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  “Bah, pay no attention to the damn news. They don’t know shit from Shinola. You gotta listen to the locals when you travel east, y’hear? But let me tell you, there are some baddies out there as well, so be careful. You need anything else? You’re still a long way off from Maryland, ain’t that the truth.”

  “I sure could use some food and water or juice or something.”

  “Sure son, come on in, I’ve got a whole store full of packaged junk that holds well for travelin’. I recon this jacket is worth several tanks of gas, so lets get you a couple bags of groceries.”

  Grayson stuck out his hand, “Name’s Grayson, thanks for your help.”

  “Jeremiah. No problem. I appreciate this nice jacket. Leather always holds up well over the years, so I’ll have it for a long time but you’re gonna be sick of Twinkies pretty soon.”

  Grayson couldn’t argue with the old man’s logic so he followed him through the door. Jeremiah handed him two plastic bags and told him to help himself to the snack food aisle. He leaned against the counter and watched Grayson carefully, his shotgun resting easily in the crook of his arm.

  Grayson selected several boxes of crackers, packages of fruit cookies and he cleaned Jeremiah out of beef jerky. Then he went to the cooler and filled his second bag with water and a couple bottles of fruit juice. “You mind if I get a road map from you as well? I’ve been sticking to the main roads so far, but like you said, it’s becoming more unsafe to do that.”

  “Sure mister, but that’s all I can spare. I’ve gotta get everything locked up before curfew. Thanks again for the jacket.”

  It was clear that he thought it was time for Grayson to leave. He thanked the old man again as he slammed the door to his car. It was time to find a place to stay for the night where the police and gangs wouldn’t mess with him, preferably some type of home with a garage so he could hide his car and then lay out on the floor inside and stretch his battered ribs. Sleeping in the car was not comfortable in the best of situations, worse when every little bump against his side would send jolts of hot pain throughout the area.

  He drove by several homes but he couldn’t be sure if they were abandoned, so he eventually turned the Cobalt into a park and drove across the grass until he backed up into the tree line and turned off the car. With no luck securing a proper location to settle down for the night and stretch out, he locked the doors and carefully reclined the seat. The keys jingled slightly in the ignition every time he shifted his weight but he wasn’t going to take a chance at losing them inside the car if he needed to leave in a hurry.

  ***

  29 April, 2042 hrs local

  Mount Weather

  Fauquier County, Virginia

  “Sir, it’s happening all over the country. The few isolated incidents that occurred immediately in the aftermath of the Pentagon attack and the assassinations multiplied a hundredfold after the bombing of D.C. and the loss of power everywhere else. The damn militias are all over the Midwest, gangs in the major cities and drug kingpins everywhere else. Local law enforcement has been able to regain control in most places but some, like the militia attack on Fort Sill, are still not under control,” Robert Griffith said. He gestured towards a map of the United States that was covered in marks and pin-holes indicating areas of past and current anarchy.

  The Director of the FBI continued his brief, “I’ll start with the militias. Different organizations, some working in concert with each other, and other large groups working independently have completely taken over Fort Sill, Oklahoma and Fort Riley, Kansas…”

  “How the fuck did that happen Pete?” the president asked his top general.

  “Sir, with all the safety measures we’ve got in place on those installations the troops didn’t even have ammunition for their weapons. In both cases, the militias captured the ammo dumps first and then systematically worked at exterminating the unarmed population that wasn’t in league with them. It’s the damn liberals fault. They were so concerned about an armed military operating on American soil…”

  “I don’t want excuses General, just the facts. Right after this meeting, have ammunition issued out at all of our other bases, got it?”

  The FBI man cleared his throat, “Sir, are you suggesting that we suspend Posse Comitatus?”

  “It’s a little fucking late for that letter of the law bullshit Rob. Yes, I’m officially suspending it and I’ll tell the fifteen members of Congress that are still alive that that’s what I’m doing. Hell, we’re already using federal troops on U.S. soil.” He turned to his Chief of Staff, “John, get the governors on the phone and ask them to call out their National Guard if they haven’t already. Explain to them that deadly force will have to be authorized. I’ll inform them and the rest of the nation at my briefing tonight that I’m invoking the Insurrection Act and we’re going to get every dick in uniform out on the streets.” He gestured for the director to continue.

  “Sir, as of right now, those are the only two installations that have been fully lost. Initial satellite reconnaissance indicates that the militias on the bases have begun barricading the cantonment areas and have also placed the tanks and Bradleys in a defensive formation around the area. There’s no reliable estimate to the number of militiamen involved, but there is every indication that a large part of their force consists of members of our military.” He waited for the groans to die down, “As you know, there is significant resentment of Smithwick-Greenspan within the military and many of our troops may be a part of this, it’s still too early to know for sure, but we’re investigating that possibility. At both installations, the local police forces were also attacked and there appears to be coordination between the group in Kansas and the group in Oklahoma. Other paramilitary groups have reportedly taken over entire towns but to our knowledge, they’ve been put down with the help of law enforcement from neighboring communities, however communications are pretty sketchy at this point and we’re relying on our few military satellites until we can get the corporations to go back to work.

