Man Eaters (Book 2): The Horde Read online

When the meeting was adjourned, Roper was the first out the door. She had a promise to keep.

  ****

  Roper’s Log

  Letting Ben go was almost as dangerous as allowing him to stay. I had no doubt his first stop would be to the U.S. military. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Uh uh.

  Call me an animal, call me barbaric, but putting that prick down was just as easy as putting down a sick calf. It was just a matter of waiting for the right time. The right time was shortly after we gave him his walking papers and opened the compound doors. I knew where he was heading and I had no intention of letting him get there. Dallas was wrong this time, but instead of disagreeing with her, I just decided to handle it on my own.

  I knew Dallas would never condone it, so I simply didn’t tell her. This was our first big disagreement since we’d met. I felt she was being too soft where Ben was concerned. He was a threat that could seriously hurt us if he gave the military our intel.

  I wasn’t going to let him do that.

  Neither was Butcher, who agreed with me that he needed to go.

  Really go. The kind of go where you don’t return.

  I found it interesting that only a handful of his people went with him. All six were fundamentalists who had made it clear there was still a Hell waiting for us.

  I decided to show them that Hell was here and she rode a bay mare.

  Butcher distracted Dallas while I rode Charger out of the gate only thirty minutes after giving Ben and the Christians the heave-ho. I managed to track them for about a mile. Then I threw a noose around his neck, jumped off Charger, and drove my buck knife through his chest, eliminating a potential threat right in front of the others, who stood there, jaws agape.

  “You…you murdered him in cold blood,” one irritating old woman said.

  “Yep, and I’ll do the same to any of you should I ever see your faces again. No matter what happens, do not…I repeat…do not ever come back to Angola, or I will do the same to each and every one of you. You are going to rot in your own personal Hell, but you will not ever cast your judgmental eyes on me and mine. Are we clear?”

  They all nodded.

  Then I dumped Ben into the river and watched as a few soggy undead pulled his body under and had him for dinner.

  Sitting astride Charger, I felt no guilt. No remorse. I did what needed to be done to keep us safe—Yeah, I killed him in cold blood, with a buck knife through the heart. I did what Dallas would never do. I did what she couldn’t. I don’t blame her. She can’t start killing people who disagree with her.

  That’s my job.

  I have no regrets.

  As we gear up to take a group to start another safe zone, I can’t believe how tired I always am. Surviving takes a great deal of energy, but we’ve really got a well-tuned machine here in Angola. Dallas has leaned on all the right people to make this place work. Henry will lead well. Meg will keep everyone healthy and safe. The dogs will protect them and the cows will feed them. I feel confident that they will be able to sustain themselves without us.

  There were a few people asking about Ben the next morning…about where I thought he’d gone and if I thought he’d make it.

  In my head, I said, to Hell, but my mouth said, “We don’t need the likes of him. There are just too many other important things to focus on.”

  I will deny what I did until I am dead, of course. Any number of us could have ended his life, so I’m not too worried.

  In the end, the needs of the many outweigh the desire of one asshole.

  And I sleep just fine at night.

  ****

  A plane circled over Angola three times before using the landing strip, which was surrounded on all sides by shooters by the time the wheels touched ground. The survivors had no idea who was in it, but Dallas was pretty certain it was military.

  Or worse.

  “Pretty ballsy to land a plane,” Luke said as the plane rolled to a stop. “We can always use another plane.”

  “Uh uh. We aren’t going to be like that. We’ll hear what they have to say and send them on their way.”

  Luke looked at Roper and Butcher, both of whom shrugged.

  “Arms ready!” Luke commanded. All rifles were pointed at the door of the plane.

  When it opened, a flight attendant in dressed in full military uniform walked out, followed by the President of the United States.

  The President.

  “Holy shit.” Roper uttered. “That’s…that’s really him.”

