Atticus flew over New York high
in the clouds for Samuel’s benefit. The poor doctor did not need to be tortured
by the sight of a rotting city. After all, Atticus promised Samuel he would take
him there to find his family, and he still intended on keeping that promise.
They quickly approached the
impromptu command center located in Newport, Rhode Island, 90 miles east of the
Red Zone’s northern tide. This base was constructed out of the old mansions on
the islands. With their back to the ocean and the old stone walls the base could
not be surrounded or penetrated.
After the initial outbreak of the
disease in the tri-state area, the plague quickly spread in every direction,
but it especially sprang south and west. The military’s best plan of attack was
to focus on weak points within the infection: one seemed to be the cold air and
another was rough terrain and high altitudes. So they used the New England
coast with places like Newport and Cape Cod, to launch fronts against the spreading
disease. General Saarsgard was located at the frontline command center, located
somewhere in Hartford.
“We’re receiving the updated
coordinates now,” Atticus informed them, “They want us to follow a convoy up
the road to Hartford and offer aerial cover fire.”
“Does this ship have weapons?”
“Doc, you have no idea,” Atticus
laughed as he flicked an orange switch on the console, turning it red and
setting a verbal alarm off that repeated, “BATTLE
MODE READY” while moving Samuel’s seat forward and opening up a new weapons
console in front of both of them.
Rebecca got out of her seat and
stood over Samuel as he grabbed the joysticks and triggers. A radar grid came
up in front of him on a 3D screen and plotted out all recognizable zombie
signatures by the temped temperature of the walking dead corpses. The screen
adjusted and flushed parallel with Samuel’s own perspective out of the cockpit
windows. The targets locked on and a carousel of armed weaponry came online for
Samuel to scroll through.
“There are so many options,” he
professed.
Rebecca helped him examine them
all; two doctors of war.
Atticus instructed, “Just don’t
use anything that there’s only one of…like the nuke.”
Samuel and Rebecca leaned back,
“…there's a nuclear missile on this thing?”
“What do you think the reactor
is?”
Samuel looked up at Rebecca and
together they chose something safe for starters. The frag turrets armed on both
wings of the ship spun into ready position and Samuel began to fire on the
targets.
The convoy traveled up the
highway ramp and was on route to their Triage base at the XL Center; formerly
the Hartford Civic Center, “You know,” Atticus added, “Where the Whalers used
to play.” He explained as the navigational screen had the route through
Hartford pulled up and the Center highlighted. The frag cannons emptied and the
trigger under Samuel’s fingers clicked.
“Switch to the scatter guns.”
Atticus instructed.
The convoy turned off the highway
and back onto the side roads. The plotted course was a 2 hour Northwest zigzag
through residential Connecticut. People were already either evacuated or dead.
At the gun, Samuel found that there were only two cases illustrated outside:
the first being just the one random zombie along the road, and the other being
what many have come to call “The Horde”, just an endless stream of bloodthirsty
flesh-eaters overcoming any obstacle that is put in their way, like a swarm of
insects.
The scatter gun made quick work
of the horde. Samuel felt like he was playing video games with his son, Warren;
a thought that could either keep him going or have him collapse in utter
despair. Picking off arms and legs, popping zombie heads, he felt detached,
like it was unreal; and that was good for this instant. If Samuel had thought
about all the people’s father’s and mother’s, children, and loved ones he was putting
down he would not have been able to pull the trigger. Samuel Gordon Chase was
always a man of compassion and empathy.
Two traits that cannot survive
the new world.
Samuel was working it all out in
his mind slowly. He was not quite at the point of realization that Atticus was
operating on. Atticus knew these people were gone and all that remained were corpse-monsters.
He would do whatever it took to survive and never become one of them, whether
it meant killing the dead, killing the living, or even killing himself…
Dr. Samuel Gordon Chase was a
theoretical physicist with his head in the stars; he operated on hopes and dreams.
By now they had both seen enough to have the same outlook on this tragic turn
of events. But Samuel’s past moral and ethical foundations motivated him to hang
onto his search for meaning and answers in this godforsaken world.
Atticus turned to reason and what
he could see and grasp with his dirty callused hands. Samuel had faith in the unknown;
nothing can be fully proven by science or mathematics. And that is why anything
is possible; you just have to find the right equation. He believed that everything
happened for a reason and one day who he was and who he was meant to be would
merge together and change the world forever, saving mankind. They both put a
lot on their plates, not knowing that the other was already stacking against
them. But in the end they would need each other to clash upon the rock and show
them the tide.
“…Arrow
One, please advise, a roadblock up ahead in five miles. The convoy will not be
able to go around it…”
Atticus flew five miles ahead of
the convoy to the roadblock.
“Would you look at that…” Rebecca
gasped at a graveyard of tractor-trailers blocking the road.
“The scatter guns won’t be able
to shoot through that,” Atticus figured out loud. He leaned over and
punched a button with an orange icon of a flame on it. An alarm went off until
it was quickly muted by the radio coming back on.
“…Use
of napalm is authorized…”
“Napalm…”
"This just keeps getting better."
“Just aim carefully, Doc” Atticus
laughed at Samuel’s naivety.
Samuel pressed the trigger
reluctantly, dropping quiet bombs from underneath the War Bird, sending a blanket of fire down onto the suburban streets of
Connecticut. Whoa. Rebecca watched
over Samuel’s shoulder as the tractor-trailers and everything around it was
turned to dust. The unlucky zombies caught in the blast never saw it coming.
The convoy continued on its course unblemished. Every member of the military
convoy spent the past 2 hours worry-free with the War Bird watching over them
from above like a guardian angel.
“We’ve made it. I can see the
stadium. Now switch to incendiaries and let’s plow a runway into the parking
lot.” Atticus directed Samuel at the weapons station.
Samuel rotated the armory and
armed the guns with incendiary missiles. He pulled the radar back up to an
aerial view and targeted the massing horde outside the stadium walls. Atticus
flew ahead of the convoy and hovered around the center as Samuel launched the
missiles. They scattered and swirled wildly into the air like wayward
fireworks. The explosions rocked the iron walls of the stadium. The dead and
the undead burned up all the same from the missiles.
“…Arrow
One, you have been cleared for landing…”
“…Welcome
to Fort Troy…”
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