“So he was brought in as a zombie expert for your men?” the president completed the piece of the equation.

  “Yes, sir. He’s a valuable resource to have.”

  “Good, I’m glad that we have decent people on the scene,” Ryan said before turning back to business. “How the hell did we miss this invasion, Chip?”

  “Well, I guess the Mexicans were counting on all of our resources being locked up with the fight in the east—and they are. We weren’t watching anywhere else.”

  “As the director of our national intelligence agencies, I expect you to focus on all of the threats to the nation, Chip. The military can focus on the zombies. Now we have an invading army from Mexico of all places. What do we know?”

  “We retasked satellites immediately to fly over,” Director Bullis replied. The president liked that the man didn’t make excuses or even give some bullshit apology; there wasn’t any time for that crap. A quarter of the nation was under siege and now there was an incursion into the underbelly, far from the fighting. He needed answers.

  “Our read from agents in Mexico is that President Arnesto is not behind this like we thought when we saw the initial photographs. The Mexican government remains committed to assisting the United States with the zombie problem.”

  “Okay, great. Arnesto will keep the Mexican border safe from zombies entering his country, what the hell is he doing to stop his damned army from crossing into the States?”

  “Sir, the invading force belongs to the Herrera Cartel, which already runs a semi-autonomous region in the northern Mexican desert. They’ve made a claim to Texas land that originally belonged to Mexico centuries ago when the Texans carved out their own country from the Mexicans,” Chip stated. “Ernesto Herrera, the head of the cartel, has riled the northern Mexican citizens up with nationalistic goals. We think that he plans to try and take a small chunk of desert to see how we react. If we just turn a blind eye because we’re too weak to stop the cartel, then he’ll establish a kingdom for himself in between Mexico and the US.”

  “Oh, he’ll find that we’re far from weak,” the president fumed. “We’re certainly not going to allow some drug lord to set up some damned extra-judicial stronghold. How is this even happening? Does the rest of the world think that we’re that weak? That we’ll just let criminals and thugs take our land and we won’t do anything about it?”

  The DNI shrugged and replied, “It’s hard to tell, sir. Our assets report that some of our enemies perceive that yes, we are weakening daily. This is the second zombie war in six years, we’ve had massive civil unrest and the economy is in an extreme recession. In addition, we’re spread extremely thin with troops—”

  “I’ve talked to the Texas National Guard’s Adjutant General,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs interrupted. “The Texans have already sent most of their National Guard forces to assist with the effort in the northeast and the governor mobilized the Texas State Guard to assist with keeping order in the cities and patrol the shoreline for zombies coming up from the Gulf. He’s already moving the State Guard troops from both El Paso and San Antonio toward the town.”

  “Wait, aren’t the state militias unarmed?” Kelly Flannigan interjected.

  The president threw up his hands. “I won’t tell if you won’t, Kelly. We’re gonna have to suspend some of the laws that protect our citizens in order to protect the country. We already have tens of thousands of men and women in the northeast fighting under the direction of the Army; they’re little more than a militia anyways.”

  The Director of the FBI nodded silently, properly rebuked. “We need to get some actual military forces out there to assist those militiamen,” the president continued. “What do we have that’s close?”

  “Ozona is right in the middle of Fort Bliss and Fort Hood, but most of those troops are up on the Appalachian Defensive Line. The only soldiers left at both of those installations are the ones guarding the wire,” the general admitted. “However, we do have a lot of recruits at bases in San Antonio, only a few hours away.”

  “What kind of recruits?”

  “The Air Force basic training is there and the Army has Fort Sam Houston, which is where our medical personnel train.”

  “So you’re saying that they’re active duty troops who know how to follow orders and shoot a rifle?” the president clarified.

  “Yes, sir. But they’re still very young with hardly any officers or noncommissioned officers there to assist them since they’re at training bases,” General Zollman answered.

  “They’ve received a lot more training than the civilians that we have facing the zombies up north, right?”

  “Well… Yes, sir. But the zombies are an unthinking, uncaring mass of flesh; this is an invading human army down there in south Texas.”

  “We don’t have the time for that type of distinction. Those kids are going to have to do the job until we can get full Army units down there,” Ryan decided. “Are there any more forces—anywhere—that we can pull for this?”

  “In all honesty, I’ll have to see what we have, sir,” the chairman admitted. “We’ve already pulled all of our forces worldwide; the only things left in our forward deployed locations are perimeter security and skeleton crews to ensure that the facilities remain habitable for our eventual return.”

  “Immediately after this meeting, send what we can to that town. Put—what was your guy’s name, Kelly?”

  “Uh, you mean Grayson Donnelly, sir?”

  “Yeah, him. Put your commander on the ground in contact with Mr. Donnelly since it’s his town and he has experience in guerilla warfare. Plus, he’s the guy who reported it when our own intelligence agencies missed this outright attack on American soil, so that’s another feather in his cap.”

  Ryan glanced at Chip Bullis, prepared to shut his protest down; the man wisely didn’t say anything to the contrary. “We’ve done an amazing job with keeping this country afloat so far, folks. I am not going to stand by and let some Mexican drug cartel fucker attempt to take a part of our country.