  To Dallas’s surprise, the rifles remained pointed and at the ready. The group did not move. They did not waver. She would have beamed with pride if she hadn’t been so shocked.

  The President smiled and waved at the shooters on his way to where Dallas stood gaping. The five men with him, probably CIA agents or Secret Service, did not have their weapons drawn, but stayed as a protective cocoon around the white-haired president.

  “President Rainier would like to speak with Dallas,” the lead agent announced.

  Butcher and Roper blocked off the way. “You’ll need to wait and see if Dallas wants to talk to him.”

  “Do you know who this is?” One of the agents demanded.

  Dallas walked up to the group and everyone parted to reveal a much thinner president than he had been a year ago. His head was whiter, his face gaunt. It had been a year from Hell, to be sure, and he wore it like a yoke around his shoulders.

  “Sir,” Dallas said, extending her hand. “Dallas Barkley.”

  President Rainier shook her hand, his gray eyes assessing her. “I’ve heard all about you and the wonderful things you’ve done here in Angola,” he replied, looking around her at the prison. “Can’t hardly tell it’s not a real prison anymore.”

  “It’s not.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I understand.”

  “We’re just trying to survive, sir, like everyone else.”

  He surprised her with a laugh. “Oh come now. You’ve built a veritable fortress here. I’ve read the reports. You’ve made quite an impression on our military.”

  “Like I said—”

  “You’re just trying to survive. Yeah. I got that. Takes a helluva lot of guts to attack American military personnel, Miss Barkley.”

  “Dallas, and about as much guts as it takes to go after healthy Americans.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.” He looked over at the gate.

  Dallas shrugged. “Not really. It’s pretty black and white. We’re on the white side of the chessboard, sir.”

  He sucked his teeth and nodded, his eyes still looking at the gate.

  “You seem curious. Would you like to tour the facility?”

  Luke, Butcher, and Roper all whipped around and stared at her.

  “I would love to, but being out in the open like this makes my men very uneasy.”

  Dallas shrugged. “Being out in the open makes everyone uneasy these days. You want to see how we make it work? Come inside…but your men stand down and they stay out here.”

  President Rainier removed his glasses. “Define stand down.”

  “Hands off weapons.” She lowered her voice. “We are enemies, after all, Mr. President, and we have the drop on you. If you think for one second that my people won’t drop you where you stand, you’re wrong.”

  The lead agent replied, “Do you understand what treason is?”

  Dallas raised an eyebrow. “Do you understand who your enemies are?”

  He appeared genuinely surprised. “Enemies? Surely you can understand—”

  “That you sent men here to take Angola as some prize? That you then sent more men after that, adding insult to injury? Mr. President, I know you want Angola, but it’s not for sale, it can’t be bought, and after your epic failure, it can’t be conquered.”

  “In the name of national security, Miss Ba—”

  Dallas laughed out loud. “Sorry. I wasn’t aware there was a nation and we all know it’s not secure. We are secure here—as secure
as anyone can be with those things our government created walking around. You have my word that no one will hurt or interfere with your men in any way, but we cannot allow them in. We have protocols to follow. Protocols that your people didn’t follow, which is why our country is on the brink of extinction.”

  The blood drained from his face but before he could reply, one of the agents stepped forward. Dallas realized he was not an agent but a member of the President’s cabinet—Sean Olsen.

  “Now see here—”

  “No, you’re the ones who need to see here—” Roper said, stepping up to him and looking down at him. He had beady eyes and a face like a rat.

  “Sean Olsen, advisor to the President.” He stood taller and threw his shoulders back making him all of five feet four. He had tiny hands, wore tiny glasses, and sported a tiny mustache. In short, he was tiny.

  Dallas tilted her head. “In all my years, I’ve never heard of that title, Mr. Olsen. Are you Secretary of State? Speaker of the House? Defense secretary? What?”

  “Much has changed. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Actually, I do. Well, Mr. Olsen, national security happens to be a top priority of ours as well.”

