Part Seven

Gordon had just pulled into the parking lot on the west side of the office building when he heard a gunshot. He stopped the car to look up at the building then back down at the intersection. The truck slipped through, and a few seconds later, a flood of zombies was also moving in the same direction.

His radio squawked, and he leaned over to grab the handset. “Gordon, I’ve got bad news,” Frank declared. “I’ve just shot the leader, and the zombies didn’t fall down. They just started hissing, and now they look really pissed off. We’re heading back toward the station, so please have everything ready when we get there.”

Gordon waited for a moment longer. “I’m just outside the building, and I saw you pass by. Are you sure the leader is dead? Over.”

“Fucked if I know. We are being chased by zombies, so I didn’t have time to check.” There was a long pause. “Oh, over.”

Gordon pulled the car around the building, nodding to himself when he saw the leader struggling to get to his feet. “Sorry buddy, but you aren’t walking away from this again.” He went to pull his gun, gritting his teeth when the leader got to his feet and staggered back into the building. “Dammit!”

“Gordon, please tell us you’re going to be at the station, over,” Janice said.

“Yeah, I’m on my way. But just so you know, the leader isn’t dead. Over.”

“Let him go. That’s a direct order, and if you aren’t at that station in ten minutes, we’re both going to be dead. Out.”

“All right, I’m on my way. Out.” Gordon tossed the handset aside before he gave one last glance at the entrance.

He knew the leader was alone and wounded, and he had to let go of his only chance for revenge. Gordon shook his head while he drove away from the building. The leader probably still had a few guards in reserve somewhere inside, and Gordon didn’t have any way to wound them. There was too much risk he could be killed, and he had most of the gathered evidence in the passenger seat of Frank’s car.

As he drove toward the gas station, his face tightened in an expression of anguish. The city was lost. Virtually everyone he had come to know over the years was gone. He hoped some of the city’s inhabitants had been able to flee before the chaos began, and a tiny voice in his head kept insisting there had to be other survivors who were hiding. But he knew both sentiments were meant to dull the sting of defeat.

He was stirred from his thoughts by the realization that the sky had begun to lighten into a soft shade of pink. The sun would be up soon, but he understood the hordes would no longer remain hidden in the shadows. Their army numbered in the thousands, and they no longer had reason to fear exposure.

Gordon drove past the gas station, parking a block away and getting out with the engine still running. Jogging back up the street, he went to the pumps and picked up one of the nozzles, locking the handle to pour openly. He laid it on the ground and moved to the next pump to repeat the process.

Picking up the last nozzle, he doused the pavement around the pumps before he set the handle down and returned to the car. Despite his efforts to control his breathing, he was feeling dizzy from the fumes and had to lean against the side of the car to steady himself. A feeling of fatigue gripped him as soon as he closed his eyes, threatening to pull him into unconsciousness.

He heard the growl of a truck engine and tried to will away the heavy feeling in his limbs as he got into the car. Grabbing the radio, he gripped the wheel in his other hand while he pulled the car away from the curb. “You’re all set. I’ll be waiting a few blocks away. Over.”

“Copy that,” Janice said. “Out.”

Gordon pulled the car ahead five blocks before he parked in the middle of the street and turned in his seat to watch for the truck. It barely slowed down as it came around the corner, and many long second passed before Gordon saw the horde. The truck was much further ahead of the zombies, and as it sped past two more intersections, the distance was widened even further.

The truck slowed, and then stopped in front of the station. Frank stepped out to set something on the ground. He leapt back into the cab, and he didn’t bother shutting the door before the truck sped up again. The tiny grenade burst and was quickly lost in a flash as the gas on the pavement ignited.

Yet there was no explosion.

Gordon nodded to Frank as the truck pulled to a stop beside the car, and he got out to watch the fire. He was opening his mouth to ask what went wrong when the first explosion ripped away a huge chuck of concrete. The bodies of zombies flew every which way, and the shockwave of the explosion slammed Gordon back against the door.

A second explosion rocked the air, followed by a third shortly afterward. The horde faltered then began trying to move around the heat of the fire. Their frantic pace was lost, and they seemed to be wary of more traps.

Frank got out of the truck and gestured back at the fire. “We can try to repeat that trick all night, but I think eventually the leader is going to get wise and pull them back.”

“I know. I’m thinking.”

“Either get back in the car or get in the truck, but those things aren’t going to be walking for long.” Janice stopped and leaned her head to one side. “Hey, do you hear that?”