  “Mark, get me President Arnesto on the phone,” the president told his Chief of Staff. “I have a few things to say to that bastard—chief among them is to ask why he can’t control his own problems and keep them on his side of the border.”

  “Yes, sir!” Mark Namath replied enthusiastically. Ryan knew that regardless of the outcome of the zombie war, he’d be criticized throughout history as the guy who let it happen. That may be true to some extent since he didn’t wipe those things out when they were trapped behind The Wall, but he sure as hell wouldn’t be known as the president who allowed an invading army to take land away from the United States.

  TWELVE

  01 November, 0256 hrs local

  Lehigh Valley Mall

  Allentown, Pennsylvania

  “Well, you two are some lucky sons a bitches,” Folsom remarked while he lovingly stroked his grenade launcher. He’d been the one who shot the grenades across the river to try and give Katie a fighting chance of survival amongst the dead on the far bank.

  “Thank you, Mr. Folsom,” Maria replied after reading his uniform’s nametape above his right pectoral muscle. “I’m sure your marksmanship allowed our friend to get away.”

  “You’re gosh-danged right it did!” he replied. “I blew those mother fuckers to kingdom-come, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, great job, Private Folsom,” Sergeant Lamar answered. “You made sure that those pathetic creatures wouldn’t make it across the river.”

  The young man affected a look of genuine hurt and the sergeant amended his earlier statement so he would understand, “Dude, without your fire support, that girl would have been done for. Good job.”

  It was enough for the infantryman and he sported a big grin at his squad leader’s compliment. “Thank you, sergeant!”

  “So, who is the sniper with an absolutely amazing aim?” the woman, Maria, asked looking from person to person among the four-man squad that had been waiting for her and Shawn at the top of the river valley’s walls.

  “That would be Specialist Vaccaro,” the noncommissioned officer answered. “She’s one hell of a shot with her M14.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant Lamar,” the girl answered. “I missed with two of my shots, though. I spent eleven rounds to kill nine of the enemy; that’s just not acceptable in my book.”

  “I think you did an outstanding job, Miss Vaccaro,” Maria remarked. “You saved Katie’s life and gave her a shot at survival; the rest is up to her.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence as the soldier quietly accepted the praise that she wasn’t used to receiving for her actions in the military. The Army prided itself on remaining relatively quiet and not seeking individual recognition, so for the woman to tell Lisa that she’d done a good job was a new experience. The specialist liked hearing that she’d performed up to the standard and saved yet another life in this fucked up zombie war.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Lisa replied. “The National Guard gave me the absolute best training available as a squad-designated marksman and I’m glad that I was able to use my training to help out your friend.”

  “That brings up my comment about the girl who took off back toward the eastern bank of the Lehigh River,” Sergeant Lamar stated. “After Folsom fucked—I mean, after Private Folsom shot those zombies with the grenade, we have no idea where your travel partner took off to. Our satellites weren’t directly overhead and the power is obviously out in Pennsylvania, so we have no idea of where she went after we lost visual of her. I believe that she continued back along the eastern riverbank, but there’s simply no way to be certain.”

  “Thank you,” the older woman responded. “We’d only known her for a few days. Apparently, she couldn’t swim and decided that facing the zombies was better than swimming across the river.”

  “I wish she would’ve held out just a few minutes,” the sergeant muttered with a depressed frown etched across his features. “We have rope with us; we could have rescued her.”

  The sadness in Lamar’s voice made Vaccaro frown also. She’d been working up the nerve for weeks to let him know that she liked him. Then they got put together in the same squad and screwed everything up. Lisa thought the world of Kevin Lamar, but they were professional soldiers and there was no way she’d act on those feelings now that they had a formal working relationship established. Maybe once the war was over and they went back to Indiana she’d be able to transfer squads and then see about a relationship with him. For now, he was her NCO and she was the squad’s designated marksman; that was it.

  “We could try to go across the river and establish another set of beacons,” Vaccaro suggested. “That might get her to come in.”

  Her squad leader smiled forlornly at her. “We could, but it’s too dangerous. Those grenade blasts stirred up the creatures on the east bank and brought ‘em running. Going over there now would be nearly suicidal; we’d have to wait until they disperse.”

  “So all the shooting just brought more of them toward Katie?” Shawn asked.

  “I’m afraid so, sir,” the sergeant acknowledged. “We got her some initial room to run, but if she didn’t take it and just hunkered down somewhere, then she’s probably already gone.”

  Vaccaro watched as Maria slid closer to Shawn unconsciously for support. He slid a hand around her waist, friendly, but not too familiar or possessive. They’d been through a lot together, but she didn’t think that they were dating. She glanced at Sergeant Lamar again. Did he even like her? Even more to the point, did he know that she liked him? If he did, he sure didn’t let on.

  “Look, your friend survived behind the line for more than a month. That means she’s stronger than you think and she’ll be okay,” Vaccaro said in an effort to ease their pain.