  “And attacking a base represents that understanding?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

  Sean shook his head. “Oh, I’m quite sure—”

  The President held his hand up, stopping Sean in his tracks. “Now is not the time, Sean.” To Dallas he said, “We’d love to see the facility. We’ve—I’ve heard a great deal about it, mostly rumors and conjecture, of course. I hear your numbers are up and that you are self-sufficient.”

  “In many regards. You’ll have to excuse me if I am vague. Again, we are playing on opposite sides of the board, sir.” Dallas nodded to Luke, who opened the main gate.

  “Luke will take you around and—”

  “I was hoping you and I could speak in private.”

  Roper and Butcher shook their heads.

  “Tell you what. Take the tour and Luke will bring you back to the conference room. We can speak there.”

  The President conferred with his men before joining Luke. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let Sean come as well.”

  An hour and forty-five minutes later, the President, Sean, and Luke entered the conference room. At the table sat Dallas, Roper, Butcher, Einstein, Henry, Fletcher, and Wendell, all waiting.

  The President stopped short. “Oh. I’m sorry. I thought our meeting could be—”

  “Private? Hardly. That’s not how we roll, Mr. President. Whatever you say can be heard by my advisors.” Dallas gestured for them to take a seat. “Have a seat, gentlemen.” Dallas waited for everyone to sit down. She remained standing. “You’ve seen our facility and there is no doubt you’ve established how self-sustaining we are here. We have everything from food to entertainment, even a school for the children. Let me be very clear here about my understanding of this situation. If you think for one second, Mr. President, that we won’t fire on anyone you send after us, you would be very sadly mistaken. Our government—no—your government is directly responsible for what has happened to this country and our population. In an effort to regain some control, you’ve sent out platoons to take over successful settlements in the name of the U.S. military. Angola must be at the top of that list.”

  “Now see here—” Sean Olsen started, but the President held up his hand, silencing him once more.

  “Dallas, let’s be frank, shall we? Yes, Angola is a gem. You and your people have done amazing things with this place. There is a semblance of normalcy here that I’ve not witnessed in other colonies.” The President cleared his throat. “And yes, my only general sent good men to their deaths trying to capture it, and for that, I apologize—but we’re not merely wanting Angola as a base of operations in the south—we—” He paused to send a look of warning to Sean Olsen. “We’ve heard you have an army that can actually kill these things without risk of being bitten or eaten. Of all the rumors I’ve heard in the last year, this one intrigues me the most.”

  Dallas cut her eyes to Roper, who barely shook her head.

  When no one said a word, the President continued. “You have a wonderful and thriving community here—your people are the healthiest I’ve seen, and you have no fear of these undead. I am here to ask you how you can have an army that does not fear becoming one of them?”

  Butcher leaned forward. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  The President took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ma’am, if I knew what it took to kill these things, I’d give my own life to make that so. My scientists have yet to find the one thing that can destroy them.”

  Dallas inhaled slowly. “Any projectile to the head will destroy them, sir.”

  He forced a smile. “You know what I am asking. Is it just a rumor that you have people these zombies ignore?”

  The air in the room became deathly still as everyone waited for Dallas to answer.

  “No, sir. It is not a rumor. We do have people the zombies are uninterested in eating or biting, or attacking.”

  Sean Olsen came to his feet. “That—that’s impossible.”

  “Sit down, Sean, goddamn it.” The President growled. “I want to hear from these people.” To Dallas he said, “How? What can I do to create an army that can defeat them?”

  Dallas looked into the eyes of all her team before answering. “There’s nothing you can do, Mr. President. You can’t create an army of us, sir. We can withstand their lust for flesh because we, well, most of us here, were born this way.”

  “Born? I don’t understand.”

  Dallas heaved a sigh. Both Butcher and Roper were shaking their heads, but Dallas pressed on. “Our soldiers—the ones whom the zombies ignore? Are gay. They’re all gay.”

