Trudge: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (17 page)

The White House was very secure with blast and bullet proof windows and doors, it lent for a very quiet interior. They detected scratchy moans coming from somewhere in the West Wing. Captain Desantos was on point and he was the one that noticed the bloody hand prints first. He feared the worst. POTUS had two little daughters and these handprints happened to be too small to be from an adult. A blood trail meandered down the hallway through a set of closed, ornately carved, double doors. Mikes earpiece came alive with the voice of Zulu 2’s team leader, Deke Clifton.

“This is Rainman, how copy?”

“Cowboy here, sit rep?”

“We made contact with multiple infected, Sergeant Wholford is WIA. He has been infected.”

“Copy that. Secure your casualty and proceed to objective.”

*****

In the East Wing of the White House, the infected Sergeant agreed to take his life before he could turn and jeopardize the mission. Zulu 2’s team leader, Deke Clifton handed the man a blister packet containing one gel caplet. Sergeant Wholford opened the package and promptly swallowed the pill. He sat down and was relieved of his weapons. His eyes closed and his body convulsed, he was dead seconds later. As his commanding Officer it was Deke’s responsibility to make sure he stayed dead. The two rounds from his silenced Heckler and Koch MP7A1 assured he would not reanimate.

 The entire Delta Team, Zulu 1, stood in front of the doors while their leader received a situation report from the other team. Mike had committed the floor plan to memory. They were nearing the president’s Chief of Staff Emanuel Jones personal office.

Mike’s team made their first contact near the end of the blood tracked hallway. The two zombies staggered out of the Chief of Staff’s office. Undead didn’t have good night vision; the Chief of Staff caromed off of the elaborately carved table and fumbled his way towards the Delta Team. An IR beam painted the walker’s face; in the eerie green glow of Mikes NV goggles he concluded it was in fact the president’s right hand man, Emanuel Jones. The guttural sound that escaped from its mouth confirmed the worst, high ranking members had indeed returned with the president as intelligence had suggested. Unfortunately the infection had spread inside the most secure residence in the free world.

 Mike took careful aim. The silenced H&K MP7A1 coughed twice; the two bullets entered the zombie’s forehead high and opened the top of its head spraying Berkley educated brains all over the beautiful oil paintings adorning the wall. Another ghoul ambled out of the office; the woman had bite wounds all over her torso. The young intern had seen better days. She was minus all of her internal organs and both arms had been partially consumed. It was apparent that she had lost a lot of blood before she died; her entire lower body was crimson red.

Mike sidestepped Emanuel Jones body and calmly put a bullet into the intern’s temple just behind the left eye. The projectile scrambled her brains and she dropped instantly.

Mike entered the office and called out, “Clear” a moment later. Once he was back in the hallway he produced a small digital camera from his thigh pocket and recorded the faces of the undead for later confirmation.

“Cowboy, this is Rainman, we are outside of POTUS master bedroom, preparing for entry.”

“Copy that. Proceed at will” Mike answered.

*****

The remaining five shooters led by Warrant Officer Deke Clifton breached the door with DET cord. The room was in shambles and the walls were blood streaked. Broken furniture lay strewn about.

Suddenly two small figures emerged from the dark grand master bathroom. Deke had been briefed before the mission and studied and memorized the faces of all of the VIPs in the white house. Even tinted green he recognized the president’s young daughters rushing at him, so he held his fire. When he realized that the children were zombies he engaged them with his silenced weapon. The girls were faster than any other undead that he had encountered. Carly, the youngest, leapt at him like a feral cat. He shot from the hip, and the un-aimed bullets went left and high. His fate was sealed when she latched her teeth onto his forearm and held on. Her body weight caused him to swing around towards his team while inadvertently discharging his weapon. Sergeant Darwin Matthews caught two through the neck before Sergeant Lowery was gut shot below his body armor. The next two operators in the stack, Rooks and Dooley were unscathed; they promptly rushed forward to help. First Sergeant Lopez, who was bringing up the rear, was saved by his bulletproof vest; the two errant bullets still had enough punch to knock him down. The other child zombie latched onto Sergeant Lowery’s neck near his jugular. The little creature shook her head and came away with a prize.

