Chapter Eighteen
Acting President
It was warm there. In a nice change of pace from what they had become used to in New York. The sun was cresting over the horizon to the West, sending long dramatic shadows up the streets and down the alleys.
The place was a mess though. Litter blew around every street corner. Old take-out food wrappers and the odd newspaper were getting caught up in draughts and were flying all over the place until settling again on the concrete.
The lack of zombies was disturbing. Logan, personally, would have rather had to fight his way through a hoard of them than be constantly checking over his shoulder. He thought back to how they had behaved on the highway just outside of Philadelphia.
The zombies out there were obviously the victims of the coach crash. But why hadn’t they moved? They displayed a sort of herd mentality. They were dormant, like the ones under the streets of New York, until aroused by movement, or by the chance of eating. Those zombies in particular, however, had been there a while.
They were in a far greater state of decomposition than most of the others they had encountered. Were they waiting to be aroused by the chance of eating or were they waiting for a sort of leader to emerge? That kind of made sense.
When Logan had, somewhat foolishly, started shooting off his noisy Desert Eagles in the city, once one heard the noise it would approach the source. That had set off a chain reaction and it drew the next zombie, and the next and so on and so forth. The last zombie in that line might not have even heard the shot at all but was simply following another zombie.
Logan remembered a series of psychological studies he had read about, a very long time ago, at University or college.
Some guy in Russia, his memory of it had faded considerably, had stood in a large square and pointed up to the sky. A few more people joined him and started looking up too. Eventually a crowd gathered. Then the original pointer, the man conducting the study, walked away as if nothing had happened but the crowd of people he had attracted remained behind.
Would it be insensitive to apply that to the zombies? Perhaps they followed the last zombie in the same way. But what implication would that have long term? If they were, in the majority, following those who were themselves following others, when would they stop? Would they just keep walking in the general direction for miles and miles until they heard the next noise and changed course?
They weren’t acting like they had back in New York. They weren’t trying to act out past lives anymore. Logan could sense that even though he had little evidence to support it. They were wandering. Nomadic zombies looking for the next victim.
Even the White House green was empty, what they could see of it at least as they stepped out of the truck. Cygan had told them the White House staff, the President included, had gathered there once turned. So they were compelled to stay there a while because that is what they would have done in life. But they had since moved on in search of food or led away by other, more enterprising, zombies.
None of that meant they could let their guard down. Getting complacent and assuming every single zombie in the entire city of Washington had moved on would get them killed. Fast.
‘What do you think?’ Jack leaned casually against the fire truck he had skillfully driven for so long. He found a spot where there was no blood. He had his arms folded and gazed thoughtfully at the White House ahead. He was squinting in the setting sun. It was nice to see some grass and some color in the sky. The drab background of New York had been dull and un-motivating at worst.
‘Cygan is no idiot.’ Logan assured him. ‘He will have locked the place down and I’ll bet you anything he has guards posted throughout.’ Lizzie had climbed out of the back, and despite her thunderous headache and weakened state, was determined to keep on fighting.
She wanted to contribute so bad and not feel like a burden.
‘The problem is,’ she began, ‘that we have literally no idea how strong his forces are, how loyal they are to him, or at this point, whether or not he is even still in there.’
‘If memory serves.’ Logan pointed to the right hand side of the White House.
He hadn’t ignored Lizzie, in fact he was surprised and proud of her, but they needed to plan quickly. ‘There is a small museum and an entrance for tourist groups on that side. We should be able to get in through there. After that we can make it up as we go along given our lack of proper intelligence.’
Jack had either found, or he already had them and hadn’t said, a pair of strong binoculars. He was studying the convex outline of the White House in detail. He started chuckling a little too loud than was appropriate.
‘He has a sniper on the roof.’ He stopped to take a breath. ‘But the dumb fuck is asleep.’ He handed Logan the binoculars and pointed clearly to the very top of the White House. Sure enough there was a guy, fully and contently asleep, slumped over his high powered black sniper rifle. Logan smiled but held a raised finger to his lip to shut Jack up.
