"
General Anderson, have you had any contact with the president or at least an acting executive?"
"
Yes," the old man answered as a dozen other reporters tried to ask a question. "We've been in touch with Air Force One. As you have been briefed, the President and senior advisers are being moved to a secure location where they will establish a command. In the meantime, the President has asked me to proceed with the Operation Fireline." His uniform itched. Gerald Anderson felt the weight of the stars on his shoulders more and more as they press pool shouted. The joint chiefs had whisked themselves off with the President leaving behind a colossal mess. Marshal law had ruled in several major cities until the infected took over. An uncountable number of soldiers and equipment had been sacrificed in a vain effort to keep peace among plagued populations. The whole thing had gone to shit. It did him little good to gloat about his success quarantining his forces.
Another reporter stood up and somehow managed to shout the others down with his hoarse voice. The general eyed the man wearily. Everyone was going through the motions as if the world wasn't ending. Why were these dogs still hounding him? Who were they still reporting to? "General, can you explain how our military failed to have an adequate response to what should have been a very obvious risk?"
The general cracked a smile for the first time in hours. "Adequate response? You think that we should have had an adequate response to
this?
The US military is the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen. Do you know why that is? Because for seventy years, no two countries have gone head to head in a war. Our strength has been demonstrated through our mercy. With a few keystrokes, we can turn cities to glass and countries into radioactive craters. In forty-eight hours we can deploy any where in the world with a force strong enough to eliminate local opposition and establish a beachhead for a full invasion. We have contingencies should any country, from Russia to Ecuador, try to invade or attack or whistle at us funny. We have spent our lives making certain we have
adequate
response to our enemies" He gripped the podium and wet his lips. "The things massing on the East Coast are our own people. But this is not a civil uprising, we have a plan for that. This is not a massive wave of sabotage and sedition, we have a plan for that. This is a disease that turns normal people into raving lunatics. Madness and panic are the tip of the spear behind a horde of monstrosities. We did not have an adequate response to that. When this is over and future servicemen stand in front of you like this, they will have those plans. They will have my plan."
Anderson enjoyed the finality of his words and expected the press pool to suddenly disperse, but instead another young man popped up. "Sir, what about reports that the infected have been highly resistant to traditional weaponry? We have reports and some amateur video of the males being shot multiple times and continuing on as if nothing had happened?"
His scowl returned quickly, "Understandably this has been a difficult question to tackle. However mutated and corrupted these individuals have become, they are still flesh and blood. They are still our loved ones and family. It has been a trial for everyone involved to understand that these people are sick and a danger to us and to our way of life. Firing on someone who moments before was your friend is difficult. Executing the woman you have been married to for two decades because her eyes are turning green, that too is difficult."
"
Sorry, sir, you're not answering the question."
His grip tightened on the podium, "We have had our specialists review those videos you mention, and I would remind everyone that they are amateur videos from unverified sources. We have come to different conclusions. We're ready to say that the creatures have displayed a heightened resistance to pain. Our advisers have suggested that it is a byproduct of the rapid cell growth inherent the virus. I assure you though, they bleed. And what's bleeds, can die. Operation Fireline will halt the spread of the virus, and we we will take back our cities. Those who can be saved, will be saved. Those who cannot will be mourned. Thank you for your time."
"
General. General! One last question? Please?"
"
Go on then," he replied.
"
Will you be personally overseeing the battle?"
"
I wouldn't call it a battle," General Anderson answered. "But yes, I will be personally commanding the extermination effort."
The general gathered his things and quickly left the room. His aides swarmed him, handing him briefings and talking quickly, but orderly as they made their way through the building. Emerging into the street, the early morning was wet with dew yet to be baked away by the rising sun. Anderson stepped into the transport gladly, looking forward to the few hours of sleep. Everything was in place. The great might of the US army would make its stand and turn this whole debacle around once and for all. He shut his eyes and let himself grin. When the smoke was cleared and the joint chiefs came out of their hole, he would be the war hero, not them. He drifted off to sleep as the military caravan headed east to Chattanooga.
***
Charlie looked out over the hilly countryside. The verdant green sparkled in the sunlight. All around him, fellow soldiers waited. He'd been in the service for three years, but he'd never seen such a display of outright power. If it had been some opposing army waiting on the side of the hills, he would have been the most confident among the lot. The very sight of the state of the art infantry, armor, and artillery would be enough to instill fear into any oncoming force. But what waited beyond the hills wasn't deterred in the least. A private received little information other than what he needed to know, but there were rumors. Rumors of giant men, capable of lifting a car like it was a feather. Those monsters had rampaged through the streets of D.C., New York, Atlanta, and a half dozen other major cities. At least as Charlie had been told, the soldiers trying to maintain peace had been taken by surprise. They had crumbled and been surrounded as many of their own fellow soldiers were converted into the enemy. Worse still, most of the men who fell rose up again as cunning, green-eyed women.
The communications blackout wasn't unusual, but it was frustrating. They faced an invading force of unimaginable horror, and Charlie knew next to nothing about his enemy. The only snippets of information came from the refugees who scurried away from the major cities in large packs. Charlie had been in the quarantine effectiveness detachment. Screening the refugees was easy enough, but hearing their stories of how their husbands, wives, daughters, and sons all fell behind them only to come back as whores of Babylon unnerved everyone. The whole regiment was spooked as they watched the hills, waiting for their enemy.