  “As I stated earlier, the gangs have also risen up in the cities. They began full-scale gang warfare within hours of the blast. Depending on which city we’re talking about, the gangs are either at war with each other and the police are getting killed trying to stop them or the gangs are collaborating and are at war with the police. In all cases, the instances of civilian casualties have been extremely high. In Chicago alone there have been over seven hundred reported or discovered murders in the past thirty-six hours.”

  “Busy little fuckers aren’t they?” the president mumbled.

  “Yes sir. Reports from the Los Angeles field office, well, the one remaining agent in LA at least, indicates that the LAPD has totally abandoned Watts, Compton, Pico-Union, Pacoima, and East LA. They’ve attempted to pull back and consolidate their positions, but so far, no luck. The California National Guard has been on site since the night of the blast, but they didn’t have live ammunition until yesterday morning. Almost an entire platoon was wiped out when they stumbled on a street fight between the Crips and the Nortenos. Chicago and LA are a bloody mess and it’s not much better in Dallas and Miami.

  “That brings me to the drug dealers and small-time crooks. Pretty much everywhere, people are emboldened to make a stand against police officers. There’s also rampant racial violence across the board. Groups of people who’ve barely kept their hatred for one another in check have shed all restraints now that the police are almost overwhelmed. There’s the general belief that this is the apocalypse that didn’t happen in 2012, so all the rules are out the window.

  “In all my years of law enforcement, the closest thing that I can say all of this resembles is the Darfur region of the Sudan. There are so many different types of organizations and individuals all vying for power and so many different ethnic variations that all want to see each other wiped out. And I’m not even talking about the individual assaults, murders and robberies occurring everywhere. Hell, the perimeter of this compound was thr
eatened early this morning when a small group of men came this way looking for a quick score.”

  “So let me get this straight Rob. You’re saying we’re fucked?”

  “Sir, I recommend we continue to urge the public to stay in their houses and adhere to the curfew until these people start killing themselves off in sufficient numbers and the police and military that we’re sending in can re-establish control across the board. Also, even though this is outside of my lane,” he held up a hand to the military side of the table, “since you’ve authorized the official suspension of Posse Comitatus, I recommend we withdraw our troops from the Middle East to deploy them within the states until we can get this under control.”

  Surprisingly, Pete Thompson nodded his head. “Sir, normally I would be vehemently against this strategy and would try to convince you that we need to maintain our forward presence and finish what we started and all of that, but under the circumstances I absolutely agree. We can’t possibly expect to fight and win in the Middle East if we don’t have a stable power-base here. In fact, I recommend pulling as many troops out as rapidly as possible and consolidate the equipment and remaining men into large, easily protected bases over there. We won’t need our tanks or Bradleys brought back and we can handle Sill and Fort Riley with equipment from other installations here in the U.S.” He scribbled some notes on a piece of paper and said, “Sir, I estimate we could have approximately twenty thousand troops back within forty-eight hours, another twenty thousand by week’s end and we should be able to maintain that pace for a couple weeks before our lift capacity is exceeded. Then of course, we could also pull about thirty thousand from Germany and Italy as well. All told, that should give us almost a hundred and fifty thousand additional troops for law and order here and still keep our foreign interests open for further action later.”

  “Alright, do it. Let’s get this place back under control,” the president sighed. “Anything else for tonight? I’ve still got to go over the speech for the broadcast, if anyone is even seeing or hearing them anymore.”

  Everyone around the table shook their heads as the president looked at them until he got to the FBI director, “Actually sir, there is one more thing. I thought General Thompson would mention it, but a couple of hours ago a report came in that one of those zombie-creatures was spotted in the wreckage. But this was in the daylight and they’ve only been active at night so far.”

  “So far in our week of dealing with them you mean,” the general said.

  “Granted, we have limited experience with them, but we’re investigating the claims.”

  The president grimaced, “Shit boys, we’ve got radiation fall-out headed west, outright anarchy in our borders, thousands of citizens suffering radiation poisoning and now you’re telling me that some of the zombies may have survived? Isn’t there any good news?”

  TEN

  30 April, 0751 hrs local

  Aurora Highlands

  Arlington, Virginia

  I am definitely too old for this stuff, Sergeant Owens thought. His team was on the zombie hunt again. For the first two days after the blast, they’d been part of the recovery crews in the Metro tunnels. It was pretty much accepted that every living thing above ground within fifteen miles of Bowie, the point of detonation, was incinerated but they’d found hundreds of mildly contaminated people in the tunnels. Most of the survivors were still being treated for severe hypoxia from when the air was pulled out of the tunnels to fill the void left by the exploding missile. But some of the people appeared to have no symptoms other than being unconscious for a long period of time while others would probably end up being brain-damaged from the lack of oxygen.

