“I… I hate to do this… but we have to go. Come on,” I say. Jo turns to me and manages a nod. She shakes her head and begins back towards the SUV.
Please God, I can’t take anyone else dying. Help us.
We need to leave before the rest of the New Americans catch up; they could already be surrounding the building. Gunshots echo off the otherwise dead skyscrapers of downtown, and the corresponding bullets pepper the walls around us. We all crouch low to avoid the incoming fire. Ryan holds a rifle and helps Kevin fire out of the lobby.
“Get back in the-” Kevin begins. Another trail of smoke goes to the black sedan. Ryan and Kevin dive to cover as the car explodes in a bright burst of orange. I feel the heat on my face.
I turn from the explosion to see Laura pulling the box of vaccines from the trunk of the SUV. The explosion of the sedan has not slowed her down. It's the last case; the other was in the sedan.
“Most of these are broken, but enough are intact,” she says, inspecting the crate of vaccines. She stands with the box and approaches a nearby exit. “Come to this door.” She points to a door in the back corner of the lobby.
“We need to get out through that door,” Ryan yells to all of us, “If we can get away, there are enough buildings around here that we can hide in for a few days. We're in a city.”
We all move towards the back door; Laura stands at the doorway with the box in her hands. She turns and faces us. The maroon liquid drips from the corners of the box. I hope there's at least one vaccine intact. Laura looks to us with urgency.
“Come on guys this way is clear. Let's-” A burst of blood exits the center of Laura’s forehead. She falls forward, onto the box. She is… no. A black suited soldier moves in though the exit with smoke rising from his rifle.
“No!” I yell, bringing the revolver up to my hip. I crank the hammer back with my other hand
over and over again. Another soldier comes through, and I aim for him, too. While firing the last shots, I curse God aloud. Both soldiers lie dead beside Laura. Her body lies on top of the box, crushing the contents even more.
“They’ll kill us all,” Paige yells, tears already coming down her cheeks. She is already at the body of Laura. This isn't like the last time we escaped. Tori and Laura are gone. I curse God again. Take me.
Not them.
“How'd they already get behind us?” Carter yells, kneeling behind the flipped SUV for cover. More gunshots spray around us.
“They’re everywhere,” Jo yells, while aiming down her scope and firing a round.
I glance around, keeping my gun fixed on the door by Paige. I can see through the lobby's side glass to a neighboring store window. It looks like a toy store. The path looks clear. We need to move, now. Maybe that will have a back exit that
isn't already surrounded.
“There’s a toy store next door. We should be able to get there,” I shout. “Maybe we can get out that way.”
Paige leaves Laura's body. In her hand, she holds a single unbroken syringe of the vaccine.
“It's the only unbroken one I could find in the box,” she says.
Ryan turns to Caitlyn. She gives him a nod. They have something planned.
“Use it,” Ryan says calmly. “We need cover.”
Caitlyn withdrawals something from her leg pocket. It looks like three black flashlights taped together. But they aren't flashlights. She pulls out a lighter and ignites the fuse. Well, that'll give us the cover we need for our escape. She rolls it towards the windows to the street. We have to get out of here before that goes off. We make our way to the window, ducking from the occasional bullet that zips through the lobby. Caitlyn remains standing in place.
“Caitlyn, let’s go,” Carter shouts. She shakes her head and continues standing still. She looks at the bomb and then to us.
“Get to safety. There is something I have to do,” Caitlyn smiles to Jo and Carter. “I love you both. Good-bye.”
“Caitlyn!”
Jo yells. Caitlyn turns and runs out the opposite exit, the one Laura tried to lead us through.
“Caitlyn…” Carter says softly, gripping Paige. Maybe he knows what she's doing.
“Nichols, we have less than thirty seconds now, lead the way,” Ryan orders, ducking as some shots bury into the pillar beside him.
I fire two shots into the pane. I sprint at the window and lower my shoulder into the glass. It shatters, and I quickly find myself in the cold snow. The others jump through in quick sequence, landing beside me in the cold embankment.
BOOM.
The bomb goes off, obliterating the lower lobby in an orange inferno. New Americans from the street yell, as the thick black smoke rises into the air. I raise my pistol again and blow out the glass to the toy store while small debris lands on us. I grab Jo's arm and pull her into the store with me. We roll over a stack of board games and the others quickly follow, crouching or collapsing behind shelves of dusty and fading boxes. Once we all are in, I turn and search for an exit.
That distraction won't last long.
Please, God.
Help us.
