Zombie War: An account of the zombie apocalypse that swept across America (6 page)

“We built each fort on a major intersection,” he said and drew a large cross to indicate the overlapping roads. “The fort was built on the road running south, straddling the blacktop, with the actual intersection beyond the rear wall of the fort.” He drew a box over one of the arms of road, and then drew gates at either end. “You see the fort was a mile square – and the gate we built made use of the road that already existed. That meant refugees could come in through the gate and be safe. It also meant our patrols could operate in zombie infected areas. The rear gate allowed us to mobilize troops along the defensive line by using the road that ran east to west along the intersection. It meant, in the event of a zombie attack somewhere along the trench line, that we could send troops from the nearest fort to reinforce the line without having to send them across difficult terrain. The intersecting roads gave us smooth lines of supply and reinforcement.”

I nodded. I appreciated the genius behind the simple plan. “And the forts were twenty miles apart, right?”

“Approximately,” Danvers said. “It depended on the intersections we had at our disposal. We built each fort a few miles south of the major cities along the line.”

I stood back, glanced once more at the big map, and then down at the hastily scrawled drawing Danvers had made. “It seems that the Containment strategy you devised is a cross between World War I trench warfare, and the kind of forts we built back in the wild west when the cavalry were fighting Indians.”

Danvers grunted. “That’s a fair appraisal,” he admitted. “When I developed the plan for the line I had to consider the type of enemy we were going to be confronting. As I said before, America has never fought an enemy so primitive that it rendered our superior technology ineffective – until the zombie outbreak,” he spoke with the force of complete conviction. “I knew modern warfare, built around technology, was not the answer. I found the solution, ultimately, in our history.”

“You make it sound simple.”

The man shook his head. “It wasn’t simple,” he said. “It was hard work and it involved great sacrifice. ‘Operation Containment’ wasn’t just about building this defensive line, it was about the missions our brave soldiers undertook in the course of the operation. The line gave us a base – a place to defend, but once we had that containment line built, we still ran operations in zombie infected areas as part of the initial response. America has a lot of heroes they don’t know about. That’s why I agreed to this interview. I want you to tell the people of this country about the heroic dedication of the men and women who pledged to defend them.”

I nodded. I already had several more interviews lined up with combatants who had been actively involved in ‘Operation Containment’.

I sat back down at the table and gathered my thoughts for a moment. I had a dozen pages of scribbled notes. I flicked back through the pages quickly. I realized my writing was so scrawled, I would be lucky to read the mess later.

“What was the biggest challenge to ‘Operation Containment’?” I asked after a long moment. “I mean apart from the logistics of building the line. Was it in the operations that were conducted in zombie territory, or dealing with politicians…?”

Danvers stared hard at me. Slowly he sat forward and thrust his face close to mine so that I could not mistake the gravity in his expression.

“The numbers,” he said, like it was some secret that until this moment had never been revealed. “The sheer numbers of the enemy,” he shook his head and seemed to become lost in his own brooding thoughts for several minutes. Finally he sat upright, and pressed his palms flat against the tabletop. “By abandoning Florida, and conceding that we couldn’t defend Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia or South Carolina, we created an enemy army of about twenty eight million,” he said the words slowly, making sure I understood the significance. “Twenty eight million mindless ghouls that couldn’t be stopped, couldn’t be reasoned with, couldn’t be dissuaded, but could only be killed by a bullet to the brain. Think about that,” Danvers said, and then lapsed into pensive silence while I tried to grasp the enormity.

I shook my head slowly. It was an impossible number to conceive. More than ten percent of the nation’s population had been infected. I knew too that southern parts of North Carolina and Tennessee had also been forsaken.

“Look at it from a military point of view,” he went on with a kind of macabre relish to emphasize his point, “and you’ll understand better what we were dealing with.”

He got up again and went to one of the blank multimedia screens on the opposite wall. He pressed some buttons and the screen filled with red towers, like some kind of a graph. Danvers stood before the screen like a college professor about to give a lecture.

“The People’s Republic of China has the biggest Army in the world. Know how big?”

I shook my head.

“About two and a quarter million,” Danvers said. I blinked. He went on remorselessly. “The US Army is the second biggest in the world – about 1.5 million, followed by India and North Korea, both with over a million men.” He was pointing at each red column on the big monitor as he rattled off the numbers. “Russia has about a million, then comes Turkey, South Korea, Pakistan, Iran and Egypt, all with somewhere around half a million men. Know what that means?”

I shook my head slowly.

“It means that by surrendering those five states to the zombie infection in order to buy enough time to prepare a solid defensive line, we were confronted by an undead army that was
three times the size of the world’s ten largest military forces, combined.
”

Danvers paused to lean across the table and pour himself a glass of water. He didn’t offer me one.

“At the time of your appointment, the government had no idea that the zombie virus was in fact an act of terrorism perpetrated on the United States by Iran, right?”

“That’s right,” Danvers said solemnly. “We thought we were dealing with something extraordinary – something we had never seen the likes of before, but we thought it was like an Ebola strain, or some other virulent mutation of virus. We had no idea until several months into the war that this was all some gruesome terrorism plot.”

I was tempted to probe further, but I didn’t. Instead I kept the questions focused on ‘Operation Containment’.

“You said you ran operations during those early stages containing the virus,” I began. “How many, and what was the nature of them?”

“I didn’t run the operations personally,” he explained. “They were military, and – in some cases – civilian exploits. But to go into detail it would be better if you interviewed the combatants yourself.”

I nodded. “Can you at least single out some of the main events that you felt were significant during the months that ‘Operation Containment’ was in effect?”