"
Check in," came the monotonous voice of central command over his radio. His helmet, along with every other soldier's waiting outside of Chattanooga, housed a small ear piece through which came a constant stream of orders. The plan was for a rapid response of fire to mow down the waves of enemies. The infected wouldn't be flanking or using cover, but coming en masse in an attempt to overwhelm the defenders. General Anderson had stressed how communication would be vital in directing fire at the appropriate targets. His sergeant radioed in to confirm their position. Scouts reported the horde only a few minutes out.
The air around him tensed. Behind the entrenched soldiers, the city processed and dispersed refugees, a city of two hundred thousand suddenly quadrupling in size. Beside him, the batteries of artillery, the tanks, and the men's rifles all focused on a one hundred yard stretch between a hill and the river waiting for the first sign of the abominations. They appeared suddenly, as if they had been there all along. First two, then four, then a dozen. They moved quickly in bursts of inhuman speed. Charlie couldn't discern any of their features, but he could see enough to know they were naked women. A few of the men with binoculars gave low whistles. "Cut the chatter. Hold for a more target rich environment. Delta squad pick your targets."
The first alpha came over the horizon. He bounded into view like a primate challenging another's territorial rights. Charlie could see him well enough. The hulking figure was a body of pure muscle, standing eight or nine feet tall. The creature stamped the ground and pounded his chest as more of the harlots zipped past him. Again the command came through the radio to hold. Charlie moved his scope up. He brought one of the creatures into his sights. She was absolute perfection. Charlie joined the army at eighteen and never had so much as a girlfriend. Before all the madness started, he'd been to a few strip clubs, but embarrassment kept him from really looking. The creature on the field in front of him demanded his attention though. Each of her movements seemed calculated to exude pure seduction. The woman was a football field away, but Charlie considered running out to her. Never had he seen such perfect breasts or voluptuous hips. Behind his creature of choice came another, her back to the blockade and her ass up, taunting all of those with scopes or binoculars. The creature's eyes drew Charlie in, pure emerald dazzling in the sunlight. They compelled him to drop his weapon and run wildly towards her. Thoughts of the harlot wrapping her lips around his cock, sucking and pulling until his cum gushed onto her face, filled his mind. He wasn't the only one.
Dozens of soldiers started to abandon their positions, casting down their weapons and running like fools into the waiting arms of the damned women. An angry order came over the radio, "Fire on those men! Stop them! Do not let them reach the infected!"
The soldiers hesitated. Charlie's trance snapped back to reality. He looked at the running men, appalled that trained soldiers would give in so easily. He pushed down the thoughts that he too considered such a mad dash. He looked down the line to his superior. The sergeant chattered back over the radio while casting glances towards the field. A few of his fellow soldiers moved their sights to target the backs of their fleeing comrades. "Hold your fire," came the sergeant's voice, and Charlie relaxed. The artillery began with a loud crack. The maddened soldiers kept running, straight into the target zone.
At some point, Charlie sat through a class given by some guy from West Point who had a lot of fancy suffixes behind his name. He'd been supposed to learn the basics of artillery in that class, but little of it stuck. As the whistle of shells filled the air, those lessons came back in a strange gurgle of information. The idea behind modern artillery is the balloon effect. While explosions look impressive and projectiles cause considerable damage to structures, the actual incendiary nature of ordinance is relatively small. The true damage comes from the sudden and rapid displacement of air. Within the target area, the blast wave is strong enough to collapse lungs, shatter bone, and liquefy intestines. At least, Charlie thought, that's the stuff that's supposed to happen to humans.
Fire and death rained down on the small area as the lines of artillery behind him unleashed their torrent on the oncoming infect. Fire engulfed the entire stretch of land before them, including those poor soldiers who had so foolishly given in to the sirens' temptations. Charlie watched as the infected disappeared behind plumes debris. Cheers erupted in his headset as the full might of the American military showed itself at last. The barrage went on for five, ten, fifteen minutes. The thunderous cannons and the mass destruction thrilled him to his core. Charlie's heart thumped in time with the screaming shells. Occasionally, an infected emerged from the deathly smog, only to be consumed in the next wave. More ordinance dropped, and the cloud of smoke grew higher and thicker. Finally, the shells and missiles slowed. Then they stopped. The thick haze lingered over the scarred and scorched earth.
"
Hold your positions. Prepare to advance," came the order over Charlie's headset.
The wind shifted. The smoke thinned and rolled over to the river. "I see one!" someone said over the radio. Charlie scanned the horizon with his own scope. A chill moved up his back. In the smoke, he saw bodies contorting, snapping limbs back into place as they righted themselves. Mangled and broken, the fiends pulled themselves upright, reassembling themselves in a few ugly snaps and jerks. Soldiers beside him began to vomit. As more of the smoke cleared, it became clear that the only dead were the deserting soldiers. The infected shrugged off the damage, scrambled to their feet, and resumed their bizarre march.
"