Gordon was still listening to a ringing noise along with the roaring blaze, but the sound of a helicopter’s rotors became more distinct a few seconds later. The front line of the horde was fours blocks away when he made out the sounds more distinctly and realized there were multiple choppers. The three army gunships appeared over the building on the east side of the street and opened fire on the zombies.

Gordon wasn’t sure if it would work before two of the gunships began firing missiles into the horde. The third chopper swept a spotlight over the vehicles then moved further up the street to land. Gordon laughed and turned to grin at Frank. “Our ride out of town just arrived.”

Frank looked up at the sky and smiled. “Thank you,” he said before he turned to jog toward the helicopter.

Janice waited for Gordon to lean into the car and grab the surveillance tapes before they ran to catch up with Frank. Gordon had a sudden thought and grabbed Frank’s arm to stop him. When Janice tried to pass him, he stopped her as well, ignoring the shouts of the soldiers. “Listen, we make a pact right now, okay?” He pointed at Frank. “He never turned himself in, and we just rescued him from the leader tonight.”

Janice gave a quick nod and started running to the chopper. Frank still needed another second to get over his shock. Gordon pushed Frank, urging him to run to the gunship. Gordon trailed behind a few steps, casting a last glance back at the assault choppers raining down bullets and missiles upon the remains of the horde.

A hand clamped over his arm to pull him into the chopper, and they were airborne only a few seconds later. The soldier who had pulled him onboard leaned over to shout in his ear. “That was good thinking, using the fire to send a signal to us.”

Gordon smiled then turned to see if Frank and Janice had heard. He guessed they had by their sudden smiles, and he nodded to the soldier. “Yes, I suppose it was a good plan.”

***

Colonel Richard Chambers shut off the TV and turned to watch the battered trio in front of him. “First of all, thank you for making the effort to gather this evidence. I’m sorry to tell you this, but very few people were able to evacuate. Fourteen hours ago, we set up a perimeter to quarantine the city. We’ve only had a handful of survivors while there were many attempts by the ‘milkies’ to break through.”

“The what?” Janice asked.

“It’s what one of the gunners came up with after we’d blown apart a group.”

“Were you using incendiary rounds?” Gordon asked.

“Not during the first assaults, no. We lost a few units before sorting out that fire worked to knock them down. Before our discovery, we were doing a fairly good job of dismembering them with high caliber weapons. We also learned a head shot won’t work, but decapitation will.” Colonel Chambers smirked as he shook his head. “Try and figure that one out.”

Gordon nodded. “Yeah, but I think decapitation works because you end up damaging the antenna planted in the top of the spinal column by the leader.”

“I would object only to your using the term antenna, since the implants we’ve found in the zombies are much more sophisticated. The FBI flew a team in here to look over the bodies which weren’t too badly damaged. What you thought of as pins and rods are quite a bit thicker, and they’re made up of micronized circuits.”

Frank whistled. “So this one man had all of those zombie plugged into a kind of neural network.”

“We’re still not sure how it would be possible for the leader to control the whole group by himself unless he had somehow augmented himself. Your surveillance videos of the conversion process seem to bear that assumption out.”

“You mean like a cyborg?” Frank asked.

“Not in the most basic sense, no. Instead, this leader has some kind of transmitter installed in his head which allows him to either send commands or receive input from his converted minions. We aren’t sure how he was able to keep control over so many people even at long range, but now that we know what to look for, we’re planning a hunting party to capture some of the milkies to study an undamaged transmitter.”

Janice cleared her throat. “What are you planning to do?”

“As I said, we’re organizing a hunt first. We’ll hold the quarantine for another twelve hours before the bombing runs begin. The whole city is going to be leveled.” The colonel shook his head. “I never thought we’d ever be firing on our own people, but we’ve got to burn this infection out before it spreads.”

“What about us?” Frank asked.

“After you’ve rested a few hours, a chopper will fly you to Houston, and the FBI will meet you there to escort you to Washington.”

“Shouldn’t we try to talk to talk to the officials in Houston first?” Janice asked. “At the very least, we should start sending copies of those tapes to the cities around Dallas to warn them of what’s going on.”

“No, I’m afraid the events which occurred in Dallas may not be coming out as public information. It depends on whether the quarantine is successful or not.”

Janice gaped at him with dismay. “What? Colonel, you’ve got to warn people of what’s coming. How can you hide a city vanishing in four days?”