  Doctor Collins had insisted that every person brought in was tested for the virus that caused this whole mess since his examinations of the zombies indicated that they died of a lack of oxygen initially. None of the survivors tested positive for the infection and Owens had begun to think that the French had actually wiped them out. Until last night. A search and rescue crew was operating near Reagan National when one of their men was attacked by several creatures carrying clubs and spears. The crew didn’t have any weapons and evacuated back to their helicopter. The doctor convinced someone high up that the threat wasn’t gone and the order came down for the Special Forces teams to go back into the city and find engage the zombies. Since they’d be working in a contaminated area, Command decided to attach HAZMAT crews to the Special Forces teams that would be searching for the creatures in the wreckage.

  Sergeant Owens had divided up his platoon into five teams, the four traditional squads commanded by his sergeants and this fifth squad that he was in charge of, made up of the platoon headquarters element and a couple of guys borrowed from the other four teams. Ironically, his squad was partnered with the same Delta guys who’d been at the Pentagon just after the initial outbreak.

  He didn’t really know what their ranks were, but it was clear to him that Hank was in charge and his sniper buddy, Jeff, was the number two man on their team. That was fine with him. As a chemical corps NCO he’d been assigned to all different sorts of units where a couple of times he technically outranked some of his bosses but didn’t have the operational knowledge to lead the organization. He knew where his expertise lay, and that was protecting people from nuclear, chemical and biological agents.

  Their helo had dropped them off on the fourteenth green of the Army and Navy Country Club in Arlington and they’d slowly been making their way east. Hank wanted to sweep what was left of the neighborhood to the south of Crystal City and turn north to the zombie’s last known location when they broke out of the Building.

  He never thought he’d be searching for zombies when he joined the Army all those years ago. Zombie. That’s what all the troops, including himself, were calling these things. After the many, many hours he’d spent around Dr. Collins, he knew that maybe they weren’t technically zombies, because their brains still functioned and they seemed to be capable of learning very rapidly. But the rest of them appeared to be dead and they wanted to attack the living. During those first days of testing at the Pentagon, he’d seen these things walking around with missing limbs, intestines hanging out, hell, he’d even seen one of them on the first day that Delta was there that’d been literally cut in half with a machine gun and it pulled itself along the ground towards the soldiers. That seemed pretty zombie-like to him.

  For the most part though these creatures didn’t fit into Sergeant Atkins’ descriptions of what zombies were supposed to do. The sergeant had become the platoon’s unofficial zombie expert over the past several days since he had read all sorts of books and seen movies about the Hollywood version of the threat. These things definitely used tools and they weren’t supposed to be able to do that. Also, they learned quickly from their mistakes instead of uselessly doing the same thing over and over. Each time they attacked the perimeter at the Pentagon the attacks grew more advanced. As it turns out, those attacks were a diversion for the diggers. The complexity of the attacks, the diversions, hiding that cavern from the military guys searching for it and the group effort required to dig out of the building all led the doctor to hypothesize that these things communicated with each other somehow. That definitely wasn’t the mindless zombie of Tinseltown.

  Owens checked his Geiger counter. The readings had diminished significantly in the past couple days but that was probably because the bulk of the radiation was swept north and west by the winds blowing off of the Atlantic, but he knew that would probably change as the radiation clouds drifted into the Jet Stream and were once again forced east. Regardless of how much radiation had been transferred out of the metro area, there was still plenty left over to cause some pretty fast-acting cancers and cell mutations. This area would almost certainly remain one hundred percent toxic for the next several years. If…When people attempted to move about unprotected in the region, they’d be at risk of radiation exposure that could kill them one way or another for a long time.

  As for
the inland folks, he didn’t really have an answer. The government had been issuing warnings for everyone to stay inside for people as far west as Kentucky. He doubted the actual deadly radiation would make it over the Blue Ridge Mountains, but certainly not past the Appalachians. He wasn’t a meteorologist or climatologist, but the classes he’d received on nuclear fallout predictions taught him that after the initial blast, radiation particles could travel on the wind currents until they either fell out of the current or they made contact with a surface. As the air traveled west and began rising up the mountains and cooling, it was almost sure to turn to precipitation and deposit the poison along the windward side. He wondered how long people would heed the warnings before they had to go out for food, work, or medical care. Eventually, people would stop listening and begin to carry on with their daily lives, but in this instance, that could kill them too.

  There hadn’t been any rain since the explosion either. That would have kept the pollution to a more local level, well, except for the run-off into the river and eventually the ocean, but that couldn’t be helped. The environment would be irrevocably changed due to the detonation. There was no telling how many regional species were wiped out in the initial explosion or how many more would die out due to radiation poisoning, both on land and in the water. Genetic mutations would also almost certainly occur as flora and fauna were altered at the cellular level in order to survive in whatever way they could.

  Another one of his nuclear classes had discussed the possible long-term effects on the climate after a full-scale nuclear war. Everything was theoretical since no attacks of this scale had ever taken place, but the accepted theory was that the earth would move into a long period of winter-like conditions due to dust particles in the air from the explosion blocking out the sun and preventing its warmth from reaching the surface. After several years of this so-called nuclear winter, the particles would settle out of the atmosphere which would result in the rapid, out-of-control heating of the planet, killing almost all life that had managed to survive the winter. Not a pleasant scenario for life on earth, and he was thankful that the president had exercised restraint by not retaliating with nuclear weapons in kind.