Lopez, still on the floor, aimed through the holographic sight on his MP7; the feeding zombie looked up and hissed at him. A three round burst from his weapon rendered her face unrecognizable.

Deke couldn’t believe it. He was fatally injured by the smallest superficial bite; tiny teeth marks were visible on the exposed flesh between his gloved hand and his BDU sleeve. He let his weapon hang from its sling and checked Matthews pulse. It was too late for him. The young operator had bled out already and was starting to turn a pallid grey. The carpet was slick with blood and the gut shot Lowery was fighting to breathe, bloody air bubbles frothed from his mouth. Acrid cordite, comingling with the metallic smell of blood filled the Presidential Suite.

Deke tended to the rapidly fading Lowery. Lopez was smarting from the bullets that his vest had absorbed. He gingerly moved forward to assist Deke just as Lowery reanimated and rolled over onto his stomach. Deke stood erect, backpedaled and put a plush chair between him and the corpse. The creature that was once Lowery managed to rise, allowing the entire contents of his bowels to spill through the gaping entry wounds. Fecal odor now permeated the room. Lopez gagged as he double-tapped his undead teammate with his silenced carbine.

A dry rattling moan originated from the next room. Lopez entered the adjoining marble tiled bathroom, in a combat crouch, with his carbine at the ready. The sound was coming from the white claw foot tub. He approached cautiously and looked over the edge at what remained of the first lady’s body. She was naked and twitching in the bottom of the empty vessel. It appeared that she had been attacked and eaten by her undead children. The bite marks were small, but so much of her had been consumed that the only thing she could do was track movement with her eyes and click her jaws open and closed.

Lopez, Rooks and Dooley finished clearing the presidents private residence. Lopez called out, “Clear.”

Deke hailed Mike.

“This is Rainman, I’ve been infected, Wholford, Matthews and Lowery are all KIA, Lopez is assuming command of Zulu 2, how copy?”

*****

On the other side of the White House Mike halted in his tracks, let his weapon hang on its sling, and rubbed his temples, before answering.

“Cowboy, copy that. What the hell happened?”

Deke recounted how he had paused briefly before engaging the first children, “Shit went FUBAR on me. I take full responsibility. FLOTUS is dead. I repeat the first lady is down.”

Lopez took command of Zulu 2 and ordered his men to digitally document the scene and retrieve DNA swabs from all of the dead. Rooks took the camera from Deke and captured images of the dead girls and the first lady, whom was still hungrily eyeing the soldiers.

Deke confirmed his pistol was loaded by pulling the slide back far enough to see brass in the chamber; he then stepped to the undead Mrs. Odero and fired one bullet into her brain. He started to shake, not from what he just had to do, but from the viral process that was taking place throughout his entire body. Dekes limbs were going numb. The last time he felt this miserable was during the cold water survival course at Fort Benning so many years ago. He had survived that day but he knew he wasn’t finishing this one. The weary soldier closed the door behind him and pulled the photo of his wife and little boy from his breast pocket and gave them each one last kiss. Tears formed in his eyes as he put the pistol into his mouth. It tasted of gun oil and metal. His infected limbs shook more forcefully. He had to bite down on the barrel to keep it in his mouth. Willing his finger muscles to contract, he left this world. The bang reverberated in the tiled bathroom.

*****

In the West Wing of the White House Mike and his team slowly made their way down the marble spiral staircase. He and his men located the dark wooden door to the White House Situation room. Aside from Mr. Jones and his intern there had been no other infected in the West Wing. The bloody handprints and blood trail in the upstairs hall outside of the Oval Office were the only indication that things may have gone sideways on the president and his protection detail. Mike had a sinking feeling that there would be no one left alive to tell that story.