Chapter 23: Carter
The explosion pushes us into the snow while we are mid-jump. Raising my head from the cold snow, I frantically search for everyone. Paige is right beside me. The others are around, too. Nichols fires a few shots into the next window, and we enter into the dark antique toy store. Smoke billows out of holes in the walls of our previous position, and for the first time in what feels like hours, the gunfire has stopped as they try to make sense of the explosion. We gather in the dark room; it's maybe thirty feet across and forty feet deep – not very big. We don't have long before they follow us all in here.
“The back exit,” Kevin yells, running down an aisle. The rest of us move closely behind with our guns at the ready. He pushes the bar to open the door. It opens.
But it immediately collides into something metal. Kevin pushes the door repeatedly in an effort to force it open. It doesn't budge farther than three or four inches. By the sound of it, something metal is preventing the door from opening. He gives up and turns back to us.
“There has to be another exit,” I say, releasing Paige's hand and running towards the other corner of the store. Nichols and Jo do the same. My eyes search the walls frantically. There are no other doors or windows.
Just the blocked door in the back and the large display windows that cover the front of the store. I rejoin them with a defeated shake of my head. Ryan, who covers the entrance to the store, swears aloud. Jo looks frantic as she looks for another option.
“How the hell are we going to get out of here?” she asks. “It's not going to take them too much longer to figure out that we are right next door.”
There isn't another way out. The front door is the only way. I turn back to the way we came in. Through the broken glass, I can already see the New American vehicles forming a perimeter right outside. There is no way they won't follow us. We are trapped again.
“There's no way out,” Nichols says, removing his hat and holding it loosely to his side. He's searched
like I have. This is it.
There's not even a window to break or an air duct to climb
through.
There's nothing in this store.
SLAM.
I turn sharply. Kevin is back on the exit door. He throws his body against it repeatedly.
“It can't end like this,” he yells with desperation. For the first time since I can remember, emotion covers his face. He doesn't want it to go like this. Tears build in his eyes and he keeps pushing against it.
Paige steps up to him and puts her hand on his shoulder. He stops fighting and leans his head against the steel door in tears. Paige holds him from behind.
Maybe we can hold out here. Just maybe...
“They're coming in!” Ryan yells. He discharges his weapon.
Bullets immediately shatter a front right window of the store. The lead goes right through board games and action figures and peppers the back wall. I duck for cover as a steady stream of bullets pin us down for several seconds. None of us can move.
A scream fills the store.
A woman's scream.
Jo.
I frantically turn my head. No, not her. I can only see the top of her head. She turns and sees me.
“It's Kevin,” she yells. The mild relief is guilt inducing. “They hit him.” I squat down and see his body lying on the ground as Jo holds onto him.
My head searches for any hope in the store. Nichols holds Paige close. She'll be safe with him as long as possible. Ryan is crouching while firing an occasional shot over the counter and into the street. I need to buy them time. They'll get one way out.
David took my spot earlier. It's time I return the favor. I catch Jo's attention while she nurses Kevin. I don't have any of my supplies, so she'll be able to help him as much as I can. She looks to me. I give her a nod.
I turn and see Paige. She stares at me desperately.
I mouth, “I love you.” She mouths it back. Then I turn to the entrance and raise my hands in the air when there is a pause in the gunfire.
“Hold your fire,” I scream. “Hold your fire. I'm coming out.”
A few more shots zip inside, but soon it is all silence again. Ignoring the protests of my friends, I walk out slowly with my hands on my head and come to the store's door. I walk through the shattered glass. Dozens of cars cover the street. The toy store is right in front of a three-way intersection, and New American have them all covered. Dozens of soldiers have their rifles locked on me.
“I want to talk,” I yell. Jon approaching the Sanctuary comes to mind. I plan for my fate to be the same as his. Maybe I can buy them the little time they need to find a way out; hell, I already managed to stop the shooting.
I carefully step closer and several of the guards surround me.
One steps directly in front of me. He looks me up and down. After, he raises his rifle and brings the stock into the middle of my temple.
Everything goes black.
* * *
Light fills my eyes as I regain consciousness. My hands are duct taped behind my back, and I try fruitlessly to pull them apart. I look around the room. The walls are a greenish color - it's not a room; it's a tent. Aside from a single table with some instruments on top, it is empty.
“Where... where am I?” I say to myself. Surprisingly, someone answers from behind me.
“We set up a medical tent so we could have a little privacy. You know, keep you out of those harsh elements.”
“Let us go. Please. That's why I came out. Let us go.”
“I can't do that.”
Profanity leaps from my mouth.
“Do you know who I am?” the voice answers. I turn my head, but can't get a clear view.
I don't care.
“I'm the one in charge of this,” he says. Now, I recognize him. He walks around me and looks at me with a sinister smirk.