‘Let’s not be here when he wakes up.’ Logan widened his eyes and nodded in the direction of the tourist entrance where he wanted to go.
Logan dashed immediately to his right with Jack and Lizzie in tow. Once they turned into the deserted street the tourist entrance to the White House was directly in front. They just had to jump an unmanned barrier across the road.
Logan started sprinting first. He was surprised at himself. He still had enough adrenaline inside of him to make for a good pace despite not having eaten for a good while now. There were no guards placed anywhere near the entrance. A large concrete canopy covered a good portion of the road that quickly became a dead end.
Logan still had his empty Desert Eagles holstered tightly to his belt. He missed them a little more than was natural. Especially when all he was left with was a pathetic looking 9 millimeter with only five shots left.
The whole building was pained in a dazzling white but in some parts it had begun to flake away. Logan made a b-line for the door to his left. Lizzie was next. Even in her state, recovering from the first stage of the dreadful flu, she had managed to outrun Jack.
He was suspiciously stuffing a hand into the inside pocket of his shirt. He had probably stopped to down some whisky on the way.
‘Alright.’ Logan began and pressed his back hard against the wall next to the door. Lizzie took up a position on the other side and Jack instinctively knelt down in front of it. They all took a moment to steady their breathing.
‘Let’s do this quickly, but extremely quietly, sneak right in past all of the guards and find Cygan as fast as we can.’ Logan finished his plan.
He had been dutifully checking every inch of the street on the approach. Trees, all still green and full of leaves, lined right hand side of the road. They blew around not very dramatically in the light breeze and there were some non-descript concrete walls behind those. All was clear and there were still no zombies to be seen.
He reached down to try the door handle. That was worth a shot but it was unsurprisingly locked. He exhaled gently and closed his eyes. They were going to have to bash the door. Logan nodded to Jack and held up three fingers. With each second that passed he closed one back into his palm.
When he had no more fingers left and only a balled fist, he slammed the full weight of his shoulder against the firm wooden door. It gave way with an amplified splinter. Jack rushed in and turned a full circle to check every corner, followed quickly by Logan and Lizzie. His shoulder was throbbing. He didn’t complain though. He just flexed it gently with a roll but made sure not to alter the aim of his gun.
There was a figure in the darkness beyond that hadn’t moved yet. It was cast in darkness but the sluggishness of its stance and the faint, almost distant, growling moan gave it away as a zombie. Good thing that it was alone.
There was a small museum beyond. It had posters and copies of ancient documents placed in protective cabinets against the walls in the cube shaped room that was pai
nted in a deep shade of blue. The zombie had been stood staring blankly at the wall and was slow to react to the intruders. Once it sensed there was fresh meat about it started to howl.
Logan growled, ‘Take that thing out before more hear it!’ Lizzie really wanted to prove herself. She really wanted Logan to know that she had snapped out of it, was well again, and that she could fend for herself. He hadn’t even said anything.
She ran over to the zombie and took a long metal pole to its head. The kind that was used to put up a queue at busy times. It bounced off of his caved in skull with a resounding gong-like sound. It fell flat to the floor. She had swung it hard enough to crack the skull and kill it once and for all.
Jack closed the door behind them but it swung freely off its hinges. They might have broken it but they also left the place open to attack from marauding zombies too.
Jack started darting his eyes across the room frantically. ‘Anything we can use as a barricade or something?’ For a drunk he was a quick thinker. Logan pointed down the hall.
‘That desk right there.’ He jogged over to it and took tight hold of one side. Jack joined him and grabbed the other. They dragged the sizeable and heavy desk to the door and propped it up the best they could against the broken and splintered frame. That would have to do for now.
Logan reached down and loosened his belt by one notch so he could stuff the pathetic feeling gun down the side. No way was he letting go of those Desert Eagles. He secretly hoped he might find some ammo for them somewhere.