The men formed up in front of the wood covered titanium blast door. Captain Desantos rapped on it with a gloved hand. A series of bumps and bangs answered him back.

In his ear he heard a new report from the other team.

“This is Lowrider, we are enroute to the West Wing. My team is at half strength” First Sergeant Lopez said.

“Copy that Lowrider, Cowboy out”

Mike got the attention of Warrant Officer Clark and warned him to be ready to receive the three remaining team members, lest they have another friendly fire incident.

Clark nodded in recognition.

During the mission briefing hours ago Speaker of the House Valerie Clay provided the last known entry code for the situation room. She was the only known surviving member of the U.S. government that was still communicating with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Barring the retrieval of a living breathing POTUS or VPOTUS she was the next in order of succession.

Mike touched the keypad and entered the digits he had memorized. The green light on the keypad blinked momentarily before the door slid into the wall revealing the interior of the situation room and the carnage inside. The smell was noxious and Mike had all he could do to keep his gag reflex in check.

President Odero’s hubris kept him from accepting his protective details recommendation that he be moved to a safer location. The men and women staffers pleaded with him and the First Lady to allow them to be moved to Iron Mountain as protocol dictated. Instead he recalled all of his cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff back to the White House just hours after declaring martial law. Only a handful of the cabinet members had made it back and none of the Joint Chiefs of Staff returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Of the staffers that did return, President Odero’s National Security Advisor Daniel Guzman was already infected, thus dooming everyone in the White House.

The source of the banging came forward, a Secret Service Agent, most of his face hung in strips over the collar of his blood caked white cotton oxford shirt. His empty leather shoulder holster bounced with his lurching steps, the flesh colored earpiece dangling where his ear used to be swished to and fro like a bloody pendulum. Jaundiced eyes stared at the soldiers entering the inner sanctum. Somewhere in the recesses of its hippocampus the thing remembered it had something to protect. Mike became its target.

With the precision honed from hours of practicing live fire shooting, the team swept the medium sized room, each instinctively taking the proper firing zone.

Mike punched out the Secret Service zombie’s eye with a three round burst, crouched low, and crab walked to the right around the massive table flanked by enormous darkened LCD panel televisions.

Seconds elapsed and the rest of the room was cleared of undead. There were six in total, three more agents, the Vice President and his younger trophy wife, last place in death for sure. Mike sensed the movement beyond the next open door before making contact. It was the President. He was now undead. There were defensive bite wounds on his hands and his pants legs were tattered and torn exposing his monogrammed boxer shorts. Handcuffed to his right arm was an aluminum attaché case.

“Calvin, you rolling digital?” Mike bellowed.

“Affirmative sir.”

“Tighten on the face then.”

“Copy that.”

The image that the camera digitally captured didn’t resemble the president. His cheeks were sunken; his usually know it all cold steely stare was replaced by dead, glazed over eyes, peering from a waxy alabaster mask.

“Odero is beyond recovery, preparing to terminate POTUS.”

Captain Mike Desantos had the president in his sights and thought to himself, this is for locking the kids and missus out of your bunker asshole. His MP7 silently spit lead, he held the trigger for an extra heartbeat, and the zombie that used to be the most powerful man in the free world crumpled to the thick carpet spilling blood and internals from his bullet riddled torso.

Mike drew his Hard Steel Tanto blade and put his combat boot on the dead president’s upturned hand. With three rapid sawing motions of his knife he removed the appendage. The blood slickened handcuff slid from the stump easily. For the first time since the helos dropped the men at the White House Mike hailed Fort Bragg to inform the former Speaker of the House Valerie Clay that she was the new POTUS.

“This is Zulu One, we have recovered the fumble. How copy?”

“Copy that. RTB with the football. Reaper One and Two are refueling, exfil in ten mikes.”