“I'm going to kill you. Mark my words Matthews,” I yell. He responds with a grin and looks away from me towards the table. My fingertip feels a sharp object protruding from the back of the chair; it's a screw. Without changing my expression, I begin to scrape the tape with it. Matthews looks back at me. My attempt to scrape through the tape momentarily ceases.
“Please, call me Cole.”
“And I'm Carter,” I respond. Looking at him from the top of my eyes.
Chapter 24: Cole
“Matthews, you won. You have it all,” Carter says. He’s right. It’s over. With the cure in our possession, I get to choose personally, who lives and who dies in the next few days. Most are going to die. I've had enough of these little set-backs.
Then finally, I can get back to work running this country.
“I know,” I answer with a confident smirk. I take a deep breath. It feels good not to be wearing one of those agonizing masks anymore – I can barely breathe with the damned thing on. “I've given my men a hold order since you came out. I want to see to each of them after the two of us are finished up here. I hear from Sergeant Phils that apparently we have a long history together, and I would hate not to give you all the proper amount of attention.”
Since I saw him come out, I figured they
are all trapped inside. People only surrender when they have nowhere else to run. I'll enjoy going in and plucking one out at a time. Trapped like animals in a cage. I should have taken my time with that first one, but I was anxious to get my hands on that cure.
I scratch my chest lightly. The rash appeared this morning so I made sure I was right here if there was a cure. Then that buffoon walked it right out to me. I'm already feeling better. To think they are the ones who saved my life. The irony is simply delicious.
“Why are you doing this?” Carter asks after nearly a minute of silence. “We gave you what you wanted... just... just go. Why do you need us?”
“Why not?
It's how everything used to be done. It's much faster to take than to ask. Besides, can I really just let you all walk out of here? After everything you've done?”
History shows that the dictators are truly the leaders who accomplish great feats. Instill fear and take. If not for that, this country would have completely collapsed. There would be no New America. There would be no America.
It's still here thanks to me. And within a decade, it will have grown into something much greater than ever before.
“Well, congratulations on your damn success,” he says, looking about ready to spit on me. I take a step back. This is a new suit.
“I wish I could take all the credit, but this idea of a New America started long before the plague. Hell, we caused the whole thing.”
He looks at me with a look of puzzlement; not necessarily the look of horror that I imagined. I'll have to change my wording with the next one that I bring in here.
Most civilians believe that New America just sprung up because of the plague – the result of a leaderless military. It's what I want them to think. Little do they realize that we were the ones planning the whole thing for years. Well, our parents actually planned it, but you saw what happened to them. They made one mistake, and I benefited from it.
“You were a teenager then; you didn't do a thing, you pompous
pri-”
“No,” I cut him off before he finishes his insult, “but my father was one of the great minds behind the whole idea.”
I never liked to admit it, but I do miss my father. I think he’d be proud of me, now – carrying on the mission that he started. Even if he did originally plan for me to die...
“Guess he couldn't be too smart if he killed himself.”
“Watch your mouth,” I snap back, my anger rising.
I look to the side, hesitating for a moment. I sometimes forget about how differently all of this was supposed to go. When adults first started to fall ill, the plan quickly changed, and thanks to my father, I
was placed at the center of it all.
“You see, Carter, the virus did the opposite of what they expected.” The original plague
was designed to attack those with a low amount of genetic deterioration instead of a very high amount. “They wanted to kill those twenty years and younger.”
“So the virus wasn’t supposed to kill all the adults? It was supposed to kill all of the
children? Why?” he asks. I figure I'll entertain him. I strangely never get tired of the explanations.
“Why not?
We lived at a time when the youth offered the least to this country. This country was quickly losing its greatest generation, and its replacement was a mob of parasites. Darwinian theory, for the first time on earth, was being proven wrong. It wasn’t survival of the fittest anymore. The weakest were surviving. Hell, then I was a part of it.”
Carter's puzzled look returns to his eyes. I watch with complete
enjoyment as he slowly comprehends it all, and his gaze changes.
“Why kill all the children? What the hell was the point in that?” he asks, starting to breathe heavily.
“For the good of the country. For a New America to rise out of the panic. It was the ultimate do-over. Then amidst the chaos, a new government within FEMA that had been in place for years would start to set the record straight. This plague was their hope to save the country before it completely collapsed.”
“That's… crazy.”
Crazy? Perhaps he has a point, but the virus certainly would have been effective if it had gone as planned. Most, probably don’t remember, but a few years before the plague, the government mandated that a new filtration system needed to be used at all water plants. It certainly was not a big deal at the time – an environmentally friendly initiative proposed by the great liberal president. Not that he knew what was really going on. Little did they know that every man, woman, and child was being infected when he or she merely took a shower or stopped by the water fountain.