‘Which way from here?’ Lizzie asked and joined them at the door. She was breathing hard and clutched her stomach tightly. Her perky lips had faded into a frown. Logan couldn’t hide his concern.
‘Don’t push too hard. You don’t have any need to prove anything.’ Lizzie just shook her head but didn’t say anything. ‘Back there, where we got the desk from, I think that will lead to the main wings of the building.’ The other two didn’t argue. They were happy to follow Logan’s lead.
It was a good thing all of the power was out. This would have been a whole lot harder if it wasn’t. What with all of the alarms and metal detectors around. The hallways behind the normal access for tourists were long and straight with little to direct people. It would be easy to get lost in a place like this.
It wasn’t overly dark but the sun had set mostly by now. They were left with only the faintest light of dusk trickling in through the barred windows to light the way. That was enough though. Cygan had probably made a good choice by staying here. It was probably one of the best maintained and most secure buildings in the world. He obviously wasn’t expecting Logan to turn up though.
There would have been a far heavier guard presence if he had. Since Logan had been unable to reach Cygan on the radio, and Cygan had made no attempt to get in touch with him, he probably thought he had been killed in the nuclear blast.
Up one long corridor and around a tight right corner. Down another bland corridor. Every door to each side locked and barred with a nailed on chunk of wood. Logan and Jack controlled every step like pros. Heels first, and then rolled their feet down to the tips of their toes, to make sure there was no noise at all.
Lizzie was trying to remember her training. She walked side on with a series of sweeping sidesteps. She looked and felt like the odd one out. She grew more and more self-conscious of every toe she placed on the carpeted floor. Logan didn’t say anything but she could have sworn he wanted to. They emerged into an office space after passing through a few open hallways and more locked and barred doors.
‘Down!’ Logan whispered harshly and threw himself against the first office cubicle in the rectangular shaped room. He had spotted an armed guard at the other side of the room. His eyesight must have been incredible. Lizzie hadn’t made out the figure cast against the darkness.
He must have been wearing full black and a face mask. He was armed. Not even Logan was sure what with though since he hit the deck as soon as he could.
Logan stayed crouched and shuffled to the end of the cubicle wall. He hadn’t drawn his gun and didn’t intend to. He could hear a feint mumbling. That meant there was at least another guard somewhere in the room. He allowed himself the passing thought that back in the day he would have been able to use the sound to pinpoint the exact location of the other guard without even having to look.
Was that silly nostalgia or true? He tapped the person behind him on the shoulder without turning back to see who it was. By the feel of the dainty shoulder he concluded that it was Lizzie. He pointed to his eyes with two fingers and then gestured with a wave of his hand to the far wall. She struggled with his military hand language but got the picture.
She broke off to the far wall, keeping low, and moving silently. Jack instinctively, and without needing to be told, took to the other wall. Logan was left to go right up the centre of the blacked out office. He dared to glance behind the cubicle wall. He was certain the guard was looking right at him. But he couldn’t see any lights on his head. No torches or give away green patches that night vision goggles gave off.
It was pretty dark in this room. If Logan kept to the shadows he would be able to dash from one cubicle to the next and manage to stay undetected. He waited. Timed it just right and bolted to the next cubicle. There were sheets of lose paper all over. If he had been more reckless and less calculated he would have slipped and it would have been game over. The silence confirmed that the guard was not disturbed.
The telephone was hanging off the hook in this cubicle and the monitor for the computer had been broken clean in half. There must have been a panic, or maybe even an outbreak here at some point. He darted to the next cubicle once he checked that it was safe. His old ears detected a muffled choke. It sounded distant though. He hoped it would have been either Jack or Lizzie taking out that other guard.
He had to stay focused on his own target. A quick calculated dash to the next cubicle. He could almost hear him breathe now. He glanced over his shoulder to see the guard slowly walk down the aisle of office cubicles. His boots creaked and groaned with each soft step.
Logan pounced with a well-practiced swing of his arm. He knocked the guy clean off his feet and stamped his boot right into his face. The guard was out cold and not a sound had been made. Jack and Lizzie each emerged from their respective hiding places.