  The word hung in the thick air like thick LA fog.

  The President blinked once. “Gay…as in homosexual?”

  Dallas nodded. “Gay. Queer. Homo, and any other term you’ve heard and probably used. The only people who can clean up your mess, Mr. President, are our gays.”

  The whole room was still. No one moved.

  “I…I don’t understand.” He turned to Sean Olsen. “Why wasn’t I told this?”

  “Because the notion was—”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Sean. It’s obviously more than a god damned notion.”

  Leaning forward toward Sean, Dallas tried spelling it out. “It’s quite simple, really. When your scientists were creating this epidemic, their intent was on killing a certain DNA strand that would leave the rest of the agricultural animals safe from the virus. We discovered that the DNA was the key. Your people assumed a certain genetic code would assure only human deaths. It became apparent to us that gays and lesbians have a slightly different code. The zombies make no attempt to come after us because they aren’t programmed to do so. We are, in effect, immune. They ignore us.”

  “That’s preposterous!” Sean spat, rising so fast his chair fell over backwards. “You’re telling us there’s a gay gene?”

  Dallas’s people all chuckled.

  “Yep. You see, we are well aware what this revelation means to the remaining Christians, Mormons, Hebrew, and Muslim survivors—that their God did, in fact, create us as well. And if that mistake in their literature is wrong, then what else is incorrect? This singular fact will change religion as we know it. It will change everything as we know it. You and the rest of the world can no longer deny us rights, no longer tell us it’s a sickness, a decision, or even a fucking choice. We are born this way, Mr. President, and to be totally honest with you, we are now this country’s only hope.”

  “Our only hope?”

  She nodded. “To exterminate the man eaters. Without us, your government, your military, and your country, are screwed.”

  The look on the President’s face was priceless. It had never occurred to him that genetics played a role, even though it was his scientists w
ho got that ball rolling, and his scientists who had worked unsuccessfully for a year to find a cure.

  “So what you are saying—”

  Dallas gave the floor to Butcher, who explained the concept of the zombies as white blood cells.

  When Butcher finished, the President’s face was almost as white as his hair.

  “It never occurred to me…never dawned on me or my team…” Shaking his head, he leveled his eyes at Dallas. “I don’t know what to think, let alone what to say. Can I…can I have a moment?”

  She nodded. “Take all the time you need.”

  When he stepped outside to discuss what this meant with Sean, Dallas’s people beamed proudly. They had not only brought the President to his knees, they’d handed him the key to the kingdom.

  When he and Sean stepped back into the room, it was deathly quiet. To everyone’s surprise, he asked if they would bring the garmy to New England. That was a negative. Then he asked if they would train gays willing to fight. Dallas agreed they would do so only in Angola, but every person he sent would have to walk in front of a zombie to prove their immunity. Any straight person impersonating a gay person would be released into the wilds of Louisiana unarmed and without rations.

  In the end, she agreed to train more for the garmy in exchange for more weapons and supplies for Dallas to begin the next prison transformation.

  There were other stipulations as well, but those had to do with life after the cleaning. He agreed to legalizing marriage across the nation, allowing gay adoption, creating federal laws that protected jobs, and a mandatory education about homosexuality in schools. Then and there they wrote up a contract giving homosexuals equal rights in every arena.

  Every arena.

  Sean was a little slower. “By recognizing that you’re born this way, you do realize what that means to the Church, right?”

  The room erupted in laughter, shutting Sean up.

  “You’ll have to excuse us, Mr. Olsen,” Dallas said. “But that ship has sailed. If there is a God, he deserted us long ago. The Church no longer has a place here, and if it does, it will have to go through a healthy revision to replace all of that homosexuals-burning-in-Hell bullshit, because right about now, Mr. Olsen, this country’s fate is in our hands…not God’s. So you’d better back that wagon up. Way up, and come to terms with what this country is going to look like when we take the lead.”