Upon infection, it became part of the DNA in a dormant state. It was only waiting for the right catalyst to
be activated. The plague did go off prematurely in a few hundred people, but doctors were quick to write it off as bad cases of the flu. “Just a bad flu year,” they had said.
So clueless to the real endgame.
They introduced that catalyst about six years ago. Then all hell broke loose when the opposite results ensued. In a desperate attempt to still be successful in their decade-old mission, my father and his colleagues prepared us, their children, to take over for them. Patriots to the very end.
I think we did a
pretty damn fine job, considering the mess that they handed to us. Perhaps we aren't the weakest link. As most of the government died, the phones continued to ring and I was in a place to answer them. So many depend on the government, and they were quick to listen to me as I followed my father's agenda. I had already learned so much from
Lord of the Flies
; it's better to be a Jack than a Ralph. As soon as some surviving privates started to listen to me, everything fell into place. I smile to myself and then turn back to Carter. He still glares at me, waiting for some response.
“Crazy?
Maybe. But here I am, and there you are. The sergeant whose nose one of you broke told me that you people and I have a long history. That you were the ones who have interfered with several of our work farms. You even broke into my home. I was just as surprised as the rest of them when it turned out those Sanctuary boys weren't the only ones causing these problems. We didn't know anyone else was just as stupid.” I move close to him. “Now that I know who each of you are, I am going to take my sweet time. A mere bullet to the head isn't enough compensation for the trouble you've caused.”
I manage to mask my rage with a calm face.
This little resistance that this Carter and his friends have put up has been more than a mere aggravation. I thought I had squashed them all that night – when the whore tried to contact me. She wanted me to come get her. It was all very funny; she thought she was more than just a good time to me. Several soldiers were assigned to make sure she didn't come back alive, but luckily, they found her corpse when they retreated from the burning wreckage.
I should never have ordered the retreat. They should have killed everyone – just as if I handled the brief rebellion in Harrisburg and in Morgantown.
Oh, the lives that are lost to maintain order...
Necessary loses for the future of America.
From now on, I'm going to make sure that every man, woman, and child is put down who stands in my way. Washington has struggled this winter because of them, and that can never be repeated. Foreign intervention will occur in only a matter of time, and we will have to be ready for that. We have to prove ourselves to the world. It'll take my leadership to make us a super power again.
Each of them will suffer slowly for these
set-backs, and they will be an example that will be spoken of in hushed voices for a long time. People will think twice before they stand against us.
“Well, this reappearance of your plague has certainly done more harm than we ever could,”
Carter says. “That's a real pain isn't it? By the time you get back to Washington, how many loyal followers do you think will still be alive? Ten, maybe fifteen percent?”
My teeth clench. He's right, but I still have my army here, and in the end that is all that matters. Fear and strength are the only assets I will need to continue. It's how it started; it can start that way again.
“Yes that was a bit of a setback. Luckily, you and your friends remedied that unexpected speed bump. By generating the cure, you have nearly redeemed yourselves. Nearly. But still, let me thank you.” I walk to the nearby table and reach onto a tray. There are a few instruments that I had the medics leave behind. They look like something that may be found in a dentist's office. It's been a while since I've slowly killed someone. Usually I have others do this sort of work.
But
I miss it.
My God, I miss it.
The look in their eyes. The peeling of flesh. I briefly shudder in delight. I'm a hands-on kind of ruler. That's how you get people to listen quickly.
This is going to be an exhausting day.
A horn from outside blasts for a moment and I lose my thought. Probably just some of the more careless soldiers. The horn sounds again. Someone is going to be reprimanded sternly later.
But
that will come later.
I grab one of the stainless steel tools with an especially crude looking hook at the end. I turn to Carter with a grin on my face while holding the tool between us. He opens his mouth.
“Well-”
BOOM.
An explosion blares from outside. A series of pops begin right after - gunshots. I turn towards the entrance. What are they doing out there? They were given a hold order, dammit. I want them alive.
Besides, those last few ones can't need that much firepower to kill.
“What the hell are you doing out there?” I yell towards the open flap. Sgt. Phils comes in with a concerned look on his broken face. The gunshots continue to fire from outside of the tent. My men let out shouts, and another louder explosion causes the canvas itself to shake.
“Sir, we have a serious issue out here,” he replies and hurries back outside.
Phils looks worried. Phils usually never looks worried. What the hell are these nothings up to? They're stuck in a toy store for God's sake. I turn to Carter.
He's missing; there's only an empty chair. I glance around the tent. My captive looks at me from the farthest side. Before I can pull out my pistol, he rolls out of the tent. I fire two shots in vain that merely put holes in the canvas. How does this keep happening?
“Son of a -”