‘I got the other guard.’ Jack announced stuffing his gun back into his holster.
The coast looked clear for now. The White House was far bigger in real life than it looked on movies. Cygan must have a had a pretty thin security force. Two guards so far and they were a stone’s throw from the Oval Office.
They followed the office cubicles around the corner, checking every step of the way for any guards, and found none. The door that led to the oval office was right ahead. No guarantee Cygan was in there but it was a good place to start.
They took up the same formation at the door. Logan at one side, Lizzie at the other and Jack knelt down in front. He tried the door. It swung open unlocked. The office was enormous, poorly lit, and pretty cold.
Logan could see Cygan at the other end gazing out of the large windows and scratching his bald head gently. He held a bolt upright and proud posture and still wore his dark blue uniform. He looked like he hadn’t changed since that video call what seemed like a lifetime ago. He hadn’t heard the door.
Logan stepped into the office first. It was split into two parts. An entrance area with two long couches sat face to face was first. The walls were white washed all round with pictures of past presidents hung from ornate wiring. The bottom half of the walls were paneled with white wood.
After that was the President’s desk and beyond that the huge bay windows that overlooked the green ahead. The glass must have been reinforced because no attempt had been made to barricade it. Blood was smeared on the outside so they had obviously withstood a few zombie attacks.
Logan stepped in and stealthily walked over to Cygan. He stopped j
ust short of the President’s beautifully crafted and decorated wooden desk. Lizzie stood right next to him, rubbing gently against his shoulder. Her heart was beating wildly with excitement and apprehension.
Logan, interestingly, drew his Desert Eagle even though he knew it was empty. He held it high and knocked hard on the wooden desk.
‘Holy mother! How did you three get in here?’ He hadn’t heard Cygan’s voice in a while. He had almost forgotten the harsh Texan rasp. Logan tried hard not to smile. Even through all the anger, all the upset at the destruction of the city, he was still glad to see an old friend. And a face that wasn’t bloodied, burned and half eaten with milky white eyes.
‘Use a bigger nuke next time!’ He let all the anger out. ‘And guess what, old man, just like I told you. You might have wiped out a whole city but you didn’t stop the virus or every carrier! We barely made it out.’ He couldn’t help but grip the handle of his gun a little tighter.
‘I told you, son, there’s no other way.’ He fired back and pointed a stern finger at his old apprentice. He had gained a little weight since Logan had last seen him. He was aged too. The crow’s feet around his eyes, as Logan remembered them, were now deep rolled wrinkles. His voice had aged too.
Logan remembered him with a sharp rasp but that had faded into a slurred gurgle. He lacked conviction in his voice though. He had been sure of himself before. Maybe he was beginning to realize he had been wrong.
‘What if I told you I had a way?’ Logan calmed himself down. Cygan stepped forward a touch, still pointing. The tinniest glimmer of a smile was beginning to form around his wrinkled old mouth. It would have been undetectable to anyone who didn’t know him.
‘Are you gonna shoot me, kid?’ He bravely stepped forward again and locked eyes with Logan. He could sense them softening and his rage falling away.
‘Empty.’ He admitted finally and holstered. Cygan burst into a hearty chuckle with arms open wide.
‘You dumb son of a bitch!’ He continued laughing.
The two of them embraced and started slapping each other’s backs harder and harder. Lizzie just shook her head but holstered her gun. She got that they could be friends after falling on different sides of a war but still couldn’t bring herself to forgive the old man. Cygan coughed a little. It was a smoker’s cough. He was probably still putting back twenty or more a day.
‘It’s good to see you kid.’ He said between coughs. ‘I knew retirement wouldn’t work out for you. Even though it looks like it’s slowed you down plenty.’ They broke the embrace and Cygan pointed to Logan’s chest. Lizzie thought Logan was in pretty good shape right now but he must have lost it a little since retiring!
Logan recoiled instantly.