  “We’ll let our battalion headquarters know that she got separated during the rescue and to be on the lookout for her,” Sergeant Lamar continued where she left off. “If they see evidence of her—or any other survivors—we’ll scramble a rescue crew just like we did for you. When she pops up, we’ll get her.”

  Maria nodded her head. Lisa could tell that she was sad, but she also got the vibe that it was more for the situation, not necessarily for the girl who’d ran off. She’d always had good intuition, even as a kid, and for some reason she felt like there was bad blood between the two of them. Maybe the girl tried to move in on Shawn and Maria didn’t like it. Whatever the issue was, it didn’t bother her that Katie wasn’t around anymore.

  “I hear the helicopter,” Majors said. Vaccaro hoped that guy straightened up; she genuinely liked him, but even her good nature was starting to wear thin of the guy’s constant jitteriness.

  “Took ‘em long enough,” Sergeant Lamar deadpanned.

  “You know those flyboys gotta have their crew rest, Sarge!” Folsom replied with the old slang for the word that persisted in the National Guard.

  Soon, the blinking lights of the single helicopter could be seen speeding across the sky toward their position on the roof of the mall. Once, not too long before, a single helicopter mission would have been unheard of, but the standard operating procedure of the Joint Task Force East Coast was to use resources as sparingly as possible, which allowed for multiple missions like theirs to occur simultaneously by dedicating one bird to one squad. Besides, it wasn’t like the zombies had any type of rocket launcher to take out the helicopter.

  The squad’s noncommissioned officer in charge gave instructions to the pilots to land the helicopter on the roof; the area was secure and they hadn’t seen any of the creatures on this side of the river yet. The two refugees that they’d been sent to find bent almost double at the waist and covered their eyes against the incredible rotor wash that had now become just another part of Lisa’s daily job. It was almost comical to watch the two of them run hunched over behind Kevin as he strode upright toward the helicopter. The spinning rotors were so far above everyone’s head that there was no way they’d ever be in danger of getting hit as long as the blades were functioning normally.

  Vaccaro used the side of the helicopter to pull herself up into the passenger area and she shuffled sideways to sit across from Maria, who was trying to cram a pair of foam earplugs that the crew chief had given her into her ears. Once those were in place, she leaned across and showed the older woman how to buckle her shoulder and lap harnesses before securing her own.

  Within seconds, Kevin gave the thumbs up and the helicopter leapt skyward. Once again, Lisa wondered at the relationship between their precious cargo as they cried and held onto one another. It was a touching moment as their tears glistened in the helicopter’s red interior lighting and she was proud that she’d been able to help them.

  She glanced at her squad leader and he flashed a huge smile at her along with a thumbs up. She wondered if he knew how much she wanted him to hold onto her the way those two held each other. One day she hoped to have the opportunity to find out.

  *****

  01 November, 0658 hrs local

  Lehigh Valley International Airport

  Allentown, Pennsylvania

  “Oh my God, ohmy God, ohmygod…” Katie whispered to herself repeatedly until the words became blurred and indistinct. She had her ass pressed up against the side of some type of burned-out vehicle on the runway while she rested her upper body on her knees and gasped for air.

  So far, she’d been able to keep ahead of the latest crowd that had flushed her out of her hiding spot near the old airport fence line, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to continue and avoid the pursuit. She knew that stopping for longer than it took to catch her breath meant instant, painful death. The same thing had likely happened to Chris, her boyfriend. He’d likely run until he became exhausted and had to stop, then they got him.

  Of course, this was that bitch Maria’s fault. Katie would have had plenty of energy to keep going right now if the woman hadn’t forced her to run for hours the day before and used up all of her energy. In between gasps for air, the beginning of a hysterical fit was forming. Every third or fourth breath was replaced by a sob; it would only be a moment before she fully broke down if she continued to allow herself to think about the situation.

  What else was she supposed to think about though? Shawn and Maria abandoned her. She told that asshole that she couldn’t swim and he insisted that she try to cross the river anyways. She knew that the water meant certain death, if she could get away from the zombies on the riverbank, then she had the same chance of surviving that the three of them had traveling cross country the past few days. He refused to come with her and just abandoned her to her own fate.

  Those two deserved each other. Once she got back to the world, made it out of Pennsylvania and into the refugee area, she’d make sure that everyone knew how those two had left her to die. They’d be tried as criminals in court and she’d be vindicated in her decision not to cross the river. The thought of survival and the prosecution of the two who’d condemned her to death gave her renewed strength and the panic that had threatened to overwhelm her subsided. She would stay alive and she would make sure that those two paid for what they did to her here in this crappy shell of a town.

  But first she had to survive.

  Katie could hear them shuffling forward, searching. It was the same each time she stopped and hid; they’d be in hot pursuit after her, but once she disappeared from their line of sight, they didn’t know where she’d went and would search about for her. They’d found her each time and last time it had been very close; they’d almost surrounded her. If that happened, she knew that she was a goner.

  What she really needed was someplace to hide inside. Unfortunately, the military had seen fit to destroy every building that she’d come across. The devastation was nearly complete; there wasn’t a single building left standing that had all four walls and a door that she could lock to protect her from those things. They were really dumb, but they were persistent.