook Amanda’s hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, Amanda Lampton, the President of the United States.”

Amanda glanced at the monitor and at the people in the auditorium, who sat in stunned silence before erupting in applause. All the people on the other side of the satellite uplink stood and continued with eager applause. The applause slowly died down and the people in Groom Lake took their seats. Amanda was shocked and a little angry at Clint since she wasn’t prepared to be sworn in as the President, much less give a speech.

“Thank you, Clint, and thanks to those of you on the other side of this uplink. We traveled from my home in Little Rock to this facility in Texas, fighting for our lives and losing Clint’s teammate to the walking dead en route.”

Amanda closed her eyes and took a deep breath, searching for the words to continue. Her knees felt weak and suddenly she felt a little dizzy. “To quote what Lincoln said in 1863:
It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Thank you and God bless.”

Amanda walked off camera and sat on the edge of a table, shaking. Once Clint shut down the video uplink, he walked to her and gave her a hug. Tears welled in her eyes and she cried into Clint’s chest for a few moments before gaining her composure.

“Those people, they’ve survived, they’re safe. We survived and we’re safe. There have to be more people surviving for now. We have to help them. We have to do something.
I
have to do something. I just … I mean, I have no idea what to do. It was bad enough being taken from my home by you and your partner to fight our way across Texas and to be safe, but alone in this huge bunker. What are we going to do?”

Clint gave her a rare smile. “Madam President, it is time that I brought you up to speed on a top secret project: Who I am, and what Cliff and I were tasked to accomplish.”

Amanda sat in silence. The man she had taken as a lover and trusted had been lying to her—or at least keeping secrets.

“My name isn’t really Clint. That name was assigned to me, just as my partner’s name was. Who I was before is of no importance; I had no family before the attack and no personal history of note. However, in college I was approached by a secret taskforce headed under the banner of the CIA. I thought it was to be a superspy like what Tom Clancy wrote about. We began our training at the CIA’s facility in Virginia commonly referred to as ‘The Farm’ then continued through an exceptional amount of special schools. There were originally thirty of us, each of us tasked with different priorities, missions, and objectives.”

“We were all code named ‘Lazarus,’ and just like the man of the same name in the New Testament, we were supposed to rise from the dead. Well, not us, but we were supposed to help the United States rise from the dead. We’ve known about the Yama Strain for a number of years and have been working hard to find a way to protect ourselves against it. They attacked before we were ready. The unassuming man in charge in the uplink at Groom Lake is Cliff. We went through the training together, but we had different missions within the same project.”

“Cliff was supposed to be in Denver with the Vice President and apparently he was; the facility under the Denver airport was overrun and the VP killed. Cliff verified that POTUS was also killed. He fled to Nevada and to Groom Lake.”

“Wait, what exactly is Groom Lake? I know you said it was a base in Nevada, but it seems to be a bit more involved than that.”

“In popular culture, it was always referred to as Area 51.”

“
The
Area 51?”

“The same, but contrary to what some believe, there are no aliens. It started as a facility to test top-secret aircraft, but eventually a large underground bunker was constructed as a backup facility. As you saw on the monitor, Cliff has been successful in gathering a number of survivors. Normally, we would do the same here, except that I have a new mission objective.”

“Which is?”

“To protect you against all threats foreign and domestic, living or undead. We are not going to actively seek survivors for our facility. It isn’t safe to expose you to any outside threats until we can establish more containment and begin the process of repopulating the major open positions in the government. Besides, with only two of us, we can’t manage any arriving persons. All of them would have to be searched, documented, and quarantined for signs of infection before being allowed into the main facility. If you die now, there is no one else in the line of succession. We would be outside the bounds of the Constitution.”

“Cliff is trying to rally survivors at his facility in Nevada. If we are truly lucky, there are still enough citizens alive even to call ourselves a people and a country. Maybe someday we’ll be able to fight back the dead and take our land out of their rotting grasp.”

Amanda took a deep breath and put her hand on Clint’s chest. “OK, but I think there are a lot of things you haven’t told me that you should now. I’ll order you to if I have to.”

“Yes, Madam President,” he said, and kissed her passionately.

CHAPTER 47

Groom Lake, NV

February 17, Year 1

Cliff looked around the room of airmen and the civilians, all of whom were still cheering and giving each other high fives. It took weeks longer than anticipated, but now the Lazarus project was back on track and a new President of the United States was in place. Clint would direct the first female President in the next steps to help get things online, but for now Cliff had a new mission to accomplish. The debriefing that the civilian groups had given was chilling; the rogue militia group terrorizing the other survivors had to be stopped, and they had to be stopped immediately if any of the good people trapped outside the wire were to be helped.

If what Jake had spoken about in the debriefing were true, then there were some real nut jobs out there holding survivors hostage. There was no way that Cliff would stand by and let such atrocities continue; those survivors were the wives and families of the rescued survivors, and they needed to be reunited back in Groom Lake. It would be impossible to rally the survivors into a reconstituted nation if evil men continued their reign in the new world.

Cliff walked over to Arcuni and interrupted his excited conversation with Garcia. “Arcuni, is the Herc fueled and ready?”

“No, I’m waiting for our next destination to calculate the fuel load needed with a buffer; the less fuel we fly with, the more weight we can carry.”

“OK. We’re going back to Cortez, Colorado, a simple out and back. Get the PJs. Tell them we’re doing a snatch and grab and to load out with my pickup in the cargo hold. Wheels up in an hour.”

Arcuni stood wide-eyed for a moment before nodding and leaving with Garcia trailing close behind.

