“She’s not dead.” Sophie hissed.
“How do you know?”
“When the heart stops pumping, the blood stops flowing. She’s bleeding — she’s alive.”
The woman’s eyes widened, looking at Sophie. She couldn’t comprehend the smiling pretty woman, crawling across the pile of rotting corpses towards her.
“Don’t be alarmed, I’m a doctor, I can help—” she halted abruptly as another body flew over the side of the truck and landed awkwardly on the woman, breaking her neck, and killing her instantly.
Sophie sobbed in despair and Luke hugged her to him, she let him comfort her for a moment, then the truck crunched into gear and chugged on it’s journey. “She would never have survived a gut-shot,” he whispered to her gently.
“But I needed to try and save her. I really did.”
“I know,” he said soothingly. She rested her head on his shoulder and saw the woman’s dead eyes staring at her accusingly. Luke hugged her some more, when the truck slowed to a halt and released its air brakes with a squeal.
They moved to the cab-end of the cargo-hold assuming the soldiers wouldn’t throw the bodies near to the cab, fearing it might land on the top and be a hazard.
Luke helped her climb up the pile of bodies acutely aware that they were clambering up and over human beings. The back of the truck began to rise on its hydraulic lift, he tried to hold Sophie away from the mass of bodies, but as the cargo-hold tilted, the floor was too slippery, covered with blood, vomit and excrement. As the angle steepened, Luke lost his grip and they tumbled down the slope head-over-heels, along with the rest of the corpses to the bottom….
CHAPTER 23
08:40 AM
President Parker screamed. “They blew up what!” He looked to the sky for help. “With a what?” his face flushed puce and the veins in his forehead were visible.
At the Pentagon War Room Vice-Admiral Reed watched Hamilton Parker rage around the office popping in and out of view on the giant video-link screen. He looked to his compatriots around the conference table and shrugged. “According to the latest intel., Mister President, General Malloy’s command post at the Four Points Hotel, has been destroyed by an aircraft.”
“You were meant to be watching for flights. How did this happen?” he screeched.
“It erm, wasn’t a flight, Mister President. They didn’t fly the airplane into the building.”
“Explain?” he said with malice in his voice.
“They drove it down the street, sir,” he said and gulped waiting for his next outburst.
“What!” He slapped his hand on his desk so hard that objects jumped into the air. “You said they, who are they — foreign terrorists?”
“The reports are sketchy, Mister President. But it looks like local survivors.”
“Say that again?”
“It appears to be survivors, sir — fighting back.”
At the White House President Hamilton Parker swept the objects from his desk, then overturned it and kicked his swivel-chair out of view, he followed after it and they could hear him curse as he destroyed more of the Oval Office furniture.
Quinn Martell calculated the cost of precious antiques reduced to matchwood by the President acting like a vandalizing, drunken, spoiled frat-boy.
Vice-Admiral Reed leaned over to the surgeon general. “He’s losing the plot, Quinn.”
“What can we do?”
“We need someone at the White House, for when the time comes, who has the authority to section him.”
“You said, ‘when’ surely you meant ‘if’?” Quinn pointed out.
“I know what I said. He’s out of control and hopefully his lunatic side-kick General Malloy got killed in the attack.”
“Who can section a serving President?”
“Well, let’s see,” drawled the vice-admiral. “That’d be you.”
Quinn paled, his skin ashen. “Me? But how?”
The vice-admiral shifted his weight. “There’s a few of us waiting for the right moment,” he paused knowing the gravity of the conversation they were having. “That time is now, while Hamilton’s vulnerable without General Malloy to support him.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“We’re going to attempt a coup.”
Quinn stared wide-eyed. “You’re talking treason?”
“We’ve had interesting information leaked from the former President’s compound.”
Quinn gazed around the table to check no one could overhear. “I’m listening.”
“Well, for one thing, that girl did not assassinate President Burgess—”
“I knew that.”
“We watched CCTV footage smuggled out and she wasn’t even in his room when the gunshot is audible. The motion detectors have her in the President’s personal bathroom.”
“Do we know who did kill him?” Quinn asked slowly.
“Rumor has it there was only one armed person in the room at the time of the gunshot.” he paused and let Quinn finish the sentence.
It came to him like a thunderbolt. “General Malloy.”
The vice-admiral allowed himself a slight smile, knowing he’d won him over. “So, are you with us?”
08:50 AM
Luke tried not to cry out as the putrid, rotting corpses buried him. When the pile of human cargo was finally still, he opened his eyes to find that he was half-submerged beneath the crushing heap.
The driver and his buddy had already dragged Sophie from the mound of bodies. “Hey, what have we got here?” the driver asked.
“She sure is pretty!” said his colleague. He approached her making smacking noises with his lips.
Sophie recoiled imagining the worst, but any sort of sexual attack meant the soldier would have to remove his hazmat suit and expose himself to danger. Surely he was not that stupid?
“Don’t be shy my pretty one. We only want to be friendly with you.”
“Have us a little ‘R’ and ‘R’,” his pal said, leering and showing broken teeth.
Sophie stood erect. “Never! I’d rather die.”
“Well, see that’s option two — death.” He chuckled. His colleague whispered in his ear. “Good one! We’ve now got an option three; we kill you AND have sex with you. You’ll still be warm. Don’t bother me neither way, in fact—” He raised his weapon. “- Option three is looking better and better!”
He chuckled some more, and sent his buddy into giggling fits. He aimed his rifle at Sophie’s head and she closed her eyes welcoming death over what they had in mind for her.
They took it in turns to cover her with a rifle, while they stripped out of the hazmat suit.
“You don’t want to remove your suits,” she said.
“Oh, I think you’ll find we do,” he sniggered.
“I meant you’ll catch the Plague.”
“No we won’t, we’ve been injected. We only wear the suits as an added precaution.”
“Injected? There is no injection for this strain of the Bubonic Plague,” she told them.
They stripped out of their shorts. “Enough of the sweet-talk, lady. What’s it gonna be, dead or alive?”
“Most definitely dead,” she said glowering at them defiantly.
“Very well, it’s your choice.” He picked up the rifle and aimed it at her chest. “Say bye-bye to this cruel world, bitch!” He taunted, when Luke erupted from the pile of corpses and smashed the gunman in the face with a severed arm, knocking him out cold.
His pal stared frozen in fear at Luke’s gruesome appearance, covered in blood and slime and looking as if one of the dead had come back to life. Luke took advantage of the man’s inability to move and caught him on the backswing with the severed arm, an upper cut that sent him sprawling into the pile of bodies.
“Run!” Luke grabbed Sophie’s hand and they fled into the welcoming darkness.