The Beginning of the End (Book 1): Toward the Brink (18 page)

Elliot rammed another head-on. The face of the foamer splatted headfirst into the windscreen, cracking but not breaking it.

“Oh my fucking God, we’re gonna die!” Cindy screamed.

“Not if I can help it, we’re not!” Elliot reassured her.

Elliot dropped a gear and ploughed through, the foamer on the windshield thrashing about momentarily then sliding down the grill. A large splotch of green gunk in front of Elliot’s face remained on the glass, testament to where the foamer’s head had made contact.

“Load!” Mulhaven passed the 1100 back to Cindy, who was struggling to keep herself together. After a couple of days of foamers, no sleep, blowing the head off a perverted cop, and almost getting eaten by these zombie fuckers, she was unravelling.

“C’mon, Cindy. We don’t have time to fuck around!”

“Yes, yes okay!” She handed Mulhaven a fully-loaded 1100 and went to work on loading the one she just received. The van lurched and knocked her to one side. Elliot had run over two more, but this time, the van almost stopped.

“Let’s get moving, Elliot!” Mulhaven ordered.

“Okay, okay. I’ve got it.”

Suddenly, the sliding door on the side of the van flew open. Cindy screamed when she saw a red-eyed foamer hanging on to the edge of the door. The skin on one side of its face had been sheared off, revealing skeletal features and torn tissue.

“Get back, Cindy. Get back!” the Tall Man yelled from his position in the rear of the van. He couldn’t fire on the abomination for fear of hitting Cindy or Elliot. Allan had frozen into a state of shock. This was his first full contact with a foamer.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, you cunt!” Cindy summoned the courage, out of fear or anger, she wasn’t sure which, and freed her Colt Delta Elite 10mm from its holster. She aimed directly at the head of the demon only a foot or so away.

“Eat this, you ugly fucker!”

She pulled the trigger twice even though the first shot did the job.

“Slam the door shut. Shut it!” Elliot yelled.

Allan snapped out of it and closed it with an almighty slam.

“We’re not going to get through this. There’s too many,” Elliot said.

“Stop the van, Elliot,” the Tall Man said.

“Are you crazy?” Elliot, Cindy, and Allan all said in unison. Mulhaven didn’t hear it because he had his head out the window.

“Just stop the fuckin’ van now. Do it if you want to get out of here!”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mulhaven shouted.

He squeezed his head back inside the van when Elliot stopped. There was no time to answer as the first Molotov exploded in front and to the side of the van followed by a second to the opposite side. Intense growls like a pack of angry dogs were heard as the flames covered the foamers from head to foot. The burning foamers ran into others, setting them alight. The heat forced the rest back. Like all animals, the fear of fire was a common denominator. The Tall Man fired two bursts from the AR-15, clearing the way ahead, then bounded aboard the van.

“Let’s get going, and don’t spare the gas!” he said

The street ahead had cleared apart from the odd foamer or two up ahead. Most importantly, the van made it through unscathed. They were headed to Shoshone and their future, whatever the future might be, a few hours earlier than originally planned.

# # #

“Do you know where Roger lives?” Elliot asked.

“I don’t know the number, but I remember what street it’s on and what the house looks like,” Allan said.

“Oh, that’s fuckin’ great. Just great. How are we going to tell in the dark?”

“Easy, Elliot, take it easy,” Mulhaven had noticed, as had the others, that Elliot was swearing a lot more freely of late. With plenty of rest, he’d be fine. “By the time we get there, it will be daylight, Elliot, and Allan can guide us right to the front door. Right, Allan?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, I can do that.”

They drove a few more blocks alone with their thoughts when Elliot spoke up. “Sorry, Allan. I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s all right, Elliot. We’ve had a rough night, and it’s not over yet. Let’s get to Shoshone so we can rest up, eh?”

Elliot nodded. Mulhaven gave Allan a “well done” wink, and the Tall Man patted him on the back. Allan smiled back. He was glad for the Tall Man’s company now even if he was still scared of him.

“I hope they have some hot water,” Cindy said. “That water back at your store was cold!”

“They still have the old-fashioned boiler at the farm Roger lives on.”

“Great! Hot water, here we come. Yay!”

“That’s one surprise I’d welcome. Let’s hope they don’t have any others,” the Tall Man said grimly.

They drove on into the night and toward an uncertain destiny.

The President had started the meeting in the White House Situation Room with his “insiders,” those he trusted or believed he could, when a rap on the door interrupted them. Tom Transky, the Chief of Staff, entered without waiting for permission; he was expected.

“What is it, Tom?” the President asked.

The two went back quite a ways, back when the President was a young senator and Tom was a promising lawyer. The President could read his chief of staff like a book, and Tom could do the same with him.

“Mr. President, gentlemen,” Tom acknowledged the others at the meeting before continuing, “Director Coltrain’s body was pulled from the Potomac several hours ago. His wife has confirmed his identity.”

A sigh went around the room. First Flint had disappeared, and now this.

“What happened, Tom? How did it happen?”

“Details are sketchy at the moment, but he had a single bullet wound under the chin. His car was found nearby.” Tom paused to let everyone digest the news he’d brought. “Mr. President, it appears at this stage to be suicide.”

“Suicide!”

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so.”

“Damn it!” the President said, slamming his fist on his desk. “Well, we don’t have time to be concerned with that now. Take a seat, Tom. I’ll let the Secretary of Homeland Security fill you in.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Shaun Hadlee said. “I won’t bore you with details, Tom, but it’s like this. Homeland has assumed complete responsibility to manage this crisis.”

Tom sat silent, nodding while eyeing the President. This would not be his plan. He wouldn’t put one body or service in charge of the whole thing. He was late to the meeting because of the phone call about the CIA Director, but was he kept from the meeting so the
coup d’état
could take place?

“We have decided not to move the ICBMs for the moment, but we are putting teams in place to deactivate them should it become necessary.”

Tom agreed with that. After all, it was an idea he’d floated to the President less than twenty-four hours ago. Hadlee’s mention of “we” concerned him though.

“Who’s
we
, Mr. Secretary?” Tom asked.

“All of us in this room, of course,” Hadlee countered. “The other thing we’ve considered and are going to implement is this: We’re going to blockade Idaho. No one goes in, and no one comes out. Believe me.”

Tom looked at the President as if to say, “Are you on board with this?” but the President’s reaction told him he wasn’t and probably had no control over it either.

“We are also going to re-implement the plan of capturing several of these ‘foamers,’ as they’re called, and study them. The aim, however, is not to save them but to find a way that we can test people to see if they have the illness before they turn into a foamer. That’s how we can save the rest of the population.”

“I see.” Tom stood up, took a look around the room, and gritted his teeth. “You’ve got everything under control then?”

Tom Transky excused himself and went back to his office. There was still normal government business to attend to. Most people in the country were unaware of what was happening, but every passing minute brought more questions. Perhaps putting the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge was the right thing. He was an ambitious and bull-headed man, but maybe that was what was needed in this case. What Tom didn’t know was that all four of the Armed Services, National Security, the National Guard of every state, and most likely the Boy Scout movement were under the control of Homeland Security. Far more concerning was that Hadlee was now in possession of all the nuclear launch codes and the nuclear football, the briefcase that allowed authorization of a nuclear attack when the President was away from fixed command centers.

The bloodless coup was perhaps the first step toward the extinction of the human race. The first step toward the Brink.

The End