Danvers nodded carefully, “Sure,” he said, like he was keen to merely get rid of me. I had the feeling that his patience was wearing thin. “Mission Warwax, Mission Hawk’s Wing, and Mission Exorus. When you speak to the men involved, you’ll understand the heroism of our troops on the ground, and the terrible sacrifices they made during those first few months when we held the undead back, and gave our military time to assemble and prepare.”

Richard Danvers stood up, extended his hand across the table. Whether I liked it or not, the interview was over. I nodded my head, muttered something about being grateful for his time and cooperation, then turned for the door where a uniformed soldier had suddenly appeared. I was half way out the door when Danvers called out to me suddenly, “Oh, and see if you can find anyone willing to talk about the ‘Silverbacks’ and their exploits… if any of those men survived.”

“The Silverbacks?”

“A group of retired soldiers,” Danvers said sketchily. “They were from Georgia. They were kind of like a resistance group. We owe them a lot.”

THE PENTAGON, ARLINGTON VIRGINIA:

With a different school guidance counselor, Raymond ‘Tug’ Horsham might have ended up as a butcher, or maybe a school bus driver. He had a wide friendly face, a ready smile, and the kind of sparkling eyes that store owners look for when they employ their Santa Claus each Christmas. In short, he looked nothing like my impression of the hardheaded General who had been appointed by the President to oversee ‘Operation Containment’, and the man who coordinated the initial military defensive response of the nation.

The original SAFCUR (Supreme Armed Forces Commander Undead Response) was waiting for me when I entered his Pentagon office. He looked me over carefully, and then gestured for me to take a seat on the opposite side of a large desk. An aide was running down a list of his other appointments for the day. Horsham dismissed the young man with a nod and a friendly smile, and held the expression right up until the door finally closed and we were alone.

Not a second longer.

“What do you want?” Horsham’s voice crackled like electricity.

I was shocked. The transformation from the genial public persona to the private warrior was startling. He fixed me with baleful eyes.

He was a big man – broad and solid in the shoulders with a bull neck and thinning grey hair.

He put his hands on the desk and laced his fingers together.

“Sir, my name is Culver…”

“I know,” Horsham said. “I didn’t ask who you were, son. I asked what you want.”

As a journalist, I’ve conducted interviews with all types of people. Some try to win you over with charm. Others become adversarial in the hope that you’ll be intimidated and shy away from asking the hard questions. But I didn’t sense that with Horsham. I simply got the impression that he was a no-nonsense man with limited time. I hoped I was right.

“I want to know the truth about ‘Operation Containment’ and your role in the defense of the nation during the zombie war,” I said, and sat up straight, meeting his steely gaze and refusing to blink.

“The truth?” Horsham’s voice was a deep rumbling bass, the kind of voice that reminded me of thunder rolling across the sky. I was hoping he’d give me the clichéd
“you can’t handle the truth!”
and go all Jack Nicholson on me. He didn’t.

“The truth is that a lot of fine young men and women died in defense of their homeland.”

I nodded, and flipped my notebook open to a blank page. Horsham’s phone rang suddenly. I caught the man’s eyes and silently offered to step out of the office, but Horsham motioned for me to stay put. He snatched at the receiver and swung round in his chair so his broad back was to me. I heard his voice, low and muttering, but paid no attention.

Instead, I gazed around the Pentagon office.

There was a map of Old America on the wall behind him, next to an old American flag, still with the original fifty white stars in the top left corner. His desk was huge – like some kind of a barricade maybe, and there was a credenza against one wall. There was nothing on the man’s desk apart from the phone and a 49ers football helmet. Not even a framed photo of children or a wife. He had both.

His uniform coat was on a hanger, pressed and immaculate, displaying a chest of military decorations and ribbons.

The office had a sense of being temporary – as if Raymond Horsham was subconsciously preparing for a recall back to real soldiering. There was nothing here that the General couldn’t pack into a duffle bag and be on the next plane back to the front line.

It was an unexpected insight into the man.

Horsham swung round in his chair and dropped the phone back into its cradle. He took a deep breath, and then narrowed his eyes like he was making a judgment call.

“Fire away,” he said at last. “Ask whatever you want and I’ll give you the honest truth.”

I relaxed just a little. Horsham did the same. He leaned back in his chair.

I had to ask about the flag and the map. I sensed that the relevance of those pieces would reveal a glimpse into the man’s personality and temperament. “The flag,” I gestured. “Is there any significance?”

“Absolutely,” Horsham said. His shoulders went back an inch. “It’s still my flag, and it always will be – and America is still my country… and it always will be.”

I frowned. I could understand the passion, but I struggled with the practicality – especially from a man with a reputation for being pragmatic.

“The zombie infection broke out thirteen months ago,” I said gently. “Operation ‘Containment’ lasted several months, and then we transitioned into ‘Conquest’ and ‘Compress’. We’ve exacted retribution against the Iranians. The horde has now been driven back behind the Florida border. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t the war over – or as over as it’s ever going to be?”

“No.” Horsham said, and his voice seemed to boom around the room. “The Middle East might have changed as a result of our wrath, but America has not, and will not. The war isn’t over. It’s won, but it’s not over – and it won’t be over until the last zombie is eliminated and driven from the face of the earth, and Florida is reclaimed as American soil.”

“So you don’t support the new America? The re-drawn maps and the new flag?”

“No,” he said again. “Too many proud men and women have spilled their blood in mud around the world for over a century fighting for that flag you see behind me, and defending
all
of the land on that map on my wall. We owe it to them to fight the fight until the world is right.” It sounded like a powerful slogan, and I wondered if he had ever used that speech to rally the troops he had led into battle against the zombies.