“We’ve told the local media and governments that a disease was released by terrorists, and for now, that’s all that they need to know. The reaction to our version of events has been bad enough, and the president will be briefed on this before we come to any decisions concerning an update. The president will decide what we report after you’ve briefed him.” Colonel Chambers shook his head while all three sputtered protests at him. “I’m sorry, but information like this could cause a mass panic, and that’s exactly what this kind of person will want. You’re going to have to button up unless the president clears you to talk about what happened.”

***

Gordon went to his room to lay down on a cot, but sleep wouldn’t come no matter how badly he wanted it. Colonel Chambers had made it clear they were supposed to stay quiet, and charges could and would be brought against them if they didn’t play along. The quarantine wasn’t intended to contain just the undead hordes, but also the rumors of their existence.

Gordon didn’t want to admit colonel Chambers was right, but the knowledge of the zombie army taking over Dallas would cause a much wider panic. If the leader had somehow escaped the city, the mass hysteria could mask both his movements and the slow buildup of another army somewhere else.

Gordon was bound to act under orders, and though he felt frustrated to keep silent over the potential threat, he knew any attempt he made to leak the material would be covered up. The problem wound through his head in an endless loop which finally ended when he passed out from fatigue.

He woke from a nightmare a few hours later, but his limbs were still too heavy for him to even sit up. He panted quietly and closed his eyes, his mouth drawing into a frown when he had a stray memory of his wife run through his mind. He heard her voice as she made her last phone call to him, and grief began to build up inside him.

His wife and partner were dead. Most of his co-workers were as well, along with all of his neighbors. He began going through a list of names, and every acquaintance, no matter how minor, was still listed and added to the pile of bodies in his mind.

Gordon cried himself into a light sleep while the pile grew, and it collapsed as the victims all slowly drained of color to become the same milk white color. Though he tried to escape, the horde surrounded him. They were pressing in on him when a hand closed over his shoulder and drew him out of his nightmare.

Gordon blinked at the young soldier who stood over him. “Give me a minute.”

“Sir, I’m sorry, but we’ve got orders to move you out now. Please come with me.”

Gordon heard the tension in the soldier’s voice, and he got off the cot to follow the corporal out of the room. “What happened to the hunting party?”

“The column of armored vehicles was lost an hour ago. Choppers spotted them driving back, but no one was answering radio calls. The choppers were ordered to open fire, and the column scattered. Several of the vehicles were able to punch through the perimeter, and we gave chase.”

Gordon rubbed his face tiredly. “There was a horde that went out through the same hole, wasn’t there?”

“Yes sir, and they took some men with them.”

Janice was coming out of a room with a soldier up ahead, and she turned to frown at Gordon. “So much for the quarantine.”

 “I’ll bet we aren’t going to be asked to stay quiet for very long now. That may or may not be a good thing for Frank.” Gordon saw a soldier emerge from a room with a confused expression. “He’s not in his room?”

The soldier looked at Gordon and shook his head. Gordon walked to the door and opened it, finding the cot had never been used. A knot began forming in his stomach as he crossed the room and knelt down to look under the cot, where he found a single sheet of lined paper.

Gordon, (or whichever person finds this)

I still have the DVD, and it’s occurred to me that our friend may not wait around to be bombed. So the two of you can go explain to the president why he needs to be worrying, and I will be moving on to look for a way to set up some kind of defense in the next city. (assuming I pick the right city, of course.) If the world hasn’t gone to Hell in a year, maybe I’ll come looking for you… maybe.

It’s been a pleasure working with Dallas’ finest, and I hope your trip to Washington is successful.

With deepest gratitude,

Frank

Gordon turned the note over and smiled as he found a single line at the bottom:

P.S.: I’ll bet you thought I was the leader just now. You did, didn’t you?

Janice laid a hand on his shoulder. “Did he say where he’s going?”

“Just that he’s running away to get the resistance ready.” Gordon handed her the note and sighed, waiting for her to read it.

Janice turned it over, reading the bottom before she looked up at him with a curious expression. Her lips thinned in a smile when he nodded. “Don’t worry about it. That was my first thought too.”

“Excuse me. I hate to be rude, but we really do need to leave now,” one of the soldiers said and grabbed Gordon and Janice by their upper arms to push them out of the room.

“Are the hordes moving in on our location?” Gordon asked.

“No sir. The president has authorized the use of a tactical nuke, and we’re in the blast zone.”

Gordon closed his eyes as his shoulders slumped. “So this is how the end of the world begins.”

The End?