‘Hey, look who’s talking old man.’ He pointed to Cygan’s gut. ‘What I’ve lost up here,’ he patted his chest hard with an open palm, ‘you’ve gained down there.’ Cygan laughed hard and punched Logan as hard as his old fist could manage across the face. He didn’t even retaliate. That must have been normal in their already odd relationship…
Cygan kneeled down and pulled open a few draws on the President’s desk. Lizzie was cautious and reached for her gun again. She didn’t draw, just stroked it gently with her fingertip. Jack was off studying pictures on the wall. She was finding it hard to trust Cygan, but she sure as sure trusted Logan, and that would have to do.
Jack obviously felt the same given his lack of participation. She didn’t know whether or not to be insulted that she hadn’t been formally introduced. It hurt her in such a silly little way that Logan had just ignored her and started playfully bantering with his old Air Force buddy. She had to get a hold of her mixed feelings with him.
‘I have something for you I reckon.’ He shuffled around some papers some more. ‘I found them in the armory downstairs and thought: “hey, I know the only son of a bitch who shoots these damn things in the whole freaking world.” So I saved them on the off chance I ever got to see you again!’ The old man was oddly emphatic.
He drew out two heavy magazines. Long, thin, black cartridges that would fit snugly into his Desert Eagles. He handed them over with a smile. Lizzie relaxed but had to admit she was finding it hard to ride out the tension. Logan grabbed them enthusiastically and quickly reloaded his empty handguns. He slammed the magazines into their chambers with a heavy clunk-click sound. He took the 9 millimeter he had been given and placed it on the desk.
Lizzie jumped again at the chance Cygan might still betray them. He didn’t. Logan pulled the catches back to check there was a bullet in each chamber, and then double checked the safety was still on. He was pretty anal about that. Lizzie slowly stepped forward, held Cygan’s old and interested eyes a second, and timidly reached out to retrieve the 9mm pistol from the desk. Nobody opposed her. She tucked it into her trousers with a stretch upwards to make room.
‘How touching.’ Logan mocked, holstered his guns and just about caught Cygan smiling at Lizzie, but deep down he was grateful.
Cygan sighed. The conversation change was inevitable and this friendly reunion would have to come to an eventual end. He gestured Logan over to the long couches at the other end of the office with a raised arm and a forced, fake, smile. Lizzie sat down next to Logan and he whistled to get Jack’s attention. He joined them too.
‘Elizabeth Jones and, well, “Jack”.’ He pointed to each of them in turn. Cygan didn’t mean to be rude. He was from the Deep South too and he had good manners. But he just nodded and sighed again.
‘I’m not sure we can stop this, kid.’ He admitted finally and slouched back into the couch. As a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had sat there many times before and considered it comfortable. Logan decided to spare him the torture. Maybe that kindness would help them to repair the fracture in their friendship.
‘We have a way.’ He stated mater-of-fact. ‘You remember Abraham?’
‘Of course I do.’ Cygan sat forward again with hands clasped. The mention of Abraham’s name conjured a thin smile.
‘He figured it out. He thought he knew what the creatures actually are underneath.’ Logan continued. He went on to describe, pretty much word for word, what Abraham had figured out. He told him that he had died too. Even Cygan, with all the experience he had under his belt, looked a little shaken at the news of his death.
Logan wasn’t sure of their relationship, maybe they had been friends too. He told him all about the drug that might reactivate other parts of the zombie’s brain and lift them out of their instinct driven, flesh hungry, state.
Cygan took a long time to think. He slouched back further into his seat, a little deflated perhaps, and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. He didn’t meet their eyes for quite a while.
They were hungry. All three of them. Lizzie found it intensely distracting. She just wanted this over with so she could try to find something to eat. She allowed her mind to wander a little and dreamt that Cygan was going to clap his hands together and say; “well, first thing tomorrow, we get right on it but for now we eat” and take them to whatever canteen or restaurant the White House had.