Big Bend National Park

Jessie turned the steering wheel to leave the main road, pointing the old SUV towards Terlingua. An M4 rifle lay on the seat next to her and, to her surprise, there was a large machine gun in the back of the Scout. She’d never shot anything like it before, but she was confident Bexar could figure it out. It took all of her control to keep her speed at fifty miles per hour. As much as she wanted to drive as fast as the old Scout would go, she couldn’t risk having a wreck or burning that much gas. She had to get to Terlingua, get Bexar, and get safe.

Some zombies walked aimlessly around the burnt-out wreckage of a motorcycle and turned to follow the Scout as Jessie turned onto Highway 1-70, but she didn’t slow or care; she was a woman with a mission. Jessie was sure that the crashed and burned motorcycle wasn’t Bexar’s. Vaguely, she remembered seeing the wreck on the way back to the park after being taken by the bikers.

She barely heard the engine or the road noise, because the ringing in her ears filled her head with sound. At least the heater worked well in the Scout, and for once, she wasn’t shivering. She was happy to have some clothing on her body. The previous night’s memory was still coming in and out of focus, but the more she focused and tried to bring the memories to the surface, the more certain she was that no one had raped her.

Jessie drove past the turnoff for Terlingua and continued towards Lajitas. She wasn’t sure that Bexar had ever made it back from his scavenger run for a vehicle, but if he was still there, then she should be able to find his motorcycle or his gear or him. Hopefully not his walking corpse. A couple of miles from the Lajitas Resort, the zombies shambling towards Terlingua on the road were growing in number. Each of them turned and followed the Scout. Jessie drove through the RV Park and found no sign of Bexar or his motorcycle. She had the same results driving through the parking lot of the resort hotel.

If the undead were walking towards Terlingua, then something caused them to walk that direction. It was probably Bexar leaving and they were trying to follow him.

Jessie slammed on the brakes and slid the old 4x4 to a screeching halt, made a U-turn in the middle of the highway and accelerated sharply to drive back towards Terlingua.

The Scout seemed to arrive back to the Starlight Theatre without any conscious control by the driver, who was lost in thought. Jessie turned the engine off and stepped out of the SUV into the parking lot that was still littered with the large spent brass from the machine gun attack the previous day. The cabin, their cabin, lay in a burned-out ruin, and dead zombies lay on the ground in the parking lot. It took her a moment, but she realized that a handful of undead had followed her up the hill. The M4 wasn’t one of her and Bexar’s AR-15s, but it worked the same, although she’d never had an AR-15 that had a selector switch that went past “fire.” She thumbed the switch all the way around to the etched symbol of three bullets, shouldered the rifle, and looked through the ACOG at the mangled face of the walking corpse closest to her. Jessie took a deep breath and smoothly squeezed the trigger. The rifle fired three times in rapid succession and the zombie fell immediately, its rotting skull exploding in a black mist. Four more times, she took aim and fired at an approaching rotting corpse staggering up the hill and four more times, a skull exploded in a shower of black rotting tissue. The last shambling zombie looked like a little girl about six years old. Only part of a dirty pink dress hung in tatters on her broken body. Keeley’s face flashed in Jessie’s mind as she took aim and pulled the trigger. The rifle only fired once before the bolt locked back to the rear with deafening silence. All Jessie could hear was the ringing in her ears from the explosion.

Jessie tilted the rifle and looked at the ejection port to see that it was locked open on an empty chamber. She ejected the magazine and reached to her chest rig for a fresh one and found only the dirty t-shirt she was wearing. Realizing that she was now out of ammunition for her rifle, Jessie’s eyes snapped open in fright before looking back to where the little girl lay on the ground, black fluid oozing out of her ruined skull. Jessie took a deep breath and climbed into the Scout to look for a fresh magazine.
I was stupid to waste so much ammo with the select fire
repeated again and again in her mind.

Jessie still had the Glock with seven rounds in it, but she didn’t want to have to rely on a pistol or have to engage any more undead by waiting for them to get into pistol range. She opened the door to the Scout and dug around in the trash the bikers had left in the vehicle. One M4 magazine was found under the front seat. Jessie pressed down on the rounds and they barely moved.
Full, thank God!
She seated the magazine in the rifle and pressed the bolt release before thumbing the safety back to the safe position. Climbing out of the truck, Jessie scanned the area and didn’t see any more threats approaching, so she went to the general store. Ten minutes later, Jessie exited sporting a green, white, and red Mexican blanket with a hole cut in the middle for her head, worn like a poncho.
If it is good enough for Bexar, it’s good enough for me.

Jessie walked down the porch towards the Starlight Theatre, her eye caught by a restaurant ticket tacked to the board out front with Bexar’s handwriting. Finishing the note, Jessie fell to her knees with tears streaming down her face, not able to catch her breath. She felt like all of her hopes and dreams had turned against her. She had lost her daughter and she had lost her husband. She was all alone and there was no hope to survive.

Eventually, Jessie caught her breath, stood, and walked down the hill towards the ghost town graveyard; it felt like a dream. She found the new rock mound that held her daughter’s body, leaned over, and kissed the top of the grave.

I have to go back. I have to find Bexar. If he is dead, I will bury him. If he is reanimated, I have to make sure that he isn’t doomed to be a walking corpse. I have to make sure he has peace in death.

Jessie walked up the hill and back into the general store. Thirty minutes later, she had a dozen plastic bags full of water, beef jerky, shirts, blankets, and all the other supplies she could think of to survive. Jessie loaded the Scout, climbed in and started the old SUV, and then drove down the hill towards the highway for Big Bend.