It was another silly fantasy. She didn’t bother to indulge in it like she had the last one. That hadn’t turned out so well. Cygan finally broke the silence:
‘You must be the world’s leading expert on biological warfare right now, son.’ He was talking to Logan of course. He wanted to argue with that statement though. Abraham made him look a fool. They were miles apart in intellect and Logan knew it, and embraced it, with no resentment at all.
But he supposed that now Abe was dead, maybe he had to fill those shoes. Cygan continued through the awkward silence:
‘So, Zolpidem, huh?’ He snorted and rubbed his clean shaven chin.
‘Yeah.’ Logan stared blankly at the decorative carpet below.
‘And we need to weaponise it and find a suitable delivery system.’ He echoed what Logan had told him just a few moments ago. ‘So how?’ Logan si
ghed a long drawn out and rumbling exhale before answering.
‘To weaponise it shouldn’t be hard. Any compound can be superheated in water, in a pressure cooker basically, to bond it into liquid state. Then superheated again into the form of a gas. That will be the best delivery system, one that will affect the greatest amount of space.’ Lizzie’s head was starting to hurt again. Why did she find it so hard to process science? Logan continued but, for the first time in their short but intense relationship, she noticed that he had less confidence in his words. Though he continued on bravely:
‘I think securing enough of the compound and getting word out to any other survivors is the hard part.’ Cygan nodded in agreement. Lizzie decided it was time for her to make some input.
‘Don’t you think a field test might be the first thing to do?’ She had their full attention. ‘We don’t even know that it works!’ She emphasized her point with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘Then all we need to do is get word out on every radio frequency possible for other people to do the same. If it works!’ A short, what felt like judgmental, silence followed.
‘Kid’s right!’ Cygan almost shouted. She was a little insulted by the patronizing designation of “kid” but she was beginning to sense that was an idiosyncrasy Cygan and Logan both shared so ignored it. Logan leaned forward in his comfy seat.
‘Exactly what resources do you have?’ He asked hiding his nerves.
‘A few men here. Lost contact with the nuclear sub. Poor ass holes. A few brave, wifeless, test tube monkeys over at CDC (Chemical Disease Control) Washington division. And a hard line still open, by some freaking miracle, to the Russians at the freaking Kremlin.’ He announced proudly.
Logan smiled at his cocky attitude that hadn’t faded even in old age. Lizzie couldn’t help but hone in on what he said about the nuclear sub. She remained hostile and suspicious of the old man and was glad he no longer had the ability to launch nuclear warheads.
Was that why he was going ahead with Abraham’s plan? Because he had no further ability to launch? She hoped, with her last glimmer of forgiveness, that it was just a stray suspicious thought. But at least they were still in contact with CDC and survivors in another nation.
‘CDC!’ Logan exclaimed. ‘That’s a load off.’ He accidentally breathed a deep sigh of relief. Jack had fallen asleep. Damn drunk. Cygan smiled a long, thin and contented smile:
‘You got it. Let’s hope those ass holes can cook up some zombie killing gas.’ He clapped his wrinkled old hands. ‘Then we see if Vlad Gozuckmydik can recreate the same compound over on his Godforsaken side of the globe.’ Logan interrupted his old friends unintentionally insulting slurs.
‘Let’s just prey it works.’ He said reflectively. ‘But what about field testing it?’ Cygan almost laughed with childlike enthusiasm.
He clapped his hands together again. That must have startled Jack; he snorted a little, but didn’t wake up or stir physically.
‘I just so happen to remember that Madam President used to have a prolific sleeping problem. Maybe there will be some lying around here if we get lucky?’
The two battered old Generals just smiled and laid back in the couch. If Logan had to be honest he was quite looking forward to a night at the White House. It was safe and secure there and he was hoping beyond hope that there would be some food on the cards.
Cygan and his men were surviving somehow; they must have had food stores somewhere. He would kill for a crappy army dry ration right there and then. The last meal he could even remember was the mixed pot of sausages and soup Lizzie had made in her flat. That was two nights ago.
Since then he had only eaten a few rubbish sweets he found stuffed down the seat in the fire engine.